Advice sought relating to MESH

[Caluma65]

Good Afternoon,

 

I have recently moved over to Orbx after using GEX/UTX for many many years and can honestly say that I am amazed with the difference - Orbx has totally changed the game.  Given that the scenery looks so good, I have decided to compliment it with a mesh product - however, I have never used a MESH product before so I am not sure what to expect.

 

I have a few questions relating to the use of MESH and I'm hoping that someone could give me some advice/ pass on some of their wisdom:

 

• From my reading I gather that FS Global Ultimate is probably the best MESH product on the market -  would anyone advise using another mesh alternative product instead?
• Will FS Global Ultimate install easily and seamlessly with my Orbx scenery or is it likely to mess with vector data/airport elevations etc?
• Does FS Global have much of an affect on frame-rates?
• Is there a MESH product on the market that covers the whole world as I notice that FS 'Global' actually only covers Europe and Africa - with the rest of the world featured in other editions.

 

I would appreciate any advice that anyone is kind enough to offer.  Having not experimented with MESH before, I am determined to get this right.  Thanks in advance for any assistance provided. It is much appreciated.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Calum

[Bermuda425]

Hi Calum,

FTX Global was designed by developers using FS Global 2010 FTX Edition, so it's recommended by ORBX. But as FS Global Ultimate provides the latest and most accurate terrain/ mesh data, I chose this one for my sim. It has the most recent data from 2013 and higher detail than Global 2010, which however can be seen only at some places and when flying clsoe to the ground.

 

FS Global Ultimate Bundle (not 2010) takes 101 GB, when you install all three packages. But you may buy only one or two packs depending on where you plan to fly most of your time. For example, if your flights are limited to the Americas then FS Global Ultimate Americas is actually the best there is. A division on two drives is possible in order to save space, e.g. install FSX/ P3D on C:. and FS Global on D:. My three packages are installed on E:, a 495 GB HDD, while P3D runs on F:, a 120 GB SSD.

 

Ultimate uses the latest available data from 2013 with the highest available resolution. That's why it's so much larger with its 121 GB than Global 2010 with only 25GB.

I bought Ultimate Bundle in winter 2014, because I wanted to see the most accurate elevation details wherever I'm flying. Many people say, they notice no difference between Ultimate and 2010, But that is, because when flying thousand meters above the ground it's hard to spot terrain details of 1 - 19 meters.

 

They make a huge difference concerning terrain so you'll see mountains, hills and valleys as they appear in reality. Additionally, openLC adds textures which make up the surface we see, like forests, deserts or fields. It doesn't depend on Mesh products like FS Global. Nonetheless, using all components (Mesh + FTX Global, Vector and openLC) delivers the most precise data available for flight simulation. Moreover, FTX Vector has been designed to place airports at their correct real world elevations. Therefore, without a suitable mesh addon pack you're going to get issues for many airports in mountainous areas. Additionally, Vector sets water levels to their correct real world elevation, hence even flat landscapes may show some annomalies around water bodies when the surrounding default terrain elevation is very different from the real elevation.

 

With mesh installed, there may be some airports that appear with a small plateau on one end of the runway. That is because the surrounding terrain changes elevation and it's currently not possible for default airports to have multiple elevations on the airport area. Hence, you might see this at only a few locations as a consequence of having accurate terrain simulation.

 

Regions and airports themselves aren't affected by FS Global, because sceneries like KEKA come with their own precise mesh. However, the surrounding mountains outside of KEKA's coverage will look exactly as they appear in reality. But since the mountains in that area are quite round, it maybe difficult to see differences between default mesh and Global mesh when flying on high altitudes.

 

Some FTX Global freeware sceneries like LIDA Asiago depend on a mesh software for a correct rendition, while others don't need it but will look more realistic in surrounding areas.

 

I think that PILOT'S invested years of research and work on providing the most precise terrain data for flight simulation while using performance efficiently, like using less detail in flat areas where you wouldn't notice higher detail.

 

There is an increase in loading time when I start up P3D and when loading a new flight. It takes 2 minutes to start the sim and 1 - 2 minutes to load a flight. Without FS Global Ultimate both lasted only seconds. Nonetheless, performance and framerates aren't affected by the amount of data once the sim is running.

 

Hopefully this information addresses your questions!

 

[uncle_adolph]

You might also wish to consider FreeMesh X:

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/467933-freemesh-x-global-10-release-announcement/

[robrooke]

hi calum,

I have used pilots 2010 mesh for several years & found it an excellent product, however since moving to p3d from fsx I have installed a freeware mesh from nine two productions, which is equally as good if not better & being a canny scot you will be very interested in the price as it is freeware..

be aware it is a very big file, but you can download it by sections.

 regards.

[Caluma65]

2 hours ago, Bermuda425 said:

 

 

2 hours ago, Bermuda425 said:

Hi Calum,

FTX Global was designed by developers using FS Global 2010 FTX Edition, so it's recommended by ORBX. But as FS Global Ultimate provides the latest and most accurate terrain/ mesh data, I chose this one for my sim. It has the most recent data from 2013 and higher detail than Global 2010, which however can be seen only at some places and when flying clsoe to the ground.

 

Hi Bermuda,

 

Thank you again for taking the time to construct such an informative and helpful response to my questions.  Your advice is very much appreciated and has given me a real insight into what FS Global MESH can do for my sim!!  

 

It really is reassuring to know that there is such a helpful and active community of Orbx users and staff out there who are happy to help out and advise less-experienced simmers like myself.  Thanks again.  Have a nice day.  Cheers,

 

Calum

[Caluma65]

2 hours ago, robrooke said:

hi calum,

I have used pilots 2010 mesh for several years & found it an excellent product, however since moving to p3d from fsx I have installed a freeware mesh from nine two productions, which is equally as good if not better & being a canny scot you will be very interested in the price as it is freeware..

be aware it is a very big file, but you can download it by sections.

 regards.

Hi Robrooke,

 

Thanks very much for taking the time to reply to my post.  I am still using FSX currently.  I have considered moving over to P3D but think I will wait until DGFS arrives on the market and will see what the community opinions are before deciding whether to move to P3D or DGFS.  I think making the move 3 months before the release of a new platform may be sily so I will hold off for now until we get a better idea of what DGFS may look like.

 

Can you advise if this free mesh that you speak of (which very much appeals to my canny Scottish roots) is also available for FSX.  Also is it fairly straight-forward to install as my technical knowledge and abilities are very limited!?

 

Thanks once again for taking the time to help out a fellow, less-experienmced simmer like myself.  Cheers,

 

Calum

[Museumkeeper]

Hi Calum

 

I have just loaded FreemeshX for the first time and I am very satisfied with it. The photo's shown below are of Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa both before and after FreemeshX was loaded and I am sure you will see the difference.

 

Before

After

 

Hope that this helps you make up your mind. It was easy to load but depending on your download speed, takes quite a while.

 

Kind regards

 

Ian

[Museumkeeper]

oops

[Mikelab6]

I think I good way to see this is to try it before any purchase. Download and try Freemesh X, and if you like what a mesh product is doing to your sim, check the possibility to buy the product of your choice or stay with Freemesh X. One think I don't like about mesh is the airports on plateau. Will not be fun for you to invest in a good mesh product and not using it if you dislike some aspects.

 

As I know you can disable an installed mesh product by unselecting it in scenery.

[Caluma65]

1 hour ago, Ian S said:

Hi Calum

 

I have just loaded FreemeshX for the first time and I am very satisfied with it. The photo's shown below are of Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa both before and after FreemeshX was loaded and I am sure you will see the difference.

Kind regards

 

Ian

 

Hi Ian,

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond with such a helpful message.  I was still swithering before I read your post but I think your 'before' and 'after' has made up my mind.  That's a very significant difference in Table Mountain - particularly given that it's a free product!! I will be installing this shortly.

 

Have you noticed a significant difference in the mountains of our homeland?  Thanks again for your post.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Calum

[Caluma65]

7 hours ago, uncle_adolph said:

You might also wish to consider FreeMesh X:

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/467933-freemesh-x-global-10-release-announcement/

Thanks Uncle Adolph.  Appreciated.  Will be installing it shortly.  Cheers,

 

Calum

[pmb]

14 minutes ago, Mikelab6 said:

 One think I don't like about mesh is the airports on plateau. Will not be fun for you to invest in a good mesh product and not using it if you dislike some aspects.

 

Quite a number of these airpoirts on plateaus can be eliminiated using the FTX Vector AEC tool. Granted, there are a few left, but not many and they're not severely up/down. Pilot's Ultimate comes with its own tool, but at least the version I own doesn't do it automactically, i.e. you have to correct any airport you find sunken by applying the tool again.

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Caluma65]

18 minutes ago, Mikelab6 said:

I think I good way to see this is to try it before any purchase. Download and try Freemesh X, and if you like what a mesh product is doing to your sim, check the possibility to buy the product of your choice or stay with Freemesh X. One think I don't like about mesh is the airports on plateau. Will not be fun for you to invest in a good mesh product and not using it if you dislike some aspects.

 

As I know you can disable an installed mesh product by unselecting it in scenery.

 

Thanks for the advice sir - very much appreciated.  Good point - I will do this tonight.  Cheers,

 

Calum

[Caluma65]

2 minutes ago, pmb said:

Quite a number of these airpoirts on plateaus can be eliminiated using the FTX Vector AEC tool. Granted, there are a few left, but not many and they're not severely up/down. Pilot's Ultimate comes with its own tool, but at least the version I own doesn't do it automactically, i.e. you have to correct any airport you find sunken by applying the tool again.

 

Kind regards, Michael

Hi Michael,

 

Thanks for the advice.  I appreciate it.  I think re-setting airport elevations using the Vector tool that Orbx provide is a small price to pay for a high quality mesh.  

 

Kind Regards,

 

Calum

[Mikelab6]

1 minute ago, pmb said:

Quite a number of these airpoirts on plateaus can be eliminiated using the FTX Vector AEC tool. Granted, there are a few left, but not many and they're not severely up/down. Pilot's Ultimate comes with its own tool, but at least the version I own doesn't do it automactically, i.e. you have to correct any airport you find sunken by applying the tool again.

 

 Hi Michael,

 

You're right pointing about Vector AEC tool, but I was referring (in my head ) to plateaus on some sides of some airports. All default airports are on a flat surface,  so installing a mesh will remove those flat surfaces around airports causing some sides on plateaus.

[Museumkeeper]

30 minutes ago, Caluma65 said:

 

Hi Ian,

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond with such a helpful message.  I was still swithering before I read your post but I think your 'before' and 'after' has made up my mind.  That's a very significant difference in Table Mountain - particularly given that it's a free product!! I will be installing this shortly.

 

Have you noticed a significant difference in the mountains of our homeland?  Thanks again for your post.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Calum

Hi Calum

 

I think basic FSX Mesh is about 74m while Freemesh is 38m and FTX Scotland is 20m so you are best sticking to FTX Scotland . Again I think that your computer flightsim automatically picks up the best quality mesh if you have more than one installed. Here is an extract from FreemeshX

 

FreeMeshX features LOD10 (38-m resolution) coverage for:

• North America (LOD10 Canada is released in this mesh - default USA is already LOD10, so USA is not included for the base release. A LOD11 USA mesh is in the works)
• South and Central America
• Europe
• Asia
• Africa
• Australia and Oceania

A few regions are limited to LOD9 (78-m resolution):

• Antarctica
• Greenland
• Russian territories north of 60 N latitude

 

Hope this is useful

 

Kind regards

 

Ian

[Miss Clairol]

Just my 2 cents worth regarding this, I have both Pilots Ultimate, and FTX Global 2010, the Ultimate really is great, however, it comes with a price, really slows down your loading and frame rates, (I do have a SSD) causes all kinds of elevation issues that you have to manually fix, the AEC tool doesn't do it for you, takes up over 100GB of space on your hard drive, and if you think you have blurry textures now since the FTX central update, well.....

I've gone back to using FTX Global 2010, which is what the developers use and test ORBX products with, and truly, it's just fine,  The FTX regions are already done in higher LOD than FTX Global 2010, so they look great, and yes Ultimate can make them look better, but  it comes with a price of blurry textures in the distance, slower loading, and lot's of used up space on your drive, so, like I said, my 2 cents worth, FTX Global 2010 is the best one for pay ware, in my opinion, this is after having and using them both.

 

Cheers

[Stewart Hobson]

I have Pilot's Ultimate on a separate SSD, no noticeable slow down in loading, frame rates are not affected (30+) and no blurries.  Any elevation issues are easily fixed, even if the AEC doesn't detect them, and are not a significant problem, in my view.

[Miss Clairol]

hmmm, what a great idea, I wouldn't mind trying that, putting Ultimate on a separate SSD.  Thanks for the idea Stewart!! I don't know why, my system has been just pitiful since the whole migration thing.  When MS releases the Anniversary Update in August, I think I'm going to just clean install and start over to see if I can get back what once was!!

 

Cheers!

[Stewart Hobson]

Good idea!  I would add that I also use SimStarter to load different profiles so that I don't load NA mesh if I'm planning to fly Europe, for example, or vice versa.  This really cuts down on load times, of course.

[dominique]

5 hours ago, Miss Clairol said:

  the Ultimate really is great, however, it comes with a price, really slows down your loading and frame rat e

 

It shouldn't bring down the FPS except if you have a weak processor. About the loading, a huge mesh will increase the loading time but it shouldn't be such a big problem with a SSD. Be sure  that your SSD is below a 80% fill and that you have run the optimization software coming with it (like the Magician for Samsung).