DickB

FSWC (freeware) can sometimes be used to alleviate the banding problems in the water to some extent. I don't know of anything to help the problem as far as the sky is concerned. It's a pity, because dusk/dawn are my favourite times to fly.

I fly Lancasters. The sound of 4 Rolls Royce Merlins is music enough for me. I wouldn't be able to hear anything else anyway :smile:

+1

I took some screenshots of the Derwent Valley with FTXG for another member. We both thought this one was particularly impressive, so I thought worth posting here:

Changing the halo.bmp does indeed change the size of the runway lights. But you can adjust them by adding the following lines to the [DISPLAY] section of FSG.CFG: RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR = 1.0 RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR = 1.0 RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR = 1.0 RINWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR =1.0 These are the default values. Adjust to taste. I experimented with several halo.bmp files (including the fix above) before settling on one I modified myself. Happy to send you my collection to try if you PM me with your email address.

Or £3.5K. That's a much better price than most of the competition. If I was in Oz I would be seriously tempted. But I'm guessing with shipping to UK and import duty there wouldn't be a lot of difference.

For W7 - C:\Users\<<userid>>\Appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\standard.xml

Well, I bit the bullet. Took a complete system image, backed up everything in sight, and installed FTXG. And I have to say I'm impressed. The area that I fly (UK/Northern Europe) now looks real - lots more trees (even in towns/cities, which is correct), and green fields stretching for as far as the eye can see. Except in winter of course, when the colours are correctly muted, and there are more muddy fields, some with a sprinkling of snow or frost. Lovely. And the night lighting is beautiful. On the performance side, I'm not a FPS counter, but I don't think I've lost anything. Everything is as smooth as before, and if anything the scenery appears slightly more stable. One of my favourite flights is low and fast down the Derwent valley, and the scenery load has never quite been able to keep up. Now it's rock solid and crystal clear. No idea whether this is a feature of the FTXG instal or just some happy coincidence. And all this so far straight out of the box without even a defrag (running now). No other anomalies noted so far. Given comments from others, I'm particularly relieved to find that my water didn't suddenly turn green :smile: . For the record, I'm running FTXG with UTX (all roads disabled), FEX, FSWC, ST LC and FSG Mesh (not NextMap, tho I have that installed and may give it a try). Shade is also currently enabled. All scenery sliders maxed. For the install of FTXG I uninstalled GEX from the GEX UI (I didn't completely uninstall the product). I left UTX enabled throughout. I haven't had to change anything in the scenery library.

Accufeel and Opus. Magic combination. And the support for Opus is second to none. Check out their unofficial support forum on this site http://forum.avsim.net/forum/577-the-opusfsx-forum/

Thanks guys, that's what I thought.

I'm a bit puzzled. Can someone tell me if the landmark buildings in these pix (and others - I recall seeing Tower Bridge in an earlier screenshot of London) are being supplied by FTXG or by another package ?

Yes, it's tricky. I will probably image my system and give FTXG a try. The easy decision is if I don't like it and can just restore the old image and carry on. But if I want to stay with it - well, of course I'll keep the old image, just in case. Beyond that, I keep a pretty detailed log of what I instal and (consciously) change, so in theory I could go back to the 'fork' and pick up the trail from there, but there's many a slip . . . . I'm still surprised that ORBX have such talented scenery designers, and yet seem to be missing the basic principles of software installation/un-installation. Or maybe Nick is right (wouldn't be the first time) and I am being naïve :rolleyes:

Absolutely agree with Jan. I've been flying without UTX roads for years. You can still fly VFR based on rivers. lakes, coastlines, towns, cities etc.

Many thanks for this Rob. So if I understand correctly, the 'texture backup' option offered by the FTXG installer just backs up the textures, not the other FSX files. If so, those who have installed FTXG without backing up the other files (and why would they) cannot go back to their previous setup without re-installing FSX. They can uninstall FTXG and restore their textures, but changes to the other files will remain. Which may or may not cause them problems, depending on what other scenery addons they have now or in the future. Correct ? Even when the uninstall program is available, it can't help these folks, since the files were never backed up. Or I guess if they are standard FSX files which are not (normally) changed, they could be copied from a vanilla system ? Major case for doing a full system image backup before install methinks. Even when the uninstaller is available. Thank goodness for Acronis True Image :smile:

That's what I have. You don't really feel climbs and descents. You really just feel engine/controls vibration, bumps etc. Taxiing is good, as is the takeoff run, and landings (particularly heavy ones like I do) are great. But I would strongly recommend pairing it with an addon like Accufeel, which accentuates the effects.

Yes indeed, and I can thoroughly recommend it. Quiet amazing the amount it adds to the experience, particularly on the ground. And great value for money IMO. But it doesn't quite give the feeling of riding on air which the motion platforms do.

They say £5999 on the video I think. Ouch.

Well - there's one benefit that FTXG's given me, and that's without buying it. Like many others, I imagine, I've been taking a long hard look at my GEX scenery to compare with the various FTXG screenshots, most of which I notice were taken with the scenery sliders maxed out. I have never been able to run with the sliders higher than Dense or Very Dense, but for the purpose of this exercise I cranked them up to Extremely Dense, expecting to see GEX at its best, but also some stutters. Not at all - everything is as smooth as at the lower settings. I have no idea why. But I like it ! It's almost as if GEX is saying, "Don't leave me, see what I can do when you really get to know me". :He He:

I think you overestimate my DIY skills !! Looks good though.

Anyone know prices on this ? I emailed them asking for prices but so far no reply.

Pretty much as I expected. Are you able to list all the files changed, Rob ? Or are there too many ?

I'd hazard a guess that those that are saying that FTXG looks much better than GEX do their flying mainly in US, where GEX is due a major update (in plan I believe). I don't have GEX US, but the difference between FTXG and GEX EU looks to me fairly marginal right now.

Yes, the price tag is about £5000. Which is still a bit high for me. But that seems to be the going market rate for "home" motion platforms right now. Of course, there's always the lottery . . .

I installed NextMap Europe and had much the same experience as others above. So I backed off to the previous version of FSG mesh, which seems to be OK.

Thanks - I've been considering a motion platform (when I can find one at the right price :rolleyes:) and that's something I've always wondered.