High Fidelity Scenery for Australia for FSX now available

[Guest orbx]

Hello Recreational Flyers!

 

John "koorby" Venema here, founder of the Vista Australis (VOZ) scenery project for FS2004 and now CEO of Orbx Simulation Systems (http://orbxsystems.com)

 

The team who made VOZ have now released two massive scenery regions for Australia for FSX. The product is called "Full Terrain Experience" (FTX) and provides for 16 times the detail that we had in VOZ.

 

It has enough detail to fly using your WACs. We include all roads, tracks, railways, coastlines, rivers, lakes and hand-crafted landlclass for about 1/3 of Australia. That means almost every single town over 200 people should be in the simulator now. We also have 3D lighting for the whole country, plus moving traffic on the correct sides of the road :)

 

The terrain is made using actual licensed aerial photos to synthetically create a 90% accurate rendition of your local area which you fly over in reality. That means very accurate navs and approaches to most of your favourite airfields.

 

The base scenery does not include airports, but we have released a FREE airports scenery pack which includes, to name a few: YLIL, YPEF, YRID, YMHB and about 55 other fields. We are releasing a 1.2 update to the free airfields which increases this to 120+ airfields. By end 2009 we will have over 1,000 airfields, all in actual photoreal so you can recognise all your approach vectors.

 

The FTX website is here: http://ftxnow.com

 

Heaps of screenshots and videos on the site, plus an active user forum with 1,200 members.

 

We have released two regions thus far: FTX AU BLUE (From Gosford S to Hobart and W to Perth) and FTX AU GOLD (Newcastle N up to Gladstone). We are working on AU GREEN (Rockhampton up to PNG and across to Broome) and finally AU RED will cover the outback. Purchase is online via a download or DVD-ROM.

 

There's a bunch of videos on our YouTube channel here:

 

http://au.youtube.com/user/orbxtube

 

Ian Baker called me recently about offering FTX installed on members' simulation PCs and I am working with him to facilitate that.

 

We hope you can check out FTX and see just how realistic flight simulation is in 2008, to the point where most screenshots look like actual photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Admin]

Thanks John and welcome back to the forums!

 

I am just going through the finalisation of my own Flight Sim hardware setup testing different hardware configuration in terms of HDD raid/single drive, ram types, video cards etc. I am also speaking with Michael Greenblatt in the US on the best windows/FSX installation and configuration to get the PC and software running at its ultimate. Once this is finished I will be sourcing the best wholesale prices on the right hardware and software and then offer the package to forum members. naturally it will include your great scenery - it is just so realistic. I use to use VOZ for flying in the sim at home of the trip I was going to take the next day - even set the weather conditions to same as what the weather report was saying and with your scenery and my maps I was always spot one.

 

A couple of things that I have found so far is that we don't need to waste money on Vista or the new 9 series graphic cards - the 8 series GTS cards at half the price will give better frame rates making the sim really smooth (anyone want to buy a 9 series graphic card that has only had 1hrs use ).

 

Keep up the great work John and perhaps we can soon change that CT in your details to a Millennium Master

 

 

[Guest orbx]

Thanks for the welcome back Ian ;)

 

We don't use Vista at all for our FSX setups. WinXP-SP3 is the best OS by a long run (it can now address a full 4GB of RAM), and since FSX does not use DX10 (the two demo "features" are worthless and slow down frame rates), all you need is a good dual or quad core CPU and a mid-range GPU. The 8800 series will do the job nicely.

 

RAID-0 is very, very handy too for load times; up 300% faster from our testing.

 

I will need to haul my bum into an MM and take it for a check flight mate; let me know when you've got one to impress me with

 

 

[buggerup]

This is the real deal

 

First post

 

Hi ultrlights, I just want add my endoresment to this fantastic product. I have just returned home after two weeks in Boonah obtaining my restricted and passenger RAA licence. I managed to go through in minimum hours and I attribute much of this to the time I spent on flightsim. Before going there I had spent a few weeks flying in the area with the AU_Gold package and the freeware airfield package produced by OzyX which includes over 130 airfields that are not included in the default FSX scenery! I have a good weather programe Active sky X which when used in conjunction with ORBX and the freeware provides an excelent method for VFR navigation training. IMHO combined with a good nav text book you will not find a better tool for practicing dead reckoning navigation. I would be willing to bet that for anyone who wishes to get an unristricted licence they will save many more $ than the mear $30 that ORBX charges per package after practicing VFR navigation in FSX. I will be using it and when I go shortly to do my navs I know I will have flown to all the places using all the same VFR points that are on my VNC's and VTC,s as in real life. The great part about all the extra airfields like Boonah, Heck field, Watts bridge, Gatton airpark to name but a fraction of them in SE queensland alone is that you can't find them by punching in a identifier in the GPS. You have to use some navigation to get to them. Also to increase the difficulty if when you find a field you go from there to another one of the freeware fields you will need to use all the required skills to get there.

 

Finally someone has created a trully magificent VFR trainning tool that looks and feels like the real thing. Thanks Johnand your team for a great product which has allready and will in the near future save me a considerable amount of money.:thumb_up:

 

Cheers

 

Buggerup.

 

 

[Chird65]

Hey does that mean I can fly under the Sunbury sign heading for riddles creek?

 

 

[Guest orbx]

Actually you can :)

 

Orbx released YMML last Sunday. Here's a link to the official trailer video:

 

 

http://fsfiles.org/files/ORBXTeam/Videos/YMML_PROMO.zip

 

YouTube version (low-res): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDNiAN64Hk"

 

 

[Admin]

Those that were lucky enough to attend the flyin at Hopetoun a few weeks ago that bendorn had organised had the opportunity to use my Flightsim there. It has both of ORBX's Blue and Gold sceneries installed and the comments everyone were making was look at that scenery.

 

I am just getting back into simming and with this new powerful PC that I have it is incredible - now I am going to have to get YMML to see what it is really like flying a Jabiru around Melbourne airport - not likely going to be able to do it for real so this is the next best thing.

 

 

[Guest Graham Lea]

Did you ever get the 9 series graphic card to work with fs x and windows xp?

 

I am also using the new scenery orbx's gold, blue and green.

 

I am having lots of probs with lock ups and white outs for a second or so with a 9800 gt and about to return it!

 

Graham

 

 

[buggerup]

Did you ever get the 9 series graphic card to work with fs x and windows xp? I am also using the new scenery orbx's gold, blue and green.

I am having lots of probs with lock ups and white outs for a second or so with a 9800 gt and about to return it!

 

Graham

Graham, jump over to the ORBX forum they will sort you out in no time. They are a very helpfull bunch.;)

 

Buggerup.

 

 

[Guest Graham Lea]

Many thanks for that. I have now actually read the STX documentation which came with the documentation and adjusted settings to accordingly. On a brief flight from Hoxton Park in circuits it would appear that the white outs and total lock-ups for several seconds have now gone. I did have one experience or maybe two of a brief lock up for a second or so but I guess this is the way it goes. Again many thanks for the assistance and I will have a look at the forum as soon as I have the time. Regards Graham Lea