Take a look at this and tell me how textures and lightinhg quality compares to MSFS 2024. Gap closing?
 

 

In quiet a few aspects XP12 has surpassed MSFS.  I find it the more immersive sim to use.

MSFS2024 currently does beat XP12 in terms of terrain texture quality for two reasons.

1. Texture sharpness.
2. Displacement mapping.

Displacement mapping adds to the sharpness because dips, tractor wheel tracks, ploughing grooves, cracks etc in the surface are 3d instead of just a part of the texture.  These two features will be a massive draw for those simmers comparing MSFS and XP12 textures.  Of course, MSFS having global satellite imagery will also lure people into MSFS.  The Map Enhancement Tool goes someway to improve the terrain look and sharpness.  What appears to be shimmering in the sim, which is a big problem, is apparently down to the new lighting engine rather than an AA issue - prospective users wont know this of course so it is another reason XP12 may be overlooked as a choice.

As far as closing the gap, in quite a few respects it is MSFS that needs to close the gap to XP12, and that is why (after a weeks worth of testing, configuring and finding addons) XP12 lured me away from MSFS2024!

Edited July 21, 2025Jul 21 by MrBitstFlyer

This weekend I opened XP for the first time in two weeks. 
 

I was very pleasantly surprised how great the lighting and skies looked. 
 

I was at one of my favorite payware airports (v12 version). Started up and got on my way.

had a GREAT flight in the X-Trident AW 109 (it’s basically an airliner with rotor blades!). 
 

but, since it’s an area with which I’m familiar, and even with a full stack of ortho, simheavan, global forests, etc., there were just so many areas where the scenery just wasn’t convincing. 
 

Fantastic flight in a fantastic helo with good scenery. 
 

Jumped in MSFS after that and had a a good flight in a good helo with fantastic scenery. 
 

that’s still what it’s boiling down to for me: great flying OR great scenery. 

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

, since it’s an area with which I’m familiar,

Where do you mostly fly?

1 hour ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Where do you mostly fly?

Mainly US west coast, HI, FL, and Great Britain. 
 

been mixing more CO in with the SoCal flights, too, now that you guys ‘splained me on Map Enhancement Pro. 

42 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Mainly US west coast, HI, FL, and Great Britain. 
 

been mixing more CO in with the SoCal flights, too, now that you guys ‘splained me on Map Enhancement Pro. 

For England and Scotland it well worth getting the three TrueEarth Packages from Orbx. They are reasonable priced (on offer for AU$8 each), have nicer looking autogen buildings, hundreds of custom landmarks and individually placed 3d trees with individually set heights - many more trees then SimHeaven or Global Forests.

If you use TrueEarth for the autogen, trees and landmarks with the Map Enhancment Tools ortho, you will get a very nice looking England & Scotland. I personally don't like the TrueEarth ortho as the resolution is lower than the Map Enhancement tool maps (good colours though).

All you need to do is place the Orbx TrueEarth products above SimHeaven and disable the TrueEarth ortho layers. Leave the SimHeaven forest layer active so you will see simHeaven trees/autogen outside the TrueEarth areas.

EDIT - the three TrueEarth packages are AU$20 total, bargain!

Edited July 21, 2025Jul 21 by MrBitstFlyer

1 hour ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

EDIT - the three TrueEarth packages are AU$20 total, bargain!

Hey where are you seeing this? I'm seeing AU$107 for the bundle?

 

Sitting out most of these changes other than those done like Global Forests, SimHeaven (some not all) due to catching up on a long thread elsewhere from Mister X who is now at Laminar - about why no updates to SFD Global  Mister X librarys etc - essentially XP 12.3 will be the big one to address finally a lot of scenery issues people have (Including me). 

27 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

For England and Scotland it well worth getting the three TrueEarth Packages from Orbx. They are reasonable priced (on offer for AU$8 each), have nicer looking autogen buildings, hundreds of custom landmarks and individually placed 3d trees with individually set heights - many more trees then SimHeaven or Global Forests.

If you use TrueEarth for the autogen, trees and landmarks with the Map Enhancment Tools ortho, you will get a very nice looking England & Scotland. I personally don't like the TrueEarth ortho as the resolution is lower than the Map Enhancement tool maps (good colours though).

All you need to do is place the Orbx TrueEarth products above SimHeaven and disable the TrueEarth ortho layers. Leave the SimHeaven forest layer active so you will see simHeaven trees/autogen outside the TrueEarth areas.

EDIT - the three TrueEarth packages are AU$20 total, bargain!

Yes, I have most of the TE US sceneries (missing only OR) and all 3 GB v12. 👍
 

definite thumbs up for the TE’s, and esp the v12 optimized GB! Wonderful scenery and I can’t imagine flying without them! 😊

Mostly, I’m saying that both sims still make you compromise one way or another. 

And that’s okay, because I regularly use and enjoy both sims, just for different priorities

Now, for airliner/bizjet flying, who cares…? You’re blasting out of an airport at >2k fpm. Take your pick. I still enjoy the FF 757 or Zibo. 
 

But for helo or standard GA flying, it’s just not great unless you’re really dialed in to the cockpit systems and IFR procedures and such. 
 

For e.g., in XP, even with Orbx TE, there’s still a TON of missing autogen due to World Object limitations. 
Same exact area in MSFS, all the houses/bldgs are at least 3D objects, etc, and I can generally hold somewhat higher FPS

Given that, if I want to re-create a real world helicopter sightseeing tour, I can promise you I’m taking the FlyInside B206 or as of 2 weeks ago, the Taogs H500C. Or if I want to cover more ground, I’m likely in the FSR500 or JF Hawk v2

but again, if I’m doing Serious Simmer aircraft practice, I’m much more likely to be in the AFL King Air or XA Citation (or “soon”, the HS TBM). 

If I’m feeling nostalgic, nothing takes me back to my IRL fledgling days quicker than the JF Arrow III + REP in XP. It’s just THAT close ❤️

By the same token, I can guarantee that for Carrier Ops, I’m not using EITHER one of them. 😉

it’s basically down to which one is the closest fit for purpose. 🤙

28 minutes ago, JonathanC said:

Hey where are you seeing this? I'm seeing AU$107 for the bundle?

The low price is likely if you already own the v11 version. 
they’re normally about $100US. 
 

wait for a sale, they go down by 30% off (40% if you wait for Black Friday)

Aah ok. Thank you. 

1 hour ago, coastaldriver said:

due to catching up on a long thread elsewhere from Mister X who is now at Laminar

Long thread where? 

5 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Long thread where? 

The thread was at XPlane.Org but was buried in a long thread about Mr X's mods to autogen, the payware package SPD and updating it and integrating them with meshes and SimHeaven for XP12. Mister X basically said that he would not update the stuff any further as he was working at Laminar and basically said that 12.3 would be the game changer in this area of scenery fidelity in XPlane - seems that is what he works on now! Seems Laminar picked the right guy to do this! I only picked it up when looking at an old package called Japan Pro which changed all the autogen buildings etc in Japan and more importantly the issue of trees from older scenery and XP12. Cannot give you a direct link as I said it was in that thread area which dealt with the whole autogen issue and trees!

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

The low price is likely if you already own the v11 version. 
they’re normally about $100US. 
 

wait for a sale, they go down by 30% off (40% if you wait for Black Friday)

Oh no - sorry about that! yes I had the XP11 versions.

20 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Oh no - sorry about that! yes I had the XP11 versions.

No worries, my friend - you’ve been a tremendous help to me in several ways! 👍