Game Changing Mod
Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: Game Changing Mod

  1. #1
    Member IanHenry's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Age
    65
    Posts
    1,609
    Blog Entries
    1

    Game Changing Mod

    I found this on Flightsim.to, initially I was a little sceptical because I didn't want to use anything that might change or upset the sim but it's a little piece of script that runs outside of MSFS. If you don't like it you can just not run it or delete it, it alters nothing in the sim itself.

    What it does is replace the Bing maps with Google Earth maps which are far more up to date and better resolution also the colour's look far better in my opinion.

    MSFS 2020 Google Map replacement » Microsoft Flight Simulator

    One important thing is to clear your cache in the sim otherwise you might get a problem with the scenery's clashing in the distance (I know because I forgot to do it initially)

  2. #2
    SOH-CM-2024 jmig's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Lafayette, LA
    Age
    76
    Posts
    5,989
    Blog Entries
    6
    I have downloaded but not tried it. For the most part I am happy with the Bing images, although they suck at the coastline of Vermilion Bay, LA. Vermilion Bay and the village of Cypremort Point are on the fliight path to the ILS at RWY 35. Since KARA is my home airport I fly this a lot. It doesn't look at all like RL. Maybe Goggle will show it more realistically.
    John

    ***************************
    My first SIM was a Link Trainer. My last was a T-6 II


    AMD Ryzen 7 7800 X3D@ 5.1 GHz
    32 GB DDR5 RAM
    3 M2 Drives. 1 TB Boot, 2 TB Sim drive, 2 TB Add-on Drive, 6TB Backup data hard drive
    RTX 3080 10GB VRAM, Meta Quest 3 VR Headset

  3. #3
    It's worth mentioning that Asobo seems to have issues with the Google earth mods (I think they're removing discussions of them from the official forums), so I wouldn't be shocked if something changes in an update to make the Google mods no longer work.

  4. #4
    I tried this mod and it was okay, with significant drawbacks. For some reason, it has attracted the most zealous group of fanboys on flightsim.to and YouTube. It's clever and works well in some ways, but in most areas it is not as radical improvement as some would have you believe.

    Google maps are more detailed than bing in many areas, but in most parts of the world, you won't see an improvement above 500 feet AGL. Around major population centers there is no difference at all.

    Google maps don't blur out as many military bases as bing does, and the ones that it does blur out are much less blurred and still recognizable. This was probably the biggest plus for me, I am always annoyed when I'm flying around Belgium or the Netherlands and come across a big area that is blurred out.

    Google is noticeably better detailed than bing in much of Asia. In some parts of Asia, bing has no high-LOD textures at all, and resorts to pure autogen when you get down low. In some ways, it is nice that google replaces the autogen textures with real and quite detailed ones, changing rural China, for example, into something full of terraced rice paddies rather than what looked like Iowa in the unmodded sim. However, bing's autogen trees and buildings will remain, and they are now mismatched with the google textures. Remember how FSX would lay down random urban or rural textures and then place roads and autogen buildings in places that didn't align with the textures at all? Yeah, it's like that. This is a bit of FSX nostalgia that I didn't need in MSFS.

    Many of the google textures have odd coloration, visible borders between texture tiles, and other artifacts. If you've used google maps, you'll know that sometimes the highest LOD is a photo taken in a different season than the lower LODs, and is a very different color. You'll see some of that with squares of texture popping to different colors as you approach them in flight. Bing seems to have less of this, and I'm sure they are progressively improving their maps to work better in MSFS, while Google has no incentive to do so.

    The operation of the mod itself is clever but a bit sketchy, it intercepts all the calls to bing map textures, sends them to a new server, and translates them into google map requests. There are reports of it breaking the sim, and it uses a port and host reassignment that you may already unknowingly be using for something else. It seems like it would be easy for either MS or Google to kill this mod, and I would think that both of them would want to do so, especially if a lot of people adopt it and it starts to increase traffic noticeably on Google's servers. It's also my understanding that this mod is becoming popular with people who have pirated MSFS, because those folks had no ability to stream the bing maps but now they can stream the google ones and have online scenery for the first time. Another reason I imagine MS would want to kill it.

    Because of the uneven nature of the improvements, the tech issues, and the likelihood that this mod is not here to stay, I turned it off after a few days of playing with it. I might restore it if I plan a long flight over certain parts of the world, but I doubt it.

    August

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by azflyboy View Post
    It's worth mentioning that Asobo seems to have issues with the Google earth mods (I think they're removing discussions of them from the official forums), so I wouldn't be shocked if something changes in an update to make the Google mods no longer work.
    Another theory would be that Microsoft (or Asobo) simply don't support that Google mod because it would be against their EULA and commercial agreements.
    Allowing discussions about this mod on the official MSFS forums would mean they support this mod, which would mean they have an agreement with Google to download their maps... and of course they don't.
    I don't think MS will do anything to prevent that mod. It's not in their interest.

    This mod as it is has only one effect on Microsoft: it reduces their bandwith and thus their electricity bill
    It's not preventing MS to earn any money, since the Bing maps come for free anyways, and you have to buy the game (or a gamepass) to use it anyways.

  6. #6
    I can immediately think of at least 3 reasons why MS would want to kill the mod. (1) it apparently facilitates piracy of MSFS as I said above, (2) it may cause untold appearance or stability issues that their CS team will have to deal with, (3) a potential contributory copyright infringement claim by google. And that's not to mention the reason they do a lot of things, like try to kill port-over aircraft, which is "just because."

    August

  7. #7
    There is an announcement from the chief admin Jayne (Jummivana) over at the official board stating that this addon can have adverse effects on the sim.

    https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t...eminder/470558
    Thermaltake H570 TG Tower
    X670 Aorus Elite AX motherboard
    AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-Core Processor
    NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
    NZXT Kraken X cooler
    32GB DDR5 RAM
    750 Watt PS
    Windows 11 Home

  8. #8
    That's just a general warning that mods may cause issues with MSFS, re this mod they just say
    we do not recommend using any streamed map data add-on to replace Bing maps. Threads specific to this subject will be automatically closed.
    It only causes issues if you don't follow instructions and don't click the Stop button before terminating...

Members who have read this thread: 0

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •