Can someone make sense of the upcoming scenery options for FSX?

[MarkW 1,479]

Activesky - Weather engine. OK (I have for FS9)XGraphics - Cloud, Sun, Sky, Water textures.Flight Environment X - Ground Cloud, Water textures, Sky Textures, & Weather engine. (I have GE for FS9)Ultimate Terrain X - Water Textures, Ground Textures, Landclass?? (does it include terrain mesh?).FS Genesis - Mesh. (I have some regional mesh. Freeware such as Alaska, Chile for FS9).How do all of these work together, do you even need them together ? Which should you chose, what do you give up by leaving one out? Gotta admit, I am confused by these offerings.

[phoenixphire 50]

I breifly skimmed over the info on XGraphics so I can't comment on that other than to say it seems like it may be similar to Flight Environment & ActiveSky Graphics. As far as the rest is concered I have all of them for FS9 and I believe them to be essential to an immersive simulation. The other I am waiting for is Ground Environment X which replaces the default textures. I used BEV for FS9 and was very happy with it. I have seen a lot of screen shots of GE in the screenshot forum and looks very imperessive. BEV seems to not have much activity over there so I think I will go for GEX if the screenshots convince me. I must say that the default textures have impressed me. As for trying to figure out which does what UT is roads & landclass and water and much more. UT is not mesh. Follow link:http://66.135.39.111/ultterrain/UtxUsaDemo.pdfGenesis is the terrain mesh which gives very detailed real life elevation. I am a Galaxy member so I have used every single download there is. I hope this helps. Others may clarify or corret any mistakes I have made.

[FlyingsCool 3]

Your list is correct, but too overgeneralized to make a real decision from.UTX- does change the water textures if you want to (but you don't have to).- Includes textures for golf courses, graveyards, beaches, and a bunch of other special purpose very small areas (like parking lots around stadiums), IOW it adds detail that FS does not have in particular real features- Does landclass in urban areas- It does not have ANY mesh. (FSG Mesh does this)- Does not really do landclass outside of populated areas (multiple available landclass packages do this, and work well with UT/X lc)- Does not change your base landclass textures (FE/X does this)- Has no weather related features (AS/X does this)The main purpose of UTX is to add roads (all of them, configurable), WAYYY more traffic on the roads (It's Awesome!, for me anyway.) and make the terrain look more realistic by adding features like much more detailed water everywhere, coastlines, roads, parks, and many other features of the landscape. It is indespensible to me.So, really, of all the products above, it appears that really only XGraphics has total overlap with the other packages. All the rest of the packages are really very different from each other and will work very well together (hardware speed issues aside, perhaps). This is not to say XGraphics isn't worth looking at. For instance, in FS9 BEV and FE both provided good competition for each other, and each had their proponents.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[MarkW 1,479]

Thomas,Thanks for the summary, that clears things up.Mark.