NinjaMonsta

Little late to the party, but thought I'd chime in. I'm a fairly new FSX user but I've looked into TileProxy, Blue Sky Scenery, Sim Savvy, and MegaSceneryEarth (the last 2 have since merged companies and now produce the MegaSceneryEarth 2.0 product). TileProxy was alluring because it was free and includes the whole world, but it was by far the hardest to get running. What makes it different from the other products is that it fetches images from the internet as you fly over them. The problem with this is that the mapping sites are not fans of people pulling down that many map images and many block TileProxy from working (Google Maps is the biggest). So there's a chance that eventually all mapping services will do this, but I guess you'd be good until then. Also, from what I've read the developer pretty much dropped it, so there's not much help getting it running. Like 01Generation60 said, you will need to read and re-read lots of stuff to get it running. Even tho I got it working, it was just too much trouble, as my Windows 7 64-bit system would not run it unless I hit F8 when I was booting and booted it in a special test mode. Blue Sky Scenery is much easier to install, you can pay whatever you want (it's donation based), but it's very small areas. Rather than a state or even a city, you download sections. So to get a whole city with it's suburbs and everything it's a little more complex. But still much easier than TP. MegaSceneryEarth 2.0 seems to be the most user-friendly but also the most pricey. You get a whole state, but it runs about $40. As a bonus they do throw in a bunch of extra charts for that state (high/low altitude IFR, airport diagrams, etc). Anyway, if you're willing to put some serious wrench time in, TP might be worth the trouble. For me it wasn't. I'd say the $40 for states you like would probably be worth the money just cuz you'll be spending more time flying and less reading up on Windows DLLs and boot options. As for frame rates, since most photoreal scenery is designed to be flown without auto-gen it tends to have excellent frame rates. On a side note, I noticed you are in France. Are you French or do you just live there? My father is from Tahiti so I've spoken French since I was a kid. If you're not familiar with the United States and were interested in buying one I'd suggest getting one with some mountains or valleys. Arizona has the Grand Canyon. Utah has some nice mountains, lakes, and the salt flats. New Mexico has some pretty desert mountains. And Colorado would probably be my last recommendation as it also has the Rocky Mountains and some cool farm areas.

Not sure if you're still looking for opinions on any of these questions, but I just joined and saw your post and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. I've been getting into FSX for the last few months (before that I mostly played military sims like DCS Black Shark and A-10C) and I've spent quite a bit of time looking into popular add-ons for FSX including photoreal scenery. I started with TileProxy, and after much toil got it working, but it just seemed like a lot of work. From what I could tell the developer is no longer working on it, and it seemed very user UN-friendly. Hitting F8 didn't always work as my system boots too fast or something, so I'd sit there rebooting several times. Then if my internet connection I'd have problems getting the images. Anyway, I liked the idea, and I think for some people who don't mind spending some decent time tinkering it could be a good solution (especially if you fly in areas out side of the U.S.). And then the biggest thing is it seems like the mapping sites discourage pulling all of these images from their sites, so there's a chance it'll eventually just stop working (Google has already blocked it). The other 2 options I've found are blueskyscenery.com and megasceneryearth.com. Blue Sky is donation based and does not have as many areas, but it's a lot simpler than TileProxy. MegaSceneryEarth joined with a company named Sim Savvy (a guy who had images for pretty much all of the United States) and are now releasing a version 2.0 that is higher resolution, but they charge about $40 per state (unless it's a real small state). MSE also throws in a bunch of pdf aeronautical charts (low/high IFR charts, airport diagrams & charts, etc.). MSE is offered by a site called PC Aviator and if you buy from them, do it on a Tuesday as they have 10% off on Tuesdays. Overall, it seems like it might be worth the $40 to get your favorite state just because of the user friendliness. You get a whole state with a bunch of maps/charts and it seems like the money might just be worth avoiding all of the hassle of the other methods. As for the other products you mentioned (GEX, UTX, etc), I just bought a few of those so I might as well give you my opinion on them too. There are different layers in FSX. FSGenesis is the lowest and gives the terrain it's shape. So if you fly by a famous mountain peak or valley and it's not there, this should fix that. UTX is the next layer up and it makes sure things are in the right place. In default FSX you might fly over a city you know and see farms where houses should be, or maybe skyscrapers where a lake should be. UTX uses real world map data to fix that so it "feels" more like the real world. The next layer is the textures, basically the "painting" of the land. So UTX might say "hey, a farm needs to go here", so the question is what should a farm look like? That's where GEX comes in. Instead of using the default textures, GEX has textures with more detail and more variety so the land looks a bit better than the default. The next layer would be the sky, and REX seems to be the most popular for this. It basically allows you to choose how you'd like the sky to look (so you can have more dramatic sky/sunset/sunrise backgrounds) and has really fancy clouds. As a bonus, REX also throws in options for changing the colors and look of water and runways. Some of their water textures for tropical areas look really amazing, much better than the default FSX stuff. Hopefully that helps you understand what each does so you can decide which ones would be worth getting. I got UTX, GEX, and REX. REX was by far my favorite. The clouds are really fun to fly around, and the water looks really cool. UTX is useful, but more if you're flying over areas you already know or if you're using real world maps or charts. UTX does have one other bonus, which is that it can add more lights at night (car brake lights, traffic lights), but over all I don't think you get as much "wow" factor as REX. GEX has more of a wow factor and makes cities look nicer, especially the higher you go, but... it definitely doesn't look as pretty as photoreal from high up in my opinion. (Note: UTX and GEX are made by the same company so they are designed to work well with each other). I'd say REX is the one that I'd get without thinking about it. You spend a lot of time up in the air and it's cool to see really pretty clouds and to be able to choose how the sky and water look. As for UTX and GEX, I'd say if you don't like the flatness of photoreal, then they might be worth it, especially GEX. They work well with the 3D auto-generated buildings of FSX (photoreal generally turns off all the buildings). But if you like photoreal, well that would replace GEX so there would be no point in getting both if you plan to just fly one or the other all the time. Anyway, hopefully that helps. Chances are you're happy just running with TileProxy, in which case more power to you.