What is landclass?

[Stewart Hobson]

Hi, Jack.  No need to fiddle with FTX Central.  And it doesn't make any difference which order the LCs and Vector are installed.  The installers will know what to do.  Just make sure the OLC entries are placed just below your FTX entries and the Vector entries placed below Africa in the Scenery Library.  FTX Central helps you to do this.

[Jack Sawyer]

7 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Hi, Jack.  No need to fiddle with FTX Central.  And it doesn't make any difference which order the LCs and Vector are installed.  The installers will know what to do.  Just make sure the OLC entries are placed just below your FTX entries and the Vector entries placed below Africa in the Scenery Library.  FTX Central helps you to do this.

Thanks Stew!  Now I'm ready to do all that.  I have a lot to do, it may take a couple of days.

 

[Jack Sawyer]

Stewart, it has taken me all day but I now have FTX LC's, Global Base, and Vector installed but I have no idea what you mean by the OLC and "Vector entries" above an below.

Can you be more specific?  Like what the names of the files are and exactly where they all go?

 

Thanks.

 

Then a lot of testing.

 

 

[Stewart Hobson]

OLC is in your scenery library and looks like this, for example:  ORBX!OPENLC_NAMERICA1  and ORBX!OPENLC_BASE and should be located just above Edwards_AFB.  You may have other OpenLC entries but they will all be in alphabetical order and located above Edwards_AFB.  If not, move them there.  This is assuming you're running FSX.  The entry point in P3D is different.  The Vector entries are further down and four of them look this:  ORBX!VECTOR_OBJ, ORBX!VECTOR_APT, ORBX!VECTOR_CVX, and ORBX!VECTOR_EXX.  These four are inserted in their correct places by the installer, as is the 5th one ORBX!VECTOR_AEC, which is placed 3rd from the bottom of the library just above Default Scenery and Default Terrain and below 0000 Base.  And don't look for any entries for Global Base in the Scenery Library.  You won't find 'em, since it's all texture replacements for the FSX Default Global textures.  When you're satisfied with the order, go to FTX Central and verify their placement is correct by noting the location of "FTX", "OLC" and the 5 Vector entries.  I have the orange FTX placed right below "Addon Scenery" and the blue "OLC" directly below the FTX.

[Jack Sawyer]

Like this Stew?

 

 

 

[Stewart Hobson]

Hi, Jack.  Ok, I see you have Tongass Fjords so here's what you do:  Take the OLC entry and put it below the Tongass Fjords entries and you're all set.  I didn't know (or forgot) you had TF.  And the Vector entries are correct, too.  If or when you install a mesh, its entries would go above Vector, although Holger has said, I think, that it doesn't really make any difference, above or below Vector either way is ok.

[Jack Sawyer]

Thank you for all your help Stew.  You have no idea how much I appreciate it.

 

I just tested it all it's fine now.  I am backing up with Acronis now so I'll have todo what you describe later.

 

I learned how to use the AEC tool to take one Alaska airport out of a deep hole and all is right with the world so far.

 

I see a huge difference with the new LC's and especially Vector and it runs much smoother and never had a drop below 30 as mine is locked on 31 with 1/2 vsync though the NVI.

 

Now for the fun of testing and flying and now it'd ALL Orbx.

[Stewart Hobson]

Glad to hear it, Jack.  Which airplane do you think you'll do your testing in?  Just curious which one is your favorite.

[Jack Sawyer]

Just now, Stewart Hobson said:

Glad to hear it, Jack.  Which airplane do you think you'll do your testing in?  Just curious which one is your favorite.

Gosh they're all my favorites.  I like my new Phenom 100, the A2A Cherokee, 182, Q400, Duke turbine, Lancair, L-39, Piper Sport, Twin Otter, 337.  I'll probably just use them all on my continuing Orbx to Orbx airport round the world cruise.

 

 

[Stewart Hobson]

That's quite a collection, Jack.  I always enjoy hopping into the Cherokee and 182.  The Lancair Legacy I fly high and fast.  My overall favorite, however, is the Carenado Piper Navajo.  Don't know why--it just seems to fit my flying habits.

[Jack Sawyer]

9 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said:

That's quite a collection, Jack.  I always enjoy hopping into the Cherokee and 182.  The Lancair Legacy I fly high and fast.  My overall favorite, however, is the Carenado Piper Navajo.  Don't know why--it just seems to fit my flying habits.

I have even more than that!  But I still have more Orbx's than planes.  I haven't tried the Navajo but I might do a flight in the 404 today in California from SFO to some of my Orbx airports in Northern CA.

 

How long till they release the next N/A Landclass, do you know?

 

 

[Stewart Hobson]

2 hours ago, JS07 said:

I have even more than that!  But I still have more Orbx's than planes.  I haven't tried the Navajo but I might do a flight in the 404 today in California from SFO to some of my Orbx airports in Northern CA.

 

How long till they release the next N/A Landclass, do you know?

 

 

Nobody knows--everybody is waiting.  I passed on the 404 because of the negative comments it received over at Avsim.

[Jack Sawyer]

Yeah, the 404 isn't all that great but it'll get me there in my tests.  I'm going to change planes on every leg.

I always start fresh, even reboot between test flights.

 

Well Stew, I have been making some serious test flights now and I don't like what I see VAS-wise so far.

Two flights from Flightbeam's KSOF to Orbx KSTS in A2A's 182, ASN on.

On the first flight I heard the OOM chimes.  I looked at the log, I had only 245092 left!

Second flight I had 512416 left.

 

I wonder if I need to make some changes in Vector?

 

Going out.  Be back later...

[Stewart Hobson]

Jack, Making changes in Vector won't do any good.  Flying in the SF Bay Area can cause problems.  In the LA/Long Beach area and in the SF Bay area, I adjust my scenery sliders to Normal Autogen Density and minimum cloud draw distance--I think it's 60km.  These adjustments solve most VAS issues for me.

[Jack Sawyer]

2 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Jack, Making changes in Vector won't do any good.  Flying in the SF Bay Area can cause problems.  In the LA/Long Beach area and in the SF Bay area, I adjust my scenery sliders to Normal Autogen Density and minimum cloud draw distance--I think it's 60km.  These adjustments solve most VAS issues for me.

Ok, so I'll have to make some of my other flights where I kept track of VAS, almost all were in Orbx's UK region.  I wonder if disabling any of Vector's settings may affect VAS just a little because there's so many of them.  Since I have never used Vector I need advice from people who have disabled some of the settings.

 

I like your advice about the clouds and autogen, you know, since I've been using FSX not once have I ever changed sliders.  I keep them the same world wide.

 

I am going to post a bunch of screen shots of my flight in the Cherokee to KSTS.  It was stunning, I loved the road tunnels and all the roads and bridges look MUCH nicer!  I really like Vector, should have gotten it long ago.

 

Heck, I wish I had found Orbx when I first started in FSX.

[Stewart Hobson]

Maybe a case can made for turning off Secondary and Tertiary roads in Vector.  I don't know for sure.

[Jack Sawyer]

2 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Maybe a case can made for turning off Secondary and Tertiary roads in Vector.  I don't know for sure.

Well Stew, here's some results.

First I have to set this up.

I fly a lot of FS Economy, mostly in Orbx's Alaska and ALL their Alaska airports and Tongass too.

But I also fly the 182 and Comanche in FS Economy in the UK.

A few months ago, whenever I fly anywhere, I look at my FSUIPC VAS log and make a note in my paper log what it was after the flight.

So, Last month, before the LC's and Vector I flew the A2A 182 from EGNX to EGBB, my VAS then was 802,260 left over.

Today I made the same flight with the same parameters, 182, ASN on and my VAS left over was 804,204.

So a very slight improvement.

First impressions:

1. After flying in Orbx's UK for so long I have noticed some huge differences.  The roads are perfect, I see roundabouts, no roads cutting through houses, etc.  Very much an improvement.

2. However, I am getting 1-1 /12 second pauses occasionally.  Not too often but I never had them before.

3. But, I am not getting ANY spikes like I was before in spot view. (Except in Australia after installing Holgermesh) NOT Holger's fault, probaly needs tweaking on my end.

I have eight more test flights in various places with various A/C to compare VAS.

 

Do you think I'm seeing any different scenery in the UK with the Europe LC or does the UK region override the Europe LC?

One thing I do know is I should have gotten Vector a LONG time ago, it's that good.  I will be recommending it to a friend I fly shared with in the Dash 8.  What Vector has done to the roads, railroads, and such is nothing short of amazing.

 

One last thing, I was thinking of setting my fsx.cfg LOD to 6.5 from 5.5 just as an experiment.  What do you think?

 

 

[Stewart Hobson]

Increasing LOD to 6.5 will almost certainly affect VAS.  If you use this setting, maybe don't use an aircraft with high resolution textures.  And for sure don't try to use texture_max_load=4096.  That's really asking for trouble.  I have a fun experience with my settings set this high.  When I first started simming, I had the three MegasceneryEarth regions installed for California, TML=4096 like the docs suggested and LOD set to, I think, 7.5.  I no sooner taxied my Piper Malibu out to 28L at Monterey and the sim crashed, big time.  Not even the warning chimes for an impending OOM error.  Learned my lesson.  LOL. 

 

And yes, the UK region will override the Europe LC--it's placed above it in the scenery library, right?

 

Also, when flying in Oz land, disable Vector in the scenery library.  There are areas in AU that don't play well with Vector, so the advice has been to turn Vector off.

[Jack Sawyer]

I see.  Thanks for that, printing that out now.

Also changed it to 5.5 as a test and am making that same flight again.

Then will go back to 4.5

Didn't know that about AU, thanks!

Gosh have I learned a lot in this last week!

So where can I go to see differences in both LC's since I have a lot of Orbx's regions?

They're listed in my sig...

[Stewart Hobson]

Jack,  I see in your sig that you're running Track IR and EZCA.  I don't have either one, but I've heard/read others' comments that would indicate those two programs might have some effect on VAS issues.  I don't know, because I don't have 'em.

 

Perhaps to get an idea of the transition from a Full Region into OpenLC Alaska/Canada, try a flight from Felts Field KSFF to Calgary CYYC and see if you can see the transition.  In winter time I don't think you can, but now in spring there may be some differences.

[Jack Sawyer]

I don't really know about TRIR and EZCA but I sure do use them a lot.

I could turn off TRIR and make the same test.

With the LOD at 5.5 I lost a uige amount of VAS, went from 804,204 down to 635,972.  Changed it back to 4.5.

 

I will make that flight as you suggest.

 

I tell you, Orbx's UK has to be my all-time favorite region, I spent three years there and it looks eactly as I remember it, so green and beautiful, they captured it perfectly.

 

Stew, I forgot, what should I set FTX Central to for this flight?

 

[Stewart Hobson]

9 minutes ago, JS07 said:

I don't really know about TRIR and EZCA but I sure do use them a lot.

I could turn off TRIR and make the same test.

With the LOD at 5.5 I lost a uige amount of VAS, went from 804,204 down to 635,972.  Changed it back to 4.5.

 

I will make that flight as you suggest.

 

I tell you, Orbx's UK has to be my all-time favorite region, I spent three years there and it looks eactly as I remember it, so green and beautiful, they captured it perfectly.

 

Stew, I forgot, what should I set FTX Central to for this flight?

 

Two schools of thought:  The traditional advice is to go Global with Hybrid ticked--flying from a region into a "non" region.  However, with North America, I tend to fly with North America enabled and be done with it.  Holger has advised that the difference between the two settings is minimal and probably not noticeable.  I don't believe this to be the case with Europe, however.  The standard "rule" should be observed.

[Jack Sawyer]

6 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Two schools of thought:  The traditional advice is to go Global with Hybrid ticked--flying from a region into a "non" region.  However, with North America, I tend to fly with North America enabled and be done with it.  Holger has advised that the difference between the two settings is minimal and probably not noticeable.  I don't believe this to be the case with Europe, however.  The standard "rule" should be observed.

The standard rule being Global with Hybrid ticked?

Will make that flight in a little bit.  Thanks again.

 

[Stewart Hobson]

4 minutes ago, JS07 said:

The standard rule being Global with Hybrid ticked?

Will make that flight in a little bit.  Thanks again.

 

The standard rule being, flying within one of the Full Regions, like England, Scotland, etc., fly with Europe ticked.  But fly from London, say, to Berlin, fly with Global/Hybrid, since Berlin isn't in a Full Region (yet!)...waiting for Germany to come out...

[Jack Sawyer]

I'm making that flight now, ASN on, Track IR on, EZCA always on, Phenom 100, very nice area!  I never would have flown this city pair if you hadn't mentioned it.

 

Another positive thing I've noticed since I removed those other products and installed the LC's and Vector is my fans aren't screaming like they used to all the time.  No idea why.

 

[Jack Sawyer]

Stew I just made that flight and it was absolutely beautiful.  They even seemed to improve the area around Calgary.  Along the way I had clear skies so I was looking down and the roads were perfect.  Vector really makes a huge difference.

 

Landed, and even used GSX to park and after all those miles my VAS was excellent.  Over 1.5 GB left.

 

No stutters, no pauses, Orbx is amazing.  It was such a cool flight.

 

 

[Jack Sawyer]

Does water splash against the beaches anywhere?  I haven't made enough test flights to see yet but I remember in some ocean spots it would, the waves would lap on the beaches.  Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere?

 

[Stewart Hobson]

Jack,  You can go here to download Larry Isenor's freeware CYYC.  Look for post #62 and download the zip.

 

Water still splashes, but you have to find places where the beaches aren't photoreal.  And your fans aren't screaming because your cpu isn't being over-stressed.  Must be the new scenery! 

[Jack Sawyer]

5 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Jack,  You can go here to download Larry Isenor's freeware CYYC.  Look for post #62 and download the zip.

 

Water still splashes, but you have to find places where the beaches aren't photoreal.  And your fans aren't screaming because your cpu isn't being over-stressed.  Must be the new scenery! 

I looked at it but is it complete?  Looked to be a work in progress…

[Stewart Hobson]

It's done.  Download it and see for yourself.  He's had several updates.  This one is the latest.

[Jack Sawyer]

1 minute ago, Stewart Hobson said:

It's done.  Download it and see for yourself.  He's had several updates.  This one is the latest.

Do you have it?  Will it fit into the Orbx stuff well?

 

[Stewart Hobson]

7 minutes ago, JS07 said:

Do you have it?  Will it fit into the Orbx stuff well?

 

Sure.  He's one of the Orbx devs of the freeware airports--specializes in Canada.

[Jack Sawyer]

1 minute ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Sure.  He's one of the Orbx devs of the freeware airports--specializes in Canada.

I didn't see a link to download it from…

[Stewart Hobson]

post #62?  "CYYC.zip"

[Jack Sawyer]

33 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said:

post #62?  "CYYC.zip"

Got it.  Will install tomorrow.  Thanks Stew!

 

[Jack Sawyer]

16 hours ago, Stewart Hobson said:

post #62?  "CYYC.zip"

Hi Stew, I just now tried installing it like the instructions said.  I placed the three files where he said to place them in FSX's Addon Scenery/Scenery folder but when I went there the runways were still 34, the old ones.  I didn't see any difference.

 

[Stewart Hobson]

See next post.

[Stewart Hobson]

2 hours ago, JS07 said:

Hi Stew, I just now tried installing it like the instructions said.  I placed the three files where he said to place them in FSX's Addon Scenery/Scenery folder but when I went there the runways were still 34, the old ones.  I didn't see any difference.

 

Did you install it by going to the Scenery Library and add area, etc. etc.?

[Jack Sawyer]

3 minutes ago, Stewart Hobson said:

Did you install it by going to the Scenery Library and add area, etc. etc.?

Not yet.  I will try again as soon as I can.  I'm doing a test flight now...

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi Stew, I installed it via adding in by the scenery library.  All runways are marked the way they should be and I saw the cranes, etc.  The ILS's work perfectly but all I noted was when I pan in spot view and even from the cocpit I'm getting some blue flashes of ground.  But otherwise it's perfect.  I'm going to keep it.