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bosflo

What's the deal with ORBX vector?

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8 hours ago, ShawnG said:

It isn't going to be fixed.  I read a post by Holger a few years ago on this.  apparently (and I'm running on memory here, so forgive me) the workarounds that Holger used to circumvent the problem in older versions of FS have been removed from possibility in later versions of p3d.  it's also a problem for their regions, not just vector.  

And, as mentioned, Vector is a PILOT's product distributed by ORBX, rather than an in house project.  It's possible its been abandoned by pilots

The above.  It's no secret.  Even the ORBX forum moderators in the past have said they get no response from Pilot's about promised updates to Vector for well over the past year.  I gave up on it long ago and still use every Ultimate Terrain product I had purchased long before Vector was even available.  The Vector "source data" has always been an "open source" database, and in the places the Ultimate Terrain covers is nowhere near as accurate.  There are still way too many "holes" in Vector in places like North America and Europe.  Granted, UT doesn't cover the "entire world" with vector graphics, but I can live with that.  For me, I'm flying a flight simulator for the airplane experience, not a watered-down version of Google Maps for the "perfect scenery representation" that will never happen in Outer Mongolia to begin with.  The open source (read: FREE) data Vector uses for outside of North America and Europe isn't all that impressive to begin with, and is nowhere near as good as the "paid for" data used by the Ultimate Terrain products.🙂

Plus, as others have already mentioned, Vector is a memory hog.  Not necessarily an issue if you are now using a 64-bit flight sim, but even then the "footprint" of Vector in your flight sim is way too high for todays software standards, and it CAN still cause problems.

The way I read the ORBX moderator posts in the ORBX forum, ORBX has given up on Vector and Pilot's.  They don't even want to talk about it anymore.  And it's interesting that the new True Earth products don't rely on a vector addon to begin with.  Hmmmm.   And it was only a few short years ago that anybody who used photoreal scenery was considered an "outcast" by many flight sim enthusiasts.  How times change.  Now if we can just get LM to fix the "restriction" issue they have imposed in P3D affecting photoscenery…… 😎  😉

Edited by FalconAF
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Rick Ryan

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4 hours ago, FalconAF said:

The above.  It's no secret.  Even the ORBX forum moderators in the past have said they get no response from Pilot's about promised updates to Vector for well over the past year.  I gave up on it long ago and still use every Ultimate Terrain product I had purchased long before Vector was even available.  The Vector "source data" has always been an "open source" database, and in the places the Ultimate Terrain covers is nowhere near as accurate.  There are still way too many "holes" in Vector in places like North America and Europe.  Granted, UT doesn't cover the "entire world" with vector graphics, but I can live with that.  For me, I'm flying a flight simulator for the airplane experience, not a watered-down version of Google Maps for the "perfect scenery representation" that will never happen in Outer Mongolia to begin with.  The open source (read: FREE) data Vector uses for outside of North America and Europe isn't all that impressive to begin with, and is nowhere near as good as the "paid for" data used by the Ultimate Terrain products.🙂

Plus, as others have already mentioned, Vector is a memory hog.  Not necessarily an issue if you are now using a 64-bit flight sim, but even then the "footprint" of Vector in your flight sim is way too high for todays software standards, and it CAN still cause problems.

The way I read the ORBX moderator posts in the ORBX forum, ORBX has given up on Vector and Pilot's.  They don't even want to talk about it anymore.  And it's interesting that the new True Earth products don't rely on a vector addon to begin with.  Hmmmm.   And it was only a few short years ago that anybody who used photoreal scenery was considered an "outcast" by many flight sim enthusiasts.  How times change.  Now if we can just get LM to fix the "restriction" issue they have imposed in P3D affecting photoscenery…… 😎  😉

Very well written !


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13 hours ago, FalconAF said:

The way I read the ORBX moderator posts in the ORBX forum, ORBX has given up on Vector and Pilot's. 

Do you have any references for this?

 


I Earned My Spurs in Vietnam

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I read some where in the FTX Forum that ORBX will support and update Vectors. If anyone is unsure, they can simply ask in their forums.

As for Vectors in its current state, I do not have it installed. Aside from the elevation issues, I've noticed stutters (micro pauses) in certain areas and to me that is simply unacceptable. I also use different scenery.cfg for the regions that I fly in and that requires that I run the config every time I switch to a different region.

For those reasons, I doubt that I will ever install it. I'd rather wait for an update to XP 11 or 12 then to wait for Vectors to be updated. These issues have been around since FSX, so this isn't new.


A pilot is always learning and I LOVE to learn.

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10 hours ago, Bluestar said:

Do you have any references for this?

LMAO!  OK, let's make sure we clarify it.

I said, "The way I read the ORBX moderator posts in the ORBX forum, ORBX has given up on Vector and Pilot's".  I agree in restrospect that may have been worded poorly.  

1.  ORBX itself has not "given up" on providing support for Vector.  And I would certainly hope not, in as much as they still sell Vector on their OWN commercial site used for all ORBX products now (using FTX Central).  And they HAVE to now...because if you go to the PILOTS website, Vector isn't even a product available from PILOTS anymore.  PILOTS obviously abandoned it.  How or why that happened, I can't say for sure.  But obviously PILOTS doesn't provide the product Vector anymore, nor provide support for it anymore (Stephan hasn't been seen in the ORBX forums for a LONG time now).  So yes...ORBX now provides "support" for Vector (the ORBX forums are still full of support request posts for it).  But ORBX can't even get support from PILOTS anymore for Vector.  THAT IS WHAT ORBX HAS GIVEN UP ON...getting any future support from PILOTS, both in "fixes" or "upgrades" to Vector.  And I have not seen anything indicating ORBX plans on doing it for Vector.  ORBX seems totally happy that the product works "as is" with all of the other ORBX products.  There seems to be no incentive to "fix" any/all the vector anomalies that exist in Vector caused by the "open source" quality of the vector data used.

2.  I just did a search of the ORBX forums looking for the post(s) where some of the moderators DID say ORBX was unable to get PILOTS support for Vector anymore (Nick made one of those posts in the past).  Interestingly, I can't find "those" posts anymore.  So I would be really interested if someone made a new post asking about it in the ORBX forums (like DJJose suggested in his above post).  What would happen if someone asked if PILOTS is ever going to upgrade or "fix" the Vector database anomalies? Or "upgrade" Vector?  Or is ORBX actually planning on doing it?  That was SPECIFICALLY PROMISED in the past by both PILOTS and ORBX...but has yet to happen (will it ever?).

As ShawnG said in his post that I quoted, the "work arounds" ORBX used in the past to make Vector work with ORBX's OWN region products won't work anymore due to P3D changes.  So, what is in store for the future?  It appears ORBX is leaning towards developing products now that won't require ANY "outside" vector graphics support.  Like True Earth. They announced they will be using True Earth technology for the U.S. eastern seaboard area.  Not a typical ORBX region that would include it's own vector scenery.  They just released True Earth southern England for X-Plane (with a P3D and probably even an AF2 one to follow shortly) that requires no separate vector graphics support.  

"PILOTS" Vector is being supported with ORBX "band aid" fixes today.  Either PILOTS dumped Vector and left ORBX high and dry, or ORBX dumped PILOTS and got stuck with Vector and no further support from PILOTS for it.  And it appears it is on the road to complete abandonment by ORBX for use in future ORBX products.  ORBX still needs to "support" it because it is still marketed as (sic) "...the vector product used by ORBX for all of our developed products...".  But that appears to apply to PREVIOUS ORBX releases, and not the direction ORBX is taking with their new releases.  And please don't say that future Open Landclass releases prove that is wrong.  ORBX even says in their own forum that Vector is not a requirement to use any OpenLC product.

If any of my assumptions are incorrect, I will gladly retract them if an ORBX official clarifies the future of the Vector product.  Will there be fixes to the free open source data that have been reported by the users of Vector (errors in the data even in North America and Europe)?  Will there be updates to Vector as a whole? Or will it remain a worldwide "open source" level of data product that is not as accurate as other payware vector products?  Yes...I know that there is not "payware quality" vector data for the WHOLE world.  And that it would not be feasible for anyone to try to get payware quality vector data for the whole world.  But implying Vector's data is "as good as" some other payware vector products that DID pay for higher quality data for places like North America and Europe areas is absurd.

 

Edited by FalconAF
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Rick Ryan

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ADD TO ABOVE POST

Before anyone goes bonkers, I am NOT "trashing" ORBX.  My comments above are OBSERVATIONS...just like any reviewer would make when reviewing a product and posting a review about it.

Do I think ORBX needs to do a TOTAL "fix" or "upgrade" of Vector?  No.

But if they aren't going to make SOME areas of it equal to the HIGHER quality vector data available in other payware products, then ORBX should at least provide me the ability to turn OFF the geographical areas I don't want Vector to try to cover for me.  Vector has always been a hands-tying product. It forces the user to use ALL of it's vector data, even in areas where the user may already have HIGHER QUALITY vector data available (like the paid for data used by Ultimate Terrain, etc).

So, if I want to use Vector's data for Africa, I have to NOT use Ultimate Terrain for North America, Europe, and every other UT area I already own.  Not being able to do that is one of the main problems with Vector, and always has been.

Allow the user to "turn off" separate areas of Vector so they can use higher quality vector data in other places of the world they already own.  Then I'll gladly accept whatever level of "free, open source" vector quality Vector would display in Outer Mongolia and elsewhere outside of my Ultimate Terrain coverage areas.  😎

 

Edited by FalconAF

Rick Ryan

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1 hour ago, FalconAF said:

I just did a search of the ORBX forums looking for the post(s) where some of the moderators DID say ORBX was unable to get PILOTS support for Vector anymore (Nick made one of those posts in the past). 

Yes....I was the one who asked about it earlier in the year:

https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/151231-is-vector-160-still-coming/?tab=comments#comment-1331725

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56 minutes ago, FalconAF said:

 

As ShawnG said in his post that I quoted, the "work arounds" ORBX used in the past to make Vector work with ORBX's OWN region products won't work anymore due to P3D changes.  So, what is in store for the future?  It appears ORBX is leaning towards developing products now that won't require ANY "outside" vector graphics support.  Like True Earth. They announced they will be using True Earth technology for the U.S. eastern seaboard area.  Not a typical ORBX region that would include it's own vector scenery.  They just released True Earth southern England for X-Plane (with a P3D and probably even an AF2 one to follow shortly) that requires no separate vector graphics support.  

 

 

That is not what I said.  I said the the frozen water problem can't be fixed because of updates to how p3d works.  It is ALSO an issue with the regions, even if you DON'T have vector.  The whole feature is alien to FS and always has been.  transforming a water class to a landable solid surface is not in the sdk, and while they made it go in fsx, now they can't.  you can still turn it on in the winter when you need it, and then turn it off again when you fly somewhere warmer.  That subject has nothing to do with the vector/pilots deal other than it's similar to the same feature in that product.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Greggy_D said:

Yes, that's one of them I read before too.  I couldn't locate it using the ORBX forum search tool.  There was another post also where Nick also said something to the effect that PILOTS hadn't provided fixes for some reported issues for over a year.

Edited by FalconAF

Rick Ryan

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1 hour ago, ShawnG said:

That is not what I said.  I said the the frozen water problem can't be fixed because of updates to how p3d works.  It is ALSO an issue with the regions, even if you DON'T have vector.  The whole feature is alien to FS and always has been.  transforming a water class to a landable solid surface is not in the sdk, and while they made it go in fsx, now they can't.  you can still turn it on in the winter when you need it, and then turn it off again when you fly somewhere warmer.  That subject has nothing to do with the vector/pilots deal other than it's similar to the same feature in that product.

OK, my bad.  Hazards of written communication.  But your reply WAS after you quoted TWO issues in Jabloomf's post.  Jabloomf said:

1. "But the fact that Vector doesn't recognize the add-on.xml method just emphasizes how out of date that Vector is."

and....

2. "I mean when is the "frozen water" bug going to be fixed?" 

Your reply wasn't clear that you were only responding to the second frozen water issue.  I thought your reply was for BOTH issues.  My apologies.  

Edited by FalconAF

Rick Ryan

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