Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I've posted here. I took a break from simming for a bit... even picked up MSFS 2024 on release day. Recently, though, I got the itch to fly my PMDG 747 again, and it hit me that my entire collection of addons—worth thousands of dollars (it adds up little by little)—has just been sitting there unused. I could have put that money toward private pilot school instead, lol.

I know MSFS 2020/2024 has unbeatable scenery, no denying it, and it runs great on my good ol' over-a-decade-old flight sim PC. My i7-5820K is still rocking (yeah, I've got Windows 11 Pro on it, hehe) paired with Quest Pro VR (Virtual Desktop works wonders).

Enter the Lossless Scaling app—it's giving me unreal performance in Prepar3D v5, especially on my 4K monitors.

The two addons I've purchased for Prepar3D that changed everything for me recently are:

• FS Global 2024
• Fcscenerys

Give Fcscenerys a try (even if just a few hundred Prepar3D users buy his products, the revenue could help him fund treatment for his terminal cancer, which he desperately needs). You can grab a country package if you don't want the global one. Heads up: each US state is around 40-50GB, so you'll need plenty of space. I'll have to pick up some more SSDs to download and back up the whole package.

These two addons pulled me back to Prepar3D so I could finally fly my PMDG 747 (400/8), Majestic Q400 Training Edition, Leonardo Maddog X, and maybe the FSLabs Airbus. I've got like 80-90% of all Prepar3D addons out there, but have I used them much? Barely. This hobby is expensive, lol.

This time around, I'm barely tweaking anything in the simulator. I know which addons are solid and which are wonky. I just installed Orbx Global Base with openLC, followed by FS Global 2024 Mesh, and Fcscenerys. Fcscenerys does take up a ton of space and time to download—I've got about 25 US states so far, and I'm already running low. (I've also got DCS and X-Plane 12 installed, plus I need room for MSFS 2024 for my Blacksquare planes and general aviation flights.)

But after seeing graphics like this... I don't know what to say. The screenshot below is from the PMDG flight tutorial from KDEN to KSFO. Look at those mountains! There's autogen with Fcscenerys, and Orbx night lights show up exactly as they should.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Orbx Global Lights

 

 

 

 

Thank you Prepar3d v5 for one more final run for me.  I just wish developers still supported this platform.  It doesn't have any more VAS issues like 32 Bit FSX did.  And Lossless Scaling App does wonders for the sim.  

 

Enjoy

Looks like the now closed MegaScenery Earth scenery … looked great from altitude.

Enjoy my time with PMDG 747 in P3D 

 

Fcscenery does have multi seasons, and I never tried MegaScenery (can't say about it).  The mesh from FSGlobal 2024 is really helping me out too.  Getting my final run of fun with Prepar3d  

And is that you Rob?

Edited January 31Jan 31 by Skywolf

Enjoyable thread and one I can certainly relate to. P3DV5 plus years of collected addons is too good to walk away from. One question. Why do you need a mesh addon with ORBX Global and land class or even photoscenery?. 

1 hour ago, Patco Lch said:

Enjoyable thread and one I can certainly relate to. P3DV5 plus years of collected addons is too good to walk away from. One question. Why do you need a mesh addon with ORBX Global and land class or even photoscenery?. 

Mesh helps pop the mountains and stuff.  Any mesh will help.  Orbx Global and openLC doesn't have mesh.  I didn't install any of the TrueEarth and FTX regions in the sim, since I am not flying any GA in Prepar3d.  The tubeliners are my Prepar3d for now (GA flying is MSFS2024).  

The mesh + FCScenery's is giving me almost Global TrueEarth feel...giving me best of both worlds to some degree.

Performance is awesome by the way.

Edited January 31Jan 31 by Skywolf

1 hour ago, Patco Lch said:

Enjoyable thread and one I can certainly relate to. P3DV5 plus years of collected addons is too good to walk away from. One question. Why do you need a mesh addon with ORBX Global and land class or even photoscenery?. 

I was thinking the same thing. Orbx Global, Vector and openLC seem to be pretty impressive to me! I'm using P3Dv5.4

20 minutes ago, simaddict said:

I was thinking the same thing. Orbx Global, Vector and openLC seem to be pretty impressive to me! I'm using P3Dv5.4

I do have Orbx Global as underlying layer for areas where I don't have FCScenery installed...I compared my KDEN-KSFO shots with Orbx Global layer only (with MESH), it was good but after seeing those insane mountain ranges with FCScenery, it is hard to go back.  It is like for me like having MSFS2024 style graphics running on my sim.  For me this allowing me to enjoy my addons one last time...and get all my money's worth.

How do you guys manage with storage? I've got just Argentina, Colombia and Texas, but my SSD got filled up too quickly and I had to uninstall them. And now I want the whole Americas pack😂

2 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

How do you guys manage with storage? I've got just Argentina, Colombia and Texas, but my SSD got filled up too quickly and I had to uninstall them. And now I want the whole Americas pack😂

unfortunately the only way is to buy large SSD storage! My recommendation is to buy extreme large ones 4 tb or larger (and not do it like me and cheap out with smaller storage 🤣)

10 minutes ago, Blasb said:

unfortunately the only way is to buy large SSD storage! My recommendation is to buy extreme large ones 4 tb or larger (and not do it like me and cheap out with smaller storage 🤣)

you don't really need SSDs though, just good quality HDs by the likes of Seagate and Western Digital. 

I have a couple of external SSDs I store photo scenery on from multiple sources from FScenery, MSE and some free. However, personally I just prefer ORBX scenery, TE or just Global and Land Class and that’s for jet liners as well as my A2A piston singles. Just the color uniformity, better resolution at lower altitude just looks more realistic to me. And you don’t have blotches blocked out by cloud cover that has to be filled in with autogen trees. This is just my preference with all respect to Fernando and prayers for his health challenges.

Incidentally there is free global as well as regional mesh to be had at Fly Away Simulations.

https://flyawaysimulation.com/

After installing, I do move the the original rar files to another storage device.  My main flight sim drive is a 2TB PCIE SSD 

Edited January 31Jan 31 by Skywolf

12 hours ago, Skywolf said:

And is that you Rob?

Yes, all of me so far … came down with nasty flu/cold which means no work which means Flight Sim time and buying a ton more airports and aircraft and stuff I’ll probably never get to … I still use P3D (much less frequently) but mostly MSFS 2024 and XP12 now.

4 hours ago, Luis Hernandez said:

How do you guys manage with storage

For local storage I use 8TB Samsung 9100 NVMe (purchased them before the memory insanity hit).  But also run a 10/20G network (probably bump that up to 100G in the near future) to 164 TB NAS which works surprisingly well for P3D and XP12 but not for MSFS 2024.

Most interesting post here because I have P3dv4.5 and v.6.0 installed since long time and I currently use the older Orbx sceneries there. 

And I can fly most native FSX sceneries and aircraft there and I will never give that up . 

At Orbx I have all the perfect True Earth sceneries installed but these cover only a few countries worldwide. I've had a look at the website and looks good

and there is a reasonable pricing for single countries. It's possible to install single countries to fill the gap and I will defenetily try that out.