ORBX Advice

[blanston12]

I have been thinking of upgrading my scenery and have been looking into ORBX also and though I would ask the experts here before I go any further. My questions are:

Do you need the global base pack to install the local regions?
Can you have it installed into both FSX and P3D on the machine?
Is it worth it? If not are there any good alternatives?

[Airspeed]

Hi Joe
To see the general feeling about ORBX, try searching "ORBX" within the forum.
There are many here who would not touch it.
ORBX claims to give the "feel" of an area, but it definitely is NOT photoreal.
You can't identify major roads, or other infrastructure with any confidence.
One positive is that a whole bunch of freeware (and payware) airports have been created, which are a great improvement on default scenery.
I bought it for Australia. My countryside home town is not as it should be. The area around Melbourne city is not realistic, lacking several iconic landmarks, and IIRC, even the CBD doesn't contain representations of actual buildings.
I think that it also over-rides autogen.
Anyway, do that search, and I think that you'll easily make up your mind.

[TSR2]

It's not my cup of tea, but to be fair, you can identify major roads. Like any of this sort of thing, it becomes more difficult in cities. From my time with it, it's a relatively inexpensive way to get good scenery for an area, and 3D representative buildings. The down side I found was that many 3rd party freeware airports weren't compatible, or caused problems. This may have changed with more recent iterations. I prefer the look of photo scenery, but it is expensive if you're wanting to cover large areas.

[Nigel H-J]

Joe, I have Orbx scenery installed and just started with EU England then purchased Wales and Scotland when they became available. You can just install the countries of your choice and do not need the global base packs though I did before taking early retirement purchase FTX Global Base if only to get rid of the FSX scenery which was a bit yucky!

As Mike wrote it does not give an accurate account of cities etc but I can still locate my village, which looks nothing like it, equally the roads are reasonable as I can navigate my way from Wickenby (for example) to Lincoln where I had to install a freeware cathedral as Lincoln lacked one! then quite easily follow the A46 to Newark through to Leicester or even follow the A1 up t'North to the A66.

If you want realism, then it may pay you to go with photo scenery.

Regards
Nigel.

[blanston12]

Thanks for the advice, still not sure if I should get it. I have discovered that you can install multiple times on the same machine, so you can install in both FSX and P3D. I agree the default scenery in FSX is awful, but P3D is better in most cases. I suppose I should just try it and find out, just money after all, but with so many extensions it sounds like it will get expensive fast.

[DaveB]

Try one of the freeware areas first Joe. The PNW comes with Bowerman and will give you a good idea of what to expect. I think a few default airports fall into the area so you can check those too. These will be the benchmark for what it will do to all your other default airports. Bowerman is payware quality.. small but very nicely done

ATB
DaveB

[Paul K]

I was tempted to add my thoughts concerning Orbx scenery, but I have no other scenery add-ons and so can't provide any useful comparisons. I happen to like it, and you certainly can follow major roads - for example, if you are flying to Stapleford ( EGSG ) it's easily found just to the east of the M11/M25 junction. However the representations of towns and cities are more generic, and so you wouldn't see a recognisable street plan as you fly over those. I'm happy with Orbx, but I recognize it's limitations. I won't be changing to anything else though, not after the money I've spent on it.