answered Scenery Presentation

[Charlie McEwan]

Good Morning All,

Can any one show me or tell me where I may see an example of scenery for those that have True Earth GB Central/or South ie what I should expect to see and quality of the scenery?

 

Only I have been so disappointed with the scenery I reverted back to EU England /Scotland/Wales/Ireland, I attach some screen shots of what I get when in this case as an example fling around my local airport EGNX (East Midlands) AS YOU SEE THE SCENERY IS EXCELLENT IN MY VIEW, I am at a loss why the scenery presentation is so poor with TE GB Central etc I have also TE GB LIBRARY'S  installed. I assume perhaps I have not got the correct settings or some other configuration issue that is causing the disappointment in the TE series of scenery?.

[Charlie McEwan]

The screen shots are EU England only, The TE GB Scenery is uninstalled.

[Nick Cooper]

Hello Charlie,

TEGB is best viewed from higher up.

Undoubtedly, the Orbx landclass regions are very good at making the countryside look as natural as possible

but the TE regions show you what was actually there when the photographs were taken.

If you would care to add a screen shot of TEGB, as you are seeing it, perhaps we can offer some suggestions.

[Charlie McEwan]

Morning Nick,

OK will fwd to you before doing so, what altitude would you like the pictures to be typical VFR shots or higher, should the shots be in the region ie TE GB Central area or in area outside the region.

One other thing I reinstalled TE GB Central and my frame rates have dramatically reduced I was gettin 40-60 now lucky to get 25-30 I had to make tweaks in the options display menues to get decent FR's.

 

[Charlie McEwan]

Nick,

 

Screen shots at 2000, 3,000 6,000 & 11,000 you will see a troubling image where there appears to be a "cliff face" as I leave the immediate EMA area?.

[vtracy]

Nick, I am having the same issue: EU England vs TEGB, their relative merits.

I have both EU England and TEGB South, that is, I had them installed alternately. And I found that EU England gives me the more "natural" look but apparently not the "real" one while TEGB South gives me the "real" situation but has too many blurry areas. The latter may be due to settings, however.

So, two questions:

1 - what are the recommended (relistic!) settings for an optimal view from TEGB (South)?

2 - I have TEGB South, for P3D v4; is there an update/upgrade that

     a - makes it compatible with v5?

     b - has an improved quality for VFR flying?

Tx!

Volker

 

[Charlie McEwan]

Hi Volker

i have two TE areas south and central, I have this issue with both I fact the scenery is very poor compared to EU areas ie England Scotland Wales and Ireland, I have been very disappointed and with out doubt EU scenery is better. 

 

I sent screen shots but had no response as yet. 

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

there seems to be nothing the matter with the screen shots apart from the cliff at the border between the two types of scenery.

It really is a matter of personal preference, landclass versus photo scenery.

 

[Charlie McEwan]

Hi Nick, 

 

With all due respect, the TE Areas of scenery appears to me to be marketed on the basis that this was by far better than EU scenery, since TE was released after EU SCENERY customers like me assumed that the TE was a higher standard of scenery in-terms of immersion and quality. 

 

An actual fact this is not the case in my view, I decided to give the TE scenery another chance and invested again in TE scenery SOUTH, however the disappointment was equal toTE Central. 

 

 Do you have a view / fix for the drop in Frame Rates when TE Scenery is enabled.

 

[John Dow]

42 minutes ago, Charlie McEwan said:

Hi Nick, 

 

With all due respect, the TE Areas of scenery appears to me to be marketed on the basis that this was by far better than EU scenery, since TE was released after EU SCENERY customers like me assumed that the TE was a higher standard of scenery in-terms of immersion and quality. 

 

An actual fact this is not the case in my view, I decided to give the TE scenery another chance and invested again in TE scenery SOUTH, however the disappointment was equal toTE Central. 

 

 Do you have a view / fix for the drop in Frame Rates when TE Scenery is enabled.

 

 

True Earth sceneries can require a bit of tweaking in my experience.  But what you tweak tends to depend on your computer, each is different.

 

Some things to look at:

 

Disabling all unused scenery layers in your scenery library can help, and is easily done with a freeware Scenery Config Editor.  I untick all landclass sceneries and airports I won't be in the vicinity of.

 

Setting some lower values in the options, such as scenery detail radius, autogen draw distance, texture size (I have had reduced blurries by setting 512 x 512 texture without the TE scenery degrading).

 

Lower Antialiasing settings etc can help.  Also water detail ( I actually prefer the look of inland water with water effects off).  Turning off shadows can also make a big difference.

 

I have nice smooth performance with good graphics across all TE areas except London where the sheer quantity of scenery items overwhelms the P3D engine.  For me, to fly over scenery that looks like the real thing because it is images of the real thing not a set of near enough textures, is so much more realistic and preferable, despite the fact there is a bit of a performance hit and low down below 2000' the textures aren't as crisp.

 

[Charlie McEwan]

Hi John, 

 

Thank you for your helpful suggestions, I will get right on it and advise in due course, I take on board your other comments as well.

 

Cheers for Now

Charlie

[vtracy]

Dear John!

Do you really want us (Ewan and I) to actually lower the quality of views just in order to make the TEGB look better... or should I say: make the lower quality view less noticeable?

I can understand - up to a certain extent - Nick in saying that basically it is an inherent fault of all photo scenery software because of the quality of the satellite photo material. O K. We may have to live with that... until MSFS2020 arrives! I saw on a video made by an independent tester/reviewer, the quality both of the aircraft interior/exterior and the scenery that he flew over! Amazing! That will be the benchmark for all products in other simulators.

(Disclaimer: I do not know, could not verify, if the scenery presented in MSFS is landclass-type or photo, i. e. is it beautiful(like EU England) or is it real?)

Maybe someone will find a way to combine the autogen-type of scenery items with photo wallpaper base. One can hope.

Volker

[John Dow]

1 hour ago, vtracy said:

Dear John!

Do you really want us (Ewan and I) to actually lower the quality of views just in order to make the TEGB look better... or should I say: make the lower quality view less noticeable?

I can understand - up to a certain extent - Nick in saying that basically it is an inherent fault of all photo scenery software because of the quality of the satellite photo material. O K. We may have to live with that... until MSFS2020 arrives! I saw on a video made by an independent tester/reviewer, the quality both of the aircraft interior/exterior and the scenery that he flew over! Amazing! That will be the benchmark for all products in other simulators.

(Disclaimer: I do not know, could not verify, if the scenery presented in MSFS is landclass-type or photo, i. e. is it beautiful(like EU England) or is it real?)

Maybe someone will find a way to combine the autogen-type of scenery items with photo wallpaper base. One can hope.

Volker

 

It's a matter of physics.  A level of scenery detail requires a certain amount of data pass through a CPU and a GPU.  If you have an average computer you will need to lower your graphics settings a little if you want accetable frame rates.  No amount of developemt work by Orbx can alter the limitations of the P3D coding that still has its roots back in FSX.

 

Now... you can get very smooth performance and high frame rates with all settings at the maximum.  One of the forum contributors, who I believe works for a high end tech company, has posted videos showing butter smooth performance over Central London.  Now he had I believe a 10900K CPU and an Nvidia Titan video card , the combination was worth around $US7000 before you even start to include the rest of the computer.  So, all scenery CAN be used at maximum graphics settings if you're prepared to invest in the right computer, however, for we normal folk with limited budgets, a degree of compromise in graphics settings is necessary.

 

MSFS scenery does use the same technique to display scenery as the True Earth sceneries, but the coding is brand new, and pushes much of the work from the CPU to the GPU, which is much better for displaying detail at high frame rates.  P3D and Orbx True Earth are doing an amazing job with outdated coding but there's only so much that can be done.

[Charlie McEwan]

Hello Volker, 

well said, disappointed Orbx have nothing to say much. 

 

Cheers

 Charlie

[Nick Cooper]

2 hours ago, vtracy said:

Nick in saying that basically it is an inherent fault of all photo scenery software because of the quality of the satellite photo material. O K. We may have to live with that... until MSFS2020 arrives! I saw on a video made by an independent tester/reviewer, the quality both of the aircraft interior/exterior and the scenery that he flew over! Amazing! That will be the benchmark for all products in other simulators.

 

Hello,

it's not a fault, as John stated it's physics.

To display higher resolution photo scenery is perfectly possible on an ordinary computer but the amount of disc space

needed is prohibitive and I suspect, so would the cost be.

 

 

 

[vtracy]

John, I apologize if I came across as if criticizing you; I don't. It is just that I am a bit 'mad' at not being able - apparently - to have both realistic/real and precise sceneries.

As for the hardware effort(=cost), if I am so eager to have Google Earth type scenery rolling by underneath me, I must be willing ti spend. I actually have a i7-7700K OC'd to 4.7GHz and a GTX1080ti (with 11GB VRAM), plus all-SSD as repositories. That shouls give me probably not as superb a presentation as the PC of the person you mentioned but it should come close... I think. Yes, I agree, both Orbx and (for example) A2A do a phantastic job in making our hobby even more life like. It is just that simmers have asked for more since the beginning, no?

Nick, I have EU Germany North and South, and True Earth NL. I like what I see under my wings. I am content with what I have. It is only that MSFS is the proverbial elephant in the room. So, it is no use saying that the software basis that P3D has restricts what can be done in the sceneries. Simmers will go to the sim that offers even better sceneries than the one they are using at the moment. I do not want the death of P3D, I want it to be a competitor, like XPlane, and Aerofly FS2, for example.

Enough of that; I am going flying, from Manston to Dover and Calais. Bye!

Volker

[vtracy]

Hi Ewan, and others!

While reading about MSFS and it‘s prerequisites, I remembered this forum thread. Where people were telling me that it is perfectly possible to have more detailed photoscenery(etc.) but that would require more data space and faster access to the data (bus speed?). Impying that that makes the request unrealistic (no critique implied! just stating). Now, MSFS comes along, it requires much bigger data storage, and thus fast access) but also better bandwith at the internet connection, ... and everybody seems to accept that as given without complaint! Strange.

Instead of moving to FS, I would rather stay with good old, reliable P3D and enhance that with even better scenery, instead of switching to a new system with all the inherent problems, imperfections, new workarounds,... I know what I am talking about: I bought the de Luxe version of MSFS, being lured by the marketing info, ...and found that a. the installation failed the first two tries, b. after installation complete, the app did not get beyond the opening screen (a fault that many others found, too). When asking for support, I got a link to a webpage where ca. 20 possible reasons for that behaviour were listed together with what to do to overcome them...  I de-installed the FS and am now waiting for v. 1.1 or 2.0...

Volker