PilotEdge Forums

Hi Cyrus
I dont have a problem as you suggested, 1000agl is fine,what it does very well is to bring to life all the VRP's as you fly VFR
Blue Sky is (quality) freeware, download a small area & try it out, if you like it download more, if not, it's cost you nothing.
We did a group flight, VFR 1000agl Fox Field KWJF to Kern Valley L05 via KMHV & Walker Pass (watch out for the low fast jets).
I initially flew this default & later after installing photoreal, the difference is stunning. The only problem is that the downloads are large.

I did a lot of testing with my FS2004 and BlueSky over the weekend. At first I didn't like how KSMO looked on the ground, so I tried the NAV2 trick to turn off the ground photo overlay (the big jets at LAX looked really silly). I took lots of 'before' and 'after' screenshots with the intention of posting them here... then I just said forget it and flew around for a bit. I tweaked just about every "Display" option possible, testing for a good couple of hours, and even messed with my monitor resolution and refresh rate. In the end, I just couldn't get rid of this terrible effect- some sort of light ray "banding" type thing, where in a tight turn, the ground looks very, urm, pixely... (hard to describe). I played with anti aliasing, bilinear and trilinear mip mapping blah blah... tried every setting possible. Could not get rid of it.

(Oh, and that was all after 20 minutes of researching adding scenery in W7 and overcoming permissions issues, etc! )

On the bright side, my desktop is decent enough to get at least 30 to 40 fps, even with everything turned up in FS2004.

Bottom line: This is all such a big distraction from doing what I really want to do. i.e. Just fly, navigate and interact with ATC. But once you've seen some of the eye candy, it's hard to go back to out-of-the-box mode. So now I'm really thinking about FSX and the new MegaScenery for FSX SoCal - which is $70 right there. I just wish I could try this combo out on my rig before committing (the FSX demo doesn't seem all that heavy on ground objects). I also think I need a new monitor, but that's another story....

Basically, just getting a little frustrated....

Cyrus, it really comes down to how much your time is worth to you. Do you want to spend hours and hours trying to tweak an old rig, or just buy a new one?

I hear you Keith. But, unfortunately, this is my spare (read:"disposable") time - and there is no one //accounting// for it .

A new rig is just not an option right now (unless the kids keep on downloading Minecraft crap and clogging it up).

Btw, I think my issue is best described as a moiré'ing (http://www.gamedev.net/page/resources/_ ... ct3d-r1233).

Anyway, I'm just going to have to get past all this nonense/distraction over the next few days.... renew and center myself... then come back stronger.

Please forgive my venting, y'all.

(I wish I'd never heard of Megascenery now!)

Cyrus
Sorry you're having problems. From the simming perspective there are I think two types of simmers
1. those who love to tweak &
2. Those you just want to fly
personally I hate tweaking it just seems to add to your problems.

Do what you're comfy with & forget M/scenery for a while

Thanks Bruce, but I fear it's too late.... I'm already knee deep in Faustian negotiations over eye candy.

I'll try to reboot myself soon though.

What relief! I know I'm probably talking to myself at this point, but I need some closure, so please indulge me

I did some more testing with the FSX demo last night (instead of flying on PE ! !). The moiré'ing issue seems to be solved with the "anisotropic filtering" (not something present in FS2004), but I can live with it either way. I would rather have the higher FPS that I get from FS2004. So bottom line, I have decided to stay with FS2004.

So I went to Megascenery's website one more time (figuring I'd say "goodbye" to SoCal for FSX and all their glorious screenshots) and, as chance would have it, they had SoCal for FS2004 v2 on sale for TWO DOLLARS (i.e. 90% off!). They also had my home area on sale (Washington DC, Baltimore, Mid Atlantic Region) for $2.00, so I snapped that up too. I guess they just want to get rid of the older stuff, and I figure that it's at least as good as BlueSky.

So in summary, I think/hope I'm done tinkering. I'll install the SoCal and use that. For anything outside the area (I love the central Cali valley/desert for some reason), I'll live with the stock FS2004 scenery. At least I can turn all the sliders up in FS2004 and performance is still fine.

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement on this topic. It's great having this board as a resource/platform/confession booth.

Now, onwards... and upwards... !

C.

Hi Cyrus,

Good luck with your new set-up.

My Socal DVD are on their way today so I hope to install them in a week or so.

Pierre

Cool.

Up to now, I've been running full screen forward view along with this for my main instruments (runnning on an iPad sitting next to my monitor). But after watching more of Keith's videos, it seems to be a much more real experience to stay with as much of the real cockpit as possible, including the obstructed outside views by the panels, windows, etc. So I think I'll add-on this as well, and then I'm truly all set!

I've tried all types of cockpit setups, but for me the best experience flight simming hardware experience has been using track IR with a virtual cockpit and hooking up my PC to my 60 inch LED TV. Maybe one day I'll build a cockpit, but for now this works very happily for me.