ORBX

[Flying Trucker]

Good afternoon all...

Been quite awhile since I started this computer and FSX.

Just did the ORBX FTX updates and I noticed when I start FTX Central and click on FTX Global or FTX North America they do not tell you which one is active which they used to do...

Seems something has changed in the setting tools also, just can not remember what it is...

Any response would be most appreciated...

[SpaceHippy1975]

HI,

If I remember correctly, the older version of FTX Central only allowed you to select individual areas/continents along with a Hybrid mode that let you fly around the globe. The updated version does away with having to select the area/continent & lets you fly anywhere you want regardless of what area you selected.

I hope that made sense!

Regards,

Keith.

[jandjfrench]

Hi,
It seems that ORBX has done away with the ability to choose whether you want to use their scenery or the default and is trying to pass this off as an improvement. Rather like a camera that you can't focus claiming "No focusing required!" After a reinstall of FSX I'd added a lot of OZx freeware airports along with the basic scenery and the Holgermesh; I do not have the ORBX Australia Region. When I installed my payware PNW, the OZx freeware airports along with the Holgermesh were eliminated from the scenery library. My guilty pleasure has been flying the "Jet City" mission after flying short GA hops as realistically as possible. Can't do that now. ORBX offers no support except through their forums and I've generally been helped by a "We're looking into it response" and little else.
Jim F.

[garymbuska]

Talk about a bummer. I have never used ORBX as I had heard some not so good things about it that just did not appeal to me. If what you say is true I am glad I avoided it.
But before we go jumping off a cliff here you might want to check the order in which your scenery is being displayed. As I stated in another post scenery is displayed in a certain order and you have to make sure you put it in the correct order otherwise strange and crazy things can happen.
Something I discovered quite some time ago is whenever you add new scenery it will put it at the top of the list which means it will be displayed first and if you have the same area defined later on in your scenery.cfg file the other scenery will simply write over the new scenery you just added. I never under stood why it is done this way but it is. In some cases you have to move the new scenery to the bottom of the list so it is displayed last. The only other options are to remove the older scenery or to put what is called an exclude line in the new scenery but I have to caution you on this as it will completely wipe a area clean and if the new scenery is not the same size as the old scenery it will leave a big mess or a hole in your scenery with nothing there.
Most scenery designers will put a readme file to explain what one has to do to install there scenery.
I ran into this problem when I had to update my home airport because the runway numbers changed due to magnetic variation the runway numbers used to be 7&25 and 13&31
now they are 8&26 and 14&32 so I had to use the airport editor to change the numbers. I was surprised to find out nothing had changed when I started up FSX the numbers had not changed. That is when I discovered that the new file I had made was on top of my scenery list and was being displayed first then the default scenery after that, I moved the new file to the bottom of the list and low and behold the numbers changed when I started up FSX.
So it is important to pay attention to the order in which your scenery is displayed as it can make a big difference.

[Flying Trucker]

Goodly morning all...

Thanks for the replies...much appreciated...

The Scenery Order is Correct and the fact that I have not used FSX Flight Sim Game in three or four months should not make a difference.

I think when I started FSX and Orbx showed updates that is when the change began.
So the College Boys made a change when there was not one required...wonder if they work for the Government of Canada

"If it is not broken...then don't fix it" kind of comes to mind...

[garymbuska]

Goodly morning all...

Thanks for the replies...much appreciated...

The Scenery Order is Correct and the fact that I have not used FSX Flight Sim Game in three or four months should not make a difference.

I think when I started FSX and Orbx showed updates that is when the change began.
So the College Boys made a change when there was not one required...wonder if they work for the Government of Canada

"If it is not broken...then don't fix it" kind of comes to mind...

Amen to that one. Could be just as others have stated someone just does not know what they are doing
I am definitely a believer in the if it is not broken do not fix it. And also follow the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid)

[Canuck1955]

I use Scenery Config Editor version 1.17 freely available from https://sourceforge.net/projects/fs-sceditor/ and a YT video to assist in the setting it up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-DMMMse3UA
A marvellous program which doesn't interefere with your settings but can drop in or out areas you wish to fly around and reduces loading times markedly. Works just great with ORBX.
Once used to it, it takes just moments to set up areas..

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Canuck 1955 sounds good to me, I downloaded a flight from Elmhirst Lodge to Tyendinaga which are both in Southern Ontario east of Toronto.

I set up the following
FSX and Windows 10
-FSWC...Flight Simulator Water Configurator
-REX Essential Plus Overdrive
-ORBX
-changed water settings in my Flight 1 Ultimate Terrain to Wet Season from Frozen Water

What I got was:
-Locations which were no where near accurate
-Black Squares around the simulated aircraft Nav Lights and Rotating Beacon...I tried the Default Cessna 172 and three separate Payware simulated aircraft...with same results...Black Squares around those lights
-Could not take Screenshots

My opinion is someone needs to develop a Flight Simulator Game that is not dependent on Microsoft...Windows 10...and will have most of these Payware Programs incorporated into it...I would certainly PAY for something like that...

[garymbuska]

One has to remember that no matter what it is you are trying to look at everything is dependent upon in no special order The system you are using;The operating system you are using;The monitor you are using;The video card you are using; and finally the speed in which you are able to display things. This is why some things work great for some people but not for others.
In this case it is more than likely that someone just did not get everything set up correctly and it is having a hard time displaying it for some unknown reason.

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Gary for the feedback...much appreciated...

[Daube]

Hi all,

The updated FTX Central from OrbX is not as bad as people here tried to imply.
In fact, they just got rid of the necessity to "activate" a region.
Now, you don't need that anymore. You can fly from an OrbX region to a non-OrbX one without any troubles in the autogen or the sceneries or anything like that. They have basically "merged" all of their autogen definitions into the standard one, so it's not needed to switch from a region to another. Which makes life easier to anybody.

On an extreme example, it means for example that you can now fly from Seattle to Canberra in Australia without having to touch anything in the FTX Central. This was not possible before, as you had to switch from "North America" region to "Australia" region.
Less extreme example would be flying between North America and Europe, same applies.
With the previous version of FTX Central, these flights were not possible. Now they are.

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Stephane...much appreciated...

Now since I did the UPDATE I now have Black Boxes around my Nav Lights and Rotating Beacon.

Any ideas how to fix that

Have been reading about these Black Boxes on the Internet and some ideas are:

--remove last downloaded payware aircraft...(can not remember what that one was)
--Delete SP1 or SP2
--Use Repair on FSX Disk 1
--try a Restore Point prior to last Update
--Uninstall FSX and do a complete new Install....(Not looking forward to that...would turn me OFF the GAME ALTOGETHER)

[Daube]

I'm not sure FTX Central has anything to do with that, since they don't touch the nav lights...
Anyways, you won't been to reinstall/uninstall anything.
What you are seeing is just the consequence of some bad/incompatible texture for the lights. I never remember which texture it is exactly, but it should be possible to solve that problem by installing some freeware lights that you could find here in SimV.
I'll take a look to check if I can find any, just a second...

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Stephane...

[Daube]

I couldn't find an exact package.
However, I believe I have been using "Nick's Light Fix v2", made specifically for FSX (v1 was made for FS9). But this package is not uploaded on SimViation, it seems :/
You might want to search it and see what it does.
Don't forget to save your original textures first