The Great Sahara Desert ... of North America

[B777ER 2,562]

Doug,I agree, I think Holger is very smart when it comes to the inner workings of FS. The point I am trying to make is this; its one thing to improve on FSX in the form of 3rd party addons and the like. But why is it that people accept what ACES shipped as their final release with the source data obviously messed up with the attitude, "oh well, they messed up almost the entire globes textures but who cares, we will fix it ourselves in time"? That is something we should not have to fix....this should have been addressed already no? What do you think would happen if EA Sports shipped the latest version of Madden Football with all the football fields looking like dirt sand lots? Do you really think people would be on the EA forums going, "oh well, we spent 50 dollars for this but we will fix this ourselves in the days/months/years to come! I doubt it.

[Sartanius 399]

Hi Eric,I consider FSX for what it is, not all the things it is not. Madden Football has to get a football field looking like a football field, and that's all it has to do for each of the fields it represents. That, to me, sounds a whole lot easier than creating THE WORLD to look exactly like it does. For goodness sake my friend, what are you expecting for about $60? A year from now there will be all kinds of stuff out there to "mold and shape" FSX into more of what you'd like it to be. I've been around here for several FS releases and this one is no different. I garantee that you will be loving and cherishing your FSX in a couple years in spite of all your misgivings now. That's the difference between you and me... I see all that FSX will become and you see all that it isn't. Both perspectives are valid, but one of them puts a smile on your face and a thrill in your heart.As for ACES, I salute them for what they've accomplished. Is it perfect... heck no, but it has huge potential to carry this franchise way beyond where it is right now right out of the box. My current experience with FSX trumps what I had with FS9 (after $1000s of dollars of addons) even considering the performance issues. It is smooth and sharp with fluid-like aerodynamics exceeding FS9 and far richer looking. One item I absolutely love is touchdown in the 738... simple amazing and so much like the real thing.You're entitled to be disappointed Eric, just as I am entitled to be excited. Come on over to our side and try and have some fun!DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/540FSB) | 2GB DDR SDRAM | 74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) | 120GB SATA (D: ) | 512MB ATI Radeon X1900XTX (Catalyst 6.9) | Audigy 2 ZS Sound | MS Force Feedback 2 | WindowsXP Pro (SP2) | DirectX 9.0c

[crvm 0]

>Unreal, that ACES screwed this glaring bug up. I wonder what>the heck the beta testers were seeing???? I imagine nobody>from ACES will be here to comment on this massive screw up>although I wish they would acknowledge it at least and state>something to the effect that a fix is on the way. I don't know about you Eric but I cannot stand any default scenery area for ANY flight sim edition period. That's not to say that I do not love the sim itself. As with FS9, developers will address this and users who only fly certain areas will purchase add-ons for airports and certain land areas. In fact, I can state that 80% of FS9's world I have never seen and never cared to see. Could you imagine the SPACE it would take to make the whole world look so good? If we thought we needed faster CPUs/Video Cards then we better add 500 GIG hard drives to our lists..Best,Randy J. Smith

[Guest havoc69]

Superior! Another Microsoft release I gotta dump money into just to make it look like its suppose to.Linux shall someday rule the world, it already rules my world.

[Guest kurtj]

I am just wondering guys... I heard people are having trouble with the 2nd disc. when installing this sim. Do you think that something has gone wrong with the installation and therefore it didn't load all the textures into the sim thus resulting in this huge desert? I am only judging the screens by the way since I don't have a my copy of FSX and I don't think my system can handle it. I am holding off for awhile until some add ons come to improve the "bad areas". I have seen some very nice screens over the course of time, with some disapointments mainly to the airports lacking the satalite scenery underneath, and the awful yellow-biege/green mixure over some airports.I tried the avi video and it doesn't work very well so can someone post regular screenshots of this supposedly bad areas so I can see for myself and compare to google earth please?Thank You,Kurt.

[Guest]

> Do you think that something has gone wrong with the installation and therefore it didn't load > all the textures into the sim thus resulting in this huge desert?thats a funny one hahaha

[Guest kurtj]

>> Do you think that something has gone wrong with the>installation and therefore it didn't load >> all the textures into the sim thus resulting in this huge>desert?>>thats a funny one hahahaDon't laugh.. It could happen. Think about it just makes sense. If the installation wasn't working for some reason with some kind of error it could load only part of the texture resulting only one kind on lanclass without the detail as it should be. I just thought I would ask. It's kinda like a tape blacking or bluing out and the sound drops out intermently thoughout the tape.

[Holger 0]

Hi there,Eric, I too have great confidence that switching my operating system will vastly improve the accuracy of the FSX landclass model :+ Kurt, in FS9, if there is so much as a single missing or faulty ground texture the sim will more or less gracefully crash to the desktop. Unless FSX has changed error handling in this matter - which I don't think is the case - then your theory is incorrect. Would have been nice, though, as an easy fix.Looking at Google Earth won't do you much good because we already know since FS9 (actually, FS8 or maybe even FS7?) that the global default land class file based on the USGS land cover data is inaccurate or overly simplistic for many regions of the world. Hence the development of third-party land class add-ons.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: Hang on, I believe I just discovered the true connection between FSX desertification and FSX elephants -> they belong together!!!http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/158917.jpg

[Guest SilverCircle]

>I agree, I think Holger is very smart when it comes to the>inner workings of FS. The point I am trying to make is this;>its one thing to improve on FSX in the form of 3rd party>addons and the like. But why is it that people accept what>ACES shipped as their final release with the source data>obviously messed up with the attitude, "oh well, they messed>up almost the entire globes textures but who cares, we will>fix it ourselves in time"?I don't think that they "screwed up". Holger already explained most of the reasons why some areas look very strange and unrealistic in FSX. I'am sure that the devs did in fact use correct data to build the landclassing, but, maybe, using hires textures based on satellite images was not the best idea - that's something I could agree with. By the time, the beta testers got their hands on FSX, all the landclass and artwork was probably already done and throwing it away wasn't an option at this time.As for the "we will fix it ourselves"...Well, since the days of FS98, I'am fully aware that, when purchasing the box with the "Flight Simulator" logo, I'am not going to get my hands on a "full" product - at least, not in my eyes, and probably not in the eyes of many, many other flight simulator fans out there. For me, that's ok. I see FS more as a platform - a base product which offers the necessary groundwork to build up my own personal favorite flight simulation software.

[Guest koorby]

Holger is 100% correct both in his accurate explanation and his enthusiasm for the *potential* of FSX down the track.Here's an example of using FS9 landclass in FSX. I took the VOZ landclass for FS9, imported it into FSX and viola! It looks as it should do. Mind you, there's still odd textures scattered over the landscape and that is mainly due to the EXTRA new textures being called, probably via a revised lclookup.bglIt will take a few months for people like Holger, Justin, Peter Wilding and I to interpret the inner workings of the new FSX textures, but I can assure you that FSX with accurate landclass calling the nice new 1m textures leaves FS9 for dead.P.S. I forgot to mention that I am also using some FS9 5m VOZ textures in these shots - FSX blends 1m and 5m beautifully :)http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/koorby/FSXB3_002.jpghttp://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/koorby/FSXB3_003.jpghttp://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b141/koo...s/FSXB3_005.jpg

[n4gix 4,969]

>Hi Eric,>>thanks for the flowers!>>Sometimes I wonder why I even bother posting when huffed>exasperation and calling others incompetent appears to be the>preferred way of communicating.Holger, don't let folks who likely can't find their own backside with both hands and a flashlight ruin your day.It's somewhat ironic that some folks who have themselves contributed absolutely nothing of value somehow seem to find a lot of ways to be incredibly insensitive and insulting towards those who do...

[Guest jboweruk]

I thought something didn't look quite right. And I thought they Fragged London up, oh well, looks like now I get to keep my FO after all, back in the box till they fix this. Shame, a lot of things I did like but can't help getting the feeling that MS are going all out to kill the franchise, much the way Microprose killed the Gunship and Tank Platoon series, you screw the pooch, it doesn't go down well so you shelve the sequel.

[Guest SJDickson]

I had a go at this last night. I'm quite happy with the look and feel of the terrain in FS9 and decided to swap textures from the 050b, 051b and 052b texture series from FS9 into FSX, making extra copies since FSX has more texture variants per season than FS9. The texture swap worked but I wasn't very happy with the results. The landscape was no longer a barren desert but the relatively low resolution FS9 textures looked quite poor beside stock FSX textures. The two texture sets also use a slightly different colour palette which made the FS9 textures even more noticeable. In the end, I decided that the 'fix' wasn't much of an improvement and reverted back to the stock FSX textures. I'm sure someone with more artistic talent than me would have been able to make a much better job of it.

[FlyingsCool 3]

Koorby,Those look tremendous!Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Guest Ihor]

All three look the same to me, not unlike a login screen.