dtmicro

Well Just FYI, at least from what I've found using the compiler, there is really no such thing as 50cm in MS FSX, it's 60cm. Their native source for the ultra-res is probably coming from USGS sources of 12cm to 60cm mostly, with some higher, but it appears to all be compiled at 60cm (not 50) with a comrpession of around 70-80 or so. I do not even think the compiler will let you do 50cm. I have no idea why they continue to advertise this at 50cm when it is compiled at 60cm, and I believe their states (non Ultra-Res areas) are compiled at 1m. The files are way too small to even be 50cm.

If you don't use your lamp that often or you have it very bright to begin with, then yah the brighter screen isn't going to help that much. However, most lamps after about 1000-2000 hours lose 50% or more of their brightness, and at 3000-4000 hours 75% to 90% of brightness loss is quite common. How bright or OLD the lamp is does not affect sharpness, only the perception of it due to the way SOME may perceive a brighter image as being sharper. Also if using 3D on a projector, then it is much tougher because it sucks the brightness down when you put on the glasses (only 25% or so of the light makes it through the shutters of the glasses, so you already start with a 75% loss in brightness for 3d). That is why it's helpful to use a high gain screen, that and to fight ambient light. Personally I don't like projectors in ambient light, sure it can work, but you lose a lot of contrast even if you have enough brightness to fight the light. I agree to save money ONLY replace the lamp itself and NOT the housing. I think I paid $75 for my last Benq lamp (and it was the TRUE OEM lamp, not a chinese knock off, be careful about chinese knock-offs).

I guess I am somewhat of an expert at projectors (was in the industry sort of). So to answer the question about the lamps, lamp ratings MEAN nothing, they are made up by the manufacturer and are in NO way indicative of how long the lamp will last. It was sort of meant to be a RATING of how long the lamp will stay useable or bright enough to be useable, but that is impossible to know because every setup is different. The Da-Lite HIgh Power 2.4 gain screen not only makes the lamp more useable (By keeping things brighter), but it also helps reject ambient light, so if you don't have a perfect bat cave, the HP screen helps maintain a higher contrast. It does this by being retro-reflective (it rejects the light at certain points, which is also how it amplifies the gain). You do have to mount the screen kind of low to the floor to get the most gain (if you are floor mounting your projector), otherwise if ceiling mounting with a retro-reflective screen, then you need to get the projector as close to eye level as possible. The Da-Lite screen does work best for projectors with a center based lens shift (like the w7000/w7500), but it can also give substantial benefit to floor mounted short-throw configs. Unlike many retro-reflective screens, the HP screen will NOT cause hot spotting. You can have a lamp rated at 2000 hours last 10,000 hours, and have a lamp rated at 5000 hours explode at 1500 hours. It is the same lamps as some older rear projection TV's that had lamps rated at 10k hours, so the MFR rates them differently based on a combination of marketing, operating temp, and faulty technical data (too long of a story to explain). Though to be safe, probably not recommended to go past 5000 hours on a lamp since they are slightly more likely to explode after that time frame (But on the other hand, I've done it several times). I've owned like 20 different projectors (again, long story I don't want to go into). The Benq projectors tend to have long lasting lamps. JVC and Epson projectors often have shorter lasting lamps.

Because most lamps these days can easily last 5000-6000 hours, but only if it REMAINS bright enough. Sure it's plenty bright on a lamp sub-3000 hours and in 2D, but in 3D you lose 70% of the brightness through the glasses. That is why I bought the Benq w7000 (it has an adjustable IRIS which allows me to use a LAMP on a screen that is way too bright, but the IRIS lets me turn down the lumens hitting the screen). I was able to get 7,500 hours out of one lamp, because of how bright it remained by using the HP screen. If the screen makes it too bright, then you can add an ND filter for about $30, but with the w7000 I use the IRIS. The other Benq's might need an ND filter because they don't have the adjustable IRIS (well except the w7500 does). You use the ND filter while the lamp is still too bright / too new, and then once it wears in and gets dimmer, you remove the ND filter.

On a non-OC I5, the bottleneck for PR textures is still the CPU by far (have compared SSD to regular drive). Haven't tested an i7 yet. I have used WD Blacks and Samsung Evo's, the Evo is faster at loading the scenery, but once flying it's all about caching and the CPU gets behind regardless. CPU main thing to upgrade first, then video card, SSD last as it makes the least difference of the 3.

I use a Benq w7000 mounted behind me which is similar to you guys w1080st (except it's a long throw and is a bit sharper). Been playing on a projector for a long time, and yes it's way better than a monitor. To the guy asking about audio without running wires, just get yourself a WI-FI audio transmitter with remote amp receivers, the sounds in FSX are not all that "hi-fi fancy" anyhow. Go visit an audio forum and ask them which one works the best, or look at reviews on Amazon or something, there are a bunch of different ones these days. As far as 3D goes, you'll need to buy the Nvidia 3D Vision utility from Nvidia's site (not the glasses, just the software). It is cool in 3D at first, but the effect does get tiring after a while, and also landing in 3D is pretty bad because the runway lights are at the wrong perspective (rendered incorrectly in 3d). 3D in FSX is cool when flying through REX clouds and when flying around Photo-Real mountains, that's the best part of it is the clouds and photo-real areas such as mountains. For a screen, a cost-effective option is the Da-Lite High Power 2.4 gain screens, this will increase the brightness to allow you to use your lamp for a longer period of time. The cheap pull-down DA-lite High Power 2.4 gains can be had under $400 depending on screen size. i am using a 106" screen.

I think Global has caused delays on their other products, like N-Cali and Southern Rockies, but not sure about OpenLC or Vector. Orbx is great at times, and very so-so at others. For instance, I think the Bend area where CRM and PNW mix is a very good example of what is possible when mixing landclass and photo-real, but I think overall in many areas it just becomes too repetitive without having PR airports for $20 pop. I personally didn't buy Global simply because there are better sceneries, I'd rather fly in a PR coverage zone or a nice landclass'd area than fly just anywhere that has bland graphics, but I completely understand if some people are more into the SIM'n than the graphics, there are two sides. I am into both.

You can get 4TB HD's under $200, heck I've seen them for $120 or less. PR scenery is the future, landclass has no future. 8TB hard drives for $200 are on the way EVENTUALLY (2-3 years), and 4TB HD's for around $100 are not far off.

No, you did good, I paid 3x for what you paid on those sale prices :_) Jackson Hole and Stewart = Masterpieces, they are the best of the best that I've seen from Orbx, though I don't quite own all their airports yet, I do own about 25% of them. maybe more, including some in AU and most in NA. Of course those are the (2) best airports at scenery, but for like Airport buildings, probably maybe Melbourne, but the framerates are so killer there even with SSD on an i5 (maybe on an i7 it would be bareable), that I cannot really fly there much.

BTW, I take back what I said about Australia as far as some of the textures, some of them are very good, depends what part you fly. Australia might now be my new favorite area to fly from Orbx, there is a lot of diversity in the texturing and IMHO (other than how AU naturally looks bland in some areas) Orbx best texturing work is probably AU, it has the least amount of repetition I've seen. AU - SP4 seems worth it

Just lower your brightness control (black floor) on your monitor, and maybe adjust your gamma settings.

He should buy them all before the sale ends, one thing about ORBX is the repetitive textures so the more stuff you have the better variety. They do a nice job on many airports, though I also think they over-price some of the airports for what you get (West Yellowstone for $20, ok I don't think so, you gave us 2 buildings and a couple plane models, and what appears to be ZERO enhanced surrounding PR scenery... Jackson Hole however was a masterpiece, as was stewart.

Most of the big airports that Orbx developed are in Australia, Melbourne - Cairns - Brisbane - etc... The frame rates are brutal though. You could also buy Alaska and the two airports there, but there aren't that many big airports in Alaska overall obviously. There are a few big enough airports to land jets in PFJ (Pacific Fjords), at least shouldn't be an issue for a 737. If you get the PNW since you already own CRM, you can do some flights from Bend to the west coast areas, there is a bit of photo-scenery spotted around the mountains by Orbx in those areas, also in PNW places like Mt. Rainier and Mt St Helens (and probably Mt Adams too) are in phot-scenery which makes a nice fly-over. So yah, I'd probably do PNW and maybe Australia, you could also try Scotland since it's so cheap. Australia is so so for me thus far as I think the textures outside the city aren't good, but I've only flown a very limited area in it. Scotland is a mixed bag, some places look good, some don't. Overall, PNW + PFJ is my recommendation, just look at the pictures on FullTerrain.com of each airport and you can tell which ones are big enough to support jets generally without even having to look at all the runway stats.

Because most people want to fly in overly plush settings even when it is unrealistic to do so. Personally, I don't mind a little grass in the desert, but I can see where you are coming from when wanting a more realistic simulation.

Your spot on about the PNW region looking dated, and I will give Scotland another try, perhaps you are correct that I flew in the wrong area. PNW looks best with auto-gen set to max because it hides the ugly black texture underneath. There are some areas just North East of Vancouver - Canada that look incredible because of the MASSIVELY ridiculous dense auto-gen, though you have to get 3-4 miles away from the city for it to be playable unless you have a 5ghz i7. I feel the same way about Alaska, the Juneau airport was just missing something, cannot explain it, but something isn't right. Orbx is very hit or miss depending on where you are flying. Overall the best two Orbx areas around airports I have seen for Photo-Real anyhow is definitely JACKSON HOLE and CZST / Stewart in Canada. Those are the two areas Orbx has done the best. Overall though if I had to pick one area and give Orbx an award, it's definitely the TETONS, that is the best scenery Orbx has ever done that I have seen. I am going to start flying AU now though and check it out, I know there are probably some interesting areas.

I actually didn't like Scotland, way over-saturated and under-exposed images. If I were to just buy two sceneries out of all ORbx stuff, it would be CRM and NRM believe it or not, though PNW is also hard to deny since you get all the freeware airports (or PFJ). I liked PFJ and PNW at first, but it gets repetetive. I think CRM and NRM are the best overall as far as re-playability and variety of textures (and there are a lot of non-orbx airports being developed and some good freeware airports in the CRM and NRM areas), there are more variety in those areas of textures. Try flying around Bend, OR (not bad), then up north of Boise, ID isn't bad either, some really nice areas there. Two very different looking areas in the same regions, but when you fly PNW or PFJ, it all starts looking too similar after a while. Also, I still hate the black checkerboard PNW pattern, if your textures aren't 100% fully resolved all the time, PNW doesn't look as good. Definitely looks a lot better with 100% fully resolved textures, but that's hard to get with FSX if you fly fast unless you have an OC'd i7 and an SSD drive (it's on my list will get it soon). I think a lot what people see varies depending on how fast their textures are resolving, make sure to pause for a while before judging just in case

Try Central and/or Northern Rockies, it has a unique flavor to it that I think works most of the time. I agree, Scotland left a lot to be desired, looked very amateurish. The textures they used reminded me of an early 2000's video game. Their best region so far that I've seen is Alaska, Pacific Fjords, Central & Northern Rockies, and Pacific Northwest (but I don't own Australia, own NZ but haven't tried it yet). Though thus far I am definitely partial to Central and Northern Rockies over the other areas, simply because the texturing just doesn't feel quite as repetetive as their other areas. Alaska and PNW and PFJ look too similar IMO, other than the PR areas. I know those areas look similar in real life, but not exactly and it depends where you are. That said, I haven't spent much time flying Alaska, but I was sorely dissapointed in Orbx - Alaska from the time I did spend in it, it was like a BIG ho-hum, ho-hum to me. I just like CRM and NRM the best for some reason... I am bias'd since I started fiddling with building stuff, and I was impressed with Orbx at first. However, after flying it for a while, it just becomes way way too repetetive, unless you are willing to fork out money for all the different airports in which get some photoreal coverage, I find their tiling and scenery leaves a lot to be desired. From my perspective, other than the few PR coverage zones, I am done with Orbx stuff for now (maybe). I might still buy a few airports. I didn't even buy FTX Global, cause I don't want the same repetitive textures across half the world

I have only been here for a little over a year (and this isn't my main forum because I really just got more interested in FSX lately again). Really enjoying all the improvements and the community overall, great bunch of folks if you ask me. Just don't let the occasional negative nancy get to you, sometimes we all post negative stuff out of frustration (I did it the other day, but later apologized). This forum is very mild compared to some - try math forums, computers, networking, audio/video. Those places are much nastier in general, and this is actually a breath of fresh air compared to some forums. Anyhow, just my -2 pesos.

I think some of the MSE 2 stuff is good, and some should have been held off until post correction. This stuff is time consuming, no doubt. But it doesn't take 50 people, I doubt any of these FSX add-on companies even staff 50 people, Orbx or Aerosoft probably has the most staff, probably not even 20. P3D from Boeing is about the only one that might. I'm finally deep into my first scenery project, so I know what it takes, it is a monster at first because the download map sources were designed by bureaucrats instead of smart people. Also the software isn't always intuitive, sometimes it's a pain in the you know what. I'm getting over the learning curve, it's not too bad for someone that has been coding for 20+ years, but intuitive isn't in the vocabulary of the SDK. I am "attempting" a PhotoReal of SLC (please MSE 2 do SLC last , and I'll try to not make cities you are doing It's ok if you do SLC, cannot tell you what to do, but I'm just a small fry trying to make one scenery here If anyone thinks I should do a different city, let me know, but I've already got the 60GB SLC in 25cm format downloaded to my drive, and so far so good. I have no idea how good this will come out, but we shall see. Who knows how long this will take me, maybe 2-3 months, maybe 6, but I'm more so taking the approach of gotta do it, because it's just really darn fun. If this weren't my first project, I doubt one city or state would take longer than a month.

You need an i7 for sure, I bought an i5 like a dummy and it just ain't fast enough. It's ok outside of large cities or away from fancy-nancy Super-Mega-Giant-Portland International, but some people are lucky with computers, some are not. I've had to install my OS 4 times in the past 3 months due to HW changes and viruses. FSX is awesome, I never was into Flight Sim much before the scenery started getting Photo-Real, and I love Orbx as well. I do love flying in RL but no pilot's license and plus it's real expensive 30 cm PhotoReal w/ autogen is where it's at, but we don't have much of that. As a programmer, I'm working on my first scenery package and still learning, I'm going to release SLC and vicinity sampled from 25cm data, color corrected, HD contrast enhanced, and processed by 5+ filtering techniques. We'll see how it goes. The end-goal is to add auto-gen so we have more PR 30cm w/ auto-gen. I think I got a good idea, but we'll see how the end product looks and if I can bring some of your 5.0ghz i7's to their knees (that's the idea).

Image Shack is another good place to host screenshots for free, their new interface is outstandingly easy to use. I don't have as much experience with scenery add-ons as some of you do, but thus far the best Auto-Gen I've seen over photo-real is Stewart airport (czst) by Orbx. I have no idea how they pulled it off, but their auto-gen is exactly correct looking over their photo-real, and that airport is basically 90% from photo-real as far as the ground textures go (well some of it they rendered themselves, but what I mean is it is photo looking and the mountains are from photos).

@Kaboki Thank you for the info, I will give one or two of those products a try out. Landclass generally cannot fully eliminate repetetive textures (though it does help in providing a bit more variety), but texturing by its very nature is a repetetive process. That said, Orbx has come up with some innovative processes in the past, so I'm willing to see what they can do to combat the issue. It is theoretically possible to eliminate a lot of texture repetetiveness, but the reason it is so hard is due to the different blends and shaders you have to apply. Hence, applying the shaders and blending zones is very difficult to do without it looking wrong, because there are too many different combinations of density, color variations, and contrast.

Yah I did it because the JPEG compression was de-sharpening the image, so I resized it to match what it looked like in person. So actually my correction technique was a proper compensation to properly match was I was seeing in-game. I notice all my full-size posted images are looking far less sharp than they do in-game, which is giving bad impressions.

Out of all non-Orbx stuff you've purchased, what would you recommend for a change of scenery out of those listed. What is your favorite non-Orbx scenery?

I agree with you, my comments on Orbx are mostly based on experience with all regions except Alaska and Aus. I tried MSE 2 but it didn't really float my boat.