Looking for some opinions on the best terrain addon for the new 4.4 version...Leaning toward Ultimate Terrain...Thanks for your help!

Oh hell, this is most likely one of the most complicated questions in FS world. What is "Addon Terrain"? There is mesh, landclass, vector, coastlines, textures...?

Here it is how I see it:

You need mesh: FreeMeshX, FS Global Ultimate (I use former)

You would usually want replacement textures: GEX or FTX Global (I use latter, had GEX under FSX, FTX is better IMO)

Then you need landclass: you can use UTXv2 landclass or FTX OpenLC (I prefer latter, been using UTX a long time though)

Vector: Black Marble, UTXv2 or FTX Vector - I use UTXv2 minus landclass (seriously, this is the hardest one: BM, not many users, should be really good and quite hard on performance, but configurable, UTXv2 standard been going for many years now, quite OK, but regionaly, FTX vector whole world, less detail per region compared to UTXv2)

Coastlines: same as with vector, UTXv2 very detailed for regions, FTX vector you get the whole world (I use UTXv2)

Hope this helps a little.

 

Interested in this too.  

There are also some downsides that should be mentioned here as well.

Mesh: I have given up on add-on mesh, as it causes a very noticeable increase in terrain shape-shifting as you approach and the sim shifts through the various LOD levels.  It also creates elevation issues with a host of airport add-ons--plateaus and sunken airfields are the result.

Replacement textures: I haven't found a downside to this...some folks prefer the color saturation of GEX, some prefer FTX Global.  FTX Global also includes a large number of buffed-up freeware airfields, and is a prerequisite for a number of other Orbx add-ons.

Landclass: No significant downsides, mostly personal preference here.

Vector: Orbx' Vector product is a real handful to manage...its elevation correction tool gets a lot of bad press for not playing nice and causing elevation issues with many other add-ons.  It's also reputed to be hard on performance.  It is, however, global in coverage, where UTX is a set of separately-purchased regional packages (CONUS, Canada, Carribean/CentAm, Europe) that leaves significant parts of the world uncovered (South America, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Alaska).

Regards

 

1 hour ago, LTCSZ said:

Looking for some opinions on the best terrain addon for the new 4.4 version...Leaning toward Ultimate Terrain...Thanks for your help!

What area's are u looking for?  My formula:

FTX global-  Must have no matter where u fly

FTX LC NA

UTX V2 USA- As mentioned above FTX vector is a pain.  IMO a horrible product.  Best thing I did to my sim was switch back to UTX.  Constant elevation issues and horrible performance.  I HIGHLY recommend UTX if they have your region covered. 

ORBX regions- The best scenery hands down but limited to small areas.  But using with complex airports is very hard on performance.

 

2 hours ago, w6kd said:

Mesh: I have given up on add-on mesh, as it causes a very noticeable increase in terrain shape-shifting as you approach and the sim shifts through the various LOD levels.

 

Did you already try that with 4.4 (with the settings mentioned by Rob in the other thread)?

On my system the "shape-shifting" is significantly improved. It is still there, but it mainly happens much further away and it is not so annoying any more. I even reinstalled FS Global Ultimate Next Generation, which I had uninstalled in 4.3 for the very reason you gave. And I am quite happy with it now.

 

On a side note: When talking about landclass, vector etc: Don't forget that photoreal scenery could be an alternative - which is also greatly improved in 4.4. When I look at TrueEarth NL or Austria Professional HD in 4.4 I never want to see those repeating landclass textures again. There are a lot of photoreal sceneries available and some autogen addons for these. A lot of that is freeware.

 

Edited December 8, 20187 yr by RALF9636

Latest version of megascenery earth v3_2017 looks absolutely stunning in P3Dv4.4. Sharpness and detail as never before, like flying in the real world!

3 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Don't forget that photoreal scenery could be an alternative - which is also greatly improved in 4.4. When I look at TrueEarth NL or Austria Professional HD in 4.4 I never want to see those repeating landclass textures again. There are a lot of photoreal sceneries available and some autogen addons for these. A lot of that is freeware.

 

Curious, what autogen add-ons are you referring to? This is some of what keeps me from photoscenery... autogen and seasonal textures.

Orbx has the products and dominates the scene in every way. My vote is for Orbx

Edited December 9, 20187 yr by Skywolf

Orbx has an end of year sale going on now too.

Yep I have many of ORBX's products, love them all.  When I re-installed my sim back when P3D V4.3 came out, ORBX Vector was the only ORBX product I left out- I'm on an older PC and out of all the add-ons I was running that particular one hit my system the hardest.  You don't miss it much in TubeLiner flying at 20K+ feet anyhow.  I do plan to re-install it though, when I build my next PC, albeit I will probably never run Vector with all settings enabled. 

Mark

 

12 hours ago, slait said:

Curious, what autogen add-ons are you referring to? This is some of what keeps me from photoscenery... autogen and seasonal textures.

italyphotoreal.weebly.com not only offers (almost) complete Europe (+ a few other countries) in photoreal for free but also has autogen to add.

f-bmpl.com not only offers photoreal France for free but also (a little more accurate than the above in my eyes) autogen for almost all of Europe (and California).

Commercial Autogen Addons are available by Nuvecta-Landscapes and Realworld Scenery.

And there are complete packages of photoreal with autogen for example in France-VFR, Austria Professional HD, Realworld Scenery Greece and of course Orbx TrueEarth which certainly is the best and hopefully will be expanded broadly next year.

 

Edited December 9, 20187 yr by RALF9636

12 hours ago, pracines said:

Orbx has an end of year sale going on now too.

Then now is a good time to buy. IMHO ORBX is the way to go, I have the full FTX global range including the global base textures, North America, South America, and Europe landclass, Vector, and HD trees. I don't find Vector difficult to use and don't see any significant negative impact on performance with it installed.

I also have FreeMeshX installed and I don't see any shape shifting of terrain mesh on my system. I do notice some slowness at times when the system is trying to render the textures on complex terrain features like mountainsides, large rock outcroppings and the like, but that's a hardware limitation, not an issue with the mesh itself. At any rate, it's not persistent or widespread, so I don't consider it a major issue for my purposes.

 

15 hours ago, jcorstjens said:

Latest version of megascenery earth v3_2017 looks absolutely stunning in P3Dv4.4. Sharpness and detail as never before, like flying in the real world!

Disagree totally and say photoscenery in any flight simulator platform looks less like the ‘real world’ then any other scenery.

 Add in haze, smoke, glare, pollution and who knows what else and the real world has far less definition then people think with ‘autogen’ barely visible at half the visible range simmers have it set in their setups. 

 

Some of these photo real screens posted look ridicules at times. 

Edited December 9, 20187 yr by Raging Bull

42 minutes ago, Raging Bull said:

Disagree totally and say photoscenery in any flight simulator platform looks less like the ‘real world’ then any other scenery.

 Add in haze, smoke, glare, pollution and who knows what else and the real world has far less definition then people think with ‘autogen’ barely visible at half the visible range simmers have it set in their setups. 

 

Some of these photo real screens posted look ridicules at times. 

 

Haze, smoke and pollution have nothing to do with photoscenery vs landclass.

Haze, smoke and pollution effects come with a weather engine and/or a shader tool, or maybe a sky texture. You can add it to both landclass and photoscenery.