ORBX FTX England

[DaveB]

Ah.. I see said the blind man So.. I can look forward to seeing my house then!

ATB
DaveB

[TSR2]

I think my next scenery will be VFR Southern Scotland and maybe the treescapes packages, but at under £30 I'm tempted to try this

The thing I like about VFR is that I can recognise the places I'm flying over (albeit some of it has changed a bit since the VFR images were taken.) I love that I can try and spot old disused airfields and things like that, much as I do when I fly in the real world. The thing that really annoys me is that Northern Ireland is always missed off scenery packages, and while UTX improves it a bit, its not the same. I can't understand why the VFR guys did the republic of Ireland and missed off the little bit at the top where 15% of the population of the island live

[FlyTexas]

Be good if they did a demo area of the UK, say the Isle of Wight or something similar.

Hear hear! I've never purchased scenery from ORBX but that'll change if people see decent frame rates with this scenery.

Brian

[dodger]

Hi Gents,

Well looking at the pics of England that's on their site to me it does look like our green and pleasant land but as i have said before its what you enjoy flying over in the sim, well it is for me, and like Ian i have the PNW Demo and not knowing the area for real it looks like a good representation of that area, so it does for me,

As i fly over Kent for real in GA i will be interested as to how well the team have made it, ORBX 's John has said he has a team in Hampshire that has been working on this addon and those shots of London look great [if that is where you want to fly around] but i will wait and see what has been done for the Kent coast and Cornwall,

I used to live in the West Country and know the area well and it would be great to fly around the Cornish coast, again it will be interesting to see how well this has been made,

Just my two pennies,

Roger, GOF.

[dodger]

Hi Brian,

Have tried the Free Demo's to see how they run on your system?

Roger.

[DaveB]

Well.. there's bladdy Tazmania as a freebie too..





Thought I'd look at Taz-bladdy-mania 'cause I've bin there and it's exactly how I remember it. Actually, I don't remember it at all but the scenery is nice Nose'd over the bladdy Mossie at Yabbie Creek Airport so ended up in the Autocrat. Rippa

You can see my FR's on those pictures and while not bad, they're not the same as default. My pc ran like an i7 on cpu enhancing drugs with the default scenery. Never seen it run so well but it has to be said, there's not a lot to see When I changed to the Mossie, I dropped to the teens. The weather you see is ORBX 'themed' and there lies a small oddity. When I took off from Yabbie Creek, everything was nicely clear with those high clouds as you see. When I crossed over a penninsula, I went into reduced vis. Just to make sure, I turned around and went into the clear and contined back into the reduced vis again. Also.. the ORBX Tasmania still suffers uphill water in certain places. I dropped the Auster down into a car park for a goof in the harbour and saw the water wasn't quite flat.. it was running uphil

I dunno what to say from the demo really. I didn't see swaying buttercups and grass. The stock airport isn't enhanced as they generally are so that was pony. I didn't touch anything though because I wanted a direct comparison to the default. FR's on this pc are locked at 45 and with default, I was getting 44.7-44.9.. and it looked great. With ORBX, it dropped according to what was visible but in the Auster, generally in the 20's. Not bad for the level of detail it has to be said.

Right.. as a further comparison, I downloaded the freebie PNW thereby using up 1/10 of my monthly bandwidth. I'll take a look at the default first then load up the ORBX. I'm expecting better things from the PNW demo as this claims to have enhanced default airports as well as a full, all singing addon.

ATB
DaveB

[DaveB]

Hello fellow fellow's

In the interest of science to show RW framerates.. here's the rather jolly PNW. Once again I stress, I've not tampered with anything.. simply loaded the scenery. No user manual, no tweaks.. what you see is what I got straight out of the telephone line. No ORBX weather this time.. that's the only difference.. other than one is Tasmania and this is Bowerman.. wherever that is













I chose Rick's lovely Sycamore for these shots as you can see. I'm not sure whether this helped FR's any.. it shouldn't in reality as rotors tend to have a bigger hit. As you can see by the FR's.. this ran better if anything than Hobart. That said, there were very many fewer buildings.. plenty of detail but nowhere near the amount of buildings. It ran better than GenXv2 with Treescapes.. certainly smoother. Note that my pc is an E8400 dualcore (3ghz) with 3.25gig system ram (4gig on a 32bit OS) and Windows XP SP3 ending up on an Asus GTX560Ti 1GB.. frames locked at 45.

There are two possible trains of thought. Do you want to see REAL scenery.. glance down at where your house would be and see it.. at least a flat picture of it, finished off with nicely placed trees OR.. do you want to see a rough representation of where you live with roads and waterways in roughly the right place, a landscape full of buildings wherever they should be (give or take) and trees thrown in for good measure? With GenX, you can easily navigate from A to B by following what you see below and a road map noting landmarks along the way. That has to be rather more difficult with ORBX as you're not seeing all the roads.. just the main ones and what might be a landmark to you (a pub on the corner) will not necessarily be there with the ORBX scenery. However, what you miss with GenX you gain with ORBX though what you gain with ORBX, it doesn't come without a cost.. it aint real. Neither are from what I've seen tonight but both have big selling points. If you DON'T have GenX.. then I'd say go for ORBX and to hell with recognising your house from a couple of hundred feet. What you get appears to be what I've shown you minus the tarted up airport.. these will come and at a cost. With GenX, you get a photographic representation of a 1/3 of England.. south, middle and north. Then, you have to add your own trees.. one set each for south, middle and north and when you look at it, the cost of going 'photoreal' is an expensive one. I won't mention airports as you have to change these with whatever scenery you use or put up with AREA51 style hangars at places like Wolverhampton I believe the standard airports are 'enhanced' in ORBX but to see the level of detail shown in Bowerman, you pay more. If the 2 airports at Hobart are examples of 'enhanced' airports, I missed the enhancements
IF you already have GenX.. especially up to and including v3.. AND Treescapes vols 1 2 and 3 (more if you have the newer nether regions above that).. then you have to seriously ask yourself what you want to see. If that is an England FULL of buildings and tree's and you can afford to throw away what you've spent on GenX England/Wales and the ES Treescapes that go with them.. then I don't think you'll be disappointed. Airports will be an issue as the ground tiles for the UK2K VFR series match GenX giving you a seamless join. I take it these will work with ORBX.. can't see any reason why not but I'm not 100% sure.

In the final analysis.. they're both great products.. that is ORBX scenery (though I've not seen the FTX England in the flesh) and GenX. One gives you an exact view of what's really there but in 2D.. the other gives you a representation of what should be there but in 3D. On the strength of what I've seen tonight, the full 3D picture is very tempting but would I miss the photoreal ground tiles? The simple answer.. I dunno

ATB
DaveB

[DaveB]

A further note on both of the above..

None of those shots really do either area the justice they deserve. The detail I saw IN SIM is missing off the shots as is the smooth performance of the sim while flying around.. better, it has to be said than GenX and with far greater 3D detail. All the time I spent at Bowerman, my system hardly stuttered once. I wish I could say the same when flying over Norfolk with nothing but the odd tree here and there

ATB
DaveB

[TSR2]

Thanks for that Dave,

Some of the eye candy looks rather nice, but then I get very similar eye candy with UK2000 airports. It is a tough call, but I think I've made my bed, so I'll lie in it... and by some trees

[DaveB]

Hello Mate

Well.. it's a different sort of eye candy with UK2000 airports and not like the ORBX versions. I'm not saying one is better than the other.. just that they're different Financially, if you've bought GenX and the tree's.. you'd either be a rich mans pup or completely barmy to buy the ORBX FTX England scenery. Both have their respective benefits as I mentioned above but it has to be said that the ORBX scenery does what IT does better than GenX and Treescapes tries to do. I've not changed anything in FSX for me to see ORBX in that way. I don't see anywhere near as much detail (or trees) with FSX and GenX/Treescapes. Some of the shots I've done recently in FSX I've had to position in such a way as I get the most in. Treescapes for example, bugger off very quickly with how their LOD's are set. I can look over the countryside and the only trees I see are those in close proximity.. none or very few in the mid to far distance. ORBX seem to have made them go forever and in huge quantities with little frame hit.. a remarkable feat in itself when you consider all the buildings that appear over the same distances.

This said, I don't think I'll be moving over. Having only worked for a week in the last 7 months, I can hardly choose to be frivolous with the folding either so my choice is made for me As a parting 'gift'.. I'll leave the last two shots for you. One in B&W and the other in glorious FSX colour






ATB
DaveB