Honestly, XP12 scenery is not looking bad at all.

[Murmur 3,944]

Portland Troutdale:

(As a comparison: https://i.imgur.com/S47NOFY.jpg )

 

[GoranM 3,772]

I had to do a double take to make sure this was not a real photograph.

IMO, in this day and age, if your flight simulator doesn't support photometric lighting, shader based seasons, and a first rate flight model that leaves others in the dust, it's a huge drawback and a weakness.  This is yet, another reason, why X-Plane is light years ahead of the competition, and IMO, is running laps around the competition.

And only 3-4 months since release!  Just think of what it will be like in a year from now!

Edited January 7, 2023 by GoranM

[mSparks 2,086]

29 minutes ago, GoranM said:

why X-Plane is light years ahead of the competition

Well.... you know... as much as I rate X-Plane #1.

Not sure "light years" is fair to the competition, at least not the real, rather than imagined competition. A bit of lighting and FPS tweaking is never going to compete with bullet proof aircraft and scenery.

But yeah, this thread is pretty timely, weekend long haul real weather testing in the 744, and I pretty much just reached the conclusion there is exactly zero need for any ortho here:

considering its not vastly different to XP11 scenery, the updates so far have completely changed it from "make your eyes bleed" we had in XP11 to "huh is that a photo" in XP12... fascinating and phenominal.

Edited January 7, 2023 by mSparks

[Pe11e 812]

I can't agree, sadly or not. Was checking out few location around the world, with completely vanilla scenery, and honestly I couldn't stand it. Harsh cutouts of textures, random placement of fields, with repeatable patterns, and worst of all default mesh data is still very low resolution causing all mountains to look like it's made of 500 triangles total. What's the verdict? You would still need to use HD Mesh and stuff, bombarding XP11/12 CPU cycles with another layer of computation, while risking seeing crazy slopes and micro hills on bunch of runways and taxiways, making you push the thrust levers to TOGA to overcome them lol (been there done that, never used HD Mesh since then).

Now with Autoortho, and only 40-50gb used on my hard drive, I have the whole Europe and USA in ZL16/17 ortho, streamable, like in MSFS. Put X-Europe/X-World on top of that, and you will forget about default scenery in a blink of an eye.
Seriously, even hard drive space is not an excuse anymore since the release of Autoortho. Literally default scenery take more space on the hard drive than prepared scenery for Autoortho streamable.

By the way, MSFS didn't affected my opinion much, as I used and preferred ortho way before MSFS was even announced. 

P.S. I still prefer the modified XP11 visuals more than over-saturated and a bit under-exposed XP12 visuals (mostly caused by the bad HDR eye adaptation algorithm). I like my sim brighter. The world is a bright place.
 

[bogdansrb 230]

Quote

(As a comparison: https://i.imgur.com/S47NOFY.jpg )

Are you sure you're comparing scenery?

[bogdansrb 230]

Quote

and worst of all default mesh data is still very low resolution causing all mountains to look like it's made of 500 triangles total.

Oh well, when I said that I was told that mountains are 0.1% of scenery and that it's just fine.

[Murmur 3,944]

1 hour ago, Pe11e said:

default mesh data is still very low resolution causing all mountains to look like it's made of 500 triangles total.

XP12 mountains do not look as good from up close, although they look better and have a higher resolution above a certain distance. I think it's because XP12 has a much less aggressive LOD for distant objects. Infact, trees and other ground objects remain detailed farther out in XP12, whereas in other sims they turn to pyramids or disappear completely (as shown by comparison screenshots). Some sims use a significantly zoomed out default FOV to hide that deficiency.

 

1 hour ago, Pe11e said:

P.S. I still prefer the modified XP11 visuals more than over-saturated and a bit under-exposed XP12 visuals (mostly caused by the bad HDR eye adaptation algorithm). I like my sim brighter. The world is a bright place.

Agree, infact XP12 lighting engine is still being tuned. They already made improvements in the last releases, I expect it will be further improved. Apart from this brightness issue though, I find the lighting in XP12 the most realistic one.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Murmur

[Sims Smith 302]

1 hour ago, Pe11e said:

I can't agree, sadly or not. Was checking out few location around the world, with completely vanilla scenery, and honestly I couldn't stand it. Harsh cutouts of textures, random placement of fields, with repeatable patterns, and worst of all default mesh data is still very low resolution causing all mountains to look like it's made of 500 triangles total.

I agree however when I fly for example in South Asia it looks horrible both in XP12 and also in that other sim. Interestingly what I found out is that data available in these 3rd world region is terrible every way. 

• Lack of quality OSM data
• No orthophoto beyond ZL14 (ZL19 is just ZL14 upscaled)
• Lack of tree/forest data
• Mesh data is low quality

Sim developer do their best with what is available.

[mSparks 2,086]

4 hours ago, Pe11e said:

with completely vanilla scenery, and honestly I couldn't stand it. Harsh cutouts of textures, random placement of fields, with repeatable patterns

were you on the beta early and if so have you run a scenery update from the installer to get the latest.

And also, do you have "world objects density" turned up.

This is what Geneva looks like for me ~100% default.

I wouldn't call it flawless.. but its already pretty solid for 100% offline imho.

This really changes the whole dynamic for me from lvl16 ortho everywhere being basically essential, to just a nice to have when, for example, blitzing round the mach loop at 200 feet agl and around the odd airport I fly on regularly.

If this is the consolation prize because they haven't got the newest scenery tech working yet....

[coastaldriver 920]

I concur with the remarks about lack of geographical/space data for a lot of places on the globe. That problem belongs all the simulators. As far as XP12 goes well some places are great some are ok and I have yet to find any that are woeful. Overall it is much much better than my other sims which is amongst many other reasons I made the switch to XP12 and with no regrets. My need for addon scenery seems to be minimal in  a lot of cases the standard XP12 is more than good. 

In some places the standard scenery is so good that was going to use an addon and then deleted it and went back to the standard scenery. 

I think it is easy to forget that XPlane have carefully selected and added in some of the best custom built and community airports into XP12 as standard now, all up some 1500 plus are acknowledged in the XP12 Notes and Manual. I have yet to find any bad looking mountains anywhere yet. New Zealand has been a good test for me and it looked fine all over the place as well. 

Now for those interested lets look at these shots. They are all of a DC-3 in Pan Am colours all inbound to SCEL (Arturo Menino Airport) in Chile from Quintero. 

First this is MSFS

This is P3DV5 (With ORBX SA)

And last but not least this is XP12

Nothing wrong with the XP12 at all. I am more than happy. Looks realistic, terrain is accurate and overall ground mapping textures is fine by me. 

All the other sims are now parked in the virtual hangar. More than satisfied with XP12, scenery and models and overall performance excellent. I am getting 60FPS all sliders to the max and it is silk smooth all the way, 

Edited January 8, 2023 by coastaldriver

[Pe11e 812]

2 hours ago, mSparks said:

were you on the beta early and if so have you run a scenery update from the installer to get the latest.

And also, do you have "world objects density" turned up.

This is what Geneva looks like for me ~100% default.

I wouldn't call it flawless.. but its already pretty solid for 100% offline imho.

This really changes the whole dynamic for me from lvl16 ortho everywhere being basically essential, to just a nice to have when, for example, blitzing round the mach loop at 200 feet agl and around the odd airport I fly on regularly.

If this is the consolation prize because they haven't got the newest scenery tech working yet....

Yep, updated the scenery. World object are turned up, but that is not my point. I was talking all about the ground textures, how are they generated/placed on the terrain, and generally the quality of. They are low res blurry generic mess. The autogen is also slapped onto it, and it sticks like a sore thumb. I'm not sure how you guys can look at it, let alone fly above it and enjoy it.

I mean, the pic you posted tells more than a thousand words, although the angle is pretty bad (low altitude), so I can pinpoint the details only on nearby terrain. Look at the harsh cut on the right under "?". I mean the cut alone is not the issue, it's the generic slapped texture over the farmland(s) texture(s), it just looks awfully artificial. Then look at the simple texture placed under the residential area. Does the whole town lies on the grass? Not a single detail or any other texture that will break the monotony, except that random generic mud/sand texture in the center.

I'm sorry, but I can't swallow it. Why? Because it still looks like XP11 scenery, more or less, with some minor changes. I'm glad you guys like it, but I'll stick with Autoortho, that take less hard drive space and it looks miles better with X-Europe of course. All free.
Again, not spoiled by MSFS. I'm spoiled long ago by ortho, streamed or offline, your choice.

And interestingly, I can swallow FTX Global for P3D/FSX, with OpenLC slapped onto it. It costs a lot, but you get the whole world covered with a proper generic scenery that at least looks believable. Proper textures with nice color grading, proper placement because of good landclass data, and autogen lies amazingly well on it, perfectly matches. And guess what? That is a 2006 tech from FSX.

Austin needs to wake up, and catch up 2006 scenery tech even. Not going to mention what MSFS delivers, not a fair comparison due to  well known reasons. (**cough** Microsoft **cough**)
 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Pe11e

[mSparks 2,086]

38 minutes ago, Pe11e said:

I was talking all about the ground textures

 

40 minutes ago, Pe11e said:

it just looks awfully artificial.

I completely agree that it isnt great when they - and only they -  are visible, which is why for areas I care about I would still go lvl18

But I think what several of us have noticed now is that this isnt required over large areas, and that XP12 default scenery is "cutting it" waaay more than in the early access. 

49 minutes ago, Pe11e said:

Why? Because it still looks like XP11 scenery,

I think maybe a screenshot to go with that would help, because I dont agree - it did, it doesnt (seem to) now. It wasnt a "omg all the scenery is new and shiney" thing, more a "heh, where did the terrible scenery go".

[UrgentSiesta 932]

 

Quote

IMO, in this day and age, if your flight simulator doesn't support photometric lighting, shader based seasons, and a first rate flight model that leaves [MOST] others in the dust, it's a huge drawback and a weakness.

True. With the edit.

Quote

This is yet, another reason, why X-Plane is light years ahead of the competition, and IMO, is running laps around the competition.

Pure hyperbole; i.e., BS. Which, frankly, ruins the positive tone set by OP.

And if this is really what you think, your head's in the sand.

v12 is a triumph, and is already a worthy successor for v11. It's clearly is one of the top two flight sims available...
...depending on your simulation priorities.

It is NOT light years ahead, nor is it running rings around anything, either.

It's On Par. It's competitive, and outshines its main competitor ONLY in certain respects.

But in others, it undeniably lags behind the current state of the art.

The existential risk, mainly for 3PDs like you, is that the competition (both the sim devs and 3PDs), are continually and rapidly eroding the core value props of XP - even v12.

In re OP, I flew several short flights around the US today. Had a great time, and enjoyed the much improved scenery over v11 and even v12beta.

But the scenery is still not state of the art out of the box. It still requires 3rd party enhancements to really fill in the gaps. I mean, as long as I look at it and think, "gee, I really need to find space for Orbx TrueEarth", it's got issues..

The competition is already offering a small but rapidly growing collection of addons with good to very good flight models. A handful of them are undeniably on par with XPs counterparts.

LR and 3PDs such as yourself need to figure out how to reverse the shrinking number of competitive advantages XP has, and not delude yourself and others with rainbows and unicorns...

 

Quote

And only 3-4 months since release!  Just think of what it will be like in a year from now!

In terms of OP, what's going to substantively improve?

Edited January 8, 2023 by UrgentSiesta
extra quote box

[GoranM 3,772]

Tell me how you really feel.

Edited January 8, 2023 by GoranM

[mSparks 2,086]

4 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

In terms of OP, what's going to substantively improve?

He knows a lot more about the answer to this question than he is allowed to tell us (including me).

4 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

And if this is really what you think, your head's in the sand.

Pretty sure he just had a "he is beginning to believe" moment.

(ref for those to young to know what I'm talking about:)

 

4 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

The existential risk, mainly for 3PDs like you, is that the competition (both the sim devs and 3PDs), are continually and rapidly eroding the core value props of XP - even v12.

Fundamentally, imho, most non impulse sales are for 3PD products i.e. they buy X-Plane because of the CL650, IEXG737, VSL R44/R66, zibo, dare I say it the Sparky744 (not there yet, but getting close); rather than the other way around.

In fact DCS built its entire business model around this idea.

In that respect saying X-Plane is lightyears ahead of the competition is probably fair... Especially when scenery that often makes your eyes bleed is no longer holding everyone back.