I think that Microsoft is running a 38meter mesh for the entire planet.
You don't get that elevation without running 38meter.
I have Real Scene which is a 38meter for all of the USA, Puerto Rico & Hawaii.
For the rest of the world it is a 78meter from FS Global.
You can tell the difference between 78m and 38m and I am thinking that MS covered the whole planet with a 38meter.

If that is the case, we are in for a real treat! 38meter is what actually makes flying in, around, through and over much more realistic in the sim! It really makes VFR a much more realistic flying experience.

I have seen many of the screenshots from all over the world and they all seam to have the same mesh throughout!

If it is true then that ...... is a nice improvement as "default"!!













What do you think?

Dave

i'm not coming in here anymore  makes me to jelous

I doubt there will be a 38 Meter Mesh for the world...
because the SRTM Mission for the whole world made just a 78m (Actually 90meters but the tesselation of FS Scenery
is 78.. or was it 76 ?.. not shure)
resolution. There were some local Missions that covered
some parts in a higer resolution like... Hawaii, East Timor,
Bavaria, The USA (an maybe some more).

The pictures look
like a 78m mesh with the only difference that a higher LOD is drawn from a further distance.
(But that makes a huge difference.. if you look at the last screenshot)
The Data amount for the whole world in a 78m resolution
is about 15GB so for 38 m it would be approximately 60GB.
I don´t think FS ships on a Harddrive

I only could imagine that they have more regions with higher resolution meshes than FS2004 by default.

And for these screenshots they might just have used something like FSGlobal wich should work in FSX as well !


edit.. but maybe they included a 78m mesh for the whole world... this could ship on 2 DVD´s !!

edit2.. there are some news regarding SRTM Data

a quote from

http://www.vterrain.org/Elevation/srtm.html

--------
    *  "the Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and NIMA for SRTM specifies that data processed at 3 arc-seconds  (~100m) for anywhere on the globe will be unrestricted, as will 1 arc-second (~30m) data for the United States and its territories.  Distribution of one arc-second data for outside the United States will be approved by NIMA on a case-by-case basis for NASA Investigators, for their use only."
    * SRTM data came out first for the USA, but those areas are not much use, since regular surveyed DEMs of higher resolution and quality already exist for the USA
    * International data was released beginning in June 2003
    * In late 2005, SRTM version 2 was released.  SRTM V2 is "the result of a substantial editing effort by the NGA and exhibits well-defined water bodies and coastlines and the absence of spikes and wells (single pixel errors), although some areas of missing data ('voids') are still present."
--------

So since late 2005 there are better SRTM Data Sets available. cool...

Better to kill your expectiations now.. than sitting in front
of your brand new system with FSX installed and recognizing
that all your dreams did not come true. 

It can't ship with 38m for the whole world as it would take up about the same amount of space on your hard drive as Xplane which has that amount of detial.


60GB!!! that's not going to fit on alot of peoples hard drives  and would take up a large number of duel layer DVDS.  I only have 280gb of starage on my main pc and can afford to use 60gb for fs and would love the detail but I doubt ms will be offering it untill duel layer blue ray is a reality or HD-dvd.

I would pay double the standard price for a version with 38m mesh as I imagaine most simV members would as it would mean that areas that arn't usualy the subject of high detail meshes (africa for example) are and will be good to fly over.

Also, the X-plane global SRTM data comes on 7 DVDs and is 60 Gigs worth of data.

Also x-plane only ships with 90m Data because there are is no 38m data public available for the whole world... only
for the USA and some smaller regions.. a pitty but these are the facts !