Ridiculous situation

[J0hn]

At the weekend I bought a program called Beetle Print Experience X at SimMarket.

It is a texture improvement utility - supposed to improve the look of scenery lights at night. All of the reviews except one were good, and it isn't a huge amount, at £16.59, though at that price I would expect it to be good.

The program installs - but won't run at all. the interface looks very amateur - by that I mean it looks like many other cheaper progs I've bought and wished I hadn't - as if it was designed for Windows 3.11 or at best 95. It needs to run to be able to install the textures in the right directory - and if you have UTX (which I have) you have to send off your terrain.cfg file to the developer to have it adjusted so that it will show street-lights properly.

I sent off my terrain.cfg and explained it wasn't working - they responded each time, but the things they suggested were pretty basic and didn't help (and they keep calling me by my wife's name - I used her e-mail address, but my name in the purchase and correspondance, but still get called Sharon in every email!). They didn't return a 'fixed' terrain file - maybe the textures need to be installed to FSX first.

However, now they are insisting that the only possible way for this to be fixed, is to allow them remote access to my computer from their 'home' in Brazil. Are they kidding me? I wouldn't even let anyone I know have remote access to my PC, let alone some people I'd never heard of before the weekend, in a country far far away. I'm completely gobsmacked!

So it looks like my £16.59 is wasted. That also means it is the last time I will ever buy anything from SimMarket or from some independant developer. Thanks, guys.

What gets me is that all the textures are put into an install folder before they are copied to FSX - so why they can't just tell me where to copy them and let me do it myself is a mystery. Unless their wanting to remotely access my PC has an ulterior motive....

Be very careful what you buy, chaps

[Vancouver]

Caveat emptor my friend I'm afraid. I had never heard of this program until you brought it to our attention. You should dash off a quick e-mail to SimMarket expressing your displeasure and maybe if they get enough complaints they will act in one way or another.

[J0hn]

An update:

I have managed to get the FSX texture installer (and backup) working with a bit of ini tweaking.

If you do get this and it won't work, simply make a file "xnl.ini" and put it into the FSXXNL folder. In the ini file all you have to write is the path to your FSX installation folder, thus:

[general]
path=C:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X

or whatever your install folder is

[Airspeed]

Well done John,
I've never delved into modifying the files directly, though I'm going to have a squizz following that tweaking suggestion a day or two back.
Would be good to hear your overall impression of this utility once you've experienced it.

[J0hn]

Sure Mike, I'll let you know how it looks.

I've been really busy with other stuff recently (new shed going up and building a new control panel for combat flight sims) but I want to see how this looks so I'll make time for it.

In the meantime I have asked if they would please return my 'patched' config file and they have responded with three separate e-mails, each asking a different question about my set-up - like which card I'm using, then which resolution etc - why not ask in one e-mail?

Think I've had enough and will give up on the street lights in UTX.

[cstorey]

Actually, not caveat emptor as our Canadian contributor suggested. Presuming that you bought this on the internet, it is covered by the Distance Selling regulations, and you have a right to return it provided you act promptly . Try Googling the regs

[Chris Sykes]

Software is generally a bit different in terms of Distance selling Regs, they are good for goods purchases however software is a bit more grey area...

[J0hn]

Indeed - I wouldn't expect to get a refund as there is no way that I can prove I am no longer using it. That's why I didn't ask for my money back. Though if it doesn't work or is complete tosh, I guess there's an argument.

All is not lost, however, as the program does appear to be working. The streetlights are well OTT but that is part of what their terrain.cfg adjustment is supposed to fix. I have just received an e-mail from them saying they are in the process of doing that.

Here are some screens - reduced to 800x600-ish as I wasn't sure posting my 1680x1050 screens would be appreciated.

This is Cardiff, at dusk:



and at night:





The really bright bits are the lights that get adjusted (only when UTX is installed).

Here is a close-up. When you zoom right in, the lights change to normal brightness, but you do get some strange colours now & then:



Here we are on the runway at Wadders:



low-level Wadders:



Lincoln at 2000ft:



Lincoln at 8000ft:



and at FL100:



So I think it is definitely an improvement on the default lighting (and UTX night lighting) and once those street lights are sorted it should be good. Unfortunately I didn't have time to try it with REX because the darn thing always insists on spending ages downloading stuff (even though I set it not to). I think this yucky stuff is FSX induced:



How ugly is that?

PS - oops! Meant to show some buildings:

[DaveB]

That looks nice John By the way, screenies can be up to 1080 now mate

ATB
DaveB

[J0hn]

OK ta, Dave.

The developers have now returned my terrain config file, but I've not yet had time to test it. They suggest testing and returning for further tweaking as necessary.