"Then everyone can fly at 70fps and circle their houses until the broadband connection coughs or the 1TB harddisk crashes, whichever comes first."Sounds great to me! :-)With a proper path for loading scenery off the net, things would be much better. Look at the Google Earth viewer.. you're essentially using Slew mode, yet the "scenery" gets focused within seconds when you move at thousands of MPH from one city to another.TileProxy is really just a "hack" that sits between the already painfully inefficent and slow FS9 scenery path (which has problems even when loading data from very fast harddrives) and the net - and look at the huge interest it has genereted, even in its current state!You don't have to download terrabytes of data either. The only tiles that take up huge amounts of space are the ones close to the aircraft. File size then decreases dramatically as you move farther from the player aircraft. For example, a 1024x1024 tile (1m) is only needed really close to the viewer. As soon as it's a few miles away or a few thousand feet below you, you can't tell the difference between it and a 256x256 (5m) tile, yet file size has decreased from 3MB to 192KB for an uncompressed bitmap. The reason conventional photosceneries (distributed on CD/DVD) take up so much space is that they have to include the entire coverage area at the highest LOD, "just in case", even though most players will never see it all at 1m.

>actually, I wasn't trying to convey my point of view, I was>trying to make a joke in response to the original poster's>question. I certainly didn't want to start yet another round>of testimonials for or against TileProxy.Oopps :) Sorry 'bout that Holger.Louie.

>>TileProxy is really just a "hack" that sits between the>already painfully inefficent and slow FS9 scenery path (which>has problems even when loading data from very fast harddrives)>and the net - and look at the huge interest it has genereted,>even in its current state!>Oh there is a FS9 way to load tiles in FSX? And that's what Tileproxy uses because the FSX way is not accessible to TileProxy?With proper support in FS11 then a tile proxy like feature should be even better! I hope ACES are at least considering building in something like TileProxy for FS11. Seems a good way to add extra value to the next version of FS even if its offered via subscription model.Maybe it could be an expansion pack for FSX!

>Hi there,>>indeed, ACES will realize that many FS users are happy with>the "flat earth" model. Thus, they will remove seasons, night>lights, and autogen from the next version of the sim and>strike a deal for a $29.95 monthly subscription fee with an>image server company. Then everyone can fly at 70fps and>circle their houses until the broadband connection coughs or>the 1TB harddisk crashes, whichever comes first. >> :-outta >>(warning: satire)>>Cheers, HolgerSometimes satire can belie jealousy. Christian has resurrected FSX for me and we ALL know that it is only the beginning of what can be done with his implementation.

>The pictures whose link you provided are gorgeous. But all of>the shots, except one, are of mountainous areas witout>vegetation (deserts). The San Diego screen shot is taken far>and away from the city. In other words, you have chosen>scenes that are devoid of life and civilization.>>I remember the landing on my first flight in a small airplane>(Piper Warrior). The trees, cars and houses under the base>and final leg of the traffic pattern were both beautiful and>freightening. Those trees and objects are as much part of>flying to me as the view of the mountains you seek. >>Taking into view that FSX was made to be a living, moving and>breathing simulator (per request of so many people who asked>for moving cars, denser forrest, animals and a less stale>environment), I think I am not alone to say I prefer autogen>to photoscenery. >>Can you imagin those elephents and the birds on a flat>photoscenery devoid of any other objects? Would't the cars on>the roads look ridiculous if there were no other objects in>the surronding areas?>>So I guess it all boils down to how high you want to fly and>on what you want to fly over. Er, I think your are sadly mistaken. I have plenty of vehicle traffic running on correct road placements with the photoreal scenery of TileProxy. And you mean static houses which take huge framerates? That's no more real then the photoreal scenery. On top of the fact it's only the beginning of what can be done. It's not the end.

Amen. You weren't based at Potomac airfield by any chance. Were you?

Yes, it's using the FS9 way because of its way of storing each .bmp file individually. I don't think there's a way for his program to tap into the big, compiled .bgl files that FSX-style scenery use for texture storage.That, coupled with the inefficency of the FS engine when using photo sceneries is what causes problems... such as its habbit of reading entire 1024x1024 tiles just to get the 128x128 version, loading distant tiles tens or even hundreds of miles in either direction from your location, randomly loading scenery from the UK when you're flying in Japan..etc. etc...

I'll take the default FSX over tile proxy any day! Though tile proxy does look nice in some/certain areas/situations, but looks like crud in others.

If you are close enough to see the cars, then you are close enough to notice that what you thought were houses and trees are pictures painted on the ground!!

Without the little toy cars, that's true.

Hi there,funny thing about those FSX cars. When I first saw them I thought "What were they thinking?", turned them off, and never looked at them again. Then, for a project I'm involved with, it was suggested I add vector traffic across custom bridges and along major roads, particularly those near the airports. Grumble, grumble, but I did add the vectors. Guess what? that additional movement during final approach or take-off really adds to the immersion (of course, that's nothing new given that the best FS9 airport add-ons include moving traffic in their vicinity).Better yet, I attached road traffic sound effects to the bridges. Now, when you fly above or under a bridge not only do you see cars moving across it you also get the ambient bridge sound, complete with a realistic Doppler effect. Guess they were thinking ahead at ACES after all ;-)Cheers, Holger

At least down to a hew hundred feet I have the illusion. After that, I'm more into greasing my landing.And that's only now, beta, out of the box, with a small portion of the potential realized.

I read that Google was also including ambient sounds to their pictures. And all these features, traffic, 3D buildings, etc. will eventually be part of the experience on a very realistic level. But that seems like working 1 hour on the cherry and whip up the cake in 1 minute. The cake, as far as I'm concerned, is the landscape, the cloudscape and the lightscape. Clearly, TP brings us forward with the first one.

>If you are close enough to see the cars, then you are close>enough to notice that what you thought were houses and trees>are pictures painted on the ground!!Nope. You can notice cars moving easily from several thousand feet up. It's better than FSX with the autogen off (or on minus the huge frame hit).

SolarEagle, this is the second time in two days that I've strongly agreed with one of your posts. :) TileProxy is a fascinating development, and it may indeed hold promise for the future of flight simming. But at present, the "huge" interest in TileProxy consists of -- at most -- a couple hundred people out of thousands of FS users. I wouldn't extrapolate a whole lot from that sample. As for me, I'm sticking with the default, plus MegaScenery and other high-quality add-ons when I can get them. This in no way implies any disrespect towards Christian Buchner or anyone else who enjoys TileProxy. I think it's a fascinating experiment that might well lead us on the path to better default scenery in the future.