Derek Davidson

Great job, Tony. If anyone wants a video to see what this looks like, I created one as part of my X-Plane 10 Scenery series :

Hi Richard Whenever adding visual bling, you almost always have a drop in fps performance. It's very much a case of trying to get the balance right. When I suffer a major drop in fps, I try disabling HDR as my first option. That usually has a dramatic, positive, effect.

As Tony says, G2xpl is the tool for you. You can then generate your own photo scenery, using whatever provider you want (some default ones are provided out of the box). If you donate, you can also select which zoom level you want. Additionally, you can elect to have an airport generated at a high zoom level (for greater visuals) and the surrounding area at a lower zoom level (for better performance). I have a video coming up on YouTube next week that covers this great tool. Why not subscribe and (optionally) get notified the minute I publish : http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCobolman?sub_confirmation=1 Once you have the photo scenery, make your environment even more awesome by including buildings. The excellent World2XPlane from Tony should be your first place to visit.

So, here's a really odd thing. I experienced the problem where the joystick just stopped working in FSX but was accessible via Control Panel in Windows 8. Tried tons of stuff but one weird trick worked: Hit [Ctrl][Alt][Del] and select Task Manager to view what's eating your cycles. It's probably FSX. Simply leave as-is and return to the game - joystick now works. Bizarre but simple.