Environment Addons

[BFMF]

I've been considering getting some sort of Environment package for FSX, but there seems to be quite a few. So between Flight Environment X, X Graphics, ect, which one is the best?

[BFMF]

I have Active Sky X, and Ground Environment X, but I was looking at  X Graphics, Flight Envoronment X, ect to enhance clouds, sky, water, ect

[BFMF]

oops, I was referring to X Graphics...

[BFMF]

Isn't UTX, Ultimate Terrain X, which upgraded ground stuff? And I thought X Graphics was a sky,cloud, water, ect, replacement textures?

[Slotback]

X Graphic does NOT change ground scenery. It allows you to customize the LOOK of your sim by changing various 'things', such as:
Sky textures, water textures, cloud texture, airport textures, lights, sounds, and sun textures as well as having a basic weather engine (Visibility transitions).

Ultimate Terrain X, does something completely diferant. It makes the scenery more accurate to real life by adding scenery for, Highways, Roads, Streets, Shorelines, Coastlines, Rivers, Streams, Landclass, Waterclass, Railroads, Night Lighting, Object Repositioning, and some textures. None of which Active Sky X does.

Two different products doing two completely diferant things. I have both used in conjunction with eachother to deliver a fantastic looking sim. The addons I would purchase are: Ground Environment X and Flight Environment X (Weather engine like ASX is coming out). It's a good idea to get Ultimate Terrain X or atleast some decent landclass too. I have so far been unimpressed with Active Sky X because its lack of visibility transitions, strange stutters, and pauses when it's running.

[Slotback]

Hey SLACR, I'm glad you got into the mix here. Am I understanding correctly that UTXUSA/C and X Graphics both change the shape of the ground (more defined mountains, valleys, etc)? I have both, but I only run one or the other. Should I be running both at the same time? Thanx.

Semper Fi, Dave

X graphics does not change any scenery. Run UTX then run XG afterwards (So you're using both)... all should be fine.

[Deviant]

i don't think your Avatar is very appropriate EG 7

You don't like Corona?

[DaveT]

I think its quite appropriate.................. [smiley=vrolijk_26.gif]

[Slotback]

[quote]

[Slotback]

Incorrect.

X Graphics does NOT change mesh, it changes TEXTURES, CLOUD textures. There are cloud resolution settings that you can choose... obviously the higher the more realistic, more detailed the clouds look.

Ultimate Terrain X barely touches ground textures, therefore it's recommended you set the Texture resolution to 1m (default)... MESH resolution of UTX is 19m, default is something like 38m for USA. GEX should be overwriding all ground TEXTURES that UTX changes, anyway.

The jaggies have got nothing to do with either addon and don't have anything to do with texture resolution or mesh. A pixel can only display one colour at a time, and with objects at an angle, it creates jagged 'steps' on the edges. A counter to this is Anti-Aliasing which more or less blurs edge.

It's probably better to force anti-aliasing through your videodrivers, if that doesn't work due to horrible (nvidia) drivers, you can try diferant versions or just turn Anti-Aliasing on in fsx display settings.

[Slotback]

is do I need UTX if GEX overwrites everything anyway? I

Ground Environment X changes the ground textures to give a more realistic look, which COMPLIMENTS the work that UTX does.

[Slotback]

OK, LOL.

UTX is the pottery (mesh), UTX is the painter (landclass) and GEX is the textures. XG does the sky ( as doe FEX ).

I would install (and run) in this order:
FSX--->UTX--->ASX--->FEX (X Graphics will overwrite this and vice versa, which ever is installed last)--->GEX.

I am not 100% sure if you need a patch to make GEX compatibile with UTX, but it's a good idea to look.