Okay, all, two questions:1 - AutogenAutogen in FSX brings my system to it's knees. I can run virtually all sliders maxed, but no matter what combination I use, autogen in FSX kills everything in my computer's performance. Thus I ask: I heard that someone made autogen textures that reduced frame hits greatly. Anyone know where these are? I found a set for Europe only on AVSIM, but I am looking for the Domestic U.S. If nothing else, lemme know where to look in my directories and I'll reduce them myself.2 - Virtual Copilot?While checking out my new FSX CFG file, I found a line that read:[VirtualCopilot]VirtualCopilotActive=0I am afraid to tamper with this until i know what it is. Unless i missed something obvious, I see nothing in my FSX book that came with the software referring to this - and I also see no option in the UI for this either. Anyone know what this setting is for?3 - TexturesOkay . . . so one LASt question . . . since i am here . . . ##### is up with beautiful Colorado looking like the Sahara desert? Anyone else having this issue in your home areas in the sim? I realize we have the Great Sand Dunes here, but not the entire bloody state. :-(I like FSX in some ways for the aircraft, but I can see for scenery and overall feel I am going to be keeping FS 9 installed as well for quite a long time.Chris

Hi Chris,For some help with autogen I recommend you have a look at the following site that I believe is done by a fellow on here by the name of Matt Fox (nick: Forkboy2)...http://www.fox-fam.com/wordpress/?page_id=41Thread: Some help for Autogenhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...54861&mode=fullAs for the Sahara Dessert in Colorado(I live in the Denver Area) it's not just Colorado, from what I've read so far on the forums here it's a widespread problem, perhaps in many areas of the globe. FSGenesis US Landclass for FS9 works in FSX and I have it installed(place 'fsglc_us.bgl' from FS9 in sceneryBASEscenery in FSX if you are an FSGenesis Landclass customer), but the problem remains, so I believe it's an issue with FSX Textures.(?) I feel it's an issue that MS/ACES should fix and not place upon the shoulders of third parties. But alas, even if they do fix it I have a feeling we won't see the fix for a very long time as it seems to me they take an interminable amount of time to make and release patches for FS.Thread: The Great Sahara Desert ... of North Americahttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...59750&mode=fullRegards,Jim

Not much help,but I stronlgy remember that the "VirtualCopilotActive=0" line already was present in the FS9.cfg. I asked around then if anybody knew what it was for, but the general consensus was that it was probably for a future version.edited for splelling

Hi ChrisNice to see you on FSX now. I am going to keep FS9 running in parallel until I can get all my add-ons up and running. However:Autogen - Have a look at the Tips and Tweaks forum. There are several other things to do in addition to Matt's work.Sahara Desert - Do a search here. It seems to affect everywhere - see the comment on Poland.Best WishesJohn Rooum

Hello Chris,The virtual copilot can be turned on directly in the game - it should be in the General settings, I think. Don't be afraid to turn it on - it is just a voice telling you when to rotate, climb speeds, etc.As for the land class problem, the real cause of it all is not some FS Team carelessness, but the fact that there is no accurate land use data for the world, as yet.Since the world is a very large place and the FS Team does not have personal knowledge of it all, then they must purchase the commercial data that is available. And that data is wrong! If there were better data available, then we could imagine that the FS Team would use it instead.Some people, who think that their part of the world deserves special treatment, will insist that the FS Team should have spent time manually correcting the land class where they live and fly. That would be nice, but it is really a very time consuming and meticulous task, expecially when there is no accurate data source for a basis. It would mean panning over Microsoft's Live equivalent of Google Earth and, spot by spot, correcting each 1 km. patch of land - if the entire FS Team had been doing nothing but this since development of FS X started, they would still not have finished land class for the continental U.S., much less the rest of the world. Let alone the rest of the development tasks.It is useless to explain these things, as people will refuse to understand and continue to complain. But the truth is that the world has not yet reached a level of development where this type of information is freely available and accurately depicted.However, all FS 9 land class files work in FS X, and it is easy to make new land class files. Or for those who prefer the Avsim library solution, new files will soon be made available. Just a little patience.Best regards.Luis

Luis, beautifully said my friend!!Regards, MichaelKDFW

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 / AMD

The fact that you have to do all that to get the game to perform is another reason that im not enjoying the sim...................Robert

Well everyone I have read each and every reply to this and now have to get out the door to flight school (yes i am VERY close to my PPL now and next semester is IFR) :-)I have thouroughly enjoyed the mature and informative responses and information here, and will be looking at these links and also checking out that virtual copilot option either after class or tonight when i wake (I just got off working graveyards -- I already feel like a zomvbie) LOL.I do agree that not every part of the world will get special atention. No, I do not have FS Genesis landclass, but i do have all of their eleveation add-ons :-) I also havea majority of Flight1 options, such as Ground Environment (not the pro . . . yet), Ultimate terrain and Flight Environment. I also am looking forward to reading up on Activesky v6.5's instructions on how to integrate into FS X.If I can at least tweak autogen to assist in my performance, I think FS X has a LOT of potential, but like many users -- just like i did for FS 2002 and FS 9 -- I will indeed be duel running for a VERY long time :-) I paid dear money for both sims -- I still intend to get complete use out of them no matter what effort I have to make to do so. :-)Off to fly . . . today is a BEAUTIFUL cool and crisp day to do so safely.Chris

Luis:Not to be harsh.. but you can't possibly believe what you wrote above to be even remotely true:First, the complaint is not necessarily about textures, they are about incorrect texture placement due to landclass. No one is asking for global 1km coverage of photorealistic texture of the earth, not even Google Earth can produce that for the entire globe. However, you are confusing texture resolution with landclass accuracy and therefore you are sorely mistaken.Let's take the United States alone. ACCURATE landclass data is available for the ENTIRE United States...period. This is not even a fact that can be remotely argued. To drive the point home even further, Justin Tyme (I've always loved that name) at FSGenesis has released ACCURATE landclass add-ons for years with constant updates to increase accuracy. Now, if FSGensis can get accurate data methinks that Microsoft can get accurate data.Secondly, arrurate landclass data is available for much of the 'civilized' world. That too is not up for debate, just do a search here on Avsim for FREEWARE landclass data for many parts of many countries. Again, if Joe Freeware can get accurate data for other parts of the world, so can Microsoft. It would be hard to convice me that one can get accurate road data for every foothill and bikepath but not be able to get data that tells one that Iowa has no sand dunes and NYC has no forests surrounding the Empire State Building. The FS team needs not have personal knowledge of the whole world to get data. This is not the 1400's where Microsoft is tasked with discovering the 'New World'. It's been discovered for them, charted, mapped and surved ad nauseum. That data has been compiled and is readily available both for free and at a price. That argument simply doesn't even begin to hold water.Microsoft needs only develop generic textures just like they did for FS9 that can be approximated to different landclass areas. One need only include textures from representative cities on each continent and apply them with the CORRECT landclass data. One need not place every house and tree.What's most compelling about your arguement is that acquring and deploying accurate landclass data would have left the Aces team no time to do anything else. Woah, let's take a step back here. FSX is primarily a texture upgrade. There are tweaks to the flight dynamics, minor tweaks to the ATC and AI engine but as a whole, it can be constued as FS9v2, if you will. This is not a monumental ammedum to the FS engine sporting new hyper accurate ATC, hyper accurate cockpits with FMCs, etc. It simply upgrades the mesh data, employs wonderful new graphic 'capabilities' and gives a better 'sense' of flight, as it were. So, at the end of the day. Most of the United States is a desert. New York has forests in all of the 5 boroughs including Mid-town Manhattan. Screenshots depict other major cities such as Rome as a desert also. It's not necessarily that the textures look bad, its the fact that they are placed in the wrong places. This is a bug and a bad one at that. If MS didn't gather the right data then this is not even a bug, its an omission and it will be up to the 3rd party addon developers to fix it...so be it, as this seems to be the status quo, why change it?This is by no means an assault on you or the Aces team, simply it states IRREFUTABLE fact. To say otherwise is to blame 'lack of information' or 'not being born yet' as the cause for you getting an 'F' on your term paper on World War II! Now, I always base an argument on the fact that I can stand corrected if one can prove otherwise...so I wait to be proven incorrect. There is no pretense of omnipotent knowledge on my part of what the Aces team couldn and couldn't do and I don't even believe that there is a promise of accurate landclass on the box so Aces is officially absolved of any wrongdoing.However, this is simply ANOTHER case of the Emperor having no clothes and the crowd pretending to see a beautiful silk and gold robe, when in fact, there is none to be seen!(edited for content)

Mike, you are essentially correct, and not to be too harsh with you either, perhaps you still do not understand all the difficulties. As I said, people will always complain, and contest the explanation, so it is normal human behavior.First, the FS X land class is exactly the same as the FS 9 land class. As you say, and I said, it is not a matter of ground textures, but about land use/land cover.If you take the time to look at FS 9 and FS X default land class, you would have seen that there is no difference. None. So, why are there so many complaints about desert in the US, or elsewhere, when the land class is exactly the same as in FS 9?Because the FS Team has come up with much nicer ground textures! So, the same land class looks different. But, these new ground textures are not worse - on the contrary, they now better reflect the theme of the Olson land classification scheme. They look more realistic for what they should be.As to the availability of land use data for the the entire US, or even for the larger part of the world, then this is true, and yet quite misleading. You are right, Mike, that many of the States of the Union, or many of their counties, offer land coverage data, often for free. Certainly not all parts of the US, but quite a lot.However, there is not as yet a central repository for this data that I know of - if you could point it out, then I believe that all of us struggling with the creation of land class files would be very grateful to you.And there is certainly no place to get accurate, or even approximate data for most of the world, although perhaps you only refer to about a dozen countries, mostly Europe and Australia where this can be found.Of course, the FS Team could have taken the time to contact every State, every county agency (I myself have registered with the New Jersey Geographic Information Network) and work out distribution deals with each one, and then collate, and make uniform all these disparate sources of data.It would take a lot of time, but it would be worth it. But, even then, they would only have a large part of the U.S., not all of it. Still, that is better than nothing, right? So, Mike, why don't you suggest it to them? Tell-FS, you know that.That would still not give accurate land class data for Poland, Peru, Pakistan (like the alliteration?) It would not give accurate land class for where I live, and in any case there is no accurate data source for most of the world.So, the FS Team, knowing that they have limited time and resources, that there is no accurate source of land class data for the entire world, and knowing that they still have a lot of other unfinished bits in FS, seem to have chosen to go with what they can get.Now, Mike, what is the point of complaining? This situation is not going to change by bad-mouthing the FS Team. They are not going to stop everything and rush to contact the State authorities where you live just so that they can get land use data. What is the point, then, in complaining?If somebody does not like the situation concerning FS X, they have multiple choices. 1. There are plenty of comments, for and against. Everyone can read them. If anybody cannot live with the limitations of FS, then they can choose not to buy it. This is very reasonable, nobody is being forced to buy. I would never buy something I don't like - why would anyone else?2. They can stop complaining, which gets them nothing, and do something constructive. Many of us are making land class files, which is why we understand the difficulties. Perhaps if you were trying this yourself, Mike, you would change your mind. Go ahead, what have you got to lose? And, since you like Justin's efforts so much, send him a message and ask him if he finds it very easy to get accurate sources and how much time he spends putting together these great land class files.3. Stop complaining and just wait for those of us making land class files to bring out replacements. The FS Team made an exceptional effort this time around and provided the SDKs from the beginning, so that we are not waiting around to understand how things work. This is incredible that they should have made such an effort, given the exceptionally heavy workload that they have been under these last few months.Finally, Mike, forgive me, I hope I am not being rude to you, but I find it somewhat discourteous to question other people's convictions. Yes, I believe what I wrote, of course, I think I know what I am talking about. Unlike many others, I have been doing scenery for many years and understand the limitations. So, perhaps if you can show how many land class files you have made, or the documents that you have written explaining how to make them or where to find data sources (try "Simple Instructions for Modifying Land Class"), then your comments would carry more weight.This does not mean that you should not say anything - on the contrary, express yourself. But, please, Mike, I have found that the best way to avoid friction on anonymous internet fora is to neither attack the person or his argument - for some reason, nobody seems to like that. The best thing to do is to just state one's own reasoned opinion and let the facts speak for themselves. So, you will please forgive me if I come across as mildly incensed. I have no ill will towards you and only wish you well.Best regards.Luis

I do have to agree on one fact there -- the textures DO look nice -- just in the wrong spots. If nothing else I am ever so hoping that Flight One and Ultimate Terrain do some of their magic on FSX, but that will take some time to see as the coding engine of FS X is so different I am afraid to do anything anymore without an official installer. I already tried to import a couple aircraft and ended up crashing the sim to the point I had to do a complete uninstall/reinstall (all I did was port over the Carenado Aircraft -- none of which had any dynamics or avionics I would consider advanced coding).Now I am just waiting for developers to do their thing so I can be comfortable with support -- but i am comfortable with graphics design, so texture-wise (since it will not crash the sim) if I can do anything about it I will certainly try. It's just hard to do as my schedule usually consists of work, aviation meteorology, flight, sleep a few hours, rinse, repeat.

**DELETED** Sorry apparently I hit the submit button a little bit trigger happy -- duplicate post.

>If somebody does not like the situation concerning FS X, they>have multiple choices. >>1. There are plenty of comments, for and against. Everyone can>read them. If anybody cannot live with the limitations of FS,>then they can choose not to buy it. This is very reasonable,>nobody is being forced to buy. I would never buy something I>don't like - why would anyone else?I suppose this depends on the methods used. The demo version of FS X made the island areas there look very nice and frankly I think that area looked like it should look. Here in the U.S., no matter what, you cannot return something you bought software-wise if you have opened it, so if I buy the software and install it, then decide I don't like it at all -- too bad. Who do we thank for this rule? Pirates, of course, so thanks to theives and dishinesty the average consumer's hands are tied. However -- I have to back up this rule, as before this law came about there was just far too much copying of software just to be returned to the store for a refund :-(>2. They can stop complaining, which gets them nothing, and do>something constructive. Many of us are making land class>files, which is why we understand the difficulties. Perhaps if>you were trying this yourself, Mike, you would change your>mind. Go ahead, what have you got to lose? And, since you like>Justin's efforts so much, send him a message and ask him if he>finds it very easy to get accurate sources and how much time>he spends putting together these great land class files.I hope my thread here isn't seen as complaining. Forums like this are put here for communication just like what we are doing now. I posted this to learn something, and in the first reply I learned a lot and will be spending tonight doing something with the tips included in this thread. Yes, I do know what you mean about some folks who go on and on endlessly, never being satisfied with the answer, but if point 2 there is aimed at me or others in this thread, I didn't see anything but great technical advice and opinions on both sides of the fence. I think both you and mike have great observations and points and I plan to utilize theories from both sides to experiment within my file structure. Hey -- if i mess up -- that's what those nifty DVD's are there for :-)>3. Stop complaining and just wait for those of us making land>class files to bring out replacements. The FS Team made an>exceptional effort this time around and provided the SDKs from>the beginning, so that we are not waiting around to understand>how things work. This is incredible that they should have made>such an effort, given the exceptionally heavy workload that>they have been under these last few months.I do agree they were great in releasing the SDK right away. Hopefully we'll see a lot quicker startup for third party software -- as well as updates to our already favorite aircraft -- a lot quicker than any previous version of FS.