Orbx SoCal First Impressions

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stevekirks
Posts: 589
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:00 pm
Location: KSGF
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Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by stevekirks »

TL;DR - for less than $40 buy it--great for VFR flying and easy on the frames

I picked up the recent Orbx release of the SoCal area and came away very impressed. I use FSX Steam Edition for my VFR flying, mainly due to the fleet of A2A airplanes and their excellent training potential. With a recent modest system upgrade, I've been able to run FSX at 30FPS across SoCal with plenty of object eye candy, making this addition the cherry on top for sure.

My setup:

Computer:
* Core i5 4460 3.2GHz
* 8GB RAM
* Nvidia GT640 with 1GB GDDR3 VRAM
* 120GB SSD with Windows 10
* 1TB Hard Drive with Steam's game storage directory

Simulator
* FSX: Steam Edition
* FTX Global
* FTX Vector
* FTX North America Gold: Southern California

Tips:
* Make sure to have the SoCal scenery as the 'active' in FTX Central control panel (per the instructions) to get the correct effects.

Observations:
* Plenty of photo scenery underlay makes the environment the most realistic outside of Josh Gibbs' X-Plane Extreme
* Lots of the small airports have been updated. El Monte looks *so* cool when crowded with GA traffic and people walking around
* Little to no extra FPS hit compared to FTX Global/Vector alone

I think it's worth the cash for sure. I'll try to post some screenshots next week.
Steve Kirks (sKirks on Twitch)
KSGF--I-10 rated
Student Pilot
I invented the Alphabet Challenge, what's your excuse?
Alphabet Challenge
Thomas_Horn
Posts: 77
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 3:18 am

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by Thomas_Horn »

...Just installed SCA from Orbx - I can confirm that it does look great...however I do see a frame rate hit compared to FTX Global:
Just finished a flight from Catalina to KSNA, on final approach frame rate drops to 22, while in FTX Global I had 30 fps locked with KSNA Latin VFR installed.

Need to adjust my graphic settings I guess...
X-Plane 11.32, Windows 10, 4.8 GHz 7700K, 16 GB RAM. 4K 55'' Screen resolution with Nvidia GTX 1070. ELITE and PFC flight controls
stevekirks
Posts: 589
Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2014 6:00 pm
Location: KSGF
Contact:

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by stevekirks »

Thomas_Horn wrote:...Just installed SCA from Orbx - I can confirm that it does look great...however I do see a frame rate hit compared to FTX Global:
Just finished a flight from Catalina to KSNA, on final approach frame rate drops to 22, while in FTX Global I had 30 fps locked with KSNA Latin VFR installed.

Need to adjust my graphic settings I guess...
Ah...I don't have any custom/3rd party SoCal airports installed in FSX so I didn't see much difference on my end. I was even able to turn up car traffic to 17% on the roads, making the final into 20R at KSNA a lot of fun. Flew the A2A Cherokee from Palm Springs VFR with the intention of going all of the way to John Wayne. The visual differences were enough that I was able to follow the interstate highways to avoid the Charlies at March and Ontario. I felt like a real *** **** pilot today, no flight following, dialing up ATIS along the way to get an altimeter, using an iPad app with a moving chart to verify my position against landmarks and everything.

I finally had to give in when the bases were 5500' near Lake Mathews (just west of March) and I when I pulled the ATIS for KSNA, it was hard IFR. I called SoCal (Joe!) and got a popup IFR clearance and made it in without issue.

For the PE gang out there, the new add on corrects the runways at KSNA, unless that's something I did and forgot.

Seriously, for a bit over $36 it's a great add on. Remember you must have FTX Global first before this is useful...
Steve Kirks (sKirks on Twitch)
KSGF--I-10 rated
Student Pilot
I invented the Alphabet Challenge, what's your excuse?
Alphabet Challenge
Matthias Geiss
Posts: 149
Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2015 2:24 am

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by Matthias Geiss »

Did they make adjustments to the stock airports to reflect some more or less recent changes? E.g., the KSNA runways were still 19/1 in the preview screenshots.
Thomas_Horn
Posts: 77
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 3:18 am

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by Thomas_Horn »

Yes, all airports in the region have been updated. KSNA I think now has the correct runways. (Not 100% sure actually since I have now installed Latin VFR and can´t remember my first flight...)

Just finished a flight to Bakersfield - only 20 FPS there :(
Other airports however are fine with no or little frame rate drops. Also my KSNA performance is acceptable after some changes in the settings.
But there are some performance issues in the region - just take a look at the ongoing discussion in the FTX forum...
X-Plane 11.32, Windows 10, 4.8 GHz 7700K, 16 GB RAM. 4K 55'' Screen resolution with Nvidia GTX 1070. ELITE and PFC flight controls
Thomas_Horn
Posts: 77
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 3:18 am

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by Thomas_Horn »

stevekirks wrote: Remember you must have FTX Global first before this is useful...
I don´t think you need FTX Global to run FTX SCA...
X-Plane 11.32, Windows 10, 4.8 GHz 7700K, 16 GB RAM. 4K 55'' Screen resolution with Nvidia GTX 1070. ELITE and PFC flight controls
ChuckOman
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:55 pm

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by ChuckOman »

Orbx FTX SCA is a great addition for GA flying on PE. Love some of the new small airports. BTW if you are using LatinVFR's KSCA John Wayne, be sure to check the Orbx NA compatibility forum, and set AddonScenery\LatinVFR\OrangeCo_KSNA\Scenery\LC_1620.bgl to off. (Otherwise FSX autogen generation hangs at 72-76% when launching a trip from KSNA). I also noted some polygon flashies at certain zooms in top view and some erroneous taxiway signs in 3D view that disappeared when I disabled the underlying FTX NA SCA version of KSNA. Holger provides a list of the files to set to .off.
Thomas_Horn
Posts: 77
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 3:18 am

Re: Orbx SoCal First Impressions

Post by Thomas_Horn »

ChuckOman wrote:Orbx FTX SCA is a great addition for GA flying on PE. Love some of the new small airports. BTW if you are using LatinVFR's KSCA John Wayne, be sure to check the Orbx NA compatibility forum, and set AddonScenery\LatinVFR\OrangeCo_KSNA\Scenery\LC_1620.bgl to off. (Otherwise FSX autogen generation hangs at 72-76% when launching a trip from KSNA). I also noted some polygon flashies at certain zooms in top view and some erroneous taxiway signs in 3D view that disappeared when I disabled the underlying FTX NA SCA version of KSNA. Holger provides a list of the files to set to .off.
How is your performance if you fly over LA (Mini Route for example). For me I had a frame rate drop down to 18 FPS even after lowering the graphic settings considerably, this is not acceptable for me.
I have now switched to GEX USA 2.1 (much better autogen buidlings!) and UTX 2 which has for sure not the same eye candy looking, but gives constant frame rates of 30 FPS locked with autogen set to "very dense". I also installed the NA free airport package from ORBX which includes some of the frequently used airports in PE region.
X-Plane 11.32, Windows 10, 4.8 GHz 7700K, 16 GB RAM. 4K 55'' Screen resolution with Nvidia GTX 1070. ELITE and PFC flight controls
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