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IMPORTANT: Netherlands TrueEarth Release Information


John Venema

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Hello all,

 

As we finalise the beta testing of EU Netherlands TrueEarth it has become evident that there are needs for substantial differences between the P3Dv4 and FSX/P3Dv1-3.X versions of the scenery. Differences in the scenery engines between the sims, coupled with more generous overheads in P3Dv4, have resulted in a larger-than-expected deviation in the development workflow for each. 

 

We thought about dropping support for 32-bit simulators altogether but we feel this is not fair on those customers who have not yet migrated to a 64-bit platform. Instead we will firstly release for Prepar3D V4 in the coming week and then follow it up with a object-reduced edition for FSX and P3Dv1-3.X a short while after.

 

Netherlands TrueEarth will come in two flavors:

 

1. Orbx EU Netherlands TrueEarth HD for P3Dv4

- Exclusively for P3Dv4

- 77GB download

- 1m/pixel ground resolution.

- Optimised for P3Dv4 architecture

 

2. Orbx EU Netherlands TrueEarth for FSX/P3Dv1-3
- Exclusively for FSX/FSX:SE/P3Dv1-3

- 24GB download

- 2m/pixel ground resolution

- Optimised for FSX/early-gen P3D platforms

 

Please note that every single preview topic (except for two), and the release trailer, show the 2m ground textures. 

 

Orbx EU Netherlands HD for P3Dv4 will be the only version available when the product launches. 

The FSX/P3Dv1-v3 version will be released shortly thereafter.

 

Netherlands TrueEarth for FSX and P3Dv1-3.X

 

Work has been ongoing for weeks on this update, and shouldn't be too far away. This release will include core scenery content better optimized for the FSX engine. Aside from the ground textures, the majority of the changes will be "under the hood", though FSX/early-P3D users may notice a small decrease in some types of objects compared to P3Dv4. Whilst we could easily release this product as a simple conversion using the FSX SDK, we want to better make use of our technology by specifically tuning the scenery for the earlier generation sims. We strongly support our FSX customers and believe it is important to give you all the the best experience for this sim; we thank you all in advance for your patience. 

 

FTX Central 3.3

 

A new version of FTX Central will be released that has enhanced download functionality (including the ability to set the "temp" location for users with low disk space on their C: drive). It is recommended that you upgrade to this version before installing Netherlands. 

 

EU Netherlands TrueEarth FAQ:

 

1. I want to use Netherlands TrueEarth in both P3Dv4 and FSX, will I need to buy two copies? Absolutely not. Your purchase will enable you to use this scenery in any ESP simulator of your choosing (P3Dv1-4, FSX and FSX:SE) in exactly the same manner as all other Orbx Products. 

 

2. Will you make your 1m textures (Netherlands HD) available for FSX, or the 2m set available for P3Dv4? No. Netherlands HD is exclusively designed for P3Dv4, and Netherlands exclusively for FSX/FSX:SE/P3Dv1-3.X

 

3. What about XP11 and AeroflyAs has been discussed over recent months, development is underway for both these versions. As has been the case with other Orbx XP11 and AFS2 products, these will be sold separately, with pricing and discount offers to be announced at a later date. 

 

4. I don't have a fast internet connection, and would like to use a download manager for such a big file. Is this possible? Of course it is! As with all of our products, you can elect to manually download the product as a zip file via your Orbx account. Our manual download option is fully compatible with download management software. Info on how to do this can be found here: 

 

https://support.orbxdirect.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000096555-Installing-from-a-manually-downloaded-zip

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Have you considered an option to download and install only one season of the scenery at once? I understand that having four (or five) seasons is one of the main selling points and something that puts you above an average photoscenery, on the other hand many of us won't need the winter textures untill... , well, winter. :)

 

It would be cool to swap the seasonal textures on the HDD as the year goes by, especially when we get more and more photoregions, each close to 100GB volume. 

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1 hour ago, Gregory Perrier said:

Looks amazing but 77GB download whats the install size?? That's huge,can we run the scenery from a second drive?

Cheers.

 

Installed size on disk is the same, 77GB. You will need a total of ~160GB free to download and install the HD version. You will free up 77GB again once the temp folder is cleared out after installation. Because you can specify the location of the temp folder now, you can spread the load across different drives. We do recommend downloading to an SSD however, as this will improve the performance of the extraction phase.

 

My laptop has a built 512GB SSD for the OS with 213GB free space and that is where my temp folder is. I installed it to an external 2TB SSD with 970GB free (where my P3Dv4 installed), connected using USB-C. The extraction process took less than 5 minutes in that scenario, but your mileage may vary.

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Still don’t get why people are still on the “old” and limited 32-bit platforms. As long as developers keep supporting them they will not move to next-gen platforms. It is 2018 guys! :rolleyes:

 

But anyway, fair decision. 

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Well, if you do not currently have a PC with the latest and greatest CPU/GPU combination, why "upgrade" just because someone else says that "32bit is obsolete"? I am still using P3D v3, and it works just fine for short flights around the UK/Ireland/Netherlands (and that's with PMDG 737/747/777). Having said that, there is no way that I will be purchasing "stripped down" versions of TrueEarth products, so P3D v4 is on my wanted list when I decide that the time is right (and I have the money) to buy a new PC.

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John,

 

In Post #5 in this thread the suggestion for one season only was formulated.

I remember roughly that his option should be investigated by you (correct me if I am wrong) in one of the alpha preview threads.

Is this still a valid option taken in consideration with you and the team?

(B.t.w. I am a FSX-user)

 

Best regards

-Fred-

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14 minutes ago, Marek2704 said:

I'm a bit worry after some simple maths calculations:
Netherlands - 44,543 sq km - 77 GB
Germany - 357,022 sq km - 661 GB...?

Hi I assume like Germany Is now the True Earth Germany will be in two parts. Yea I know we are going to need bigger hard drives. I have my eyes set on two 2tb ones. Derek.

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Hi I assume like Germany Is now the True Earth Germany will be in two parts. Yea I know we are going to need bigger hard drives. I have my eyes set on two 2tb ones. Derek.
Yes, I believe John said somewhere that TrueEarth Germany was probably going to be done that way.
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One question about the HD version compared to other regions to come. The PNW looks to be about 3 to 4 times the coverage size as the Netherlands. Not trying to put the cart in front of the horse but seeing the size on the hard drive for the HD True Earth version, can we guessitmate that future TE regions will weigh in at about the same size in ratio to coverage size?  I do like Nicks post on how to move the Orbx Folder so its just a matter of adding a drive for the future.  

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One question about the HD version compared to other regions to come. The PNW looks to be about 3 to 4 times the coverage size as the Netherlands. Not trying to put the cart in front of the horse but seeing the size on the hard drive for the HD True Earth version, can we guessitmate that future TE regions will weigh in at about the same size in ratio to coverage size?  I do like Nicks post on how to move the Orbx Folder so its just a matter of adding a drive for the future.  
It has been said that TrueEarth PNW will be only the US part of PNW, because imagery is too expensive in Canada, so TrueEarth PNW will be considerably smaller in area than the regular PNW.

 
Likely Summer and Winter seasons only to keep things sane.


This makes sense now.
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7 hours ago, Matthijs said:

Still don’t get why people are still on the “old” and limited 32-bit platforms. As long as developers keep supporting them they will not move to next-gen platforms. It is 2018 guys! :rolleyes:

 

But anyway, fair decision. 

 

7 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Well, if you do not currently have a PC with the latest and greatest CPU/GPU combination, why "upgrade" just because someone else says that "32bit is obsolete"? I am still using P3D v3, and it works just fine for short flights around the UK/Ireland/Netherlands (and that's with PMDG 737/747/777). Having said that, there is no way that I will be purchasing "stripped down" versions of TrueEarth products, so P3D v4 is on my wanted list when I decide that the time is right (and I have the money) to buy a new PC.

 

Also I have a lot of planes (flyable and AI) that might not be compatible with v4. That's the main thing keeping me from updating.

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Also I have a lot of planes (flyable and AI) that might not be compatible with v4. That's the main thing keeping me from updating.
Most planes (except the complex ones like A2A) that say that they are only for FSX, do seem to work in P3D v4. I have the Flysimware C120 and the FlightReplicas super cub ultra, which say they are only compatible with FSX, working fine in P3D v4.

Caleb
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52 minutes ago, Pilot061 said:

77GB - too much for my internet connection I'm afraid.

I wonder if you try hitting a Starbucks or some other place with a faster wi-fi connection. Download it to your laptop (if you have one) and transfer it to your flight sim computer.  

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2 hours ago, Doc_Z said:

When I looked at Europe products I found the EU Netherlands TrueEarth listed for everything but P3d V4.  I thought this release was only for v4.

 

It's there Doc, in somewhat bold white text saying for now it's only for P3Dv4.  FSX and other P3D versions to follow.

5adff93f31e14_releaseannouncement.jpg.e5f21bfcca31718ae452b8082b35c1ed.jpg

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I assumed that was the case, but it is a bit confusing in the product list.  Old Coots like me can get mixed up.  Wuldn't you think it would be better to say on the product that it is for v4 and not for the other platforms even thought it doesn't mention v4?  See what I mean?. 

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Dont feel bad Doc_Z I am not an Old Coot :) (although my wife may think differently) but I was confused non the less when the product menu (under Europe) actually does not even  specify P3d v4 (but rather every other version). Although I assumed it was for P3D v4 when reading the specific product page and the forum release announcement.

 

Mike   

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3 hours ago, Doc_Z said:

I assumed that was the case, but it is a bit confusing in the product list.  Old Coots like me can get mixed up.  Wuldn't you think it would be better to say on the product that it is for v4 and not for the other platforms even thought it doesn't mention v4?  See what I mean?. 

 

Yes indeed the product entry is incorrect there and I’ve given Ben/Ed a heads up.

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If other regions are planned (Global, Europe, North America, Oceania) how much drive space will be needed?

A great next step by ORBX and makes good sense but sadly not for me for a long while. I'm limited by hardware and don't have time to faff around upgrading at the moment. I was hoping that some more of Europe would get the FTX treatment eventually. 

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27 minutes ago, G.K. said:

If other regions are planned (Global, Europe, North America, Oceania) how much drive space will be needed?

 

It will be a lot... For example 1 arc tile of ZL17 (1.2m/px) orthophoto for X-Plane is about 8GB, but textures are not compressed and have no seassons. So for TrueEarth I expect something like 4-5GB. With X-Plane I have ortho for half of North America (mostly ZL16 2.4m/px - only 2GB/tile), Alps and few tiles in Europe (ZL17), and few across planet.  Overall 3TB disk space is used, but I know that some pilots enjoying Ortho images have instalations about 10-20 TB. Some users have those data stored at NAS with 10GBit LAN connection. For X-Plane it is mostly impossible to buy enough SSD capacity asi it will cost a lot. But for P3D TrueEarth, I do not see it is huge deal, there is not that huge area and textures are compressed, so I guess that about 1.2-1.5TB for current EU regions will be enough. And something like 2 TB for whole US... So one 4TB SSD drive... but it will take some time before everything gets released and SSD costs goes down right now as manufacturers have a lot of chips for SSD at stores.

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8 hours ago, AZWildk4t said:

I wonder if you try hitting a Starbucks or some other place with a faster wi-fi connection. Download it to your laptop (if you have one) and transfer it to your flight sim computer.  

Lol..... if they get miffy, just go each day for a week and do 10GB while you sip your latte, veeerrryyyy slowly !

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@John. Hi,

 

I know this is a difficult one to answer and is subject to pc hardware and in-sim settings and addons running at the same time, but How is the performance of Netherlands True Earth if compared to for example EU/England?

 

I find that flying around London and EGLL with default airports, no other addons running, using Fair weather that it is very taxing on my fairly powerful system. (details in signature)
Having only FTX Global, Vector, EU/England and FS Global Ultimate NG FTX Mesh active.

Frame-rate fluctuates a lot down to the tens with a locked FPS of 35, and fair amount of stuttering. If I disable EU/England then the fps holds steady rock solid at 35fps.

This using the default Raptor or BE58 to fly around.

P3Dv4 scenery, autogen range, buildings, trees are all set to "Normal".

 

 

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57 minutes ago, Jannie Roelofse said:

@John. Hi,

 

I know this is a difficult one to answer and is subject to pc hardware and in-sim settings and addons running at the same time, but How is the performance of Netherlands True Earth if compared to for example EU/England?

 

I find that flying around London and EGLL with default airports, no other addons running, using Fair weather that it is very taxing on my fairly powerful system. (details in signature)
Having only FTX Global, Vector, EU/England and FS Global Ultimate NG FTX Mesh active.

Frame-rate fluctuates a lot down to the tens with a locked FPS of 35, and fair amount of stuttering. If I disable EU/England then the fps holds steady rock solid at 35fps.

This using the default Raptor or BE58 to fly around.

P3Dv4 scenery, autogen range, buildings, trees are all set to "Normal".

 

 

 

I do not help you that much, I did just one 20 minute flight with default Baron at 3000ft, ORBX weather theme 7, but Netherlands perfromance seems same/similar as other scenery made by ORBX, maybe even better, but it is maybe placeboo from fresh upgraded CPU - I do not fly a lot over ORBX with new setup yet.

Anyway, with mostly all  graphics sliders set to right, 4096 textures, TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=9, I was suffering from stuttering and frames between 20-40 - it jums up and fall down very often., I find that GPU bus interface was heavily loaded which means that there is lot of data transfers to GPU. I reduce max texture size to 1024 and it helps, load of buss interface goes down. Stutters are gone and FPS goes up to average 40 and my GPU (4k resolution, 2xMSAA) was bottleneck to my CPU, but CPU cores running workers loading scenery was mostly 100% utilized for whole flight.  Your CPU at 4.4 performs about 15% lower than my.

I do not monitor VRAM usage with initial settings nor with reduced settings for texture size, but big bus interface load is often connected with not sufficient VRAM, it make sense for me. There is no huge difference between TrueEarth HD and landclass regions in terms of amount of objects and special effects, so for CPU it is about same workload, but with those ortho images there is no repeat of landclass textures, every texture is unique, so it needs much more RAM and VRAM, same as many object textures are really with high detail, so another need for more VRAM. It is not just P3D problem, I have similar problem with VRAM in X-Plane too, but advantage of X-Plane is that it will show you current amount of loaded textures, so you can confirm that problem with easy way from sim UI. But keep in mind that this paragraph is my personal salty opinion.

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11 hours ago, Pilot061 said:

77GB - too much for my internet connection I'm afraid.

 

There is a manual download option, where you just download a zip file.  If you use a download manager, you can pause and resume as many times as you like, and split up the downloading over time.

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2 minutes ago, Scott Harmes said:

 

There is a manual download option, where you just download a zip file.  If you use a download manager, you can pause and resume as many times as you like, and split up the downloading over time.

 

Thats also a new feature in FTX Central, no need for a download manager in this regard :-)

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1 minute ago, Flo said:

 

Thats also a new feature in FTX Central, no need for a download manager in this regard :-)

 

That is true.  I was also thinking of a situation where you would download on to a laptop or some other computer apart from your main sim PC, ie without FTX Central installed.

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Hi all,

I´m very new here and my name is Gerd. Today I bought the HL-HQ. The first download canceled after 29 GB due to not enough Space on Drive "C". Now I read that there is an update of FTX Central 3.3, but I cannot find the download of that program.

Can anyone help me in that case?

Thanks in advance.

 

Gerd

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