Both are great.  No clear winner.  Yay

ns

Google have better colours, Bing is over saturated 

24 minutes ago, Beardyman said:

Google have better colours, Bing is over saturated 

That depends on your display settings (driver + monitor)….

6 hours ago, bean_sprout said:

Both are great.  No clear winner.  Yay

I remember the first time I had a few drinks and got on the internet...

Google has much more of these:

Kandersteg - Google Maps

Bing/MSFS has nearly all of these artefacts corrected (by some AI I guess).

Edited April 20, 20224 yr by mrueedi

When using the Google plug in, are the 2D satellite objects converted to 3D objects in MSFS?  Blackshark AI was paid by Microsoft to convert 2D satellite objects into 3D satellite objects. For example, Blackshark AI's algorithm will analyze the Bing satellite data and figure out what are the 2D flattened houses on the satellite data.  Blackshark AI will then convert the 2D flattened houses it detects, into 3D houses for use in MSFS.

When you use the Google plug in, are the 2D satellite objects still imprinted into the terrain?  Or is the Google plug in capable of utilizing the Blackshark 3D objects, such that rather than seeing an imprinted 2D object in the terrain, you see a 3D object instead?

I use Google Maps, as they have the clearest textures.

But my biggest reason is the High LOD features, which is a game changer. I have never seen textures as crisp before, only using LOD 200.

It's a great way of gaining more detail without having to increase LOD. I see no discernible difference between LOD 200 with High LOD enabled and regular Bing LOD 400

Got the Google maps replacement mod, tried it, not a big fan. 

I guess in some areas they have better textures. BUT - there's something going on with textures never finishing downloading. Especially at higher flight levels, I can constantly see textures loading. Perhaps this is not a problem at 3000ft in a Cessna 172. 

I was never that bothered with the Bing textures in the first place. Tried the mod more out of curiosity. 

Edited April 20, 20224 yr by Cpt_Piett

I have a great belief in not messing with the insides of any FS version. I have bricked too many installs in my life.

Not bothered enough by Bing to go changing it here. 

5 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Got the Google maps replacement mod, tried it, not a big fan. 

I guess in some areas they have better textures. BUT - there's something going on with textures never finishing downloading. Especially at higher flight levels, I can constantly see textures loading. Perhaps this is not a problem at 3000ft in a Cessna 172. 

I was never that bothered with the Bing textures in the first place. Tried the mod more out of curiosity. 

If I am correct GM is always loading the highest resolution where Bing changes them according to distance from ac to ground.

Even on my 12900K/3090 server I can see that GM is taxing the system way higher at higher altitudes than Bing.

After changing the drivers and monitor settings I have Bing looking a lot like GM.

4 hours ago, flyhalf said:

I have a great belief in not messing with the insides of any FS version. I have bricked too many installs in my life.

Not bothered enough by Bing to go changing it here. 

The great thing about it is you can just switch it off and it’s removed from the community folder and doesn’t mess with anything at all. I think with msfs we are finally beyond tinkering with the inner workings of the sim (causing it to get bricked).

I also noticed some Google watermarks on some textures. There’s also an option to use newer bing textures (the default are quite old) but I don’t think there’s as much post processing to keep the colors consistent between tiles.

On the few comparison videos I saw, GM water textures / under water reefs etc made it a definite no go for me. Bing far superior on that front. GM does admittedly look better in some regions but it is not optimised for MSFS.

Generally both do a good job at FL180.  Data holes are usually the same in the States.

Choosing the best service could depend on the region but over forested areas where I  fly not so much.

ns

I’m very impressed with the mod though, downloading textures on the go. Man how it would have been amazing to have that back in the days of X-Plane and Ortho4XP.

On 4/20/2022 at 2:04 AM, abrams_tank said:

When using the Google plug in, are the 2D satellite objects converted to 3D objects in MSFS?  Blackshark AI was paid by Microsoft to convert 2D satellite objects into 3D satellite objects. For example, Blackshark AI's algorithm will analyze the Bing satellite data and figure out what are the 2D flattened houses on the satellite data.  Blackshark AI will then convert the 2D flattened houses it detects, into 3D houses for use in MSFS.

When you use the Google plug in, are the 2D satellite objects still imprinted into the terrain?  Or is the Google plug in capable of utilizing the Blackshark 3D objects, such that rather than seeing an imprinted 2D object in the terrain, you see a 3D object instead?

Using the plug-in should not change what Blackshark AI does. In theory (I say theory because I don't have first-hand knowledge of the code), the better the satellite base imagery being used, the better 3D AI will be. Whether you use MSFS Bing, Plug-in Bing or Google, etc. should be based on the area of the world you are flying in (i.e. you should compare and decide what looks better to you). Just my 2 cents.