Ground Environment X Released

[ChrisHunt]

Flight 1 have released Ground Environment X - the first package covering the USA and Canada. It looks the dog's and is priced in dollars ($29) so is very good value for this side of the pond.

See http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=gexusacan for details. Downloading now!

Regards,
Chris

[VEGAS]

That looks very good Chris. Let us know how it performs.

[ChrisHunt]

Vegas, it performs pretty much as native FSX does - GEX replaces the FSX stock textures and autogen with textures more appropriate to the landclass being displayed (why MS didn't do this in the first place beats me). It does look very good - I did 3 flights earlier, one from Main, one from Florida and one from Washington State. Generally GEX is a substantial improvement on stock FSX except that the bloody awful airport ground textures are still present (very yellow); still it does mean that airports tend to stand out a great deal (but shows just how badly wrong MS got it in the first place).

GEX is not perfect - there are a number of instances where the original ground textures show through, largely as odd stripes here and there, but there are not too many of these. Flight1 do promise though to issue updates so you can bet that these flaws will be taken care of.

I did a day/dusk flight in Washington State and the whole thing was incredibly atmospheric, bearing in mind that I also have FEX.

Performance wise I have autogen set to very dense and everything else on the scenery settings (apart from water and bloom) at fairly high settings and I was getting 15-20fps on a fairly modest system (AMD 4000+ - single core - 2Gb of mixed RAM and a 512Mb Radeon 1950 pro) - very flyable.

In short if you want to fly in the states GEX is definately worth getting, especially for the fairly modest outlay of about £15.

Regards,
Chris

[ChrisHunt]

Legion, try using the Explorer downloading it may be faster - these clever downloaders tend to have a bit of management overhead.

Regards,
Chris

[VEGAS]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the heads up mate. I may consider buying something like this as I have almost exhausted Horizon's GenX and would like to venture out and visit international shores again. The screenies look brilliant and certainly wet my appetite. The only thing that p!sses me off is why should we have to pay for it after forking out for FSX.

Oh well perhaps its time to get the plastic out.

Its either that or wait for the next M$ flight sim.

thanks again

[ChrisHunt]

Vegas, that's assuming its not as big a bag of b*ll*cks that FSX was when it was first released. GEX really does make a difference - I was doing some testing at the default Friday thingy and it really makes the place come alive; it might not be as it looks in real life but its magnitudes better than the MS lack of effort. Probably my best add on to date, even better than Horizen's Gen X because of its performance and sheer scale.

Regards,
Chris

[ChrisHunt]

A quick update on GE X - in common with other photo textures (for me at least) there is that peculiar ripple effect when banking, turning etc from inside and outside the cockpit. I don't know why this should happen with photo textures and not stock FSX (probably because they are photo textures) but if I get a bit of free time I'm going to do some digging around the specific scenery files.

I know from Avsim and the Horizon forums that this is a problem for quite a few people.

Regards,
Chris

[airboatr]

I'd like to tear into this FSX thing again like a monkey on a cupcake.....
but , I shan't

[ChrisHunt]

Legion, how come I don't get the ripple effect with stock FSX textures? The only areas I get the ripple in are the GEX textured areas and Gen-X.

Joe, cupcakes are bad for you mate but if you just want to fling the contents around a bit go ahead If it's a banana flavoured cupcake I suppose all bets are off then!

BTW the second update for GEX is very good indeed - did a flight down the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas in a day to dusk flight and it was superb with all the details turned up (albeit it low FPS, blurry, popping scenery etc but it was worth it).

Cheers,
Chris

[airboatr]

women can be bad for me too,..... but I havn't learned that one either...
:tab:
and I shan't either......