Sabre 28 Posted June 11, 2011 Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 I was reading your Wishlist topic and a few of the members here have photo scenery on their lists. I just wondered if photo scenery is considered the best option for scenery. I'm confused about which way to go in building up my FSX addons in relation to scenery. I posted in another topic about mods/addons in general and have purchased a plane from Carenedo on that advice but I now want to concentrate on improving the visual experience in FSX. A friend of mine who is a long time FSX sim pilot has given me an earlier version of Horizons Photographic Scenery Volumes 1, 2 and 3. Are these worth installing or is it worth buying the latest versions or is it better to buy products like GEX Europe, UTX Europe and FS Genesis. I have REX 2.0 Any suggestions Link to post Share on other sites
rob16584 42 Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Hello and welcome to our forum Photo scenery is a fantastic addition to FSX, especially if you love VFR flying. The downside is that it can be costly and uses a lot of space on your hard-drive. It very much depends what you are after; if you fly a lot of airliners around the world you may be better off investing in airport scenery as you'll be going to fast and too high to enjoy the photo scenery. Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 997 Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Bear in mind that Horizon regard their scenery as non-transferrable (the EULA expressly forbids selling on the old discs), and if you bought old discs second hand, they won't even let you register on their forum. Now, if you've been given them free, and they don't work, well, what have you lost? Provided you understand that Horizon won't give you the time of day yet alone any support, and you won't be able to install the cheap v3 upgrade discs. Regardless, UTX Europe is worth buying, for the more accurate rendition of coastlines, roads, rivers, towns etc. Although they will still look like default. But their night lighting is nice, and will also show over the top of GenX. GEXEurope, I personally think looks horrible. I'm personally a big fan of decent photo scenery, but it can get very expensive! Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,498 Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 I think that if Orbx covered the planet I would do without photoscenery. Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 997 Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 I don't know about that. They do very well in relatively wild places that have a low density of culturally significant landmarks. But landclass is woefully inadequate when it comes to places you might need actually to recognise or identify, and even Orbx use photo infills for those situations. Now in the extremely high density landscape of Western Eurpoe (say), where almost every square kilometre is distinctive and filled with ancient monuments, prehistoric hill forts, disused WWII aerodromes etc etc, all of which are highly visible from the air and widely used by pilots for navigation, even with custom phototiles the best you could hope for is something that's vaguely "England-ish", unless you have so many photographic infills that you might as well simply go the whole hog. Having said that, there are plenty of parts of the world where an orbx scenery would be absolutely perfect, and there are enough of those to keep the Orbx devs busy for many decades (at their current rate, they won't be anywhere near finished in my lifetime for sure!), but the trouble is, how many people would rush out and buy Orbx Bhutan, compared to (say) Orbx Florida? It's the old 90-10 rule: 90% of the sales are for 10% of the potenntial coverage. Once they've covered that 10%, I personally think they will quickly run out of chuff. Their web site used to say that their aim was to cover the whole world in scenery, but I noticed that got dropped a long time ago! Link to post Share on other sites
Sabre 28 Posted June 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Bear in mind that Horizon regard their scenery as non-transferrable (the EULA expressly forbids selling on the old discs), and if you bought old discs second hand, they won't even let you register on their forum. Now, if you've been given them free, and they don't work, well, what have you lost? Provided you understand that Horizon won't give you the time of day yet alone any support, and you won't be able to install the cheap v3 upgrade discs. Regardless, UTX Europe is worth buying, for the more accurate rendition of coastlines, roads, rivers, towns etc. Although they will still look like default. But their night lighting is nice, and will also show over the top of GenX. GEXEurope, I personally think looks horrible. I'm personally a big fan of decent photo scenery, but it can get very expensive! Thanks for the information. I think my friend thought he was doing me a favour. He bought a full set of the Version 3 discs and had no use for these, hence the free gift. I sort of suspected there may be an issue being a long time PC Gamer so I didn't install so I asked the question. I think it's easier all round if I just purchase my own new discs. I'll start off with the UK and see how far the cash stretches before the wife finds out :th_smiles73: I'm intending to do relatively low level flying in small planes initially so I think the Horizon discs will be the way to go. I've tried and tried to download and install UTX but I constantly get blocked at the last stage of download/purchase (despite disbaling and uninstalling firewalls etc), so I may have to order discs to get UTX Europe. Thanks again Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 997 Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Have a look also at EarthSims, who do some very nice enhancements for GenX (yes, addons for addons!), as well as making stunning scenery in their own right http://www.earthsimulations.com/ Plus of course you'll want Plan-G in order to know where you are http://www.tasoftware.co.uk/planG.htm but at least that one is free! Link to post Share on other sites
Sabre 28 Posted June 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 Have a look also at EarthSims, who do some very nice enhancements for GenX (yes, addons for addons!), as well as making stunning scenery in their own right http://www.earthsimulations.com/ Plus of course you'll want Plan-G in order to know where you are http://www.tasoftware.co.uk/planG.htm but at least that one is free! Thanks again - your making my head hurt now :icon_thumbup: Is this s good deal Bundle I can't fathom out if the version 3 stuff is out yet but this bundle plus the upgrades seems cheaper than buying full version 3 discs but I could be missing something. Thanks for the link - anything specific you would recommend - the airfields bundle? Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 997 Posted June 12, 2011 Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 V3 is supposed to be out on the 15th. That bundle is for V2. But it's down to your ability to add up to determine whether £56.07 + (3 x £7.99 for the updates from v2 to v3 -- but half price if you preorder by the 15th using the discount code) is cheaper than 3 x £34.99 (plus postage)... And you might need the extra 35 odd quid to placate the wife when she finds out what you did with the other 70... Link to post Share on other sites
Sabre 28 Posted June 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2011 V3 is supposed to be out on the 15th. That bundle is for V2. But it's down to your ability to add up to determine whether £56.07 + (3 x £7.99 for the updates from v2 to v3 -- but half price if you preorder by the 15th using the discount code) is cheaper than 3 x £34.99 (plus postage)... And you might need the extra 35 odd quid to placate the wife when she finds out what you did with the other 70... Thanks again Tim, really appreciate your responses. You must have met the wife LOL :icon_yikes: Sorry to be a pain but where have you seen the half price offer for the upgrade. I've ordered the Version 2 bundle but can't find the upgrades on Earth Simulation. I'm really tempted by the Ultimate bundle which has all the airfields as well. Link to post Share on other sites
Sabre 28 Posted June 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2011 Thanks again for the advice. I've ordered the Volumes 1-3 Version 2 bundle plus the upgrades to Version 3 (with the discount) and threw in Volume 4 for good measure. Also downloaded Plan G. Now just need to learn how everything works and then actually get some flying done, oh and find somewhere else to live when the wife finds out how much I've spent. Not sure Fathers Day stretches this far Link to post Share on other sites
David TRIGGS 0 Posted June 16, 2011 Report Share Posted June 16, 2011 Have you considered FLYLOGIC SWITZERLAND X PROFESSIONAL photographic scenery (in my opinion the best ever photo-scenery), which covers the whole of Switzerland (both summer & winter seasons!)... and they also sell large numbers of fully compatible enhanced small GA airfields (just right for short VFR hops ......... David Link to post Share on other sites
pacinka 0 Posted June 19, 2011 Report Share Posted June 19, 2011 Have you considered FLYLOGIC SWITZERLAND X PROFESSIONAL photographic scenery (in my opinion the best ever photo-scenery), which covers the whole of Switzerland (both summer & winter seasons!)... and they also sell large numbers of fully compatible enhanced small GA airfields (just right for short VFR hops ......... David Yes, FlyLogic really set a new standard for photo-scenery with Switzerland Pro X, especially since they included hand-placed autogen and scenery objects. It is definitely the best photo-scenery ever made. Link to post Share on other sites
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