Flight Unlimited vs Megascenery

[Guest R_Driscoll]

The colours are great, but why don't the roads match to the underlying scenery? I haven't got MSFS so don't know how they do this. I would have thought if its photographic scenery the roads would match, and in places you seem to have two road systems! - one photographic and the other a sort of misplaced floating overlay.

[Guest twsimfan]

1. It is not photographic scenery.2. It is much quicker than photographic scenery.3. It doesn't always match because all lot of FS is not accurate to the real world... the mesh & roads are.(Hopefully you were talking about the RealScene 2004 & USA Roads... MegaScenery is photoreal... but it is also very slow to load... at least the LA stuff. :))

[Guest twsimfan]

Allan,"I went to that site and low and behold they are only selling this product to folks that have them fast connects.1/2 a CD worth I can not download that much..."My understanding is that it is supposed to be available soon on a CD. I just didn't want to wait that long.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/84745.jpgEven though you don't get all the rooftops that photo-real would get you seeing a town laid out properly makes it a lot more real... especially a town you know personally. ;)But it is the combination of RealScene & USA Roads that really makes it.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/84746.jpgRealScene puts the ridge next to Boeing Field... USA Roads puts Interstate 5 onto that ridge where it belongs. That is a tricky section of I-5... I always get stuck driving and there is so much traffic that you have to pay attention to the road... but the view over KBFI is awesome... the last thing you want to do is look at the road. :-eekOf course lets not forget that RealScene 2004 includes landclass too.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/84747.jpgThe landclass is where you get those realistic colors. :)In the end you already have the most important piece...http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/84748.jpg... without good mesh you just don't get hills that look like hills! :-lolI think you will like USA Roads though when it comes out on CD. The CD should include the new upgrade which I have yet to download & install.

[Guest Allan_D]

Thanks again Tom.Some more nice shots, Looks like a must have add on, when they put it on CD I'll have it.Another question if I may ask.This question should be in the Racing forums but here goes anyway What is your favourite road racing sim? and if I wish to multiplay on my Lan do I need a copy of the game for each Computer or does it fully load into each so the play disk isn't needed?ThanksHave Fun :-vuurAllan and PuppyBush Flying Unlimitedhttp://avsim.com/hangar/air/bfu/logo70.gif

[Guest twsimfan]

Allan,I'm sure you will be happy with USA Roads when you are able to get it. You need to get into this century... get some broad band! :)I put a copy of your post into Racing Fools... you need to go down there to see my answer. :-blaActually I'm not trying to be a stickler for forum protocol... this time... :-lol... I wanted the other folks there to have a chance at giving you some input. :)

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Tom,I have just ordered the 1Mbps BT Yahoo Broadband service. This will be a major upgrade from my current 64kbps ISDN connection, so I am really looking forward to the huge increase in download speed. Assuming that my telephone line passes the test, I should be getting it installed on Wednesday, July 28.Another bonus is that it appears to be cheaper than my existing connection :-eek

[JimmiG 244]

I've seen some shots of USA Roads and it looks promising. Since I do a lot of mountain flying I'd have liked a "USA Rivers" as well of course. In fact, I'd also like a "USA Lakes" addon. All those combined should create some really realistic scenes.Also the inaccurate landclass-based scenery of FS2004 really shows its limits when using this addon as you get "spilled spagetti"-type roads with no underlying city textures. I don't like some of your shots at all. It may be more "accurate" but I still think it would look more "real" with just major roads shown, as long as you don't know what it's supposed to look like in real life anyway :) I've never seen a place that looked like that in real life - farmland and forests with a meshwork of roads ontop of it??I may still get the addon once they make it available on CD.Photographic scenery is still the way to go for 100% realism but it has limitations of its own - even with DVD's and huge harddrives it's hard to cover larger areas in great detail. I'd love to have 0.5m/pixel scenery for tens of thousands of square miles but I don't think that will happen anytime soon :)

[Guest twsimfan]

Chris,Good luck. I kept getting ads for DSL over the phone line or broadband via the TV cable. I would sign up and then be told that the service wasn't available on my street... that it would be 2 years. I got that 2 years line for 6 years. I've been on my current setup for 2 or 3 years now and they still don't have those other (more common) services on this street.What I have is a microwave antenna on my roof that points at a mountain West of here. (There are lots of mountains West of here... they are called The Rockies. :-lol) Works great. It is supposed to be 10 to 15 percent quicker than DSL and 10 to 15 percent slower than a cable modem. All I know is it beats the he... err... heck... out of dialup! :):-wave I hope you get it all sorted out! :-jumpy

[Guest twsimfan]

Jimmi,"I don't like some of your shots at all. It may be more "accurate" but I still think it would look more "real" with just major roads shown, as long as you don't know what it's supposed to look like in real life anyway :)"I understand your point and agree with you some. I fly mosly in areas that I am familiar with to one degree or another. But I have to say I find it a good compromise."Photographic scenery is still the way to go for 100% realismIf the technology was up to it I would agree with you. I have no doubt that within the next few years it will be. You never did answer my question about what kind of performance you were getting with the SF MegaScenery? I told you what my load times were like with the LA one. RealScene 2004 & USA Roads don't seem to affect my performance at all. With the LA MegaScenery my fps wasn't too bad... not as good as without it... but the load times were totally beyond what I was willing to put up with.

[Guest musikai]

Hi!About the Photographic scenery filesize problem:A possible Solution for the big file sizes could be that kind of image compression: ECW from www.ermapper.comLook around that site and also google for ecw.It should be able to use that also in 3d software. I have a pack of satellite images for complete Germany in that format and there's also an opengl 3d mode where you can "fly" over Germany, not flat but with the images laid over height maps.

[JimmiG 244]

The loading time is an FS2004 issue and affects all photographic sceneries such as Switzerland Pro and the UK VFR scenery.With some tweaks loading time is reduced to about 2.5 minutes with Extended Terrain Textures enabled and about 1 minute with those disabled. FPS remains very good at 30-70 FPS depending on AI traffic and weather, using a 2.2 GHz AthlonXP/Radeon 9700 Pro.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

Why does this type of scenery take so long to load in FS2004 ? Tom's estimate of around ten minutes is clearly a ludicrous amount of time. Who's going to accept waiting that long ?

[JimmiG 244]

Two reasons:1. FS2004 was never designed for these types of sceneries. Default scenery uses only a couple of "generic" textures, photographics sceneries use tens of thousands of unique texture files.2. FS loads a lot more scenery than FU3 does. As you have *probably* noticed (:) ) the scenery in FU3 gets blurry and less detailed very close to the aircraft. FS2004 loads much more texture data.I doubt it would take 10 minutes for anyone unless their harddrive is very slow or severely fragmented, but 4-5 minutes is probably to be expected on lower-end systems.

[Guest twsimfan]

Jimmi,"With some tweaks loading time is reduced to about..."That is my problem... I didn't like the way the install tweaked my system. I like all the detail turned on. I couldn't see the point of having a "MegaScenery" and turning off all the good stuff. :)

[JimmiG 244]

Well, the settings Megascenery puts in do reduce image quality. I never let their installer touch my settings. The only setting I use that reduces image quality is Extended Terrain Textures which I disable.Most tweaks involve forcnig the sim to start loading the textures farther away (to reduce blurries). The improvement in loading time was achieved by creating a special partition for the scenery, at the beginning of the fastest drive in my system, and optimizing it for the photographic sceneries. It was quite time consuming and technical but well worth it.