"Must Have Scenery" for New FSX User

[Guest Hedgehog]

Hi: I am awaiting delivery of FSX...Figured I might as well take the plunge...Is there any scenery add-on that most folks consider a "must have"?...I see mesh, Ultimate this and that, etc...Advice appreciated!HedgehogKansas, USA

[Guest acolvard]

Try SearchX, it is awesome!

[Manny 1,293]

1. What kind of machine do you have? processor? HD space? Memory? Video card? 2. What is your interest? Low and slow flying? or High and fast and long haul Airliner? or little of both? or you just don't know enough at this point..so you want to try em all?Manny

[Guest Hedgehog]

I definately like low and slow...My new machine will be a quad core processor with 4mg of ram and an 8800 GT 756 video card, so I am hoping it will perform ok...Thanks for any advice...Hedgehog

[Manny 1,293]

This is just My opinion...OK! and these are independent of how much you can afford.1. If you don't have the Acceleration package for your FSX. Get that as well. IT has the SP1 and SP2 patches.. and install those.2. FSX Ultimate Terrain. (this gives you high resolution/detail coast line and roads and what not. When installing don't pick every option aand high settings. It takes a big performance hit. Its not the fault of the software..but if you pick high dense real roads and streets and all of them with tons of moving vehicles... use your imagination how much CPU cycle that would need. So be judicious.3. FSX Genesis Mesh. (This one you may want to wait a bit since FSX Genesis is being redone with some fixes)4. FEX (Flight Environment) is good It has amazing clouds.,.,,,but There is a better one that is coming. Not sure how soon. So thats up to you to see if you want to hold off.5. GEX (Ground environment X). I don't have this for FSX..but I have the FS9 version for FS9. But there are many folks who swear by it.6. You need a good Traffic. There is F1 Ultimate Traffic and then you have MyTraffic 5.1. I have em both and each has its good and bad.. so pick 1.7. There are a couple of ATC programs. Radar Contact and then VOX. Not sure if you want to go there now for Visual flying...but get to know about them for now.So far 1-6 basically has upgraded your FSX to an FSX+ in general. They are not specific sceneries as such...but things like detailed Clouds etc really enhances your simulation and make your sceneries even better.Now for the sceneries.1. Megascenery from PCAviator. They have the Island of O'ahu, Hawaii (My Fav) , Southern California, Phoenix, Dallas Fort Worth.2.Aerosoft's Lukla, Nepal. This is small but amazing experience landing at that slopped runway near Mt. Everest.3. LLH's Courchevel airport + VFR France's Northern Alps (FS9 + FSX Patch). These two products are from two different vendors but the combination of these two is deadly. My all time favorite scenery and experience of flying and landing in one of the slopiest (Is that a word?) runway. I love it.4. Flight Tampa St. Maarten Princess Juliana airport. This one enhances the airport but removes the default objects from the rest of the Island which was not too shabby in the first place since Microsoft FSX had done up this Island prettty good to begin with and leaves it bare. But I have removed some of the BGLs from Fly Tampa to get back those objects and have best of both worlds.5. Aerosoft has another very small Island scenery called Helgoland which is extremely nice but very small and its up north of Germany.6. That Megascenery Oahu could be enhanced further with Aerosoft's Dilingham airport + I have published three freeware sceneries here at AVISM Library for O'ahu (shameless Plug) that sits on top of Megascenery O'ahu mentioned here at item 1. (video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5ExMg5EDhs)7. Aerosoft's Venice is very nice. Its the entire city of Venice along with a detailed airport with custom runway textures!In fact Aerosoft has some stuff you may want to take a look yourself.http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/us/ibosh...w480,48125905208. VFR France has some FS9 sceneries that works in FSX with a patch and that they are not bad. I have their La Guadeloupe and their La Martinique. (Don't get their St-Martin et St-Barth

[Geofa 108]

To Manny's excellent list which I concur with I would add the free (donation ware if you are inclined) Bluesky Sierra Nevada Range-available here on avsim in 5-6 parts.Imho some of the most beautiful mountains in the world-Yosemite is amazing!You also may want to give Tileproxy a try-also free.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Manny 1,293]

Geof,I just went there to get the link for the OP and I noticed he is making Telluride, CO. I am excited about that one.. Good choice! :)

[Geofa 108]

Yeah-I talked to him about moving North to Tahoe and Mt. Lassen-keeping the fingers crossed!I also will for sure recommend your Hawaii add in scenery available also here at avsim!http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest cbuchner1]

There are a couple of screenshots with Tileproxy in the "Screen Shots" section. My recent ones are all marked with TP in the subject header. If that appears interesting to you, give it a try.What you get is photoreal wherever there's coverage from one of the Internet providers, but you have to go relatively slowly to allow it to catch up with loading.But you may have to get a decent terrain mesh from elsewhere. Tileproxy does not (yet) deliver that. A good mesh adds a great deal to the realism, as you can see in my Mt.St Helens screenshots and flickr set. This also applies to FSX default scenery. It's a mess without a mesh, especially outside the US and Europe ;)Christian

[Guest cbuchner1]

A 64 bit OS is recommended for a machine with 4 GB of RAM - or you will hit address space limits pretty soon.

[Rimshot 1,131]

And ofcourse FTX, just released a couple of hours ago. There's a thread active about it on the first page of the forums.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

GEXnhanced and both UTX-USA and Canada. You'll be all set for some pretty fabulous VFR and IFR FL's.:)Mitch

[slashed2 53]

And to go along with all that great scenery you need a good external weather engine like HiFi's ASX. It provides choices for many textures in the sim like runway and taxiway, sun, moon, water clouds etc.....And, to top it all off you need some great GA aircraft like the Digital Aviation Cheyenne or the Eaglesoft Twin Comanche. If you prefer the very slow go with the Digital Aviation Do27, no other GA add-on aircraft simulates an old crate as well as this one.