Very disappointed by ORBX meanwhile...

[Manschy]

Hi,

after having a good look around, I notice a lot of users getting frustrated with ORBX. Currently, the bunch of issues with the new ORBX central, but some with missing new products for P3D as well. Most new products are designed for XP preferentially.
Furthermore, most users complain about bad performance, blurries, missing autogen while using ORBX addons, same to me. Those issues seem not to be getting fixed and that's disappointing to me.

How do you think about it? Am I too pessimistic maybe?

[expat]

My experience with ORBX in P3Dv4.5 has been very good.

[Navy Chief]

Hi,

after having a good look around, I notice a lot of users getting frustrated with ORBX. Currently, the bunch of issues with the new ORBX central, but some with missing new products for P3D as well. Most new products are designed for XP preferentially.
Furthermore, most users complain about bad performance, blurries, missing autogen while using ORBX addons, same to me. Those issues seem not to be getting fixed and that's disappointing to me.

How do you think about it? Am I too pessimistic maybe?

XP....pffft! 😜 Nope. Have spent too much on FS9, FSX, P3D, & DCS. For me, enough is enough! NC

[Daube]

Hi,

after having a good look around, I notice a lot of users getting frustrated with ORBX. Currently, the bunch of issues with the new ORBX central, but some with missing new products for P3D as well. Most new products are designed for XP preferentially.
Furthermore, most users complain about bad performance, blurries, missing autogen while using ORBX addons, same to me. Those issues seem not to be getting fixed and that's disappointing to me.

How do you think about it? Am I too pessimistic maybe?

I'm not sure new products are "designed for XP" as you wrote.
While I agree with you about the problems with the new OrbX Central software, the rest of their products are just fine.
What people tend to forget, is the limitations of FSX and P3D.

Products like the TrueEarth regions are a good example. Many people complain about the blurries and the bad FPS in cities, but the thing is => this is an FSX/P3D problem, not the scenery itself.
FSX and P3D hate the sceneries with too much autogen, and they hate even more the sceneries with too much "scenery" objects (i.e not autogen). The FPS come to a crawl. Same goes for the photosceneries: while P3D handles them a bit better than FSX, blurries and late autogen popping are still a huge problem.

On the opposite side, XP11 doesn't know about blurries at all, and it can cope with heavy/complext sceneries way better than FSX and P3D.
On my computer I have all three sims installed at the moment: FSX-SE, P3Dv4 and XP11. My computer has an i7 8700k and GTX1070ti.
In FSX and P3D I cannot fly over Seattle, Tokyo or Paris without getting a lot of stutters. And if my speed gets a bit too close to Mach1, I get a lot of blurries for photosceneries (not OrbX) AND generic landscapes (OrbX) too.
In XPlane, guess what ? I can fly over Seattle, Tokyo and Paris smoothly, even in VR. And I don't get any blurries above TrueEarth Washington. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely an FPS hit in XP with these sceneries/locations. But way less than in FSX/P3D which become unflyable for me.

The fact is, OrbX products are not "designed for XP". It's just that XP handles these products better than FSX or P3D.

[stovall]

Thought I would chime in here regarding ORBX. I have a number of their products. Can't think of a single one that has problems on my rig. My old setup was seven years old. With setting somewhat low on options the scenery still looked great. I have abandoned FSX completely (still on the HD) and fly P3D exclusively. My main sim is P3D v4.5. The new high end setup displays fantastic ORBX scenery. No doubt as everyone knows, the visual results depend on the CPU, video card, and memory. This is why FSX and P3D gives the option for complexity and other adjustments. Making the proper adjustments should give a very acceptable experience. ORBX is a great part of our hobby in my opinion.

[Paul Golding]

Most new products are designed for XP preferentially.

I think it just looks like that because of the large number of releases ORBX have had for XP. Don't forget though, the vast majority of these are released for FSX and P3D already, and in some cases, for many years.

That said, it does look like the TE series is getting released to XP sooner than P3d now, but to be fair (and as mentioned above already), TE and P3d isn't the smoothest experience for many. Hopefully, the hold up on TE is being caused by ORBX trying to find a better way of getting TE/P3d to play nicely. In the meantime, they need to keep making money so will roll out XP products, simply because they can.

[wombat666]

No problems with ORBX in P3D here either, I can run high settings without any stutters or blurriness, with only the occasional problem caused by having my REX settings maxed out.
It really comes down to system grunt.

[gaab]

Hi,
bunch of issues with the new ORBX central

I agree with this last statement, but no one has been killed...

I have no doubt that this will be fixed soon (remember that LM created an HF because ORBX revealed an FSX long standing bug..)
LM is really pushing toward add-on.xml, I pretty sure that intensive technical discussions are ongoing between Orbx and LM.
LM may have not anticipated the impact of hundred of new add-on.xml entries...

Concerning the quality and the schedule of scenary product, I don't see any issue.

The fact that they are converting a lot of product to XP11 is good for everyone. They will make cash to invest in new and innovant products for the benefit of all users (P3D and XP).
And we should see soon the annouced new products when the new development organisation will be in place.

My 2 cents

Gérard

[Postbaer61]

I'm not disappointed from ORBX products for P3D. I use a lot of them and all work well.
I'm not interested in case of XP, because ( like navy chief ) i have spent a lot of hard earned money for P3D ( FSX ) addons.
The XP hype by ORBX bores me meanwhile and makes me loosing interest for their products.
So i have bought some addons from different other developers lately.
There is a great disappointment in case of the new ORBX Central software for me, because i have read in an other forum, that the new ORBX Central opend some ports in the backgound without the knowledge of the user, to connect e.g to Amazon in Boardman Oregon; to Google in Virginia Meret Network and to Google in Mountain View in California.
The ports stays open, even you close the Central and as long as you are online.
It seems you can spot this with a Security Taskmanager.
https://abload.de/img/sniporbx0qkg2.jpg
If that is true, it would be a great loss of confidence for me !!!
I don't need even more spying on my system , microsoft is enough here.

[Daube]

I'm not disappointed from ORBX products for P3D. I use a lot of them and all work well.
I'm not interested in case of XP, because ( like navy chief ) i have spent a lot of hard earned money for P3D ( FSX ) addons.
The XP hype by ORBX bores me meanwhile and makes me loosing interest for their products.
So i have bought some addons from different other developers lately.
There is a great disappointment in case of the new ORBX Central software for me, because i have read in an other forum, that the new ORBX Central opend some ports in the backgound without the knowledge of the user, to connect e.g to Amazon in Boardman Oregon; to Google in Virginia Meret Network and to Google in Mountain View in California.
The ports stays open, even you close the Central and as long as you are online.
It seems you can spot this with a Security Taskmanager.
https://abload.de/img/sniporbx0qkg2.jpg
If that is true, it would be a great loss of confidence for me !!!
I don't need even more spying on my system , microsoft is enough here.

It's just a setting in the options of OrbX central, nothing more.
You set it, and these tasks will disappear as soon as you close the application.

[Priller]

Thought I would chime in here regarding ORBX. I have a number of their products. Can't think of a single one that has problems on my rig. My old setup was seven years old. With setting somewhat low on options the scenery still looked great. I have abandoned FSX completely (still on the HD) and fly P3D exclusively. My main sim is P3D v4.5. The new high end setup displays fantastic ORBX scenery. No doubt as everyone knows, the visual results depend on the CPU, video card, and memory. This is why FSX and P3D gives the option for complexity and other adjustments. Making the proper adjustments should give a very acceptable experience. ORBX is a great part of our hobby in my opinion.

I agree, although it must be said that ORBX does struggle with the number of different platforms around, and this will not get better when the new MSFS and P3Dv5 are released.

I also agree with some of the other commentators that ORBX is indeed neglecting the P3Dv4.x user base. Their products aren't being updated for us, or rather not all of them. For the time being, that isn't a big problem, but when P3Dv5 is released, it will be. I personally expect them to ditch further development of the Global range for the upcoming sims.

Just my two € cents worth.

Priller

[Postbaer61]

Thanks Daube, good to know.
I haven't installed yet, so i have no own experience with the new ORBX Central.
As a precaution I will still wait with the installation, as there are probably still a few problems.

[blanston12]

I think there is something wrong with the new FTX Central, I reinstalled ORBX Scotland because of some runways that were way above the ground at an airport (it happens sometimes, just re-install and its fine), but after than got big blackish patches scattered all over the terrain. Hope they fix this soon.

[ejoiner]

I have had trouble with FTX Central before. Can be troublesome, but when it works, its great. Last time I wound up having some sort of permissions issue with Windows 10 not allowing FTXC to do its installs. After multiple efforts by the Orbx guys to help me, I wound up doing a virgin install of windows 10 and basically rebuilt the system. Good news is it runs well now and P3D runs well also. Having said that, I would not go near an Orbx product with a 10 foot pole for awhile just to insure that this current issue settles down and gets fixed, or at least documented well in case, I have the same issues in future.

I own A LOT of Orbx product. its all great. But this installer they use is a high risk venture if it doesnt work well. Most of the time it does, but when it doesnt... it aint good.

[jeansy]

Yep im definitely not a fan of the new ftx central version 4

However its only early days trying to learn it and where it places stuff and how it structures the scenery

Since installing it, ive had multiple ctds, so i have a bad feeling just to appease it i may have to reinstall all my addons

[Manschy]

So many replies, thank you folks.

Most posts I can truly confirm. Till recently, I was very satisfied with ORBX products. Although they stopped purchasing via PayPal, I get a prepaid credit card to continue purchasing.
I have to say, ORBX increased the appearance of flightsim extraordinary in the FIRST YEARS and I can't live without it. But I am under the impression, that ORBX now is overwelmed with too many projects (as you said, XP converting, XP designing, TE designing all platforms, new Central etc.). It looks like they have a too small team to break this task.
Step by step, less projects and more efficiency at each project could get back my trust in this actually good company.

[wombat666]

Of course, the obvious place to take this subject is on the ORBX forum(s).

[Manschy]

Of course, the obvious place to take this subject is on the ORBX forum(s).

Indeed, and there are lots of discussions as well. I for one sometimes prefere to discuss at SOH because I know about the objective users here . I have no trouble with ORBX and as I said, I like many of their products and how they changed the flightsim world in the last years.
But I think they are at risk to lose a little control of their workload....

[Priller]

Indeed, and there are lots of discussions as well. I for one sometimes prefere to discuss at SOH because I know about the objective users here . I have no trouble with ORBX and as I said, I like many of their products and how they changed the flightsim world in the last years.
But I think they are at risk to lose a little control of their workload....

I agree. And let's face it: the ORBX forums are not always the friendliest of places. When Vennema is in a foul mood, you're bound to get your @ss kicked verbally. And not always fairly.

But the bottom line is that their global line of products has become almost indispensable for the current sims.

Priller

[ejoiner]

I agree. And let's face it: the ORBX forums are not always the friendliest of places. When Vennema is in a foul mood, you're bound to get your @ss kicked verbally. And not always fairly.

But the bottom line is that their global line of products has become almost indispensable for the current sims.

Priller

I was just about to say that exactly. I have zero tolerance for that.

[Sundog]

Overall, I really like FTX Central. I have a bunch of other airports and scenery add-ons I haven't used, just because they are such a PITA to install. I've been changing how I keep track of key numbers to make that easier, but, for the most part, I only have Orbx scenery installed in P3D.

Having said that, I do have some issues with a few airports in AUSv2 (I follow threads with similar problems at Orbx forums to see the correction) and I still have trouble with the shore line wave animation being askew and looking more like giant sea spray than waves. I haven't been able to fix that yet.

I have to say I was disappointed the Lancair IV didn't make it into P3D, as I used to fly that a lot, but I'm sure that was a third party contracted piece of work for them.

[jeansy]

Having said that, I do have some issues with a few airports in AUSv2 (I follow threads with similar problems at Orbx forums to see the correction) and I still have trouble with the shore line wave animation being askew and looking more like giant sea spray than waves. I haven't been able to fix that yet.

I hade that too, i just disabled the .fx files, the waves werent that consistant on coastlines and or on coastlines were there arent waves in real life not to mention a bit of an eye sore

[RobM]

I have to say I was disappointed the Lancair IV didn't make it into P3D, as I used to fly that a lot, but I'm sure that was a third party contracted piece of work for them.

Actually, the Lancair IVP works fairly well in P3Dv4.5. I just took a quick flight. The Hobbs meter doesn't work (the chronometer on the
front panel that shows the time the aircraft's been flying), but the main steam gauges and glass panels all seem to work ok. As usual,
the vc click sounds don't work, but reportedly can be made to work (I can never be bothered).

If you didn't purchase from the Flightsim Store (the installer can be pointed towards a dummy folder), you'll need to copy the bits over
from your FSX install. There's one Effects file (FX_LNCR_vclight), and three Gauges files (Hobbs.gau, Orbsnd, and Orbsnd config file).
Everything else is contained in the airplane folder.

Hope that helps - RobM