cmpbllsjc
-
Posts
201 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
3
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Downloads
Posts posted by cmpbllsjc
-
-
Hi Sean. As you probably know, I push this project when ever I can. I do have the TS version and it is not bad for the airport - at least it is current with the new runway and T3.
I'd love to see it done by Aerosft in the same fashion as the US Cities series. Why do you think they would not consider it? Aside from FT's VHHX, Aerosoft is really the only developer that will do entire cities. In addition, they could use a little presence in Latin America.
Latin VFR seems to be focusing on South America at the moment and FT seems to be interested in smaller airports at the moment.
If Aerosoft did it, do you think it would be a good seller?
Why do you think they would not consider it?
I didn't think they would consider it just based on the fact that they seem to stick to Europe or that area for their in-house development and the US Cities products aren't made by Aerosoft, but rather LimeSim, then sold thru Aerosoft as far as I understand it.
If Aerosoft did it, do you think it would be a good seller?
Frankly, its hard to know if it would be a good seller. I have no idea what the sales data is for the US Cities stuff, but frankly, I hardly ever see anyone post screen shots at any of the FS forums showing it, so I am guessing that not many people own it since I never see it and rarely hear anyone talk about it.
Would I buy it if Aerosoft did it with the whole city or most of the city like FT's Kai Tak?
Probably not. Not knocking Aerosoft, but I don't think they have the techniques down yet to model such a big area with all those buildings and keep good FPS like the fellows at FlyTampa do. Plus can you imagine all the textures you would need to mip map if Aerosoft did it? You would spend a lot of time going thru it. I hate to bring up NiceX, but that was an airport that was done in-house and for such a small airport, even with minimal settings gets horrible FPS on my system. Then there's Orly , another in house, which I considered but wont buy due to FPS issues as well from what I have read. Some pointed out that Orly has some bad LOD'ing due to some objects being viewable when zoom in from a great distance and that could be part of the FPS issue there.
Would I buy it if LimeSim did a US Cities version of it?
Definitaly NO. I own none of their stuff and have no interest in it. If they would include night textures then perhaps, but I will not or never buy day only scenery. I wont even download freeware day only scenery. Personally, I like scenery that works 24 hours a day, but that's just me.
Would I buy it if FlyTampa, LatinVFR, or Simwings did it?
Absolutely, without a doubt. They have both proven to me they can do large areas with little FPS hit and everything mip mapped. Although the largest thing LatinVFR has done is Congonhas, but it preforms the same as the default version and has the photoreal area with all the autogen. Simwings did an awesome job on GibraltarX with little to no FPS hit and covered a decent area with lots of buildings.
BTW, I don't recall you ever mentioning this idea anywhere before, lol.
-
Jeff, I would say the the chances of Latin VFR doing Cancun or that area would probably be higer than Aerosoft doing it since they like to concentrate on Latin America. Maybe even FlyTampa, but I read that George is going to do Athens next then probably an airport in Canada after Athens, which leaves Martin, but he is working on a K airport at the moment, so maybe after the K airport? Trust me, I would love to see FlyTampa do a bunch of airports and cities in the fashion they did Kai Tak, but since they are basically a two man team, those type of sceneries just take too long for them to do.
I think TropicalSim may have a version, but without the city and surround areas, but frankly aside from a few Brasil sceneries I own by them, I would rather skip their other work and try to stick to FSDT, FT, and LatinVFR stuff.
-
Is this in FS9? Because in FSX it's almost the opposite for me. I do remember KORD being very good in FS9..not so hot in FSX.
I was talking FSX. I have no problem with ORD , JFk, or any of the other FSDT sceneries in FSX as far as FPS or shimmering go. I also have FS9 but haven't used it in about 2.5 years so I can't really speak about it on that sim.
-
Don't worry about it Martin, that's just the way he is.
-
1
-
-
I'm sure it is difficult to an extent to get what you need to make U.S. airports. Maybe a local who could speak with inside officials and get the permission needed would make things easier. I do however see that many fine U.S. airports are being made including an entire northwest portion of the u.s. and some very nice new Hawaiian airports with some of the best work I've every seen for flight simulator. I'm not sure what lengths they went to get them but obviously it can be done. I'll admit I'm speaking from complete lack of knowledge of the subject so no need to hammer me with your wide span of in-depth knowledge and expertise of every subject known to man (you know who you are). Perhaps smaller GA airports would be easier as they are quite easy to access. I rarely fly from any major airport anyway so I'd be happy, but I'm only one person and have no idea what the market is for GA airports. I know I buy them up whenever I find them.
I have often wondered this myself.
The fellows at FSDreamteam area based somewhere in Italy, Milan I think, and somehow they have managed to do great versions of KLAS, KORD, KFLL, KDFW, KJFK. Then there are the guys at FlyTampa who have covered a bunch of US airports back in the mid 2000's, and recently Buffalo.
Frankly, I think if Aerosoft really wanted to do US airports they would find a way since other devlopers have found a way to do accurate reproductions.
As it stands now, its probably best to just leave the US stuff to FSDreamteam and FlyTampa. FSDreamteam has really just began to to push the envelope of what can be done using different techniques. In fact, their second to latest offering, KDFW, is truely a work of art and gets amazingly good performace for an airport of that size and complexity, better than the default version on my rig with a lot more complexity and detail vs. the stock rendition. Umberto over at FSDT wrote a piece the other day about what they are doing with their KLAX project incorporating new shader techniques for rendering the ground textures and seasonal variations, without having to use seperate texture tiles for differently colored ground tiles based on different times of the year. I'm not knocking stuff done by Aerosoft, because I own a few sceneries done by them and they seem to be a nice bunch of folks, but you can't even compare the performance between the two different developers. As an example a small airport like NiceX, with no AI turned on and weather turned off, using the LDS 767, yields about 25 FPS max on my system, which is fine but thats with AI and weather turned off. Then I do the same test at KDFW which is much larger, has many more buildings, hangers, moving jetways, moving trams, etc. and I get 35 to 40 FPS, which leaves plenty of overhead for adding back in AI and weather. Even FSDT's KJFK performs better on my system than NiceX does and New York City is a usually an area that kills FPS. If I could get that type of performance from Aerosoft sceneries and have a trial period to test the scenery before purchasing it, or have a refund policy, I would probably buy just about every airport they make. As it stands now, most of their work (Aerosoft), while it usually looks great, it just doesn't yield the same performance I get from FSDT and FT products. Plus I usually need to go back an mip map the textures since it usually doesn't come standard and generally you need to buy AES credits if you want moving jetways.
Just my .02
-
Try reading it and posting there. The futility of driving an off-topic conversation with some asinine `demand` is really getting old. Can you not grow up and ask a legitimate question in a polite manner?
Wow.
While you may be an intelligent fellow, you have one of the worst deliveries I have ever seen.
Why not just give him the link and leave it at that?
-
1
-
-
Great post. It really helped me understand about mip maps.
Its an old-ish post so was worried whether you'd read my reply so PM'd you.
Basically, wonder if you could explain on the post, for everyone's benefit, exactly how to "batch convert" using imagetool.exe. I can work it out !
Thanks again
Hi Gabe.
Sorry I didn't see that you PM'ed me. Usually when I come to the forum I am not logged in and when I am not logged in, the forum wont alert me to having a PM in the in box.
Anyways, I the subject of mip mapping there are a few ways to do it and a few different free tools that can be used to do it as well depending on whether the textures you wish to mip are .dds or .bmp files. For short I will refer to adding mip maps as mips, so I dont confuse you.
1. The tool that I use mostly to add mips to .dds file is a free tool called DDS Converter 2.1. You can find some links to it using google. It is a hand tool because you can preview the texture first in the little window and it will also tell you what format the texture is in to start with and if it already has mip maps and if so how many. It will also let you specifiy the amount of mips to add or you can select 0 (zero) and it will build the number of mips automatically for you when you convert the texture. Typically I leave it set at 0 and let it figure it out on its own. You can also select as many textures as you want by holding the CTRL key and either scrolling down or clicking the mouse on the textures you want to convert. This is really hand if you want to do a lot of textures as once rather than doing them one at a time,
2. The second tool I sometimes use is a free tool called DXTBmp. You can also find it using goole. This tool I use sometimes for .dds textures that wont open with DDS Converter 2.1 or I will use it for opening .bmp files to find out what compression they are already in, like 32bit, DXT5, DXT3, or DXT1. I also sometimes use it to add mip maps, but not all the time since I dont know how to do a batch of them at once. It maybe possible to do batches, but I haven't tried or figured out how to do so.
3. Lastly I use the imagetool that comes with the FSX SDK. This I use mostly for doing batch conversions on AI planes when I know for certain that all the textures I want to convert are all 32bit, DXT5 or DXT3. I usually dont use it blindly until I first check the format of the files I am going to convert in DXTBmp. It also only does .bmp files and not .dds files. So if the scenery you are going to work with are .dds you will need to use DDS Converter 2 or DXTBmp.
As far as doing the conversions what I usually do after installing a new scenery is make a backup of the sceneries Texture and Scenery folder and store it on my backup drive. This way if I mess up a texture, delete one, or misplace one, I will always have a replacement I can get from the other drive quickly without having to reinstall the scenery.
Once the back ups are done then what I will do is Copy the whole Scenery folder of the scenery you are going to work with over to my desktop. Then I will sort it by .bmps and .dds files if it has both types of textures in the scenery folder. Once I have done this I will make another folder on the desktop and put all the .dds textures in it and open them with DDS Converter 2. I will them scroll thru each one and see what compression they are and if they already have mips built into them. If they dont have mips and they are all DXT5 or DXT3, then I will highlight all of them and go into the options menus in DDS Converter and select the same compression and add 0 (zero) in the buiild mips area, then I proceed to convert all of them. I will caution agains converting textures that are for VASI's or PAPI's as doing this in some cases has made those lights show up to dim in the sim. Usually I just mip building, ground, jetway, and vehicle texutres and leave the lights that go to PAPI's, VASI's and light poles alone.
After the .dds files are done, I go to the other folder that still has the .bmps in it and I will open them one at a time with DXTBmp and check to see what there compression are. I usually will sort the them by compression if they are mixed with 32 bit, DXT3, DXT1 and DXT5. You could take all the 32bit, DXT5 and DXT3 textures and use imagetool to do a batch conversion to DXT3 for all of them and then take all the DXT1 bmps and use image tool to do a batch conversion to the same compression of DXT1 just adding mips using imagetool as well.
Frankly I am not sure what would happen if I tried to convert DXT1 textures to DXT3, but to be safe I usually just convert DXT5 and 32 bit textures to DXT3. Sometimes I will take DXT5 .dds files and convert them all to DXT3 since it seems like my computer has an easier time with them, but it could just be a placebo effect.
Either way, adding mip maps to all these textures will 9 times out of 10 take the shimmers away and it takes some stress of the video card by being able to render a small version of the texture when you are a distance from it. Basically mip maps are just smaller version of the same texture. So if you have a texture and add 10 mips maps to it, you wil in essence have 10 smaller version of the texture for the video card to render as you get farther away from it, rather than trying to render the same single texture. Thats why when you have an un-mipped texture that is shimmering from a distance and then when you get closer to it the shimmering stops. Adding mips just gives the card smaller textures to render from a distance, hence no more shimmering.
Sorry for the long winded post but I hope this clears it up for you can helps. I know that it is a lot to take in at first, but you can experiment doing it and really cant mess anything up as long as you make sure to take a backup of the oringinal first. Its too bad that some developers dont mip the stuff right off the bat. It not like it takes a lot of extra work, but yet some devs still dont do it. In the case of GibralterX I was happy the developer did it and saved me the time. You will notice that most of the stuff that comes from FSDreamteam and FlyTampa already come mipped and optimized so that you dont have to do it yourself. Some developers claim that mipping makes textures blurry, but I would argue that is false because a mip is just a smaller version of the same original texture. It may appear to be blurry, but I think that is just because its not shimmering in the distance. The only time it will be actually not as sharp is if you convert a 32 bit texture to a DXT5 or DXT3, but frankly to me the difference to me is not even noticable, plus the DXt version will most likely give you better performance.
I dont check the Aerosoft forum very often, but if you have more questions reply back to this thread and I will try to check it again soon.
Regards
BTW, ignore spelling errors. It was 2:30 in the morning when I typed this, lol.
-
Thanks for that I'll pass the info onto Peter.
Peter as in Flusipeter?
-
As for the flickering textures this is what the developer said, " I could not see the flickering surfaces. Only, if one
continues to go away and near zoom, flicker it."
I think what he's saying is does it happen only if you zoom into it then out possibly.
Hi Shaun.
Thanks for getting the missing texture.
Like what Travis said, those pics of the signs flashing in and out are NOT due to zooming in or out, just maintaining a regular zoom. Also they do it when you are far from them or close to them. Either distance makes no difference. Frankly i'm not surprised that the developer has no solution for it since it seems that a lot of the developers never get any of the issues that others see, or can try to help find a fix for it. It's not really that big of a deal but it would be nice if there was a way to get the signs to quit doing that.
@ Travis - I saw your PM the other day and hadn't had a chance to reply yet. If I get a chance tomorrow I will PM you back. Also if I get a chance I will post some of the pics you posted of the flickering signs over at Avsim and see if anyone over there has a solution. If I remember right and its been a while, I think if maybe due to them missing an alpha channel or something to that effect, but like I said I am not sure if that's the case. If it is and I can fix it I will send you a fixed texture as long as its ok by Aerosoft for me to distribute a fix.
Regards,
Sean
-
Hello Folks,
Yes the 3rd party developers will need to be informed regarding this.
Any news on this Shaun?
-
Hi Shaun.
Almost a month since the original post and 2 weeks since your last reply. Have the developers contacted you or said anything about the missing texture and the flashing signs on the hangers that Travis posted screen shots of?
Thanks,
Sean
-
Good Scenery but the FPS is bad between 8-10 Worst than FSX default.
Thanks for the heads up. I was actually considering this airport since I dont own Mega Airport CDG, but in this other thread http://www.forum.aer...showtopic=38425 the guy is running a Core I7 960 at 4.2 ghZ and getting only 10 to 12 FPS. If that's the case me being at 3.85 ghz probably wont cut it.
Its funny that another airport that Peter did (Nice X) gives me horrible performance also, while Maderia and Lisbon which he also had a hand in give me ok FPS. I'm wondering if there is something in Peter's design technique that is sometimes causing performance hits since I own a lot of other large airports buy FSDreamteam, FlyTampa and Imaginesim that give me good FPS?
None the less thanks for the feedback. I will wait and see what happens as far as maybe some type of patch for performance before I buy this one.
-
Good catch Travis. I have this scenery as well but have only flown around it a few times and never tested it to see if its missing any textures. Frankly I am surprised so many sceneries get released with missing textures. I would have thought that the developer or beta testers would test the scenery using the cfg tweak to look for missing textures before they release it.
Since it was done by Aerosoft they should be able to get the textures quickly.
-
I dont even have AES or for that matter even tried AES in my last 7 years of simming, however I would hate to see a fellow like Oliver close up shop due to the stupidity or ignorance of a small group of people, or in this case the fellow(s) that found the need to post some inside info or whatever was posted that could hurt the sales of his product.
Hopefully Oliver will look past the incident and after a beak come back and AES more airports that so many in the community crave.
Regards
-
2
-
-
Hey Shaun,
Just wanted to check back and see if you have heard anything from the developer on the missing texture and the anomaly with the flickering signs that Travis posted pics of?
Regards,
Sean
-
I'll never forget the lies MS gave us last time either.
Yeah that picture got a lot of people, including myself pretty excited about what the new sim could look like.
-
Sean,
I'm missing BETON_4_HANGER_BODEN.BMP as well. (No "BETON_4" anything AAMOF.) Good catch; thx.
Thanks, surprised I didn't notice earlier when I was doing all the mip mapping.
BTW, I dont have any other BETON files either, but I think it's ok otherwise the bgl that is asking for the one I mentioned would be asking for more.
-
Hey Shaun,
The pics Travis posted are what I was talking about so I will refrain from posting more, but I am getting the same thing on my end.
Travis,
Do you have the missing texture I asked Shaun about in your Lisbon X\Texture folder, or are you missing it also?
-
Apparently Patty Wagstaff and Orbx are onboard, even read that Aerosoft wont be allowed access or to contribute if they go ahead with their sim ... surely not?
Where did you read the part about Aerosoft not being allowed to continue with their sim if the contribute?
-
Hello Sean,
I will need to speak to the developers regarding the missing texture.
As for the signs, can you please post some screenshots with the co-ordinates clearly visible so I can see exactly where you mean.
Hi Shaun, I will post some pics of the signs as soon as I get a chance, maybe later today.
-
Shaun,
I got Lisbon the other week when it was on sale and despite a few little things like the shimmer I was able to fix myself, but it came to my attenion today when I had the missing texture alert turned on that I am missing this file:
BETON_4_HANGER_BODEN.BMP
Could you kindly post it here so I can just download it and place it like you did for the NiceX missing texture?
Also, there is a strange thing going on with a few of the hangers where the signs on the hangers flicker in and out. Its not a flicker like a mip mapping flicker, but more like the signs become invisible then pop into and out of view while your looking at them. If you need I can take a screen shot to show what I mean as you can pick it up by hitting the "V" at the right time.
Regards,
Sean
-
I guess you didn't see the warning posted on the product page about 1/2 down under the area where it says FSX specific features. It reads:
Performance warning (FSX only) !
At the current state of FSX you will have to expect to drop between 40 and 45% in frame rate when comparing default Ferihegy and the Mega Airport Budapest Ferihegy. So before you buy, load LHBP in FSX and check your frame rates there. You could also visit the default KLAX in FSX as Mega Airport Budapest has very similar performance (also note that we are able to show around 3 times the number of objects for the same performance!)
Thank god they posted that because I was actually considering recently. Maybe you could try removing some of the bgl's for the ground vehicles or set the sliders back a bit. I normally run the scenery complexity at Extremely Dense but some areas require Very Dense or Dense.
-
Just wondering since I saw a new Greek airport released the other day. Skiathos is a pretty neat little airport that you can fly heavies into with a scenic approach over the beach and between the hills.
-
...it will probably run better then that "other" piece of shit (FSX) they gave me a couple years ago. It's funny soon as the hardware starts to catch up there making a new title. I think the best things that ever happened to the community was the failure of the FSX Franchise...like serious, would you fly FSX without ORBX Aerosoft etc...not me.
LOL, not to turn this into an FSX vs FS9/FSNext topic, but where is it written that the FSX franshise was a failure? Seems like its doing well considering some devs have dropped production for the other sim to concentrate on FSX and Aerosoft themselves seem quite happy with the sales of their FSX products. Heck even MS ran out of stock on FSX DVD's not to long ago and had to produce more. If that was a failure and they ran out of stock on an item, they would probably take that any day of the week. Besides i'm not so sure if MS getting rid of ACES was anything to do with FSX as it was more to do with the sharp downturn in the economy.
As far as flying FSX without ORBX, Aerosoft, etc., I wouldn't fly any sim, FSX or FS9 without the products of the 3PD's. Heck I dont even own any ORBX stuff, but I own a lot of stuff from FSDT, FlyTampa, LatinVFR, and Aerosoft or stuff published by Aerosoft and I cant imagine flying without any of it frankly.
Hopefully if the next new sim from MS or the one Aerosoft is planning, we will have a platform that the majority of the FS community likes. Although no matter what happens there will still probably be a small fraction of simmers that remain with FS9/FSX because of the investment they have already made into buying addons.
No matter how much better the next new sim is by either MS or AS, I would imagine I would remain with FSX until the 3PD's develope enough new addon planes and sceneries to make the switch worth while. I dont mind spending all the money again, but it will probably take a few years before new addons start popping up and I loath default sims.
Munich X_Barcelona X FSX
in English
Posted
I have read Umberto say they do the FSX version first then backport it to FS9, which according to him is easier than doing the FS9 version first, then porting it to FSX. I'm guess this is because it's easier to make the more complex FSX version, then strip it down to work in FS9. Plus , they have said that since a few sceneries back, they have streamlined the process a bit knowing they were going to back port the FSX version to make an FS9 version. Probably just comes down to better preplanning of how you are going to tackle it before you begin the whole project.