Kudos to Orbx/FTX

[Jim Young 2,356]

I own FSDT KLAS, KLAX, KPSP, and Orbx/FTX SoCal/NoCal.  For a long time I have stayed away from reinstalling SoCal/NoCal as it was not compatible with FSDT KLAS without some manual modifications.  There were some issues in and around KLAX too.  Making these modifications was a pain and I could not understand why the developers of FTX/Orbx SoCal could not make their scenery compatible with the popular FSDT/FlightBeam airports.  The airports worked with MSE SoCal/NoCal and that's what I was using.  This past weekend I installed Orbx/FTX SoCal and went to FSDT KLAS expecting a messy elevation issue but decided to go through the painful process of manually making it all compatible again.  I have FTX/Orbx KPSP too and wanted to install that.  The compatibility issues were not there and KLAS looked perfect without any modification!  What's up with that!  KLAS looks perfect with MSE Nevada or the default scenery surrounding Las Vegas.  Thanks again Orbx/FTX!

[Twenty6 692]

I'm confused why you would install any Orbx regions when you're using MSE photoscenery in the same area?

[Benjamin J 751]

Yeah, same here... I used to run MSE and OrbX Socal together until I found that the OrbX stuff was basically invisible but still impacting the frames horribly, so when I reinstalled P3Dv4.5 a while ago I decided not to bother anymore with the OrbX regions in areas where I had MSE. Unless you want all those upgraded airfields, I'm not sure there is much use in having OrbX regions installed when you have MSE?

Also, I do not think that the compatibility is because of OrbX. Next time that you run the FSDT live updater, you will see a line that says "KLAS compatibility fix restored" or something along those lines. Me thinks FSDT are the ones who stepped up and made their scenery compatible with OrbX Socal by default, rather than the other way around.

[Jim Young 2,356]

2 hours ago, Twenty6 said:

I'm confused why you would install any Orbx regions when you're using MSE photoscenery in the same area?

Because I own both?  I have, of course, disabled MSE SoCal and now only use FTX/Orbx SoCal.  Why would anyone install both?  I had not used FTX SoCal for some time because of the FSDT compatibility issues and wanted to install FTX Palm Springs which, is only compatible with FTX.

[Jim Young 2,356]

2 hours ago, Benjamin J said:

I do not think that the compatibility is because of OrbX. Next time that you run the FSDT live updater, you will see a line that says "KLAS compatibility fix restored" or something along those lines. Me thinks FSDT are the ones who stepped up and made their scenery compatible with OrbX Socal by default, rather than the other way around.

I installed FTX SoCal before doing another live update of FSDT.  This AM did another live update and and did not get that KLAS compatibility fix restored message.  Plus the files in the FSDT KLAS folder had not changed or been disabled.  I seriously doubt it was FSDT although they are usually quick to fix any incompatibility issue.  There are a lot more files that were required to be turned off when trying to make it compatible so why I strongly believe Orbx/FTX did the fix(es). 

[pgde 571]

3 hours ago, Jim Young said:

Because I own both?  I have, of course, disabled MSE SoCal and now only use FTX/Orbx SoCal.  Why would anyone install both?  I had not used FTX SoCal for some time because of the FSDT compatibility issues and wanted to install FTX Palm Springs which, is only compatible with FTX.

Jim -- unless I misunderstood your post, you only need to run the ORBX base for KPSP which may help performance. You can use ORBX SOCAL but I only use the base package when I want to fly to KPSP. Looks great with MSE!

[Benjamin J 751]

56 minutes ago, pgde said:

Jim -- unless I misunderstood your post, you only need to run the ORBX base for KPSP which may help performance. You can use ORBX SOCAL but I only use the base package when I want to fly to KPSP. Looks great with MSE!

Indeed, KPSP does not require OrbX Socal, having Global is enough. It's actually a Socal airport that was released before FTX Socal came out, and so for a while it was considered a "FTX Global" airport, rather than a "FTX Socal" airport. As a matter of fact, this 'requirement' that OrbX tends to delineate for their products is somewhat contentious. I have many of their airports running just fine without the prerequisite region. Not all of them - e.g. Monterrey does require Norcal or you get elevation issues. Bot for example Southampton, East Midlands and Sumburgh are running great for me without either True Earth or FTX England.

[Jim Young 2,356]

1 hour ago, pgde said:

unless I misunderstood your post

I didn't mean to confuse anyone.  Think my OP is very clear.  Orbx base?  Is that one of their vector programs?  I use GEP3D as those textures were optimized for better P3D performance.  I also owned Orbx SoCal before KPSP was released.  I really have no problems with MSE or Orbx SoCal.  They are both great. It's just that I thought KPSP and Catalina Island and San Diego had to be installed with Orbx SoCal for the best compatibility.  With MSE or Orbx SoCal, I get 50-60 fps so they are both equal.  Next week I may go back to MSE just for the heck of it. 

[Benjamin J 751]

1 minute ago, Jim Young said:

I didn't mean to confuse anyone.  Think my OP is very clear.  Orbx base?  Is that one of their vector programs?  I use GEP3D as those textures were optimized for better P3D performance.  I also owned Orbx SoCal before KPSP was released.  I really have no problems with MSE or Orbx SoCal.  They are both great. It's just that I thought KPSP and Catalina Island and San Diego had to be installed with Orbx SoCal for the best compatibility.  With MSE or Orbx SoCal, I get 50-60 fps so they are both equal.  Next week I may go back to MSE just for the heck of it. 

OrbX Base, meaning the Global Base addon, plus (if you wish, but not necessarily required I think) Vector and OpenLC NA. I believe these are only required because the ground textures that come with the OrbX airports are colored to match the textures included in OrbX Global base - I'm fairly sure you can run it without it. It's just that the phosphorescence coverage that comes with the airport will stand out a little. With regards to San Diego and Catalina, however, I'm not sure. Catalina might be relying on mesh that comes with OrbX Socal, so you might well be correct that it absolutely requires Socal to be installed.

At any rate, I would recommend just giving a try with MSE and no OrbX Socal - it might just work. Personally I like to just give it a go because I prefer the photoscenery of MSE with the Nuvecta autogen to the landclass-based OrbX region sceneries. In addtion, the LA area works better for me with MSE compared to OrbX Socal.

[TurboKen 221]

5 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

 With MSE or Orbx SoCal, I get 50-60 fps so they are both equal.  Next week I may go back to MSE just for the heck of it. 

Not a big deal, but typically, you will have far better FPS with MSE over orbx socal. But yeah either will work and you probably only need global base to run other scenery's listed.

[Jim Young 2,356]

19 minutes ago, TurboKen said:

you will have far better FPS with MSE over orbx socal

With MSE SoCal per FSUIPC log with PMDG 737NGXu, ASP4, UTLive, and many other MSE scenery enabled -

Minimum frame rate was 19.4 fps, Maximum was 69.0 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 4950 secs = 32.4 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 294 aircraft

With Orbx SoCal -

Minimum frame rate was 20.0 fps, Maximum was 64.7 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 3226 secs = 35.3 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 137 aircraft

[Benjamin J 751]

37 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

With MSE SoCal per FSUIPC log with PMDG 737NGXu, ASP4, UTLive, and many other MSE scenery enabled -

Minimum frame rate was 19.4 fps, Maximum was 69.0 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 4950 secs = 32.4 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 294 aircraft

With Orbx SoCal -

Minimum frame rate was 20.0 fps, Maximum was 64.7 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 3226 secs = 35.3 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 137 aircraft

As they say, your mileage may vary...

[Jim Young 2,356]

I bought New Mexico, the first 4X release and it took up 210GB's.  The additional clarity is nice though.  Just need a nice Albuquerque Airport/Kirkland AFB.  I flew into there a lot in my federal government working days.

[Benjamin J 751]

TropicalSim had dropped a hint on their forums that their ABQ might not be too far out... here’s hoping! Been waiting forever for agoog ABQ. It’s pretty much the last major airport I really miss in my sim, and would be greatly. Complemented by the MSE scenery. 

[TurboKen 221]

16 hours ago, Jim Young said:

With MSE SoCal per FSUIPC log with PMDG 737NGXu, ASP4, UTLive, and many other MSE scenery enabled -

Minimum frame rate was 19.4 fps, Maximum was 69.0 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 4950 secs = 32.4 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 294 aircraft

With Orbx SoCal -

Minimum frame rate was 20.0 fps, Maximum was 64.7 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 3226 secs = 35.3 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 137 aircraft

Wow that's interesting, for me Megascenery has always been very high frame rate. Not that averaging 32 fps is bad, but I was thinking a 50% improvement from orbx to MSE, but its been awhile since I used MSE. This gives me an excuse to check it out. Been wanting to try the new 4x stuff too.