Will MS do this with their scenery?

[cavity]

Not sure what the next version will hold, but do you think it will look anything like this scenery? Check out www.global-scenery.org/ and click on some of those shots.  I can only hope that MS upgrades things to that level.  Todd

[TacitBlue]

 Now I'm thinking about switching to X-plane. I'll have to see FS2006 first though.

[sonic]

Wow looks great I might switch myself.

[Katahu]

I have the v8.0. The loading time is a real drag. What's the loading time on v8.2?

[Fozzer]

As always, scenery like this always looks great from a height of 10,000+ feet, but what I am interested in is the the quality of the scenery when you are close to, or sitting on the ground...which is where you and I, and the aircraft we fly, spend a lot of the time...!
I would like to see realistic ground textures at ground level, earth, gravel, rocks, grass, etc, in high detail rather than the blurry textures which we have now.
I am waiting to be able to park my Super Cub on realistic-looking grass underneath a realistic-looking tree next to a realistic-looking fence.......!
I wonder when that will happen... ...!

Paul...Low and Slow Pilot.... ...!

[RollerBall]

hmmmm.....

Scenery is a strange old thing. We look at pics like these and say how wonderful to have stuff like that in our sim. But in reality, in the sim as in real life, I tend to pay relatively little attention to what might be called the 'scenic backdrops'. I rarely fly in 'the wilderness' - once you've seen one mountain or valley you've seen em all (being cynical for a moment for the sake of argument) and am quite happy to look out of my cockpit from time to time and see a fair representation of what passes for landscape rolling by below. And that's what I get right now.

So am I happy? No.

I think that where our scenery currently falls down is in the way it presents objects - you know, the 3-D lumps that populate the real world, lumps of all kinds and especially man-made ones.

Hands up everyone who thinks that our sim airports are truly like the real thing. Hmm....a few grimy paws in the air. OK, what about towns and villages? Ahh. not so many now - and what about cities - do they look anything like real ones - really? Just the odd hand now, and they probably either misunderstood the question or are on some kind of medication.

So what am I saying? These pics are very nice - probably took a lot of work to make all that stuff. But do I think it's where the work should be directed? Errrr... 'fraid not.

I'd like to see the work going into finding ways to improve the structures and buildings we fly over. I'd like to see towns and cities that at least bear a passing resemblance to the ones they are trying to represent. I'd like to see interesting and reasonably accurate 3D objects and buildings, all the elements that make up towns and cities and closely packed together (unlike now) so they'd look like the real things and not like some bombed flat wastelands with a few buildings still standing in wide-open areas. And I'd also still like to have a flyable frame rate at the same time.

I doubt it's possible just now but one day it will be but only if work and research goes on into how to achieve it. Yes, this new scenery is nice - especially if you want to fly back to Nature in the big outdoors. But that isn't where most of us find ourselves most of the time I reckon.

I don't think I'll ever be that excited about a better Grand canyon than the one I've already got which is quite good enough for me, as is my Alaska and my Alps with the scenery addons I've installed.

But I can never convince myself that I'm really flying over London or New York or Paris or any of the other great cities of the world because of the way they appear in the sim. One day I'd like to grab a chopper and really feel like I'm zipping above the skyscrapers of New York or the rooftops of a 'real' London. I'd like to fly between the packed buildings of Sydney and suddenly emerge to turn and see that stunning view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

It'll happen one day but until then I won't get worked up over another mountain or valley, pretty though it may be.

[elite marksman]

"I would like one of those Cray's and a copy of X-Plane 8 please"

[RollerBall]

I am waiting to be able to park my Super Cub on realistic-looking grass underneath a realistic-looking tree next to a realistic-looking fence.......!
I wonder when that will happen... ...!

Paul...Low and Slow Pilot.... ...!

Take a look at this Paul - check out the gallery

http://www.abacuspub.com/catalog/s600.htm

[Fozzer]

Take a look at this Paul - check out the gallery

http://www.abacuspub.com/catalog/s600.htm

Hi Roger...
I downloaded the demo program a few days ago, but as it appears exactly the same as my LAGO flight Sim Enhancer, (but more complicated to manipulate), I didn't bother using it, the time ran out, I couldn't find its uninstaller, so deleted it....BAD MOVE...!
Every time I loaded up FS 2004 it kept looking for the EZ-Scenery program, and crashed the program because part of the program was left in the Windows Directory...!!!
(The program had to be partly re-installed to obtain the UnInstaller option!)... ...!

My LAGO FSE program will provide all the functions of EZ-Scenery in a much simpler, and quicker way...AND provide sounds and animation as well...Luv it... ...!

http://www.lagoonline.com

Cheers Roger... ...!

Managed to un-install EZ-Scenery now...back to normal... ...!

'Trubble is....no matter what add-ons we place in the default scenery....the ground is always blurry... ...!
LOL...!

[TacitBlue]

Paul, have you tried Golden Wings? the ground looks a lot better close up. It's made for low and slow flying in vintage planes.

[Mobius]

Alright, what am I missing, I have v8.20 and it looks like....well....bad.  Anyone know how I can get this Global Scenery?

EDIT:  Oh, never mind....

This is X-Plane 8.21 + NEW WORLD-WIDE global scenery.
The disk requirement to install the entire planet is 60 GIG!

This ships on SEVEN DUAL-LAYER DVDs... each of which contains about 8 gig of scenery, each for a different part of the world. Install only USA, Canada, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, or Australia to use less than the full 60 GIG of hard drive space, if you like.

Yikes....Good thing I just got 500 Gb of SATA hard drive bliss.....

[TacitBlue]

60 gigs!!  :o
Nevermind. Call me a weirdo, but I just don't think anything is worth 60 gigs of my hard drive. Granted, I do have 80Gb worth of space so that I can put things on it, but still... I don't know... I said call me a weirdo.

[Katahu]

60 GIGS? HOLY C@@P!!!

I only have 80 gigs on my external hard drive and my internal hard drive couldn't even hold it [40gigs]. So, if I bought X-Plane v8.20 and installed it right now, I will only have 20gigs of HD space available.

Lucky me, I stick to M$FS series.

[Mobius]

You could get the version without the scenery, it's only 8.5 Gigs on my hard drive......

[Hai Perso Coyone?]

Oh my god...60GIGS....that's just insane...FS looks alot better ...and has anyone noticed that those shots no weather? All of them are clear skies, the FS weather is much, much better compared to X-Plane