Ezra Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Hello everyone. It has been awhile. I left FSX and ORBX about 8 years ago. I am an older grad student and things sure have changed in eight years. Anyway. I am currently in the process of building a new flight sim rig after being buried with five years of tuition. So far I have picked up a Z370 board and planning on the new 8th Gen CPU. I`ll also be getting P3D V4. I plan to fly mostly in British Columbia, Canada for starters in GA. Any advice as to where to begin in terms of ORBX? What do I need? Ezra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 3, 2018 Author Share Posted January 3, 2018 OK. So I see that I should begin with Global Base Pack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Bosley Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Global Base followed by Global Vectors and openLC NA for your basic scenery. For more advanced scenery you should get Pacific Northwest, Pacific Fjords, and Northern Rocky Mountains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickel Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Since you're GA in BC, you might want to consider Pacific Fjords, Pacific North West and North Rockies first, and save on Global, Vector and Open LC (for now...). Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sniper31 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 Global Base Pack is a good choice for global coverage. Also, Vector goes along well with Global Base. Alternatively, for the best POI's, customized textures, updated airports, included mesh, included vector data, then any of the Orbx Region packs are also a good place to start and do not require or need Global, OpenLC or Vector. Generally, Global and OpenLC are best for higher and faster flying such as the big jets, whereas the Regions are best suited for GA low and slow type of flying. Either way, you can't go wrong. Lastly, ALL Orbx products are designed to work well together. Have fun and welcome back. You have lots of exploring to do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Bosley Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 2 minutes ago, Mickel said: Since you're GA in BC, you might want to consider Pacific Fjords, Pacific North West and North Rockies first, and save on Global, Vector and Open LC (for now...). Mike I was under the impression that you needed global base for all ORBX products? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickel Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 The regions have their own textures (which is all Global is, but on a world wide basis), vector, land class and (mostly) mesh, and don't need any of the Global products. They also have improved airports & points of interest. Each region is self-contained. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sniper31 Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 21 minutes ago, Ben Bosley said: I was under the impression that you needed global base for all ORBX products? That is not the case. As Mike pointed out above, Regions are self contained and many of them have been around before the development of Global. Basically, Orbx created Global and to a lesser extent OpenLC, in order to cater to the growing Orbx fan base that wanted to fly more, well globally. For example, the type of flying that tubeliner fans do, detailed Orbx regions are not as important as the higher detail can sometimes affect they more complex tubeliner simmed aircraft. Further, many long distance sim flyers wanted to fly on longer flights than Regions covered, but still wanted to have that Orbx feel when outside of an Orbx Region. As such, and for other reasons known only to the developers, Orbx started producing the Global line of scenery products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 OK. This is good info. It`s been awhile. I used to own all the Pacific Northwest Regions and several small airports. They disappeared with my old computer. It is nice to know I don`t need the Global packs for now. I can remember about seven years ago I had most of the North west area strips like Concrete, Darrington, Stark`s Twin Oaks, etc. when I owned FSX but I guess they are long gone and no longer compatible with P3D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikelab6 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Hi and welcome back ! So, if you left FSX and ORBX and you still have your ORBX DVDs look here .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 I am afraid I don`t have the DVD copies anymore. They were lost during a move many years ago along with my computer. I know I had quite a few because I was a fan of ORBX from the beginning. Not even sure where I bought them from. May have been direct from ORBX and/or other outlets online. Anyways, I`ll have to poke away at them when I get through the initial new build which is setting me back some. It might take a while. After the comp build I`ll pick up P3D V4 first. Then an ORBX here and there. This is a list of my planned components so far: Mobo: Asus Hero X Z370 CPU: I7 8600K Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S Ram: Corsair 16 GB 3200 SSD: Samsung 850 Evo GFX: GTX 960 4 GB I`ll be broke for awhile after the build. . .Lol. It is good to be back. Thank You all for the courtesy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Abernathy Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Hi Ezra, Welcome back to Orbx! Take your time and enjoy each step. If you live in BC my suggestion would be to start out with Pacific Northwest region. It covers well up into BC and has many upgraded airports (actually all of them in the defined region area). There are also many excellent payware airports, as I see you are aware having already had Concrete, etc. These all work great in P3Dv4. One other area to add, and it's free, is Larry Robinson's PNW ferry system files for Puget Sound and the north areas up to Port Campbell. Also, on the Orbx Direct web site there are some very good Freeware sceneries available. Nanaimo, Pender Harbor and Ganges are very well done. Also, there are several great payware Orbx sceneries in the area as well. Here's a link to Larry's PNW ferry system files. https://larobinson22.wordpress.com/2016/09/06/nanaimo-cac8-v1-10-now-released/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_ME2_ Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 6 hours ago, Ezra said: I am afraid I don`t have the DVD copies anymore. They were lost during a move many years ago along with my computer. I know I had quite a few because I was a fan of ORBX from the beginning. Not even sure where I bought them from. May have been direct from ORBX and/or other outlets online. Anyways, I`ll have to poke away at them when I get through the initial new build which is setting me back some. It might take a while. After the comp build I`ll pick up P3D V4 first. Then an ORBX here and there. This is a list of my planned components so far: Mobo: Asus Hero X Z370 CPU: I7 8600K Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S Ram: Corsair 16 GB 3200 SSD: Samsung 850 Evo GFX: GTX 960 4 GB I`ll be broke for awhile after the build. . .Lol. It is good to be back. Thank You all for the courtesy. if you plan to use p3d, i'd suggest a stronger gpu than the gtx 960! a lot of the eyecandy has been moved to be processed by the graphics crad. i can however no tell you what exactly to go for as my radeon r9 390 is sweating a lot too the other components seem to fit nicely though. cheers, mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Bosley Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 What Mike said. I have a gtx 970 and at times it leaves a little to be desired, especially in high autogen density areas such as large cities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 To Rob Abernathy, Thank You for the link! What is the B.C. coast without extra ferry traffic? Should look good. Additional question: Is the FTX "Global Trees HD" a good add-on with the NA "Pacific Northwest" as well? To _ME2_, I agree on the GTX 960 card. It is a carry over from my existing "school" rig which is growing tired. It is not a good time to buy GFX cards nowadays with the "crypto" mining unfortunately. I would like to get one with max vram at some point down the road though. I imagine that 8 MB of vram is sufficient. Would you agree? Is there any point for more perhaps? To Ben Bosley, Yeah, the dreaded auto gen. Probably not so important for bush flying though. Note: Just a note about building the new comp. Like Rob said, I am taking my time as I acquire each component. I am sure the list I provided above could change somewhat. You know how it is with this hobby. Flight sim computers are not mainstream gaming rigs. They require more HP in my opinion. Therefore, I might revise the component list as I enjoy the build and squeeze a little more out of the budget. Any thoughts on memory capacity? I imagine that 16 MB is plenty. Why would someone go to 32 MB? Does P3D V4 support more than 16 with Win 10? Ezra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sniper31 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Hi Ezra, Regard graphics card memory, for best results, in my experience, get one with as much memory as possible. In P3D v4, I had a GTX 1080 and I upgraded to a GTX 1080 Ti with max memory (it's just under 12Gb) and I have since had major noticeable improvements. There are some who will say that P3D does not use a graphics card that much, but on my system (which is OC'd to 4.7 Ghz) a robust video card has indeed mattered very much. You will no doubt get many more opinions on this very subject, so feel free to listen to others. I am just relating my experience, as I have been at this a very long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_ME2_ Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 4 hours ago, Ezra said: To _ME2_, I agree on the GTX 960 card. It is a carry over from my existing "school" rig which is growing tired. It is not a good time to buy GFX cards nowadays with the "crypto" mining unfortunately. I would like to get one with max vram at some point down the road though. I imagine that 8 MB of vram is sufficient. Would you agree? Is there any point for more perhaps? yes, prices are up quite a bit with all that mining going on - waiting is shurely an option as every hype passes sooner or later. i am no expert on the subject. in general, there is a lot of work to do for a gpu in p3d (aa, shadows, reflections, dynamic lighting, etc.) vram is only one aspect of a gpu (an important one fore sure). my radeon r9 390 has 8 gigs of vram and still strugles in certain scenarios. the "speed" of the gpu matters just as much in the end its all down to your budget. i would however get at least 8gb of vram. hope this helps at least a bit. certainly there are more experienced people around that can help you out. cheers, mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimNZ Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Welcome back Ezra. I recall when you were on. Great to see you back. Regards, JimNZ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 O.K. Gentlemen. Sounds like good advice. To JimNZ, Jeesh. I can`t say I have quite as good a memory as you. Anyway. Thank You. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Hello and welcome back. 16gb of ram is fine, I have a GTX 1060 6G GPU and it's fine for P3D V4, not maxed out slider but fine in my taste. My CPU is an old 2600K OC at 4.4ghz and it's keeping up just fine. To be honest I now have the money for a bigger more powerful rig... but I'm not sure it's worth for now. What you need like other have stated is PNW, it cover the area your looking for. If I may add, ORBX is coming out (soon I hope) with PNW for Aerofly FS2, this sim is quit new and use a new engine that is way more up to date and powerful then P3D (based on FSX). PNW is a full region with mesh and POI, no need for Global or anything else. Have fun, Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 Benny, Yeah. This is good info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 On another note, What is interesting about being away from ORBX for a while is the shock factor. It is easy to take the development of FTX for granted when you have been alongside in support all along. The development transition doesn`t impact you in the same way. However, when you step away as long as I have and then return to see upcoming releases like KHAF Half Moon Bay, it leaves me with great anticipation. FTX is as stunning as it ever was seven years later. Plus with the advent of 64 bit in P3D V4 I am really looking forward to entering the hobby again. Furthermore, now that hardware specs and software development is still burgeoning, the idea that one can build their own virtual world with great support is exciting. I often wondered what the state of immersion would be like down the road and it looks like I am going to find out soon enough. In a way it is sort of nice to start from scratch again. Not to mention, it is also nice to be back with what I remember as being a very classy and mature flight sim community. P.S. During my absence I was doing a bit of this between studies. I scratch built it on my kitchen table from plans I purchased from a missionary pilot who actually flew the real deal in and out of dirt strips in South America. It weighed 67 oz (4.1 lbs) with an electric brushless motor and Li-Po battery. It flew just like the prototype. Extremely light for its size (all balsa wood and twenty-first century fabric for covering). I could fly it at walking speed because it wouldn`t stall but just "mush forward" like a true STOL aircraft. I could take off and land in a baseball diamond. A real floater. The best flying model I ever owned. I used to fly the "free" flight sim model out of Darrington and Concrete back in the day under FTX PNW. Can you guess what it is? Ezra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZee1960 Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 Hi Ezra, Yes, I agree that Orbx has changed and advanced greatly especially over the past couple years. Overall it's a more fluid and user friendly experience to choose and install their addons. Just create an OrbxDirect account, log on, download FTX Central, then shop to your heart's content and FTX Central does the rest. All scenery is easily downloaded and installed in the correct place inside your sim without issues. FTX Central even keeps a full record of all your scenery should you later wish to re-install it in a upgraded future system etc. FTX Central also automatically lets you know if any updates pertaining to your scenery are due for install, and provides a one button download and update procedure. Welcome back and have fun ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezra Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 Yeah. It sounds great. Looking forward to it once the new rig is built. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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