I'm one who has been disappointed by FSX for performance issues and even the appearance, calling it cartoonish at times. I spent the day traveling on I-80 in Illinois looking at the sky, clouds, fields etc... and realized that real life is much closer to FSX than I thought. I think I'm having trouble adjusting to the brighter colors and textures as being realistic, but I think they absolutely are. Having said that, I'd still like to find a good set of replacement runway textures.

Ever since I got ActiveSky, I too have taken to scrutinising the sky to see how well it simulates ActiveSky. And I have to say that the sky does a very good job in this respect.Martin

I must say I was surprised to find while flying low and slow around my home town that for the first time in my experience of FS I could navigate by looking out the window rather than by using navigational instruments. The detail which the high res textures provide is sensational, the terain mesh where I live is just as good, and 24 million roads is an awful lot of roads, so I'm not surprised I can recognise so many of them.As for the brightness of textures I always thought that in previous versions they were never bright enough, and I think that midday never looked so convincing. Plus I believe the textures model all four seasons, so don't be surprised if you find a bit of variation throughout the year.Mike.

In my area the landclass is very close as well. I was able to use the Bell and follow roads, and I don't mean just the highways, from small town to small town. Although generic textures are used, shopping centers were where they should be, residential was close in size, and I could tell you the name of every golf course I flew over (my other sickness). The colors in FSX for my area are very representative of real life.

Just like FS9, FSX kinda looks odd/off/cartoony at certain mixes of place, weather, time of year and time. With the "right" mix of these parameters FSX looks relatively realistic and gorgeous.