Anyone tried the mod to use google map instead of Bing?

[Frag 27]

Holy freaking hell ... I just installed it. Over Quebec, Canada ...that thing is AMAZING. This is night and day. I use the high res tile ... I have unlimited gigabit internet but that thing looks SO GOOD.

A hint, it has been said few times but ... dont forget to "DELETE" the rolling cache in the MSFS setup. If not you could have google tiles that could mix up with the bing one, which is the weird look people are talking about.

 

 

[VBHB 298]

I'm happy with default 200 LOD. 

[The Moose 1,177]

47 minutes ago, VBHB said:

I'm happy with default 200 LOD. 

So was I until about 6 hours ago 😄   

No going back now.  Who wouldn't want a  huge free texture upgrade at no cost financially or performance wise?   THIS is the world update I was waiting for!

It cant be bad...  the quick test of the mod before going to bed has turned into me getting so immersed its now light outside and I appear to have lost a night somewhere 😆

 

 

[pilotter 254]

Did some digging;

what you will have is maps, not corrected by blackshark AI. Only the maps used by MSFS are corrected by Blackshark. So if there are clouds or other issues, they will be not corrected. Not starting a discussion what is good or bad, just for the info.

Any Bing-based imagery has to be processed by BlackSharkAI to be put into a form useable in the game. That is not a real-time process. Bing imagery is not used directly. Additionally, if an airport has been expanded in the newer Bing imagery (lengthened runways, new taxiways etc.) Then the entire airport would have to be recompiled by the same process that the default airports were originally created. It would not automatically be modified/updated just because newer Bing imagery is available.

[Stearmandriver 2,296]

36 minutes ago, pilotter said:

So if there are clouds or other issues, they will be not corrected.

The Bing world is littered with clouds baked into ground textures, as anyone who has ever simmed in New Guinea will testify.  The Google maps are certainly no worse in this regard (and certainly better in many others.)

[Bigt 192]

Couple questions I'm confused about. Is this mod of any benefit to those of us who fly tubeliners? Also, if it's using Google data, does this add photogrametry in places that Google may have data for but the default MSFS Bing does not?

[GSalden 4,657]

Here I use Bing but have changed the look and feel with GF Experience so it shows a more realistic scene….

As I use 3090 GPU’s I do not care about the slightly drop in fps. I use Vsync /30 fps so enough headroom…

[Frag 27]

4 hours ago, GSalden said:

Here I use Bing but have changed the look and feel with GF Experience so it shows a more realistic scene….

As I use 3090 GPU’s I do not care about the slightly drop in fps. I use Vsync /30 fps so enough headroom…

I did some experiment and did not suffer a single drop in FPS on my side. But I do have a gigabit link and a monster machine. But I doubt this mod would slow down anything, it mostly changes the source of where it takes its images, so there are no differences for CPU/GPU.

I will stick to the mod right now, but will try to keep an eye on the map correction done by Asobo as stated earlier in this thread. I will report here if I stumble on these, but so far EVERYTHING is way more vivid.

 

[The Moose 1,177]

16 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Stopped using it, was having obvious scenery load in distance. Not tried last few version, maybe it’s improved.

Yup, the latest version has higher loading speed then previously apparently.

I just realised I'm not even using the cache (in game or in the app) and had no issues with scenery loading even with the Hi-Res option on.    Worth checking out again for sure Cpt!

[Frag 27]

4 minutes ago, The Moose said:

Yup, the latest version has higher loading speed then previously apparently.

I just realised I'm not even using the cache (in game or in the app) and had no issues with scenery loading even with the Hi-Res option on.    Worth checking out again for sure Cpt!

My take is that if you see tile popping in the distance, your internet connection could be not fast enough to get the tile texture fast enough from the google server. In this case ...yes ... the cache will help a lot if you commonly fly in the same areas.

[MrBitstFlyer 3,875]

7 hours ago, Bigt said:

Couple questions I'm confused about. Is this mod of any benefit to those of us who fly tubeliners? Also, if it's using Google data, does this add photogrametry in places that Google may have data for but the default MSFS Bing does not?

Absolutely YES!  Textures at any height look spectacular.  Photogrammetry is not changed in any way and no new areas are shown.

[Bobsk8 12,731]

After all the great talk about this mod I decided to try it. The result, I get nothing except this message which makes no sense.  Recycle bin..

 

[filou 2,744]

4 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

After all the great talk about this mod I decided to try it. The result, I get nothing except this message which makes no sense.  Recycle bin..

 

 

It's a shame ... I just came back from New Zealand with this mod.

In picture at the bottom of the page.

Never had a problem with this mod

 

[Cpt_Piett 4,651]

10 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

After all the great talk about this mod I decided to try it. The result, I get nothing except this message which makes no sense.  Recycle bin..

 

Seems that it’s not able to make changes to \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

[Bobsk8 12,731]

6 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Seems that it’s not able to make changes to \windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Yes that is what I figured, but it is not read only, and I turned off my AV, no help. Similar error on their forum  that has no answer to the problem. Not going to waste anymore time, I could be flying. 😉

 

I just fixed it. It seems Webroot, my AV has a feature that blocks modification of host files as part of their antivirus. Even when truning Webroot off, which I did, this block is still in effect. I had to go to Advanced Settings > Shields" and un-check the option for blocking edits to the hosts file.. Now it works. First time Webroot has ever caused a problem for me, in many years. 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Bobsk8