Orbx TE Florida for P3d: Opinion?

[spilok 1,133]

What is your opinion of  Orbx True Earth Florida for P3d?  I was thinking of buying it because I really like flying in the Sunshine State.  I wanted the airport Punta Gorda specifically and since it doesn't seem to exist alone, I found a review where it is represented well along with very realistic scenery in TE Florida.  I enjoy flying to Miami, Tampa, Orlando and so many other cities there.  

Is this program nice to frame rates and performance or does it slow down the system to an unenjoyable level?  Would appreciate a little input from those that have this program...and any OTHER True Earth sceneries from Orbx.  I don't own any TE products at all.

Thanks.

Stan

Edited July 16, 2022 by spilok

[joby33y 152]

I have it & it works great.  I really enjoy a true earth experience while flying over the coastlines & keys.  .The PuntaGorda area, PortCharlotte & Peace River…awesome, to name a few great sights.  

I also own TE for all the west coast too…WA all the way to SoCal.  It looks fantastic.  

I should mention however, that I am still running P3D4.5.  I just can’t get around ‘device hung’ errors in P3Dv5, and it always happens over TE areas with a complex airliner such as PMDG or FSL. 

[Papacoach 75]

As a resident I can say it adds to my experience tremendously. I fly in latest V5 and have never had issues with complex aircrafts and airports on my system. 

I will say there is a little tweaking needed of a few scenery files and autogen if you use KTPA, KMIA, KFLL, KMCO. All of which I have. I'm happy to help get it sorted, and there is decent help in the orbx forum from a few individuals.

[newtie 533]

Buy it. 😎

[Patco Lch 1,465]

My experience a little different in P3DV5. I find the MegaScenery Earth plus NUVECTA Autogen to be a good bit better on both performance and VRAM usage, especially in the MIA FLL area. Of course, this could be a system thing but for photo scenery I prefer MSE with NUVECTA of which I have most of the Southwest US and it is quite beautiful, VFR or tube flying.  Some will disagree so all I can say is "eye of the beholder".

I might add the TE takes a bit more storage space, so it seems.

[micstatic 4,319]

I just deleted mine.  But not because I didn't like it.  Just because I switched sims.  I really like it.  Far better than not having it.  I had bought nuvecta/Megascenery earth, but for the state of Florida found the colors to be really odd.  Everglades in particular.  So I removed it.  Though I was a huge fan of MSE/Nuvecta for the western part of the US.  The negatives with TE Florida in my opinion was that it was not as crisp/sharp as I had expected.  The individual houses etc.  But not a deal killer . If you are sticking with p3d and fly in FL, it's a mandatory add on I'd say.  Just know if you have addon airports, some of them will require tweaking to prevent interference.  But nothing too crazy.  

[Rogen 1,087]

I have it and fly reguarly in P3D v4.5.

It's Ok, I'd agree it's not as crisp as I was hoping for and some parts are overexposed, all boils down to the source of the ortho I suppose and the commercial costs of obtaining, the reason I bought it is because there is really only one season in Florida and it's an interesting area what with the space ports and shuttle landing airport, finally there's that song mentioning the keys and I thought it would be cool to fly.

Otherwise it's certainly nice and frame rates are pretty good bearing in mind I look at achiving a 30 Hz vsync in all situations, which I do manage including around the city areas via several different config profiles, e.g. autogen draw distance max for when it can, and less for those large city areas.

• Takes approx. 80 GB of storage and it's a pretty big area.
• If you've tree enhancements they will be used (e.g. TerraFlorra v2).
• If you've autogen enhancements (e.g. Buildings HD) the HD roofing will be used).

A few pics from the area.

This would have been a max distance draw high level flight.

This would be an area where I would have changed down a gear (profile) for a reduced draw distance.

Pic showing CPU and GPU use, that was back when I was running a 2700X and 1070Ti

The keys

 

This pic would have been around the time of my Win7->10, 5800X and 3080Ti hardware upgrade.

I'd say go for it, it's a nice flying area with plenty of airports, some almost next door to each other.

Cheers

[Patco Lch 1,465]

Nice shots @Rogen. Sure looks a lot like V5.3 with EA on. You say 4.5? Very nice. The atmospherics I mean.

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by Patco Lch

[level7 172]

3 hours ago, Rogen said:

• Takes approx. 80 GB of storage and it's a pretty big area.
• If you've tree enhancements they will be used (e.g. TerraFlorra v2).
• If you've autogen enhancements (e.g. Buildings HD) the HD roofing will be used).

Great shots Rogen!

These are some really key points. Note that it actually takes twice size in practice because there are the downloaded installers that are also a similar size as what it is after installed. Although you can delete the downloaded installers after the install to your library, to install it you do need closer to 200 GB free.

The solution is not complete without Orbx TerraFlora v2 and Buildings HD. Otherwise default autogen would be used which looks trash in general. These are products that are worth purchasing in general.

Finally on your last question, the California regions are not so recommended because they have an awful red tint, very noticeable at the "border". California's seasons are probably more varied than that of Florida as well so the single season is even more of a limitation. Initially when I flew around the regions I thought it was not so bad, but the more time I spent on it, the warm glow was getting to be a bit too much. A shame because I would prefer to fly with it on. However the geographic and vector data on P3D V5 has also improved significantly as well.

[spilok 1,133]

Great informative information.  Love the screen shots!  Looks like a pretty good addon to me.  I wonder though about some enhanced airports that I have bought in Florida, like KMIA, KFLL, and others form LATIN VFR.  What happens to those airports exactly?

Stan

[Patco Lch 1,465]

Nothing in my experience.

[Papacoach 75]

5 hours ago, spilok said:

What happens to those airports exactly?

Stan

Nothing that can't be fixed.

Some airport photo scenery needs to be off, and you'll have some autogen conflicts that can be resolved with help from the TEF developer on the Orbx forum.

https://forum.orbxdirect.com/topic/199453-trueearth-us-florida-compatibility-with-3rd-pty/

Here are some screens of mco, fll, mia, tpa.

 

[spilok 1,133]

2 hours ago, Papacoach said:

Nothing that can't be fixed.

Some airport photo scenery needs to be off, and you'll have some autogen conflicts that can be resolved with help from the TEF developer on the Orbx forum.

https://forum.orbxdirect.com/topic/199453-trueearth-us-florida-compatibility-with-3rd-pty/

Here are some screens of mco, fll, mia, tpa.

 

Beautiful!

[micstatic 4,319]

From memory. The only addons I had to mess with were Tampa, jax, and possibly Daytona and Orlando.