Mesh

[Jack Sawyer]

Is this the mesh Orbx recommends?

 

FS Global Ultimate - Bundle (FSX+P3D)

http://en.shop.aerosoft.com/eshop.php?action=article_detail&s_supplier_aid=12229&s_design=DEFAULT&shopfilter_category=flight simulation&s_language=english

[Triplane]

 I think the recommended mesh is FSGlobal 2010. The FSGlobal Ultimate mesh is quite a bit more detailed. But...I see that you own all the ORBX regions and that has to be factored in. The Regions contain their own mesh and the only thing that will improve the resolution in the Regions is Ultimate - but at the expense of a great many airport elevation problems. If you fly only in the Regions I wouldn't do anything with mesh. But, outside the regions addingmesh will help.

 

There is a recent discussion of this whole issue here   

 Take a good look at FreemeshX.....

 

Doug

 

[Tim Harris]

The global mesh orbx recommends is FSglobal 2010 'ftx' edition

[Jack Sawyer]

6 minutes ago, Tim Harris said:

The global mesh orbx recommends is FSglobal 2010 'ftx' edition

Thanks Tim, where can I get it?

 

[Tim Harris]

I think that's the one flightsimstore carries, it's a downloadable version PILOTs made specially to go with FTX Vector and the general Orbx global series, it's a one product global solution for terrain mesh, nothing stopping you from using Global-ultimate if you prefer, but it's way more expensive to cover the world and a lot bigger in GB size 

[Jack Sawyer]

1 minute ago, Tim Harris said:

I think that's the one flightsimstore carries, it's a downloadable version PILOTs made specially to go with FTX Vector and the general Orbx global series, it's a one product global solution for terrain mesh, nothing stopping you from using Global-ultimate if you prefer, but it's way more expensive to cover the world and a lot bigger in GB size 

Thank you Tim, I'd much rather go with what Orbx recommends.  

 

 

[pmb]

http://www.flightsimstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=2648

 

Kind regards, Michael

[Jack Sawyer]

4 hours ago, pmb said:

http://www.flightsimstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=2648

 

Kind regards, Michael

Thank you Michael!

 

Now to save my pennies.  $88 AUD.  It's what I need though.

[Matt McGee]

Jack, while you save your pennies, I would install FreeMeshX as a temporary (and perhaps permanent) mesh solution.  

 

It is not my intent to criticize FSGlobal 2010 FTX Edition.

I intended to purchase it, but tried out FreeMeshX while I was waiting.  I've been so happy with the improvements that I keep prioritizing my money to purchase more Orbx regions and airports instead.  I haven't seen any FSGlobal 2010 FTX vs FreeMeshX comparison screenshots, so I don't know if I am missing out or not. 

 

Something better than default mesh can certainly improve your sim experience.

I recently posted a default mesh vs FreeMeshX screenshot in this thread: http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/118417-another-question-about-mesh/#comment-1064324

[Jack Sawyer]

Thanks Matt!

I'm like a babe in the woods when it comes to mesh.

I have a lot to learn, especially why I even need it.  Plus the files are so large I don't want to max out my 500 GB SSD.  I'd rather more Orbx on it.

Can I put the files on my FSX drive and not my P3D drive as I'm slowly removing stuff from it, have yet to even run FSX since I got P3D.

Is this Freemesh P3D 3.2 capable?

Its gotta be easy or I won't use it.

 

Best regards,

 

Jack

[Stewart Hobson]

24 minutes ago, JS07 said:

Thanks Matt!

I'm like a babe in the woods when it comes to mesh.

I have a lot to learn, especially why I even need it.  Plus the files are so large I don't want to max out my 500 GB SSD.  I'd rather more Orbx on it.

Can I put the files on my FSX drive and not my P3D drive as I'm slowly removing stuff from it, have yet to even run FSX since I got P3D.

Is this Freemesh P3D 3.2 capable?

Its gotta be easy or I won't use it.

 

Best regards,

 

Jack

Jack,  Do you have a spare SSD perhaps that you can put the mesh on?  Then you install it into the sim in the normal manner.  Nothing says the mesh has to be on the same drive as your FS.

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi Stew.  No unfortunately I don't. I have the FSX drive which is half full but I can remove more from it if I uninstalled some FSX stuff but I'm loathe to as you never know if I might need FSX again.  Guess I'm a sim pack rat.

Depending on how large the mesh files are I could use the 250+ GB of the FSX SSD.

[Stewart Hobson]

I have installed all the Ultimate Global mesh, that is, for The Americas, Europe/Africa, and Asia/Oceania.  Altogether they occupy 101 GB on my "mesh dedicated" SSD.  So I think you're ok to try an install to your FSX drive.  Just make sure the installers don't try to install into an FSX folder or some such.

[Jack Sawyer]

Gosh Stew, how many meshes are there?  There's the one Orbx recommends, the Freeware, and now Ultimate Globsl?  Is that pay ware or freeware?

 

[Geezer]

And there are more.  It can drive you crazy.  

 

Really, FreeMesh is all you need.  It looks very nice and is worldwide.  Unless you're flying in jagged mountains and know the area intimately, you will never see any difference.  You'll save enough money to buy a couple of Orbx airports.  You don't need extra hard drives.  Install it like any other scenery and just below Global Base in the scenery library.

[Stewart Hobson]

3 minutes ago, Geezer said:

And there are more.  It can drive you crazy.  

 

Really, FreeMesh is all you need.  It looks very nice and is worldwide.  Unless you're flying in jagged mountains and know the area intimately, you will never see any difference.  You'll save enough money to buy a couple of Orbx airports.  You don't need extra hard drives.  Install it like any other scenery and just below Global Base in the scenery library.

Yes, but he's looking to save drive space for the Orbx stuff.  Installing mesh on another drive will save the space on the Flight Sim drive for more Orbx scenery, etc.  I bought Ultimate Global when it was on sale at PC Aviator.  But that FreeMeshX has had some good recommendations from some the fliers around here.

[Geezer]

Do you know how much room the complete freemesh takes up?

[Stewart Hobson]

1 minute ago, Geezer said:

Do you know how much room the complete freemesh takes up?

Sorry, I don't.  But somebody around here must know.

[Geezer]

I know.  It takes up only 45 gig.

 

However, before the op invests in mesh, I recommend he invests in a larger hard drive.  500 gig is too small for this hobby especially when adding Orbx products.

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi geezer, it's me, the op.  If I bought a larger SSD for P3D wouldn't that require I reinstall everything?

With all the Orbx stuff alone, not to mention planes and tweaks to things it would be a huge pain.  I mean, you can't just copy the contents of a drive over to another one and get it to work?

 

[Sniper31]

29 minutes ago, JS07 said:

Hi geezer, it's me, the op.  If I bought a larger SSD for P3D wouldn't that require I reinstall everything?

With all the Orbx stuff alone, not to mention planes and tweaks to things it would be a huge pain.  I mean, you can't just copy the contents of a drive over to another one and get it to work?

 

 

You can actually copy the contents of one drive over to another, although it is a little more complex than just that. That said, this is something I actually do all the time. There are several considerations when copying contents in this manner that one must keep in mind though. Windows allows a user to rename and more importantly, reassign drive letters to drives. So here is an example scenario:

 

1) You have P3D on SSD #1 with drive letter of 'E' in Windows

2) You install a new, larger SSD, SSD #2,  into your PC, and Windows assigns it a driver letter of 'G' by default

3) Copy everything you want from SSD #1 onto SSD#2

4) Using the Administrator Tools in Windows, there is a drive management tool that you can use to re-assign drive letters. (you can also use it for several other advanced driver related tasks, but that's a different discussion). Using this drive tool, you can temporarily re-assign SSD #1 to have a drive letter of 'Z' (you can use any available letter of the alphabet that is NOT currently assigned to another drive)

5) Then, you assign the drive letter of 'E' to SSD #2 (the new SSD that you copied everything to) and now you have a new SSD with all of your P3D files on it. Windows does not get confused, because you assigned the SAME letter, in this case 'E' to the new SSD (SSD #2) AFTER you reassigned the old SSD (SSD #1) to a different, unused letter.

6) Once all this is done, you can then format the old SSD (SSD #1) and reassign it to another letter.

7) Voila! You have now installed a new SSD, copied all files from the old SSD, and are up and running without having to reinstall Windows, or P3D etc.

 

Sorry if this sounds complicated. It's really not, and as long as you take your time and do each step slowly, it's very easy. I don't format the old drive when I do this until I have tested and made sure everything on the new drive is working normally. In this way, if something were to go wrong, I still have all my original files. I know others on here are familiar with this process, so by all means, ask questions, and don't be scared! It's much quicker to do this than a complete reinstall of P3D or FSX

[Stewart Hobson]

55 minutes ago, JS07 said:

Hi geezer, it's me, the op.  If I bought a larger SSD for P3D wouldn't that require I reinstall everything?

With all the Orbx stuff alone, not to mention planes and tweaks to things it would be a huge pain.  I mean, you can't just copy the contents of a drive over to another one and get it to work?

 

Jack, Samsung provides software that allows you to migrate the contents of your existing SSD onto another one.  As long as you assign the same letter to the new drive, Windoz won't know the difference.

 

Sniper's suggestion also works.  Just the same, it can be done.  I've done it in order to install a bigger SSD for FSX.  I've got another 75 GB to go before I have to make a decision about a bigger one yet.

[Geezer]

That's correct.  And it would be a total pain in the ass.  But it would be worth it.  My FSX directory is 281 gig and I don't have many airports or aircraft. You should leave about 10%+ of your hard drive unoccupied.  If you had a 750 gig ssd only for p3d and reinstalled everything, you would be set. 

[Matt McGee]

Jack, I was going to comment on my lack of knowledge about migrating from one SSD to another, but Sniper31 & Stew seem to have addressed it.

I bought a dedicated 1TB SSD for P3D and my active add-ons.  I archived old add-ons on a 3TB HD.  (I too hate to get rid of stuff!)  I just re-installed everything, since I was switching from FSX to P3D.

 

* I agree with Geezer that more SSD space will benefit you in the long run.

 

I have FreeMeshX files in a dedicated add-ons folder on the same SSD as P3D for fast loading. However, you can save it wherever you like.  In the FSX/P3D scenery library, you just click add area and point to whatever drive and folder that you have saved the mesh in.

 

FreeMeshX files sizes are:  (You can install just the ones that you want.)

Africa - 8.8GB

Antarctica - 1.0GB

Asia - 14.3GB

Austalia & Oceania - 3.4GB

Europe - 3.8GB

North America - 5.9

South & Central America - 7.5GB

 

My entire FreeMeshX folder is 46GB, which also includes copies of the two patches that have been released.

[rsvette12]

Why would you want to buy mesh thats no better than Freemesh also the developer is working on a killer version for the US - I use OFX Mega mesh payware but not for sale anymore for the US  and Freemesh for the rest - own all of the fsgenesis products which now remain unused

 

AVSIM links

http://www.avsim.com/topic/467933-freemesh-x-global-10-release-announcement/  highly recommend going thru this thread 40 pages but hey its free

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/488331-a-small-update-on-freemeshx-usa/

[Jack Sawyer]

This is brilliant!!!!

Thank you for this!!!

it sounds very easy.  I just installed a new SSD and had to search on the Internet on how to get Windiws to see it, I had to use the tool you described but after that I formatted it and installed P3D on it.

Now I'm looking at buying a 1 TB SSD and place P3D on it as you describe 

 

[Jack Sawyer]

25 minutes ago, h3pilot said:

Jack, I was going to comment on my lack of knowledge about migrating from one SSD to another, but Sniper31 & Stew seem to have addressed it.

I bought a dedicated 1TB SSD for P3D and my active add-ons.  I archived old add-ons on a 3TB HD.  (I too hate to get rid of stuff!)  I just re-installed everything, since I was switching from FSX to P3D.

 

* I agree with Geezer that more SSD space will benefit you in the long run.

 

I have FreeMeshX files in a dedicated add-ons folder on the same SSD as P3D for fast loading. However, you can save it wherever you like.  In the FSX/P3D scenery library, you just click add area and point to whatever drive and folder that you have saved the mesh in.

 

FreeMeshX files sizes are:  (You can install just the ones that you want.)

Africa - 8.8GB

Antarctica - 1.0GB

Asia - 14.3GB

Austalia & Oceania - 3.4GB

Europe - 3.8GB

North America - 5.9

South & Central America - 7.5GB

 

My entire FreeMeshX folder is 46GB, which also includes copies of the two patches that have been released.

Thanks Matt, so where do I get this free mesh?

[rsvette12]

Jack do you even read my posts brother

[Jack Sawyer]

5 minutes ago, rsvette12 said:

Jack do you even read my posts brother

Yeah Rich, I saw it too late, going from iPhone to iPad.  We had another lightning power outage so I caught it after posting.  The last few days we've been having some absolutely hellacious electrical storms.  But as a matter of fact Rich I was JUST going to go to the link you posted and read all that stuff about the mesh.

 

Best regards,

 

Jack

[Jack Sawyer]

9 minutes ago, rsvette12 said:

Jack do you even read my posts brother

Okay, before I do anything at all, I have to know short and sweet what all this LOD 9, 10, 11, 12, and so on people are going on about is all about.  I have no idea.  Does this mean there's even more settings and choices to make with this LOD business too?

 

 

[rsvette12]

3 minutes ago, JS07 said:

Yeah Rich, I saw it too late, going from iPhone to iPad.  We had another lightning power outage so I caught it after posting.  The last few days we've been having some absolutely hellacious electrical storms.  But as a matter of fact Rich I was JUST going to go to the link you posted and read all that stuff about the mesh.

 

Thats terrible Jack no fun - you dont want to blow up your computer so best to leave it off and even un-plugged surge protector or not - read thru that long post with mesh as I dont remember if all of the updated stuff is on the first page - good luck Jack

 

[rsvette12]

Resolution of mesh will just do its thing the smaller the LOD # the higher the resolution it will be - if you crank up your mesh resolution in P3D (lower is better) it will always load the best resolution mesh - if you choose a very low number in P3D it only uses what the mesh has to offer - if you dont have a low number say something like 38mm then you are not using you mesh to its capability so lower is better - no harm in pushing mesh slider to the right - mesh can only load what it was created as

[Jack Sawyer]

1 minute ago, rsvette12 said:

No settings the highest resolution mesh will just do its thing the smaller the LOD # the higher the resolution it will be - if you crank up your mesh resolution in P3D (lower is better) it will always load the best resolution mesh - if you choose a very low number in P3D it only uses what the mesh has to offer - if you dont have a low number say something like 38mm then you are not using you mesh to its capability so lower is better - no harm in pushing mesh slider to the right - mesh can only load what it was created as

I still don't understand.  You mean there's a slider in P3D for mesh?  I must have overlooked it.

And what is L O D ?????

 

[rsvette12]

Yes there is a setting for mesh see here lod is level of detail you will have better looking scenery - hills mountains things like that with mesh - slide the slider to the right to get past 10 lod then you know your mesh is in use if you go above 10lod to the left you are not utilizing your mesh

 

You slide mesh resolution to the right - mesh should reside below your LC in your scenery library also fyi

 

 

[Triplane]

Jack - FreeMeshX is here   http://ninetwopro.com/   .   -   Doug

[Jack Sawyer]

Just now, Triplane said:

Jack - FreeMeshX is here   http://ninetwopro.com/   .   -   Doug

Thanks Doug, currently reading all those AVSIM pages.  Looks like mesh is quite a complicated subject, at least for me.  I get the wire mesh analogy now and everything is layered on top of it.  So if I download and use this mesh or any other mesh Orbx's stuff knows what to do when it sees mesh right?  It kind of blankets its scenery on top of the mesh?

Will this increase VAS at all, even a small amount?

[Jack Sawyer]

Also, someone asked if Orbx's full fat regions would even see this because they already have mesh?  Gosh, I have almost all their regions except for maybe one.  SCA.

[rsvette12]

9 minutes ago, Triplane said:

Jack - FreeMeshX is here   http://ninetwopro.com/   .   -   Doug

 

Nice one didnt know they had a site - thanks

 

Jack anything outside Orbx regions will utilize mesh - just get it - wont see a hit - will be fine and makes a difference for sure

[rsvette12]

Some good reading here also

 

http://ninetwopro.com/freemeshx-1-06-patch-is-released/

[Geezer]

Somebody up there got it wrong.  It's the higher the LOD#, the higher the resolution.  This can get confusing because it's the lower the meters#, the higher the resolution.

 

I learned some good info about migration today.  Interesting stuff.