How does ORBX compare?

[jay109]

I'm just recently getting back into flight sims and I currently only own ORBX scenery because I haven't found anything else that matches the quality.  I discovered Ortho4xp recently which looks pretty amazing at least at high altitudes but, of course, it's only for X-Plane.  And then there's FlyTampa which I don't know much about but it looks pretty good too.  So, is ORBX the best out there and, if so, what gives it better quality than other scenery?

 

I know I'm probably going to get a mostly one-sided point of view since I'm asking in the ORBX forums but that's ok.

[Jon Clarke]

Yes they are the best for different sceneries. Other 3rd party may be better for large international airports because Orbx don't specialize in that area. They are good for small GA airfields and larger Municipal type airports.

For pure scenery, then no one in my opinion comes close especially in the very detailed Regions sceneries like PNW etc. They are also good for Landclass. If you look at the size of the OLC downloads you will see a huge difference in size in comparison to "other" LC providers. To me that indicates much more detail.

[anothercarbon]

What kind of flying do you like? I think you get it though: photoscenery is better for higher altitudes although I'm sure orbx global would be nice too at those altitudes and ortho4xp doesn't have seasons, which is a deal-breaker for me even if I did want to fly at high altitudes. If you look at the North America ORBX coverage you see that dramatic bush areas get attention (Northern and Southern California are more dense but still have dramatic VFR areas). There's no real competition with ORBX if you don't want photoscenery. 

 

Personally, I like that OrbX immerses you. Even if I fly high above ortho4xp and can see landmarks, it feels sterile. 

[jay109]

2 hours ago, anothercarbon said:

What kind of flying do you like? I think you get it though: photoscenery is better for higher altitudes although I'm sure orbx global would be nice too at those altitudes and ortho4xp doesn't have seasons, which is a deal-breaker for me even if I did want to fly at high altitudes. If you look at the North America ORBX coverage you see that dramatic bush areas get attention (Northern and Southern California are more dense but still have dramatic VFR areas). There's no real competition with ORBX if you don't want photoscenery. 

 

Personally, I like that OrbX immerses you. Even if I fly high above ortho4xp and can see landmarks, it feels sterile. 

 

Light GA aircraft, bush flying, low level VFR flying.  Pretty much the kind of flying that ORBX really shines with it sounds like.  I didn't realize ortho4xp doesn't have seasons.  Definitely a dealbreaker for me too, not that I was really considering it.

[paulb]

For me, nothing beats orbx full fat regions and related airports. Lots of detail, seasons etc. Perfect for low level VFR . I have tried a number of other products in the past, but now I only use orbx. PNW is probably my favourite .

[simdown42]

ORBX blows me away for most everything. I have all  the products except for about 5 or so older airports. I especially like Global, Land Class and all the regions. For large airports especially in Europe I have Fly Tampa and Aerosoft which are very good.

[Tony Wroblewski]

I'm only a fan of orthos if I can get exactly matching autogen, otherwise the ORBX scenery IMO looks better, especially for GA. I really don't like flat lifeless orthos unless I'm at 35,000ft

[Guest]

In several places I have Orbx joined up with Photo Scenery (where Orbx doesn't cover) and another thing I've found that's good about Orbx is it's as near as dammit accurate around its borders which certainly cannot be said of the default FSX or P3D.

 

John

[JimmiG]

I'm not a fan of basic flat photographic scenery. It was great in the past (really the only way to render realistic scenery) when computers weren't powerful enough to render dense fully 3D scenes, but it's just an illusion of detail. Once you go below ~3000 feet the illusion shatters and you just get a completely flat 2D "painting" of the world rather than an actual 3D environment.

 

With X-Plane, you can cover the photo scenery with OSM data, 3D objects that match the underlying photos. However it's a completely manual process using a bunch of third party tools, and the actual results depend on the quality of the source data available for your region. You're essentially designing the scenery yourself as there are tons of parameters to tweak. For me, I prefer just using a high quality mesh when flying X-Plane, such as the free ones from AlpilotX.

 

OrbX regions aren't 100% true to life, but they come the closest to giving you a complete, believable virtual environment to fly in, IMO anyway. Throw in some OrbX payware airports with sounds, animations and tons of detail, and it's really the best GA sim for me. Looking forward to P3D v4 which will remove the 4GB barrier and allow even more detail without OOM errors.

[Guest]

Orbx is as near as damn it accurate as I understand it relies heavily on Google Earth.  My only complaint is that development of areas is seemingly random.  For instance, work seems to have stopped on developing America and Europe seems to be done in unrelated bits so nothing joins up.

 

I'll probably get into trouble for saying that!

 

However, if it were possible, I would have everything in Orbx but as I'm not going to live long enough to see even America or Europe joined up, I've got those other areas in photoscenery and stuffed it full of the addons which are easily available addons like Nuvecta Landscapes for the Western States etc and they make a tremendous difference.

 

John

 

 

[Steve Colbert]

I am both a "heavy user" of Orbx products and have bought everything for North America as well as a more recent "heavy" XP11/Ortho4XP user.

 

I love them both - Orbx uses landclass based scenery where farm textures are placed where there are farms, whereas Ortho4XP uses a photo of the actual farm, with autogen placed over it.  But at least for my native Wisconsin, Global plus Global LC plus Vector create a remarkably convincing facsimile of the real deal.

 

Ortho4XP is wonderful as is XP11, but the main reason I've moved to them is because they perform so much better (like tons better) than P3D does on my PC.

 

But Ortho4XP tiles are a LOT of work and take up a lot of space, plus I find I need to add exclusion zones to keep trees out of autogen buildings etc.  It's more like you ARE your own scenery company making your own scenery, which is sort of fun but also a major drag at times.   Orbx with their front end tool is "plug and play".

 

I'm hoping P3D v4 and a new hard drive and new GTX 1070 8GB will make Orbx/P3D more useable for me, then I plan to run BOTH sims.

 

Steve

[shane2801]

90% of my scenery is Orbx and I have tried others. Nothing compares. I will say however Fly Tampa Sydney is brilliant.

[Aviara1985]

I don't think we should stop at "Do you fly VFR or IFR?" when someone is considering of getting a product like Orbx. Another important question is "Do you fly in the Sim for training purposes or for the experience?". I fly pretty much only airliners in P3D and I'd rather go with terrain that resembles the local atmosphere of wherever I am flying than some lifeless, flat photoscenery, despite the latter probably being more accurate when it comes to the layout of fields, buildings, roads, etc..... Not necessarily comparing Orbx with Ortho4XP.... just going against the idea that a flat photoscenery is enough for IFR, while Orbx is only good for VFR. Even IFR/Airliners have to fly at 3000ft AGL at some point.

I'd like any IFR/Airliner pilot to fly from Tromso to Bergen and tell me the experience is the same when flying within FTX Norway or default (night or day).