The A2A Simulations Community

Hello,

I am flying with VFR scenery England and Wales but it looks blurry and bad at all altitudes. Is there any other professional realistic scenery that anyone could recommend for me ?

"Scuddy"

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Hi Scuddy,

I have to say that my personal experiances with VFR scenery around the UK is also rather poor - I find that the lack of autogen or anything at-all 3D for miles around is (unless at height) rather strange looking.

My current setup uses UTX and GEX to get the best looking scenery. This also does update all the roads around the UK and I have to say they seem fairly accurate. Cost lines look better and villages and towns look and feel more 'real'

Its not true to life for sure, but then really not a lot is in this little virtual world of ours!

Another option is to wait for ORBX to release their UK package that I think is scheduled for some time next year!

Regards,
James

Hello Severniae

I will check out UTX and GEX and see what I can do. Do you know anything about the fps hit with this at all ? I just like to have nice looking scenery at height.
Yes I heard ORBX are going to release their UK package and dose sound exciting Thanks for the info and advice friend.
Regards

"Scuddy"

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If you have any of the other Orbx regions and airports, waiting for the UK is a no brainer. Just hope all my UK2K sceneries work with it.

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OrbX do a great job of creating useful, pilot centric scenery, whereas the 'flat-satellite-images-on-3D-terrain' addons, that began a few years ago was all but useless - in my opinion - as it lacked most features you'd consider whilst route planning with a VFR chart, whereas OrbX include things you'd expect to keep an eye out for.

It's good to know some aviation minded people are still developing great, useful addons for FSX. Especially A2A's aircraft, and other developers that also have knowledgable, passionate people - all with experience flying - I'm confident we'll see the UK represented in the way it deserves, just a bloody long time coming.

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~ Make love to the sky, don't shag it.

Or you could look here http://www.fsgenesis.com/Merchant2/merc ... gory_Code=

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Ron
B-17 AIRFRAME 710 HRS PLUS AND CLIMBING




GIGABYTE X58A-UD5 MB, INTEL I7 950, 12GB DOMINATOR-GT DDR3 RAM, WIN7 64, GIGABYTE SUPER OVER CLOCK GTX 560 TI 1GB GGDDR5 1000Mz, CORSAIR 850W PS, NOCTUA NH-D14,
TRACKIR 5 & TrackClipPro

I use Horizon GenerationX VFR photographic scenery for England and Wales (I'll soon be adding Scotland when total coverage is achieved). Not sure if that is the VFR scenery you are refering to, but with just a few well published tweeaks to the FSX.cfg file, the scenery is very sharp. It does help to have the photographic scenery files on a fast drive so that they load in quickly as you fly from one tile to another. It also is more realistic to have the visibility settings down to about 60 miles or so. It is not realistic, at all, to be able to see a totally clear sky with no haze on the horizon flying in the UK. Any reduction in the detail that the computer has to process at distance is going to help it resolve the "blurries" problem close up!

As far as the "... lack of autogen or anything at all 3D for miles around is (unless at height) rather strange looking..." problem is concerned, I have Treescapes from Earth Simulations installed, Which has trees planted in the right places. Coupled with the UK2000 airfield scenery and others, I get very realistic VFR flights with the ability to actually navigate by the ground imagery, as depicted on the actual charts, which is what it's all about.

I calculated that with the purchase of VFR GenX for Ireland and for Scotland and Treescapes for Scotland (I already have Scotflight airfield sceneries) My total outlay for complete coverage of the UK will be about £200.
I bet the ORBX sceneries when they arrive will be more than that plus the fact the scenery is landclass based and not be an accurate representation of what you would see in real life.


Total Rubbish! Have you flown VFR at 2000 to 3000ft with photographic scenery in the UK? The photography is taken from aircraft not satellites and most of it now is 60cm/pixel and there are literally hundreds of free VRP and VFR landmark scenery addons for navigating by available for download off the net.

Just my opinion!
Ted

Hi Baron58
You wrote "It also is more realistic to have the visibility settings down to about 60 miles or so"

It is very rare to see further than 20 miles in the U.K. Horizon also recomend a max visability of 20 miles.

Hi Scuddy
I have many Photo VFR sceneries and none of them are clearer and more detailed than Horizons VFR England & Wales. Getting rid of the blurres needs a balance between your graphic card settings and your FSX settings, try a lower mipmap quality and take your anisotropic & anti-alaising filters down on your graphic card, and in FSX lower some of your settings. (it's difficult for me to explain which ones as I have the German version of FSX).
Remember also the faster you fly the harder it is for the P.C. to build a detailed scenery ahead.

M. Jordan.

Satellite - read aerial-photography

My mistake with wording, but the overall meaning's the same, and yes I have flown at those heights. Perhaps I should have worded my point a little better. That when studying a chart, you wouldn't see markings for Bovington Tank Museum's tank tracks, despite them being very prominent from the air, and a great way to pin-point your location yes, but OrbX includes features you need to take account for on approaches, things you'd need to know about at circuit-height. So no, not rubbish at all, nor total.

John.

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~ Make love to the sky, don't shag it.

@M. Jordan: Just checked my settings and I'm actually on 40 miles, which looks OK. 20 miles just seems a little low to me. When I was learning to fly, visibility looked further than that on a fine day, even in the North-East of England!
Agree with everything else you say about Horizon VFR scenery!

As I said, "Just my opinion!"

Ted

You imply that the features you require on approaches and at circuit height are only present with ORBX scenery, which is just not true! As I said, hundreds of VRP and ground scenery objects are available separately and as part of airfield scenery correctly positioned on the photographic image!

Respectfully
Ted

Hi Baron58
It's surprising how far you can see with the settings at 20 miles, it looks like more than that.

you wrote "visibility looked further than that on a fine day, even in the North-East of England! "
Are you a Geordie? my Fathers side of the Family come from South Shields, sadly I've lost contact with them.

M. Jordan.

I'm not a Geordie but I married one! We met when we were both studying at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We now live in Durham City. South Shields not too far away. It's always a shame when you lose the family links!

Ted

Ok, well Ted; It was not my intention to imply that only OrbX gives you that - perhaps I should phrase things a little less vaguely, and take care to cover all bases for the pedants - but rather it was my intention to share my observation; That they are amongst the very few that give you the relevant overall package, rather than picking from more than one source.

I understand some don't like the sparsity of actual aerial - see Ted, I'm learning! - photography with OrbX, and it's not cheap, by a long-shot.

I did neglect to share my dislikes, so perhaps I came across as too praising;
Criticism of their scenery on my part, is that 'auto-gen' occassionally creates a few oddities, with roads covering those patches of pseudo-aerial-photography where roads can be seen underneath, but only within the generic towns/villages.

Ted, you pointed out the cost; And I agree, absolutely. If the same or similar effect can be accomplished through a combination of freeware addons; awesome. It's a lot of moolah to spend, especially in some cases where you must own a full region in order to enjoy one/two detailed airstrips. They do however offer the PNW and the South of Oz for a taster, - with a handful of detailed strips to check out - which is what drew me in initially.

No disrespect intended, perhaps a consequence of me typing it out and not proofing for possible misunderstanding,

John.

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~ Make love to the sky, don't shag it.