Good topic this,it shows that FSX can be fun despite some performance issues that are constantly complained about.I can say that I am anjoying FSX more for its time in the marketplace than I did FS9 at the same time and my frame rate is higher. Onto the real story. Two days ago I took my much loved SF260 on a night flight from New Orleans to Jackson. I flew at 7,000' and the moon was rising in the front of the cockpit on the right side. As I flew the moon was reflecting of the rippling lake and river surfaces and then disapearing behind cloud filaments only to re-appear a few minutes later. The whole flight was relaxing and very enjoyable. Afterwards I had a long and hard think and then proceeded to my Control panel/Add remove programs and hit the FS2004 button. Enough said.John

Hi Wes,Not free because the FSX version is a totally new program. But in the past we have always offered a discount for owners of the latest version.No time-line has been set for a release. The words "soon" or "later" are too vague and I will not use them. Release will not be in the next few weeks.Weather is enhanced within the limitations of FSX and what we had to work with in AS6.Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

I wonder if some intrepid soul could do the cost totals for that setup (I'd guess several hundred bucks for all those addons.)For meself, since I fly with the prop on top mostly, I need the "evil autogen." It's just not the same if I can't occasionally chop off the limbs of a nearby tree.

Me too. Photoreal only without autogen looks too much like a flat photo as you get near the ground. I like a bit of 3D in my takeoffs and landings!Gary

It's not as expensive as you think for the first five. $25 for the terrain mesh. $10 for each Xclass (must have) 30 for the whole world. Activesky, which is more of a luxury though recommended, is a bit costly at 29 euros. Megascenery Hawaii is only $15.Gen X or Real scenery is 40-50 a volume, but in very large areas.The Carenados are cheap and work in fsx. Aerosoft is slated to have reasonable prices. But I won't pretend a simulator is not a big investment for most of us.Also, autogen doesn't look that real. Having high scenery complexity offers nice landings; and you can spruce up specific airports with the object placement tool. The point is if you want to run anything complex and have fluid flight, you have to sacrifice the autogen. Don't listen to people who tell you the human eye can't detect anything above 26 + frames. It most certainly can.

>. And there is no need for autogen....I use the superb Horizon VFR photoscenery. The 1.2m textures are still well-defined when flying at treetop level. Ironically, the high resolution textures makes autogen more essential. That's because images of buildings at low level are still sharp. Unfortunately, they look bizarre as if they have been flattened by a huge steamroller. Well-placed autogen buildings and trees, as in the Horizon autogen demo, cover up these anomalies rather well. And, anyway, the world is three dimensional. Even with perfect textures, from low level the world is still, well, flat.Best regards, Chris

> Ironically, the high resolution textures makes autogen more essential. That's because images of buildings at low level are still sharp. Unfortunately, they look bizarre as if they have been flattened by a huge steamroller.I agree, but this is only in the big cities like London, where tall buildings do look like flat pancakes. Fortunately, the default FSX buildings populate this area well, and luckily they are on the Scenery Complexity slider (and not the autogen slider).However in the smaller towns and villages and farmlands, the buildings look perfect as they are (flying at say 900 ft and higher). > And, anyway, the world is three dimensional.From these higher altitudes, the trees and houses etc are no longer 3D anyway. See for yourself next time you fly in real life, or even if you view some trees & buildings on a distant hillside. They simply do not

Funny you mentioned that flight. I live outside of Jackson and take that trip in FSX often. I like setting the time to about 45 minutes before sunset, jump in a F16 and follow the Mississippi river down to New Orleans, watching the sun set out te side window. By the time I get to New Orleans head west and chase the sun. Very cool graphics FSX.Wes

Hey Jim,I couldn't resist the temptation, especially after reading this enjoyable and positive thread, and purchased your product yesterday. I know I have read that with Active Sky 6.5 that the clouds are FSX. After installing it yesterday I flew out of Jackson (where it was hazy in real life) and just never had noticed the haze effects at different altitudes in FSX so much before installing AS.Thanks,Wes

>> >>Only if you are flying over London or Holland. :-)>Fortunately, with a terrain mesh down to 5m, I find that most>of Northern & Western England and most of Wales is full of>rolling hills and dips and valleys. When even raised motorway>embankments can be seen, you are getting more than enough 3D>in the terrain, which is essential to compliment the>photoscenery.>>>regards>>>David>Interesting and very accurate observation! However even flying FSX default out the box, no additional terrain or textures, the results are very impressive. Mesh set to 10m, can't remember textures and autogen on sparse. Making a circular approach last night to Cardiff International which MS ATC routed me across the Valleys then out over Bridgend towards the sea at an altitude of @3000 feet. To say my jaw hit the floor is an understatement, the contour relief is just amazing. Event with scant autogen the town I flew over (may have been Pontypridd, not sure) had plenty of buildings. Not sure what frame rate was but things seemed quite smooth, though my PC PSU seemed to be struggling as the LED's dropped out on the Saitek X52 a few times (see my thread in the Hardware forum - replacement 580 watt PSU on order!).With a few more 3rd party aircraft, FSX is now becoming quite a pleasant place to be.

>The point is if you want to run anything complex and have>fluid flight, you have to sacrifice the autogen. Don't listen>to people who tell you the human eye can't detect anything>above 26 + frames. It most certainly can. >>Let's not speak for everyone here as some will disagree, myself included. The sparse autogen setting in FSX is much denser than the maxed setting in FS9 and while it will affect performance, I find it still looks good and I still have fluid flight.It's all about preference.Regards, MichaelKDFWNot anti FS9, just pro FSX!

Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe nForce4 SLI-x16 / AMD

And thank you Wes!!Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://www.fseconomy.com/

David, I've taken another look (using the Horizon VFR scenery with autogen demo). From 1000ft even small autogen buildings are still very clearly 3D objects with shading. Here are two shots taken from 1000ft, with and without autogen (indicated altitude is 1076ft, the flat terrain below is at about 15ft):http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/VFR100.jpghttp://www.kline.demon.co.uk/VFR101.jpgThe rows of small buildings are very evident. You can even see the shading which will of course depend on time of day, unlike the ground textures. The group of presumably industrial buildings to the right look flattened without autogen, while the autogen buildings do a good job of breaking up the white area and making it look natural. Finally the trees bring the scene to life. If you look carefully you can even see trees on the distant horizon.Static pictures can never do justice to this. When you are flying the perspective of the buildings and trees change continuously, giving a far more realistic and three-dimensioned view of the world. By the way, in the Horizon demo, the autogen is extremely frame rate friendly. Performance is generally very smooth.In these shots the zoom was 0.4 and the 1024*768 images were cut from the 1280*1024 originals.Here's a shot from 500ft:http://www.kline.demon.co.uk/VFR102.jpgNote the tree in centre foreground. It appears to have a shadow. In fact it is the image of a real tree. In this scenery a large proportion of autogen trees have been planted on the positions of real-world trees (same goes for buildings).>Ask youself this question Chris. When you fly in this region are you constantly saying to yourself "this scenery needs autogen". Or are you more likely thinking as you fly "Wow, this scenery looks fantastic" ?I would say: both! The autogen demo covers a large area (Snowdonia/north Wales). Unfortunately, when I'm flying in other parts of England the terrain now seems flat and empty....Best regards, Chris

The problem I have is that the photo real scenery looks extemely....photo real. The autogen buildings and to a lesser extent trees...don't. In otherwords when looking at the photo scenery I can believe I am really flying-but when looking at those autogen buildings I feel like I am sim city2000. For me-the autogen in the shots you show detract from the reality of the beautiful and realistic looking terrain/textures.When fsx first came out I posted lots of real flying shots compared to fsx with and without autogen turned on-and I think the autogen off matched the real ones much better. I do like the autogen and trees while taxing on the ground for atmosphere-in some areas like rural mountain areas at low altitude the trees can look great.But I have to say the buildings just don't make it for me just about anywhere.At this point in Fs we have outside views of aircraft that look photo real, inside cockpits that can look exactly like their counterparts, weather that can be pretty close, and with photo real scenery and high res mesh-terrain detail and looks that can match reality. Putting the little plastic looking buildings on top of this reality doesn't quite match up in quality to the other realistic aspects of Fx for me. Then there is the variable of what is put there-for instance where I live which matches extremely well with the default photo generic terrrain of fs-puts autogen churches and office buildings in my neighborhood which are not there.My ideal would be to have autogen on for taxing and low altitude-about 500 agl.-and then to turn it off for not only greater performance but greater reality.However, isn't it great that we can choose to display just what we want. I think what is being expressed here is that many actually do prefer the view without autogen-and when one does, performance ceases to be a problem.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Of course, autogen buildings will never be complex and fully realistic by their nature. But, as I said, static images can never do it justice. Flying at a few hundred feet, as I often do, this scenery is stunning. There are also beautiful animated objects such as geese flying in a vee formation.As I also said, there is indeed a big problem with this autogen: it makes the rest of the country look flat and empty!Best regards, Chris