UK Scenery options... what do you use?

[233SQN]

After doing a complete new install of FSX Steam onto a new Windows 10 pc I’m close to losing the will to live after trying to get my Playsim/Horizon VFR and Treescape re-instated (all from DVDs but also tried dragging over from my old hard drive). Failed installers, missing scenery areas, you name it I had it. I’ve eventually ended up with the central UK VFR working nicely with trees, but default scenery for everything else. My flying slow n slow so I tend to favour eye candy.

So now I’m considering other options:

• ORBX England… any good? Is it a one-shot install or do you need several packages?

• Just Flight VFR (from Steam, whole UK for £30 and less when there is a sale on) at least I think that will install cleanly, then manually add TreeScape.

• Default scenery with better freeware textures (any recommendations?)

• Anyone tried Revolution X with VFR scenery?

• Or is there anything else out there?

What is everyone else using nowadays?

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Colin, I have Orbx England, Scotland and Wales on my computer as well as North American scenery. For England it is one complete installation, there are updates for EU England on the ORbx site but doubt that you will need them if you purchase through the Flightsimstore equally, if you are 65 or over then you can apply for a 20% discount but have to send Flightsimstore proof of age then you qualify for this (see link).

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/ ... ent-484647

The scenery is basically representative of England with towns and cities more or less where they should be, the roads are good and I have been able to fly from Wickenby to Lincoln then follow the A46 through to Newark and Leicester or even follow the A1 North to the M62. If you do buy Orbx England then I would also suggest that you buy Orbx FTX Trees which are brilliant!
https://fullterrain.com/product/ftxtreeshd

That is basically my one sided view of scenery but no doubt some one else will advise you on others that are equally as good.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Nigel.

[saltysplash]

Likewise, use orbx England & Scotland

[Paul K]

Orbx England, Scotland and Wales here, along with Orbx UK airfields. Not bad at all - certainly no great urge to try anything else.

[233SQN]

Thanks OrbX sounds good and at £25 worth a punt…..a few more questions if I may:

• Are the default OrbX airfields as good/better than the UK 2000 series, or can you use UK2000 as well?
• London looks good, but what about the rest of the UK.. are there the refineries and power stations, windfarms etc or do these need adding?
• Does road traffic operate? Bit gimmicky I know but I feel it really adds to the out of the window view.

[DaveB]

I risk getting pelted with rotten eggs in present company but I can tell you this. The ORBX standard airfields are not a patch on what you get from UK2000.. there is simply no comparison. You can, however, use UK2000 airfields with ORBX having first removed the necessary ORBX airfield files first. Make sure also that UK2000 sits above ORBX and the 2 will run together reasonably well.

I didn't keep FTX England on my pc long enough to remember exactly what you get for your money but one thing you won't get is accuracy. It's prettier than the default FSX for sure but no more accurate as far as detail is concerned. I have a canal running for many miles past my house in the Midlands and in FTX England.. this was represented as a single lake

ATB
DaveB

[Swanoir]

I agree with Dave, the UK2000 airfields are far superior to the ORBX ones.
Having only recently been able to FINALLY get a new PC and upgrade to FSX (thanks to a very generous and unexpected inheritance), I'm still in a lovely, fuzzy glow of 'Oooh, look at that!' phase of simming. After years of FS9 it's like going from black and white into colour!
I bought myself the ORBX FTX England and absolutely love it. I also got the UK2000 airfields and absolutely love them too.
And yes, I'm so behind the times that when I first saw a guy waving at me when I taxied in at Old Sarum, I admit, I actually waved back
I've got the JF Dove and since the update I've literally flown nothing since! It's fantastic to get back to the days of just taking off and flying aimlessly about simply enjoying the scenery. It's years since I've done that.
I'm thinking about getting the FTX Scotland, but I'd like some decent airfields to go with it. Any suggestions?

[Paul K]

No rotten eggs from me, DB - I agree that UK2000 airports are superior to the Orbx default ones. The Orbx payware add-on airfields, on the other hand, are superb. Orbx tends to avoid the larger airports as payware, so for places like Stansted and Glasgow, I bought the UK2000 ones. For other, smaller places, such as Elstree, Popham and Old Warden, I got the Orbx payware ones. All I need to do now is re-install them.

[SamRo]

I use the photo real VFR X stuff, it may not be as pretty but I can see my house! ;-p
ref UK2000, is it worth getting V2? are they just updated or are there inprovments?

[DaveB]

Hmm.. a subjective question. Many of the airports/airfields are updated in v2 to reflect how they are now (or how they were at the time of release) as well as various objects/models. Is it worth updating?? If you want the airports/airfields to be as good as they can be (given the remit that none of them are to UK2K Extreme detail).. then the answer is yes but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with v1. Some of the changes will be noticeable.. others, maybe less so

ATB
DaveB