Which KORD to get?

[micstatic 4,319]

I didn't mean purchase.  BUt many people don't like having to install a sim wide addon when all they want is an airport.  IE, System Resources, more chance of things to break other parts of the sim etc.  But all in all I love GSX.  

[joby33y 152]

I’m going to go for the DD.  Three airports Plus the Cityscape for only 8€ more (DD sale price at simmrkt vs FSDT at listprice) ...sold.  Value!  

The DD cities are great.  Depart out of KMIA eastbound & soaking up the view of Miami Beach, downtown Mia, & the cruise ship terminal never gets old for me.  

Looking forward to sweet home Chicago skyline.  

[Farlis 2,287]

5 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

GSX is unnecessary garbage? Crikey! I'm open-mouthed at that opinion.

Not to mention that the scripting engine Coatl is also far from unnecessary garbage.

[Farlis 2,287]

3 hours ago, flyinpilot212121 said:

Not to derail the thread, but you must purchase GSX to be able to run FSDT scenery?

No.

GSX is free to use within all FSDT sceneries. Only if you want to use it ouside of their products you need to buy it.

[PilotPete99 915]

I did read the entire thread regarding the issues with the FSDT version and I am not sure I want to go down that road again. I will probably opt for the DD version, and I already have the Chicago city pack so the two should complement each other very well. I do have the original FSDT KORD and am qualified for the 20% discount but it still seems that you get much more with the DD version for roughly the same price.

Cheers, Pete

[pedrotrindade 335]

1 hour ago, joby33y said:

I’m going to go for the DD.  Three airports Plus the Cityscape for only 8€ more (DD sale price at simmrkt vs FSDT at listprice) ...sold.  Value!  

The DD cities are great.  Depart out of KMIA eastbound & soaking up the view of Miami Beach, downtown Mia, & the cruise ship terminal never gets old for me.  

Looking forward to sweet home Chicago skyline.  

PC Aviator has a DD sale and a 10% off in all products. Just check it out if it worth for you instead of the simmarket sale.

[threexgreen 3,139]

I went with FSDT for personal reasons which are that I don't like most DD airports due to how the textures look mostly. To me they look somewhat washed-out and for some reason not real enough.

The biggest reason for me to go the FSDT route though is that it's a full PBR scenery. There is the shimmering issue with PBR in P3D at the moment, but that can easily be fixed with NVI's SGSS. I just arrived at FSDT ORD with the sun low in the late afternoon and the way everything was lit up at the airport, terminals, runways, tarmacs, etc. made the whole airport come to life. PBR is a game changer for me.

Edited August 30, 2019 by threegreen

[bbain1187 118]

I originally bought the FSDT version but decided to buy the DD version as well. With the FSDT version my FPS dropped below 30 which caused stutters in the ramp area; this was not the case with the DD version. There are also some really nice surrounding goodies in the DD version such as hotels, warehouses etc that the FSDT exclude file flattens (although this has been acknowledged on the FSDT forums). There is also the issue with not having AA on the PBR surfaces, and with my 4k display this is very noticeable. Until LM issues a hotfix for this, I will probably keep the DD version installed, as it actually looks really, really good in the day time. They seem to get better with every release. At night, there are still those pixilated, grainy textures on the terminal that seems to be typical of DD stuff, although it isn't as bad as their earlier sceneries.

So in summary, I'm sticking with DD for now but I hope I can reinstall FSDT at some point when some of the above issues have been addressed. Once the PBR shimmering/AA issue is fixed by Lockheed Martin, we will hopefully be able to enjoy it in all its glory.

[Skywolf 992]

FSDT is the way to go period

[Nemo 1,305]

48 minutes ago, bbain1187 said:

I originally bought the FSDT version but decided to buy the DD version as well. With the FSDT version my FPS dropped below 30 which caused stutters in the ramp area; this was not the case with the DD version. There are also some really nice surrounding goodies in the DD version such as hotels, warehouses etc that the FSDT exclude file flattens (although this has been acknowledged on the FSDT forums). There is also the issue with not having AA on the PBR surfaces, and with my 4k display this is very noticeable. Until LM issues a hotfix for this, I will probably keep the DD version installed, as it actually looks really, really good in the day time. They seem to get better with every release. At night, there are still those pixilated, grainy textures on the terminal that seems to be typical of DD stuff, although it isn't as bad as their earlier sceneries.

So in summary, I'm sticking with DD for now but I hope I can reinstall FSDT at some point when some of the above issues have been addressed. Once the PBR shimmering/AA issue is fixed by Lockheed Martin, we will hopefully be able to enjoy it in all its glory.

How do you switch between both airports? Is it possible without uninstalling, what's about SODE would it make double jetways or produce other problems?

[Patco Lch 1,465]

I don't have the DD version so I can't do a comparison. I have the new FSDT KORD and it is awesome and performance is excellent especially considering the size and detail the Dream Team put in it. COUTI explained this is because its their first airport for 64 bit only and this enabled a lot more latitude for eye candy.  I'm glad I purchased it and have flown in and out a few times.

I bought two more airports from awesome Flightbeam today to take advantage of their sale, KIAD and KPDX. With Aerosofts free update of KATL this has been a good month for airports. 

[Bob Scott 7,720]

9 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

With Aerosofts free update of KATL this has been a good month for airports. 

I think that's actually ImagineSim's KATL.  And yes, it has.

 

[LH340fan 54]

To me the DD version is just enough. Just needs a gsx config. Ill do it later. Fsdt added tons of candy eye, and while its nice it doesnt help for performance and it delayed the whole thing by three months i think.

[joby33y 152]

1 hour ago, Skywolf said:

FSDT is the way to go period

....because you can go 'into' the terminal and buy cookies !  🙂 

enjoy, 

JB

[virtuali 4,421]

1 hour ago, Nemo said:

There is also the issue with not having AA on the PBR surfaces, and with my 4k display this is very noticeable. Until LM issues a hotfix for this

The supposed lack of AA with PBR is not an issue, and can be easily fixed with the right settings. Here's some proof.

Please don't discuss about overall frame rates in general, I only made a quick test by changing JUST the antialiasing, in a typical situation of a complex aircraft + lots of AI ( UT Live at 50% it's already a lot of planes at KORD, and anything higher would result in the being unable to find a free parking for you ) so, everything else being the same, let's see how much different AA settings affect image quality, and their cost in fps.

Please click on the images to see them in 1:1 size, otherwise the full difference it's not very easy to notice.

 

First the external, at the lowest AA (not counting no AA), which is MSAA 2x. There's some shimmering, for example on the metal stairs on the jetways or the jetway heads, and the gate panels are not very readable. Fps averages at 34.0.

Now, we set SSAA 8x, which is the highest AA setting, the shimmering is basically gone, the diagonal lines are smoother, and the gate Panels are now readable. Fps loss was minimal, since now it averages at 33.1

 

Now let's take the worse possible case, the supposed "shimmering with taxilights", and how it's entirely related to settings. Again, let's ignore absolute fps, because it's not really the point ( although just switching from Exterior to VC in the PMDG makes for the most difference in fps ), and concentrate on the effect of the only one parameter that has changed, which is the AA setting.

First the lowest setting, MSAA 2x, this is what all you that thought "KORD shimmers at night" probably had. Note that, higher MSAA settings improve it a bit, but not much. And yes, at this setting, the ground shimmering IS very bad:

 

However, switching to SSAA 4x ( the second highest setting ), already improves things quite a bit. The fps is not lower and, in fact, it's a decimal point higher. Please note I always indicate the average fps, which is the only reliable data, since instant frame rate might be affected by moving vehicles or AIs. I always let the fps stabilize 5-10 seconds before taking a screenshot, so the average readout is correct.

 

But at 8x SSAA, the shimmering is basically gone, with a cost in fps ( 0.4 , which is 2% at 20 fps ) that is really minimal and not noticeable.

 

Note that, this is done just using the internal settings of the simulator. Other users reported good results using nVidia Inspector SGSS ( Sparse Grid Supersampling), but I wanted to make it clear you don't have to do anything complex to solve the shimmering problem in PBR.

I would also note that, at this position the scenery makes full use of DL, both peripheral and local so, all lights are in, there isn't a single pre-backed lightmap in the scenery, every light is dynamic, that's why you don't see the pixelated night bitmaps that every other legacy scenery (including our older ones) have, and PBR is active at night as well. So much for the "high antialiasing modes and DL kill fps". Elsewhere, maybe, but not here.

Edited August 30, 2019 by virtuali