It's gotta look good! [Archive]

View Full Version : It's gotta look good!

codeseven

January 10th, 2009, 10:38

While awaiting a copy of XP Home SP3 to arrive in the mail for installation on my new computer, I want to gather a few Addons to have at the ready. I want to be able to install FSX, Acceleration (I have the Gold Pack), the best Scenery Addons and at least one of the best Addon Aircraft. I want to fully enjoy the fun of seeing/playing FSX on an upgraded system (it's not the best you can get but it's still a big jump from my old specs) for the first time.

What best Scenery and Aircraft Addon would you recommend I buy? Thanks

IanP

January 10th, 2009, 10:43

FSAddon/Bill Womack's Plum Island is one you'll want to look at for scenery. Aircraft - depends what you are interested in!

Ian P.

harleyman

January 10th, 2009, 10:50

For my money the best money spent was

FSGenesis mesh

GEX
UTX
FEX (REX is out now)
MyTrafficX

ASX is nice for better sky and weather(with X graphics or REX)

codeseven

January 10th, 2009, 11:11

Aircraft - depends what you are interested in!
Ian P.

Single engine, WW2 are my favorite (wish that new FSX P-47 was ready!), but there are some beautiful Civilian aircraft available too.

codeseven

January 10th, 2009, 11:12

For my money the best money spent was

FSGenesis mesh

GEX
UTX
FEX (REX is out now)
MyTrafficX

ASX is nice for better sky and weather(with X graphics or REX)

Thanks. Eye candy is definitily something I enjoy.

Boomer

January 10th, 2009, 11:16

codeseven

January 10th, 2009, 12:02

If your new to FSX IMO leave the enviromental add ons alone for awhile. Default FSX looks pretty good by itself.

For scenery as stated Plum Island is superb. Aerosofts Tahiti is pretty sweet as well.

If you like the vintage warbirds then the RealAir Spitfire & A2A P40 & are incredible.

Hi Boomer.

Actually, I've been around here for awhile, mostly a lurker. I've been waiting for my old comp (which couldn't handle much in the way of Scenery and Addon's in general) to crap out as an excuse to build a new one but 'Santa' cut that wait short for me. So now I'm anxious to try some of the Addons I've been missing out on.

Keep the suggestions coming guys. Thanks.

SolarEagle

January 10th, 2009, 14:34

If you want the best looking scenery Orbx FTX is the way to go. They only cover Australia right now in four region packs, with the US pacific northwest to come next, but like many once I experienced FTX I've found little reason to fly anywhere else. The only exception to that is Plum Island, which I'd say is the best package for a localized area. So FTX and Plum Island are the only sceneries I fly over these days. In addition to the regional scenery packs Orbx also makes the best airports around, which are ussually 30cm/pixel photoreal areas that extend far beyond the airfield, with the best autogen annotation in the business. Products like Coffs Harbour are mind blowing.

http://www.fullterrain.com/

At a very minimum you need to download the free FTX Tasmania demo from Orbx. It's all of Tasmania, one season only, and there is no time limit. Here's a shot from the demo to give you an idea of how stunning FTX is:

http://sio.midco.net/FTP9/golddecathlon30.jpg

As to aircraft, I like high performance single engines my self, along with military aircraft. I have pretty high standards, so I don't really use any freeware, and even among payware it has to be the best of the best to keep my attention for long. My two favorite developers are RealAir Simulations, and A2A Simulations, and I buy everything they produce. The Aerosoft F-16 and Hughes Racer are two more I call the best, as well as the Captain Sim C-130.

These are most of my top picks for aicraft:

RealAir SF260
http://sio.midco.net/silly22/planes1.jpg

A2A P-40
http://sio.midco.net/silly22/planes2.jpg

Acceleration P-51
http://sio.midco.net/silly22/planes3.jpg

Captain Sim C-130
http://sio.midco.net/silly22/planes5.jpg

RealAir Decathlon
http://sio.midco.net/silly22/planes4.jpg

Aerosoft Hughes Racer
http://sio.midco.net/ftp6/planes12.jpg

Acceleration F-18
http://sio.midco.net/silly22/planes6.jpg

RealAir Spitfire
http://sio.midco.net/FTP9/planes9.jpg

Aerosoft F-16
http://sio.midco.net/ftp6/planes11.jpg

Panther_99FS

January 10th, 2009, 14:50

I'd suggest flying around for a week or so in default configuration.

That will give you a good idea of what you're going to baseline addons against :)

MCDesigns

January 10th, 2009, 15:11

I'd suggest flying around for a week or so in default configuration.

That will give you a good idea of what you're going to baseline addons against :)

Agreed. Other than some funky landclass issues (lots of desert, LOL), default FSX is rather nice and addons just bog down the sim for the most part.

kilo delta

January 10th, 2009, 16:16

I'd suggest also downloading the freeware Adam Mills textures (available at Avsim) to deal with the "desert" :)

codeseven

January 10th, 2009, 18:46

I'd suggest flying around for a week or so in default configuration.

That will give you a good idea of what you're going to baseline addons against :)

Thats true. It also allows for a certain appreciation when you do addon scenery.

SolarEagle,

Thanks. I have to say I'm also not easily impressed. Thats why I really did mean the 'best' addons otherwise it's a waste of money to me.

As a side note. I saw the beautiful, fully accurate full sized Hughes Racer replica at Oshkosh and attended the lecture put on by it's builders and pilot. Really something to see and behold in person! Unfortunately, on the way home from the same Oshkosh airshow it was destroyed in a crash killing the pilot.

Akatsuki

January 10th, 2009, 19:38

Everything SolarEagle is recommanding are must have add-ons but don't forget the Realflight F6F Hellcat, it's on par with the Realair spit and A2A P-40.

stansdds

January 11th, 2009, 03:17

Coming from FS2004 I can tell you that FSX is far more detailed and accurate when it comes to scenery. FSX features major highways and roads (with animated traffic, but that can bog a computer) as well as a fairly decent representation of secondary roads, commercial areas and residential areas. It's not perfect, but far better than any previous version of Flight Sim. I do agree about the desert texture issue, MS dropped the ball, but the Adam Mills set (there's one for North America and one for Europe) fixes much of that problem.

There is a fair amount of freeware scenery for FSX. I've installed the excellent holiday gift from Ground Environment, some replacement light and airport textures, and replacement clouds. To my eyes, FSX looks just fine without payware scenery.

IanP

January 11th, 2009, 03:59

To my eyes, FSX looks just fine without payware scenery.

I'd agree to a large extent, but when it comes to airports, that goes from looking very good to "oh, look, another two runways with no taxiways, no parking spots, just a fuel pump, a tower, and an American beacon tower in the middle of a French airfield"...

That's the reason I got into (very basic, admittedly) FSX scenery design... I got fed up of landing at non-entity airfields.

codeseven

January 11th, 2009, 07:33

One of my favorite things is, water. The FS series has really come up short of the rest of the gaming industry in that area, specifically, shoreline. I have seen some nice water rendering in FSX, here and there, but most screenshot's I see that have shoreline in them are sorely lacking even though the land masses look great. Much older games such as Pacific Fighters and Crysis had fantastic water rendering to the point that it looked as though your monitors screen was going to pour onto your lap. I'm really hoping FS11 fixes this.

Are there any Scenery Addon's or a 'fix' that renders water (shoreline) like it should look?

kilo delta

January 11th, 2009, 08:16

The Ultimate Terrain series definitely improve the default shorelines.

stansdds

January 11th, 2009, 08:32

I will say that I am a bit disappointed with the stock FSX shorelines. A flight over Norfolk and Newport News, VA shows a lot of grass, trees and houses in spots that should be occupied by commercial shipping and military docks and beaches don't look quite right either.

spotlope

January 11th, 2009, 08:41

Mr.Mugel

January 11th, 2009, 08:45

Crap, looking at your shots, your FSX seems to be in a totally different league than mine is, very well done!

codeseven

January 11th, 2009, 09:12

If the shorelines in FSX bug you, you will be thrilled with Ultimate Terrain X. In fact, I had UTX installed when I was designing Plum Island, which uses aerial photography for the terrain. At all the edges where my phototerrain ran out, it blended perfectly (and I mean perfectly) with the UTX shorlines and waterways. You can't get any better than that.

Hi Bill,

Plum Island looks fantastic! Great work and definitily a keeper. Not meaning to be a buzzkill or anything, but from a couple of screenshots I've seen the water still looks, well, FSX. I have not flown the Plum Island Addon so I'm talking out my rear end a little here. Once I fly it (which I plan too) maybe I'll see different.

http://www.screenshotartist.co.uk/plum_island_review.htm

Codeseven

Edit: I tried to post just the water pic's.

spotlope

January 11th, 2009, 12:07

Hi Bill,

Plum Island looks fantastic! Great work and definitily a keeper. Not meaning to be a buzzkill or anything, but from a couple of screenshots I've seen the water still looks, well, FSX. I have not flown the Plum Island Addon so I'm talking out my rear end a little here. Once I fly it (which I plan too) maybe I'll see different.

http://www.screenshotartist.co.uk/plum_island_review.htm

Codeseven

Edit: I tried to post just the water pic's.

I'll let you in on a little :gossip: ... the water is FSX! Okay, sarcasm mode off. The photoscenery in Plum Island does enhance the water a bit by adding more blending colors and details, but the wave height is a separate thing altogether, and not something I addressed. With a little tweaking, you can even make this look 100% better, but it takes some work on the part of the user.

codeseven

January 11th, 2009, 13:12

I'll let you in on a little :gossip: ... the water is FSX! Okay, sarcasm mode off. The photoscenery in Plum Island does enhance the water a bit by adding more blending colors and details, but the wave height is a separate thing altogether, and not something I addressed. With a little tweaking, you can even make this look 100% better, but it takes some work on the part of the user.

Fair enough, thanks.

DennyA

January 11th, 2009, 13:22

If I had to buy one scenery add-on, it would be Ultimate Terrain X. Okay, and pair that with the FSGenesis landclass, which makes it two.. :) But that combo will do a darn good job accurately representing roads, coastlines, rivers, and cities/landclass.

For some high-quality free planes, check out all of Piglet's FSX planes here on the Outhouse. Outstanding freeware.

Shame you went with XP Home instead of Vista; despite what you've heard, Vista's better. (90% of the whining can be addressed by turning off Vista's protective UAC feature.) This is a good take on the ridiculous Vista reaction: XKCD invokes Godwin's Law on Vista. (http://xkcd.com/528/)

codeseven

January 11th, 2009, 13:50

Not having bought 3rd party Scenery before, do you have to buy certain scenery packages to get the best Clouds and Weather?

kilo delta

January 11th, 2009, 14:10

For clouds and weather you'll need a dedicated program....ActiveSkyX/GraphicsX pack,ActiveSky Advanced or Real Environment Xtreme (REX).:)

EDIT: Also Flight Environment Xtreme (FEX)

codeseven

January 11th, 2009, 14:33

For clouds and weather you'll need a dedicated program....ActiveSkyX/GraphicsX pack,ActiveSky Advanced or Real Environment Xtreme (REX).:)

EDIT: Also Flight Environment Xtreme (FEX)

Thanks.

SolarEagle

January 11th, 2009, 14:48

Not having bought 3rd party Scenery before, do you have to buy certain scenery packages to get the best Clouds and Weather?

For clouds and water there is only once choice in my mind, and that is REX(Real Environment Xtreme). Don't bother with Xgraphics, as it's the poorest of the three products when it comes to eye candy, and hardly an improvement over default. FEX(Flight Environment X) was the best choice at one time, but now that REX is out FEX is old hat.

REX has by far the best water textures ever seen in FS, and to me it's the most drastic eye candy improvement I have yet seen with FSX, as I'm stunned by it every time I fly. The best REX water texture is the one called Sparkling, and here's what it looks like. It looks pretty good in screenshots but much better in motion, as you can't see the animation in static screens. The cloud textures are also REX textures.

http://sio.midco.net/ftp6/rexwater3.jpg

http://sio.midco.net/ftp6/rexwater2.jpg

http://sio.midco.net/ftp6/rex35.jpg

codeseven

January 11th, 2009, 15:08

Wow!

Thanks guys.

Real Envirement Xtreme looks fantastic! It's got beautiful water, land and clouds and even includes a weather engine, nice package.

As far as aircraft, their all great suggestions. But, it's a tossup between the A2A P-40 or RealFlight F6F Hellcat.

codeseven

January 12th, 2009, 08:26

I see from gathering Addon info around the net that some folks say they are going to install multiple Addon packs like, 'I plan on installing GEX, UTX, FEX, My Traffic, REX and then a few planes'. Can you just randomly install Addons, perhaps to try them out, then un-install them at your will? Thanks

Edit: Also, It occured to me that I may not be able to run some of these Addons satisfactorily if my system specs are not up to snuff so I should have included them in my initial post. Can I expect to run the above Addons (for example, I heard REX required a hefty system to run smooth) with decent frame rates? Thanks

XP Home SP3
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz 1066MHz frontside bus with 6MB L2 Cache
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory
320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive

spotlope

January 12th, 2009, 09:55

You can if you want. But remember that most of the commercial packages you'll have to buy first, so if you don't like it, you're kind of stuck. Flight1 has a 30-day money-back return policy, which makes it much easier to try things out and see if you like 'em. Some other publishers have similar policies, I believe.

codeseven

January 12th, 2009, 10:15

SolarEagle

January 12th, 2009, 12:30

codeseven

January 12th, 2009, 12:56

You probably won't be able to run the 4096 resolution REX clouds with that video card, but that doesn't matter too much. The default cloud resolution is 1024, and that's the resolution I was using in the first two REX shots above and it still looks great. The F-16 shot has the 4096 clouds. Other than a weak video card your system will work very well as you've got a fast CPU, and FSX is CPU bottlenecked in almost every case.

Good to know, thanks.

To set up my OS and FSX install I found a couple of thorough guides...

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1208959973

http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041&PN=1

O&O Defrag and Nod32 is on the way.