active EU Ireland quality: not as expected

[carlalgu]

Dear Orbx Sir/Mme.,

sorry for a help request for some -I can imagine- so basic questions. I'm a real rookie in Flight Simulation. I'm just trying to configure a good software base to train in FSX with a little more realistic scenery. After asking some friends, I have chosen ORBX as the community consider your brand as a warranty of quality, and some videos and screenshots comparing with other products, seem to say the same. Moreover, I'm failing in achieving the expected result.

I have installed (no more than 2 months ago) FSX Steam over Windows 10. With FSX Steam I bought and installed also REX 4 Texture.

I use FSX to train in flights (currently) over Ireland. I'm in fact flight instructor flying in South of Ireland diary. Original FSXscenario is so bad, that it was totally impossible to me neither recognize the main landmarks or coastline accidents. I installed some freeware Ireland scenery (ireland+some Irish airports) with some improvement, but still far from what I was looking for. So, I decided to buy ORBX EU_Ireland, after seeing how it was supposed to look like. Moreover, after having installed it and configured FSX as recommended in your instructions, the results are far distant from what expected (poorer) in terms of realism, detail or precision. 

- My questions are if to achieve the results that you are showing I need to install other ORBX payware products as FTX Global Base Pack, Vector or Open LC Europe, or if the product Irelan_EU should be self-sufficient to achieve the expected quality.

- If so, which of those products are required to be installed simultaneously?

- I installed FTX Central. I have installed in FSX the addon FTX EU_Ireland as well as some of your freeware to test and compare and enjoy in other environments. That's how my top of scenery list looks like:

Is that correct? Should I change the rank? Before last ORBX installations, on top there use be just something lije "Addons scenery" before the default ones. That has just disappeared. Is that correct?

If finally I install Global Base Pack, Vector and/or Open LC Europe, which is the correct order for optimum results?

 

Thanks for your assistance

 

Carles Algué

 

 

[John Dow]

Hi Carles

 

You might need to be more specific about what you're seeing vs what you expect.  Some screenshots of what you consider to be sub standard scenery would be most helpful.

 

Note also that country scenery packs such as Ireland are composed of generic textures and objects that togther are placed to provide a depiction of the real scenery.  However, building placement and land class tiles are only able to approximate real world equivalents, so specific landmarks other than geographic areas such as forests, coastal peninsulars, hills and mountains are not going to be accurately depicted.  However, in general, roads, towns, villages, etc are placed as close as the 1km x 1km grid of scenery types in FSX allows, but a village that you know has a particular shape might appear as a square rather than a kidney shape etc.

 

I hope this helps.

[carlalgu]

Hi John Dow,

thanks for your help, and sorry for my late response. On the time being I have tried to improve it reading scenery orders in forums and -by the way- buying the "Full pack" of ORBX: Base Pack+Vector+Europe LC+Trees (+Ireland, of course). I also downloaded the ORBX libraries and European Airports freeware. Initially, I lead FTX Central doing its job, but there were some clear problems, as airports and other landmarks (lighthouse) duplicated (and "floating" on the air) or with not the best detail possible (ORBX Euro Airports are not always on the same place exactly that the ORBX Ireland ones and the details are a little worse). So, I have changed some scenery up and down, doing my best, and it has improved.

After that,  I think it really has improved, but it is still below the expected. About "what was expected" and how it looks like: please, find the attached pdf file. First page, the expected: just what ORBX is showing on its web page. I have seen also some video in Youtube with Orbx Ireland of several users, and really it looks like ORBX pictures (so, I don't put the blame at all in ORBX, but on my configuration, I suppose). Next three pages, what I'm looking at. 

On ORBX pictures, the landscape, the terrain... is much more realistic. The textures, the shadows... all together is a really compact single sight of a landscape. On my simulation moreover, it's a mix of flat photos of fields, nonsense streets, vegetation... over which there are grey lines (the roads), and flat vertical objects that suddenly appear as you approach, as trees, random houses, industry chimneys... Also, I expected some details to be fixed with vector, as what should be a tunnel and appears as a bridge (as a road crossing the sea in fact) I show you in a picture. I read that Vector fixed all that, so I expected clearly those details to be fixed.

Can it be related with the order an priority of the scenery in FSX? My video card power? FSX Layout?

 

Thanks again for your help,

Carles Algué

Expected an actual ORBX Ireland.pdf