Heads up - Vancouver FSX released

[Guest UlfB]

Oh yes!Vancouver for FSX is now available at Simmarket. Downloading right now :-)Ulf B

[victorwest2 0]

Downloaded and installed. Now I'm off to see what it looks like. :-)

[Max Kraus 339]

Looks very nice. THIS is where the future of FS scenery is at, I reckon.

[Guest weeniemcween]

Wow,Be a pal and let us know roughly how the performance is compared with default vancouver flying a default aircraft like the beaver, cessna or baron (in ascending level of demand) and your specs. Thank you.

[moss1 11]

Looks mouth watering :) :) I would love to know what the performance hit is like as well. I haven't got much for FSX yet, but this may something to look into. Then maybe I might use FSX more instead of FS9.

[jonpatch 1]

Thanks for your interest guys. I'll leave actual numbers/impressions on performance to users that post here, but we did an extensive performance analysis of the product and concluded:- some folks got away with 1Gb of RAM and were happy, but for Vancouver+ and FSX in general we recommend 1.5Gb- 256Mb is the minimum video RAM we recommend, although again some people tolerate 128Mb. 340Mb or higher is even better- we created configuration files that load optimum settings if you want a good starting point for tweaking- a mid-range machine like mine didn't have a huge hit: high-end machines saw a higher drop in performance vs. the default, but they started so high, they still had reasonable numbers. Marginal machines (eg 128Mb of VRAM, see recommended minimum systems above) just get worse- unlike FS9, every scenery component (eg effects, buildings, bridges, etc.) has an incremental hit, but we do have some features that can be turned off in the configurator to optimize performance- performance can vary from session to session for no apparent reason- performance (the FPS component) drops after a long flight, and saving and restarting the flight can double frame ratesApplying the FSX tweaks that Phil has published can be a big help. Certainly my stutters (no Van+) dropped a lot when I modified my TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT.Jon

[Manny 1,293]

How much photo texture is used here and what is that resolution of the textures. The reason I am asking is... No matter how much buildings and bridges and terrain detail there is... photo textures underneath all those object really really brings out a scenery rather than the default textures. I have France VFR of the alps with autogens. Just photo textures wouldn't have done it either.. Good phototextures around the entire scenery...not just the airports along with well placed trees and buildings and other objects really really does look good. Flight sceneries Portland uses nice textures for the area around the airports...and in the periphery he uses default textures. So default textures could still look good in the hands of good artists. Another example is.. Aerosoft's German Scenery 4 and Wasserkupe airport using phototextures and default textures around the periphey of the airports. But still, I always wished more phototextures were used underneath the autogens a lot more.Is it difficult to get high resolution textures for the the Vancover area? I looked at the screenshots of the mountains in the vancouver scenery and the mountains seem to have default textures.Manny

[Guest weeniemcween]

Okay, I bought it and here are my initial impressions/criticisms:Let me preface by saying that I think Vancouver X, UTX, and ASX may be the three best add ons so far for fsx.But...1) You definitely need a high-powered rig for this to shine. I have a top of the line graphics card but only a last gen pentium and right now I really wish I had a dual core, from next year that is. To get what I consider a good frame rate 20+ for vfr in a fps friendly aircraft (e.g. default beaver, cessna, RealAir sf260 and scout package) around the dense vancouver area, I had to disable my default.xml file (which I hadn't done since sp1) and keep max autogen buildings per cell at 10, so effectively none. I kept trees at 3000 because I like them. Thankfully, the fsx.cfg tweak makes things look more realistic anyway IMO and disabling the default.xml file did have the nice side effect of reducing blurries. That said, I wish I could unlock the frame rate, but then I'd be headed for blurry central, so I keep it at 30-40 - which would have been too high with the default.xml enabled.Road traffic looks nice on the bridges but I turned it off. General aviation is at around 20 but I may lose it. Airline seems to control the bell helicopters (maybe I'm wrong but they disappeared when I turned it off). I set boats to 10 and 15 per the manual. To summarize, I think the recommended settings in the manual - if a default autogen foundation is assumed - are pretty optimistic. Again, I don't see the fun in VFR and specifically flying seaplanes into Vancouver Harbor with low frame rates. 2) This is my one big criticism, though coupled with some praise:The two airport overhauls, CYNJ and CYPK are awesome, particularly because of the 30cm textures. The Vancouver Harbor shoreline also has 50cm textures, which is very nice. What I don't understand, however, is why Downtown Vancouver/Stanley Park is only at 5m, fs9 level resolution. To me, this is a bit lame to have textures at lower than default res in such a major area of what is called Vancouver+. The gmax buildings are fantastic but once I fly past the bulk of them I lose the illusion a little. And again, I can't afford nor do I really want to have lots of legoland buildings to cover it up. What it comes down to is that there are very high res textures out there... Virtual earth's vancouver is super-crisp and uniform, much better than google. What I might try is running tileproxy and isolating the city bgls.Given tileproxy and the recent megascenery titles, it would have been nice to see more photoscenery with this in general. Nevertheless, it is still a top top notch add on and I have no doubt I will appreciate it more fully sometime next year when I hopefully have a new system. There's just so much to explore, the new bases and boat routes, it's a must buy for seaplane fans and it and the RealAir scout are a match made in heaven. The land and water classes are also great.

[jonpatch 1]

Thanks for the feedback. Roger on the performance, we found it to be a cr**shoot: similar machines very different performance. And although I have an older dual-core (4200+), it definitely helps a lot. Did you try turning off marine lights and marinas as well? GA traffic, which uses MS default aircraft, is a performance hit, which is why we default it to off in the configurator. We look forward to more feedback from people.You hit the nail on the head with respect to the downtown texture res: airphoto data for most areas of Vancouver is fantastically expensive. Folks are much luckier in the US and Canada. We got a good deal on CYPK and CYNJ from local sources, but downtown only 5m was available at an affordable price. As you noted, we purchased a bit for the harbour.I'm not sure I would use airphoto data for more than just the downtown core and airports though. The default textures are quite good quality, and between that and our landclass and specific landclass polys for features, I'm content with it.Jon