Simviation Forum - Environment Addons

Feb 17^th, 2008 at 7:39pm

BFMF Offline
Colonel
Pacific Northwest

Gender:
Posts: 19820

I've been considering getting some sort of Environment package for FSX, but there seems to be quite a few. So between Flight Environment X, X Graphics, ect, which one is the best?

« Last Edit: Feb 18^th, 2008 at 12:51pm by BFMF »

COMPLETED: If Anyone Cares, Here's A Map Of My Current FSX Flight Around The World

My Reality Check Bounced

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #1 - Feb 17^th, 2008 at 10:46pm

BFMF Offline
Colonel
Pacific Northwest

Gender:
Posts: 19820

I have Active Sky X, and Ground Environment X, but I was looking at X Graphics, Flight Envoronment X, ect to enhance clouds, sky, water, ect

« Last Edit: Feb 18^th, 2008 at 12:50pm by BFMF »

COMPLETED: If Anyone Cares, Here's A Map Of My Current FSX Flight Around The World

My Reality Check Bounced

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #2 - Feb 18^th, 2008 at 12:50pm

BFMF Offline
Colonel
Pacific Northwest

Gender:
Posts: 19820

oops, I was referring to X Graphics... Embarrassed

COMPLETED: If Anyone Cares, Here's A Map Of My Current FSX Flight Around The World

My Reality Check Bounced

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #3 - Feb 21^st, 2008 at 9:49pm

BFMF Offline
Colonel
Pacific Northwest

Gender:
Posts: 19820

Isn't UTX, Ultimate Terrain X, which upgraded ground stuff? And I thought X Graphics was a sky,cloud, water, ect, replacement textures?

COMPLETED: If Anyone Cares, Here's A Map Of My Current FSX Flight Around The World

My Reality Check Bounced

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #4 - Feb 21^st, 2008 at 11:49pm

SLACR Ex Member

X Graphic does NOT change ground scenery. It allows you to customize the LOOK of your sim by changing various 'things', such as:
Sky textures, water textures, cloud texture, airport textures, lights, sounds, and sun textures as well as having a basic weather engine (Visibility transitions).

Ultimate Terrain X, does something completely diferant. It makes the scenery more accurate to real life by adding scenery for, Highways, Roads, Streets, Shorelines, Coastlines, Rivers, Streams, Landclass, Waterclass, Railroads, Night Lighting, Object Repositioning, and some textures. None of which Active Sky X does.

Two different products doing two completely diferant things. I have both used in conjunction with eachother to deliver a fantastic looking sim.

The addons I would purchase are: Ground Environment X and Flight Environment X (Weather engine like ASX is coming out). It's a good idea to get Ultimate Terrain X or atleast some decent landclass too. I have so far been unimpressed with Active Sky X because its lack of visibility transitions, strange stutters, and pauses when it's running.

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #5 - Feb 22^nd, 2008 at 11:59am

SLACR Ex Member

New Light wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2008 at 11:45am:

Hey SLACR, I'm glad you got into the mix here. Am I understanding correctly that UTXUSA/C and X Graphics both change the shape of the ground (more defined mountains, valleys, etc)? I have both, but I only run one or the other. Should I be running both at the same time? Thanx.

Semper Fi, Dave

X graphics does not change any scenery. Run UTX then run XG afterwards (So you're using both)... all should be fine.

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #6 - Feb 22^nd, 2008 at 10:13pm

Deviant Offline
Colonel
Cape Cod, MA

Gender:
Posts: 175

Layne. wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2008 at 8:27pm:

i don't think your Avatar is very appropriate EG 7

You don't like Corona?

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #7 - Feb 23^rd, 2008 at 1:21pm

DaveT Offline
Colonel
Props rule the skies
UK

Posts: 2283

I think its quite appropriate.................. Smiley

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #8 - Feb 24^th, 2008 at 12:49am

Vodka Burner Ex Member

Quote:

UTXUSA/C's doesn't mention what resolution it was created at,

UTX does not change sky textures, or cloud textures, it barely even touches ground textures, therefore, it doesn't have a resolution. All it does it makes ground scenery better through the adding of roads and such.

Have you tried running both? What do you mean by 'jaggies' when running with X Graphics?

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #9 - Feb 24^th, 2008 at 11:57pm

Vodka Burner Ex Member

Incorrect.

X Graphics does NOT change mesh, it changes TEXTURES, CLOUD textures. There are cloud resolution settings that you can choose... obviously the higher the more realistic, more detailed the clouds look.

Ultimate Terrain X barely touches ground textures, therefore it's recommended you set the Texture resolution to 1m (default)... MESH resolution of UTX is 19m, default is something like 38m for USA. GEX should be overwriding all ground TEXTURES that UTX changes, anyway.

The jaggies have got nothing to do with either addon and don't have anything to do with texture resolution or mesh. A pixel can only display one colour at a time, and with objects at an angle, it creates jagged 'steps' on the edges. A counter to this is Anti-Aliasing which more or less blurs edge.

It's probably better to force anti-aliasing through your videodrivers, if that doesn't work due to horrible (nvidia) drivers, you can try diferant versions or just turn Anti-Aliasing on in fsx display settings.

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #10 - Feb 25^th, 2008 at 3:05am

Vodka Burner Ex Member

Quote:

is do I need UTX if GEX overwrites everything anyway? I

Ground Environment X changes the ground textures to give a more realistic look, which COMPLIMENTS the work that UTX does.

Open up the Setup tool for UTX, and look at all the features on the right hand side.

Just make sure you run GEX after UTX, and look on the GEX site because it may require a compatibility patch to work with UTX properly.

EDIT: To clarify, this is what makes up scenery (basics):

Mesh - What defines mountains and such: UTX does this.

Landclass - Which textures get displayed where - UTX does this.

Roads - UTX does this.

Scenery complexity - Special buildings, for example, landmarks - UTX does this.

___

Ground Environment X simply changes the textures which Ultimate Terrain (or other landclass addons) decide to put where. In essence, GEX is the paint, UTX is the painter.

(And the textures help decide where autogen buildings should be placed where).

Back to top

IP Logged

Reply #11 - Feb 25^th, 2008 at 11:36pm

Vodka Burner Ex Member

OK, LOL.

UTX is the pottery (mesh), UTX is the painter (landclass) and GEX is the textures. XG does the sky ( as doe FEX ).

I would install (and run) in this order:
FSX--->UTX--->ASX--->FEX (X Graphics will overwrite this and vice versa, which ever is installed last)--->GEX.

I am not 100% sure if you need a patch to make GEX compatibile with UTX, but it's a good idea to look.

Back to top

IP Logged

	Search the archive: