Jocko Flocko

It's been reduced to zoom level 18 and the tile sizes have been reduced from 512X512 to 256X256. What they've done to the former sim is an absolute disgrace and highly noticeable on high end PC's that are running the game in 4K with maximum settings on RTX 4090's. Those playing FS 2024 never noticed it as you've been capped at Zoom Level 18 since that game was released. In FS 2020 For example, before SU16 the south of France was being streamed in at Zoom Level 20, not all places were, many were Zoom Level 18 and 19. However popular areas like European alps, New Zealand, South Western California, The U.K., etc were streamed in at Zoom Level 20. The disgraceful silence from the developers is the most telling and off putting, I paid for a simulation that looked better in 2021 than it does now in 2025.

What's absolutely infuriating for me is the fact that Asobo/Microsoft absolutely refuse to comment on the downgrading of the ground imagery in SU16. For example, The Caribbean update in FS2020 was a whole waste of time for whoever worked on it in Asobo, apart from the horrible tile LOD so many buildings and POI's no longer align with the "new" ground imagery; it looks terrible. I would just like some guidance from Asobo/Microsoft on whether or not this is permanent and if I should begin removing a sim that is now a shadow of it's former self.

Microsoft/Asobo disabled streamed ground texture tiles higher than Zoom Level 18 in Sim Update 16. FS2024 has *ALWAYS* been limited to Zoom Level 18. Why did they do this? Xbox. Before SU16 FS2020 was streaming in ground scenery tiles up to Zoom Level 20, especially in places like the South of France, Los Angeles, The Greek islands, Many European alps, etc. The source imagery isn't solely the problem, it is in many areas where coverage is lacking or none existent but the main issue is the deliberate disabling of ZL20 tiles. This is why the developer of MSFS Map Enhancement had to release an update over a week ago as "high LOD" tiles were no longer supported in the SU16 beta (over on flightSim.to you can check the latest change log of the MSFS Map Enhancement Tool) . This was/is one of the reasons I never purchased 2024, I simply didn't like the way the ground imagery looked, however the biggest reason was because everything including aircraft was being streamed into the sim; that's a no go for me. I have always flown MSFS 2020 on my 70” QLED 4K Samsung tv/monitor in it’s native 4K resolution, this Zoom Level/LOD limitation in SU16 sticks out like a sore thumb for me.

I don't remember Hawaii looking this blurry, it was always a stunning island chain to explore. When Asobo limited the aerial imagery zoom level to 18 from 20, it has had a major impact on the places that were being rendered at the ZL 20. Hawaii and Monaco are a perfect example. https://ibb.co/bR83Pq7y https://ibb.co/M5MPL4XF

IMHO, it's one of the greatest applications ever created for the MSFS series of sims.

Cheers Bert! Much appreciated. 🙂

Very cool! Hey Bert, what LIDAR data are/were you using for the Vancouver region is MSFS 2020? I *LOVE* flying in that area of Canada as it's absolutely gorgeous.

The streaming of almost everything really irks me. There's a reason why many of us own very fast M.2 drives and aren't really bothered by having to download update packages every now and then as well as world updates. I'm fairly certain this was done for Xbox users to save space, however I wish there was an option to do a permanent install like 2020 is, hopefully Asobo/Microsoft offers that option as I would imagine hundreds of thousands of users downloading the exact same files every time they fly will end up costing Asobo/Microsoft quite a bit of money in server bandwidth. I'm just grateful I decided to give this new sim a "grace period" until after Christmas; let Asobo & Microsoft iron out the major bugs for several months.

Take me back to the days of the big wide body jets like the L1011 and the roaring sounds of the Boeing 707 & DC-9. Aircraft that burned so much fuel that air pollution wasn't even a consideration, where the black smoke billowing out of your engines on takeoff meant they were working right. Aircraft that I have to fly, not program for 30 minutes like we're making a trip to the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. Big heavy wide bodies that behave like an ex-wife does when you're late bringing back the kids from a fishing trip late at night; pure dread, white knuckle time... Hours of absolute boredom interrupted by seconds of sheer terror as you look over at your 24 year old co-pilot with a look on his face like he just messed his shorts.

Gents, all of your suggestions make perfect sense. If I had the time to try and find out which aircraft, airport, scenery, etc file was causing the issue I'd do it, but quite honestly there's so many of them it's enough to drive a man to drink again. I started using that scenery linker program and began moving all the scenery files in my community folder into separate categorized folders onto the different drives, so far this application works absolutely fantastic. I had no idea it has a built-in map showing you all your scenery files on a map and allows you to create categories based on regions and other aspects. For example, I just finished creating a category called "Commercial Tube Liners" where only large major international airports are linked for when I'm flying mostly at FL300 to FL400. However some files always have to be in the community folder and it's best to just leave them there. IE: Navigraph plugins, TDS GTNXI 750, scenery library files, etc. But these are nothing in size and number when compared to the massive volume and size of many large airport products. For example, FlyTampa's Las Vegas City and KLAS McCarran package is almost 6GB's on it's own... Appreciate all the help guys, hope you all have a half decent Sunday.

Good evening gentlemen wherever you may be as well as any Ladies. For context I'll give you an example of how I arrived with having so many payware and freeware addons in my community folder. I completely quit drinking about eight years ago, since then I've used the weekly savings in money I now have to purchase games, addons, etc. Here in Canada, where I live, booze is heavily taxed so on average I would spend about a hundred and fifty dollars worth every week either at home or at the local pub. You get the picture. Since building a new machine back in May of 2022 I've purchased roughly that same amount every week on MSFS scenery, aircraft, utilities, etc; developers LOVE me. This new habit has amassed a huge community library with thousands of symbolic links across four 2TB NVMe drives. Some would think the load time when simply starting MSFS with this many addons in the community folder would be excruciatingly long and painful, however it's not that bad, roughly and a half minutes. Fast forward to about a month ago and I started having crashes for the first time, however these crashes are repeatable like clockwork. With this many addons I can now only create and fly three different times when upon the fourth time of hitting escape, selecting a different plane and/or departure airport then selecting Fly the sim will crash 1/3 of the way through loading the flight. As I said before this can be recreated like clockwork. So far I have solved this by simply running only all of my OrbX Central and Aerosoft libraries at one time; all of which I own 90% of the products offered by these services. Sorry for the long babble and annoying time it took to get to the point. Have any of you ladies and/or gentlemen come across this issue or anything similar to it? Do any of you think this is being caused by a specific addon(s) or simply just running far too many of them at the same time? So far I'm simply adding back my payware only mods to see at what point the crashes start again. I am fully aware of the fantastic application MSFS Addons Linker and I've used it in the past, however I guess I'm a sucker for not wanting any limitations of where I feel like flying if I don't have X,Y and Z addons loaded. Would love to hear any comments, opinions, solutions and/or recommendations. I'm currently running an Intel 13900K, 64GB DDR5-8000, GTX 4090. Hope all of you have a fantastic weekend! Thanks for reading!

Outstanding work Bert and all the others that helped get this great bird up and running with the G3X. I saw over on the WT Discord you fellas working on this a couple days ago, thank you! 🙂

Thanks for the info Bert, I figured as much as they would have been posted over on flightsim.to already... It kind of irks me a little when developers release aircraft and can't be bothered to even give an update on whether or not they'll at least be patching the plane to work with the WT G3X. The updated version of the FS Reborn Sting S4 is absolutely amazing, such a fantastic little aircraft.

I hate to bring an older thread out of "retirement" but I'm loving the new Working Title G3X, it's completely changed the way I look at the aircraft that use it as it's default avionics package since Sim Update 15. @Bert Pieke Is the link you shared back in February the latest version you have for bringing up the SWS RV-14 to be compatible with the latest G3X Working Titile build? It's such a fantastic aircraft from SWS. @JYW I was able to get the Working Title G3X up and running in the Lightsim TL-Ultra Light alogn with copying over some of the engine specs to the panel.xml file. However, there's still a few corrections it needs for things like fuel flow, would you mind sharing what you've got for the panel.xml entries? The new Working Title G3X really deserves a dedicated thread for panel modifications for aircraft that have yet to be updated for SU-15. Thanks guys!

Nevermind, need to make sure these work correctly.

Thought you guys might appreciate a few screenshots taken using Nvidia's 4K DSR setting in P3D 2.5. You will have to click on the images to get the full resolution. This is an excellent aircraft and I am highly pleased with it, it's unfortunate that I only now just learned about how good it is. The on-board systems and engines simulation and flight model are outstanding and it actually "feels" like I'm in the middle of two very powerful Garret Turbo's. Cheers Andrew EDIT: Oh, and btw, the sounds that come with this aircraft are some of the *BEST* I have ever heard since I started flight simming back in 1995 when I was 20 years old. Who ever sourced and/or recorded the audio did a fantastic job! The "other" guys always tend to do a very half assed job on audio, so much so that they can't even bother to make an audio loop longer than 5 to 8 seconds for an engine high RPM file. On top of not trimming the audio files loop points properly, this gives a very repetitive fake sounding cockpit environment. The sounds in this aircraft addon are on par with A2A's, and that says a lot!

I would love to purchase this, however I've seen no half decent VC screen-shots anywhere on the internet, including the online shops... :/ Nevermind, I found your online HD video's. What a change from the "all gleam and no machine" dev's. I like it.

Well the issue seems to have strangely sorted itself out by disabling the icing effects with the external config, starting a session with FSX, exiting and then re-enabling the icing effetcs with the config application. Great aircraft, I just need to learn to be careful with these powerful turbine engines as they can very easily be "melted" to a crisp. Andrew Walker

Yeah, so I purchased this aircraft tonight thinking I would be purchasing a quality product as it's a PMDG aircraft. I load up the plane, enter the serial and all is well, go into the virtual cockpit and emanating from the center of the dash is what appears to be a flashing something or other, it's hard to explain. I did a Google search and this issue dates ***BACK TO 2010???*** The solution is to disable the icing effects by selecting medium quality cockpit? Huh? One of the the selling points for me for this aircraft was/is the icing effects on the windshield. Is this acceptable? Please tell me I haven't just wasted money on this software? Andrew Walker

WOW, that's amazing and definitely something that I could easily live with. That frame-rate is absolutely fantastic! I see our systems are quite close, did you see much of a difference when you upgraded to the Nvidia GTX 670? I have been thinking about upgrading my current card to the GTX 770 or the 780 as I also play quite a few other games, mainly Armed Assault II and III. THANK YOU to everyone else who have contributed towards letting me know what I can expect, it's GREATLY appreciated!

I have recently been getting into the big jets more, flying longer distances and quite frankly I absolutely adore the avionics packages on the current generation of 737's and would love to sit and program them, then watch the labor of my works unfold during approaches as these systems are absolutely amazing. For me obviously the PMDG 737NGX is the ultimate jet liner experience for Flight Simulator X, I think that's a given due to the amount of amazing detail that I have read and seen in screenshots and videos around the net over the last couple years. Bare with me, I'm getting to the climax here gents I'm used to flying Bush aircraft in remote areas like OrbX Southern Alaska where I max all sliders out to the right, except water, and get a nice constant locked 30FPS where ever I go, *However*, I understand that when running addons like the PMDG 737NGX a few sliders need to be backed off, this I understand, I'm not a complete nOOb Before I go ahead and lay my money down for this great addon what can I expect on my system in terms of performance? My current system is in my signature. Firstly I'm a medium sized airport pilot, flying in and out of the cosmetically updated OrbX airports is good enough for me, it's the systems, approaches and avionics I'm more interested in when flying these types of planes, not so much scenery eye candy. With similar systems like mine what are you guys seeing framerate wise? I have no other PMDG products to go buy, this would be my first and I don't know what to expect; 69$ isn't exactly cheap. Thanks Andrew Walker

"Which of course is an example of activation limits of which you are arguing against."Again, please read carefully. Activation limitations and install limits are completely different things. I can, for example, install a software product 100 times on my computer that uses a hardware based registration ID. As long as I am installing it on my machine the software functions correctly. I don't think it is to much to ask a user to re-activate either via website or email when one builds a new computer, that would be completely understandable. But limiting the amount of installs to one computer hardware ID a specific number of times is counter productive to your products userbase.

"By forcing you to either login during the install process to activate or remember your order number? Everyone has something to fight piracy. Complaining about 5 minutes of "work" to legitimately reinstall is ridiculous."Interesting, it looks like it sailed directly over your head, please, read carefully next time as you will notice I never said anywhere in my post that I minded loging in to re-activate my software. The Flight Sim Store wrapper that Orb-X scenery uses is quite satisfactory and effective in my opinion. I do however mind when I am limited by a company the amount of re-installs I am allowed to make on my computer. Poisoning ones userbase by usless and moot software authentication services is bad for buisness and only further pushes people towards using pirated software when they can't get the legitimate copy of the software they paid for up and running, as in many cases of legitimate FSX copies being over the install limit."Because you can get your registration to 50 of your closest friends .. thats why it doesnt work your way"Hardware ID based registration techniques would take care of this situation, many companies currently employ such techniques without imposing limits on the number of installs unless of course you build a new computer.

I agree with you 100% Jose. When you purchase a piece of software and provide the company with all of your information, as long as your registration information is in good standing and it hasn't been shared with others, there's no reason why limits should be imposed on customers who are legit owners of the software, period. When one goes to install the software on thier machine, as long as your registration infomration matches a legit registration on the companies master server, there's no justification to impose further limits during the re-install process. Doing so simply imposes penalites on those legit software owners who will basically walk away from the experience with a sour taste in their mouth. Orb-X and other fantastic scenery and aircraft producers really have the right idea in terms of the activation process.

No, one season only, summer.I made the HORRIBLE mistake of purchasing Mega Scenery Earth Washington state, I kind of jumped the gun and bought ALL tiles after buying only a few tiles in the imediate area around seattle which were pretty good. Thats how they suckered me in, the Seattle area is done quite well, runways line up properly with the ground imagery, no autogen mess, and the water masking wasn't half bad. But start venturing out into the rest of state and it's complete and utter useless garbage! Misaligned runways, autogen trees in the middle of runways like 3W5, absolutely disgusting water masking that looks from altitude like a child took a crayon and drew in the river and lake water masks. When you take all the horrible bugs the scenery comes with, and you couple that with horrific customer support and the disgustingly high price, I rate Mega Scenery Earth as one of the worst pieces of software I have ever purchased. I wouldn't wish it on my own worst enemy.Jocko