P3D? Looking For The Best Visual Add-ons

[JustinEverest 0]

Hey there everyone, 

My name is Justin and I'm new to AVSIM forum. I figured id make a post about some question that I have in regards to P3D and was hoping I'd be able to find some answers or the very best recommendations. 

So I've been a huge fan of Flight Simulators for sometime now, I dabbled in FSX for many years, mainly just flying planes around and enjoying view. But one thing that i became very aware of real quick was that FSX being as old as it is, there are for sure limits. So after doing some researching and watching 100's of videos on various different sims, i decided to go with P3D. Seeing how they are continuously providing new updates along with being very similar to FSX, i thought it was the better move to make for me. I tried X-Plane 11 but was not really digging it. 

Anyway's to make a long story short I recently upgraded my PC and i want to throw some beautiful visuals at it. I've looked into many different options such as Orbx, Rex, Toga, HiFi Active Sky etc. I do know they are all different in many ways. I recently purchased Orbx North America, HD Trees and some other little things. 

Asking the community here, what would be recommend to get the best visuals possible for my experience. One thing i cannot stand is when watching these YouTube videos where the author doesn't provide ANY info on the add-ons they are using, which can extremely misleading.

So i wanted to ask you guys what you'd recommend for the best visual experience from scenery upgrades, shaders etc.

Thanks for your time and help in advanced! 

[scianoir 610]

Well if you haven't already got it, you wouldn't go too far wrong by purchasing the FTX Global Base pack which will considerably improve your scenery and textures over the default. If you tend fly a lot in particular regions that are covered by the Orbx regional scenery areas then they are worth considering and will add great additional visual detail to those areas. Even if you don't tend to fly a lot in the areas currently covered by the Orbx regions, you will be tempted to if you add them, particularly their various pacific northwest regions and their Norway scenery all of which are fantastic for bush flying or just scenic flying! Then to add even more to your sense of immersion I would consider a weather package such as those from Rex and Active Sky both of whom are excellent developers.

Bill

[lownslo 592]

What are your system specs?  What type of aircraft do you fly?

From ORBX don't forget their openLC products (landclass) and VECTOR (roads, railways, rivers and streams, and more).  Their Regions offer great value... all in one (mesh, landclass, roads, rivers).

Wishing for the best visuals requires a top notch mesh product.  Check out Toposim, especially his UltraMesh (only downside is he doesn't have enough of it yet!).  At minimum go with a 10M mesh.

HTH,

Greg

[ckyliu 1,749]

"Scenery", the world you see in flight simulator, consists of several layers, from bottom to top:
• Mesh. Terrain elevation data (DEM), basically hills! It comes in different LODs (Level of Detail, the higher the LOD the closer the elevation points are) e.g. LOD9-76m (this is what Europe is by default) LOD10-38m, LOD12-9m etc. Typical examples are FreeMeshX (which is free and generally all you need), FSGenesis and FSGlobal.
• Global terrain textures. Images that cover the mesh to show fields, towns, forests. Common paid examples are FTX Global and Flight1 Ground Environment X, some free examples are by Adam Mills. FTX Global works out better value as you get the whole world for one price whereas GEX is by region, FTX have 40% sales every so often too.
     • Autogen. 3D objects such as buildings, street lamps and trees, which are usually included lined up to terrain texture packs. The location of autogen is determined by both landclass and textures, and the amount you see depends on your settings. A specific autogen only product is FTX Global Trees HD, a free alternative is Aime Leclercq's TreeX, these both update the appearance of trees. Another type is JustFlight Revolution X or Earthsims Treescapes which place autogen objects as per the real world to line up with aerial photography
• Landclass. Tells the simulator what global textures should go where, e.g. this is a town, this is a village, this is a golf course, these are fields, this is a forest etc. ORBX OpenLC and Flight1 Ultimate Terrain X are common examples of this.
     • Photo scenery Instead of generic textures positioned by landclass data, this is actual aerial photography loaded in to flight simulator. Sometimes this has autogen accurately placed on the top. Vector data is required if you want to see moving cars on the roads. Horizon VFR X Photographic, JustFlight VFR Real Scenery and MegaSceneryEarth are common examples
• Vector. "Lines" such as streets, roads, rivers, coastlines and railways. ORBX Global Vector is an example of this, Ultimate Terrain is a combined product with both landclass and vector data included
• Environmental textures: the sky, clouds, concrete, water, tarmac, moon, sun, railway tracks, taxiway markings and so on. (REX4TD+SC, EnvTex and FEX are the most common)
• Custom objects. These items are placed in specific locations and often made especially, common examples would be custom airport scenery and landmarks (e.g. lighthouses, tall buildings, suspension bridges).

The most cost effective scenery improvement you can make is to get a global texture pack sitting on top of free mesh, because the textures included with FSX and P3D are low resolution and often poorly coloured. You could then consider a landclass product for areas you regularly fly over, which adds variety and detail. There isn't that much value in vector products for airliners unless you frequently fly along coasts, but they're good for VFR as they'll give you additional roads and railways to navigate with/along.

In deciding whether to go with FTX Global+OpenLC+Vector or GEX+UTX it's best to look at some comparison screenshots of the same area, as well as considering coverage and price.

FTX Orbx Region products effectively do everything listed above except environmental textures, but they only do it for a very small geographic area (part of a country) and are also very demanding on your system. They are generally only worthwhile in areas you are likely to fly low and slow over regularly, cruising over at FL350 and 500 KTAS you're not going to really appreciate much benefit over the aforementioned global textures and landclass. Most airports within that region get upgraded too, but not to the same level as a dedicated airport scenery product.

ActiveSky is whole other thing as it's a weather engine, although Hifi offer a CloudArt product that injects clouds textures based on the weather (thus it will overwrite cloud textures from other software such as REX4). Personally I am very happy using the free FSXWX weather engine.

Then you have shader mods like P3D Tweak Assist (PTA) and the free TomatoShade. I've no experience of these because they seem to create a lot of problems and require endless settings adjustment which is just not my thing. You've also got things like ENBserie (not needed so much on P3D) and ReShade that sit outside the simulator and inject shader tweaks.

Edited July 19, 2018 by ckyliu

[Wobbie 938]

Thanks so much for the descriptions of what is what.

Most helpful indeed.