UK Scenery

[philmurfin]

Hello, I'm Phil from Matlock and I'm new here.
I'd like to hear you views on the best scenery solutions for the UK please, I've heard good and bad about ORBX for England, I've got the Horizon Photo Scenery but that loses detail below 1500feet, I don't know if or how this can be improved upon.

What do you use and are you happy with it?

Thanks for your time
Phil

[TSR2]

Hi Phil,

its horses for courses mate. IMHO it depends on what you fly and at what speed. If you flying at several hundred knots below 1500 feet the world is a blur in real life. If you flying GA type stuff at low level, and if your setup isn't up to dealing with it, the UK VFR stuff can get blurry low down, but it depends on your settings. As an example, I've just bought the upgrade from V2 to V3 of the GenX VFR. Here is the Beaufighter at the sort of altitudes your talking about over Newcastle, and I don't find it blurry.








Here is the Buccaneer at a similar altitude, but at pretty much full chat....





And here is the same Buccaneer but after I've paused the sim and its had a chance to draw the images...



The thing is, even in the blurry image, I can work out where I am easily enough. I can still use it for VFR if I choose. What the UK ORBX stuff gives you is an approximation of the area with 3D buildings, but that only loosely resemble the area. If you look at those last two images you'll see an area to the north in the blurry shot and immediately to the east of the cockpit in the paused shot. I know that this is Balliol Business Park. Yes I live in the north east, and I'm familiar with these areas, but I can look out of the cockpit and work out were I am. With ORBX, I can look out of the cockpit at lots of 3D models with trees etc which looks pretty and is an approximation of Newcastle. Yes it has most of the A roads, the river Tyne / Wear etc, but can I put the aircraft in that same position and say, that's Balliol business park, no.
It really comes down to what you want to see when your flying. I usually fly airliners or big props, so I spend a lot of my time up high (unless I'm flying the fully loaded Argosy ) I also like to know where I am, for example If I'm driving past a place and notice a disused airfield, I'll not just go and look at it on Bing maps and Wiki, I'll jump in the sim and fly over it, that's what I enjoy.

If you'd rather see 3D models that are pretty accurately positioned to represent the types of building in a particular area, but your not to bothered that its not what you'll see if you were really flying, then the ORBX stuff is a good option, particularly when you consider its more frame rate friendly for many folk and quite a bit less expensive that all of the UK GenX stuff.

So what type of thing do you like flying Phil?

p.s. I should also mention my PC specs. Not right up to date, but a good all rounder. Intel i5 2500K, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA 560Ti, SSD

[DaveB]

Hi Paul

Ben's comments pretty much sum up my feelings on 'area' scenery too. Ian (Speedbird 591) has shown us some stunning shots of ORBX scenery and with the release of FTX England ultimate, I downloaded their 'free' areas.. Tasmania and the US PNW.. the latter coming with a full version of one of their airfields.. Bowerman. I have to say I was enamoured with it. FR's were great and it was full of 3D autogen.. something sadly lacking in GenX. However, on it's release (FTX England that is).. I downloaded it and had a few issues. Notwithstanding the issues.. while I wanted a full 3D environment as I'd seen in PNW.. finding as Ben put it 'representations' of areas I knew full of 3D buildings didn't work the same for me as PNW had. You get used to looking at something for so long knowing it's right.. suddenly all the 3D in the world crammed into this 'representation' of England didn't look right.. so much so, I'd rather have my somewhat '3D void' GenXv3 than FTX full of 'representations'.

I'm not saying I'm right and everyone else is wrong.. just that it doesn't work for me. Flying in, over and around Bowerman.. I don't know what that actually looks like so accuracy doesn't matter.. a representation will do. What I see in FTX PNW looks great and runs like a good'un on my old PC and were ORBX scenery not so intrusive into other areas (areas of the UK).. I'd keep it on my pc and be more than happy to fly around it. Their airports are truly stunning but you get what you pay for.. this I've already covered in the original FTX England thread.

GenXv3 or any other version will lose focus at certain speeds and certain heights but it has to be said.. the ORBX PNW and Tasmania.. the only 2 areas I've tried will do this too. Focus returns pretty soon with either scenery so it's an inconvenience.. not the end of the world. Again.. as Ben pointed out.. a lot depends on what you fly, where you fly and what you're prepared to see. I bought FTX England and was bitterly disappointed with it.. you may feel completely different. This said.. I'm still a fan of ORBX scenery but elsewhere.. not here in the UK. To have GenXv3 populated in 3D to the same degree as FTX England AND run the same would be heaven. To have FTX England set with the same accuracy as GenXv3 would also be heaven but at the end of the day.. they're both very different sceneries. One aims to increase the accuracy of autogen over the default and run at the same speed or similar.. the other has no place for autogen 'on it's own' but what you see is accurate.. just void for the most part of 3D.

As a GenX user.. I couldn't recommend FTX England over GenX but for those who are still living with the default FSX scenery.. I can certainly recommend FTX England. It has bugs but I'm certain they'll be fixed.. that's the way ORBX are. The simple answer is.. there really isn't a best of both worlds

ATB
DaveB