Approaching Innsbruck released (for FS2004)

[Shaun Fletcher 570]

Innsbruck airport has a mixed reputation with pilots. In good condition is a great airport to land with approaches

that are challenging and non-standard. In marginal weather though, challenging borders on dangerous as the

mountains are all around you and space is very limited. Appraoching Innsbruck brings you this airport and

immediate surroundings in unprecedented detail, the screenshots will speak for themselves, just check them out.

This release is for FS2004, the FSX version (and the combined box) will follow.

Links:[Product page] [Pre-order the box]

[Fred 23]

I am hoping the FSX version is not far away. This looks great in FS2004. Must be outstanding in FSX.

[Juergen_LOWW 21]

Confirmed

[Egbert Drenth 52]

Yet another very nice scenery of Aerosoft.

I like specifically the approach lighting looping though the city, nice touch!

[Rafal Haczek 1612]

Hey, Gianni!

I would like to thank you for your 'Approaching Innsbruck' scenery.

I have just finished a virtual round trip between Vienna and Innsbruck.

I enjoyed the flight very much, especially that the approach with real weather was exciting.

I all but crashed my fokker while manouvering during the visual approach to runway 08. Wow!

The scenery is beautiful and combined with my addons (UTE, FSG, GE and AP2004) creates a lifelike experience.

Add to it the incredible road and train traffic around and it's almost like being there.

To reduce the stress of explaining my wife why I spent another 23 euro on my weird hobby, I reminded her out trip to Innsbruck.

Actually I partially crashed our car there but, apart from that, it was a thrilling experience to be there in the alpine valley.

Cons of the scenery? There are some performance problems:

relatively low FPS and, which was more worrying, some serious stuttering while the scenery was initially loading.

I mean a few 2-3 second-long freezing stops (I thought my system froze).

However it might be a coincidence, so I will use a different aircraft to fly there and check.

Pros? All the rest!

Thanks again and please continue your great Austrian work.

What will be next? Maybe 'Approaching Salzburg'? Would be great.

Best regards,

Rafal

.

[scarebus 29]

CONGRATS to all at AS for yet another fantastic, amazing scenery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just one question.... Are there supposed to be yellow taxi lines right to the a/c parking positions, because on mine I only have yellow taxi lines on the taxi ways and the only way to know where your stand actually is is to have the pink line activated and it is a bit tricky lining up properly??

Mark

[scarebus 29]

CONGRATS to all at AS for yet another fantastic, amazing scenery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just one question.... Are there supposed to be yellow taxi lines right to the a/c parking positions, because on mine I only have yellow taxi lines on the taxi ways and the only way to know where your stand actually is is to have the pink line activated and it is a bit tricky lining up properly??

Mark

Sorry will post this in small bugs topic

Mark

[Goulash 11]

First off, excellent scenery, been flying around it for the last hour, very impressed as i've flown into here (as a passenger) on numerous occasions. I've had no performance issues whatsoever, framerates between 25 and infinity so happy days there

@VORJAB

I'd think it's your system specs that might be at fault here. My rig is a dual core 8550, 3gb RAM and a Nvidia Geforce 8800GT. This is by no means top of the range but suits my needs and gives phenomenal fps in FS9. I've not experienced any of the glitches you mentioned and also have AP2004 running at the same time, plus ActiveSky and Traffic 2005 as well

One other thing i've come across while looking at the afcad file, why is the width of the runway set at 183m when it should be 45m as mentioned in the manual?

[Rafal Haczek 1612]

Hey Goulash,

Thanks for your interest.

Well, I wouldn't blame my system really. I usually have twice more frames at UK2000 Heathrow with full AI.

But it might well be a pure coincidence. To check that I will have to make another flight, which I had no time for yet.

What worried me more was the described freezing/stutters I've had for the first time since my latest XP reinstall.

But that also may be a part of something that didn't work n that particular flight. I'm almost sure it was as no-one else is reporting it.

And yes, I'm always using too many addons (aircraft, scenery, landcape, AI, weather... irresistible).

The scenery is wonderful. I'm bowing in respect for Gianni. I also installed the patches he offered on the German forum.

I may fly there today to practise the visual procedures. It it works fine, I'll try 'approaching Innsbruck' via VATSIM.

Best regards,

Rafal

[Goulash 11]

@ VORJAB

Indeed, a windows reinstall can also bring its own gremlins which might explain the issues you are suffering

On another note, looking at the afcad file again, i see the hold short points while accurate to the scenery are too far away for AI planes from the runway. I find they are simply not taking off at all but holding short, literally. I've moved these nodes closer and now have no issues at all. I had to move all three to get it all working. I also resized the runway to the correct width as mentioned in my previous post

[Rafal Haczek 1612]

Good job, Goulash!

Maybe Gianni will let you publish your AF2 here for others to download.

If you don't mind either, of course.

By the way, was the described situation with runway 26?

Cause I saw AI departing from 08 with no problems.

Best regards,

Rafal

[Goulash 11]

Strangely no. This was at runway 08. I ran the afcad file through its error checking utility and it came up with the hold short points being too far away from the runway which i could see anyway. I've made dozens of afcad files so kind of knew what to expect. Ever since i've moved those nodes, no issues at all. I don't know if it's because i'm running Just Flights Traffic program and not Ultimate Traffic, shouldn't make any difference imo.

[FlavioSSA 21]

Uhhh. any news in the FSX version?

I´m very jealous of our FS9 brothers .....

[designteam 167]

Just one question.... Are there supposed to be yellow taxi lines right to the a/c parking positions, because on mine I only have yellow taxi lines on the taxi ways and the only way to know where your stand actually is is to have the pink line activated and it is a bit tricky lining up properly??

This is described in the manual. In LOWI there are no fix parking positions according to the limitations of space. Thus, I have not implemented lines because my mission was to build the scenery as close to reality as possible.

LOWI as a whole is tricky - indeed. Aside from this we had to define parkings positions else we would not have been able to be supported by AES.

greetz

[lonepilot 0]

Cons of the scenery? There are some performance problems:

relatively low FPS and, which was more worrying, some serious stuttering while the scenery was initially loading.

Pros? All the rest!

Hi!

I subscribe all of what Rafal wrote.

I did my maiden flight to the new scenery using the PMDG736 Lauda 'Innsbruck' repaint (it had to be!), by Rudd Joosten.

The only issue were the FPS going to 1/2 on final, short-final and taxi - even with 2D panel. I also use UTE, GEPro, mesh and ASA injecting weather. Considering that I have 25-30FPS on short final to Mega Airport Frankfurt 2008 or FSDT Zurich, in the same conditions.

Apart from that, just great! Thanks for this long-awaited scenery. It is a must!

My specs:

Q6600@3GHz

GTX 260 896Mb core 216

2Gb RAM

WinXP Pro SP3

Best regards

[Rafal Haczek 1612]

The only issue were the FPS going to 1/2 on final, short-final and taxi - even with 2D panel

Indeed, Pedro. There definitely is a performance problem here to be considered.

Yesterday I took a boeing 757 for a flight EDDF-LOWI-EDDF.

While approaching Innsbruck my frames dropped to somewhere between 10 and 15.

But there were only two small AI planes (WelcomeAir dorniers) on the apron, so it's not AI which is the problem.

While returning to Frankfurt I had around 20 FPS on finals with Fraport full of planes.

Then it doesn't look like a problem of my PC or my system itself.

I don't know if it comes from the LOWI texture sizes or the amount of details (or both).

Or maybe it's due to the interaction of several additional ingredients to LOWI: AP2004, UTE, GE and FSG.

Gianni, if you're reading these words:

I am not accusing your scenery of anything. Let me repeat - it is a beautiful and precious addon. You've made a great and ejoyable scenery!

All I'm saying is that there are some performance problems. I don't know what experience other customers (except for Pedro) are having while approaching Innsbruck. In a known Polish forum a user complains about LOWI performance problems suggesting the 500MB of 1024x1024 textures may spoil his fun.

If you believe that might be the texture problem, maybe you could think of an alternative resized textures patch? Some payware developers (e.g. FlyTampa, FSDT) offered it after some users noticed unexpectedly low performance.

I realise 'approaching LOWI' is not only the airport, but also the city, so it must come for a price. Of course!

But, at the same time, I have enhanced city areas on approach to big hubs like: LOWW, EDDF, EHAM, LFPG, EFHK or LHBP.

In all of these cases performance is a bit or significantly higher than in Innsbruck.

I'm open for any necessary co-operation/testing to improve this anyway excellent scenery.

Best regards,

Rafal

My specs:

Windows XP Home 32bit

FS9.1 (optimised and well maintained)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHZ

2GB RAM

NVidia GeForce 8800 GT

[designteam 167]

Indeed, Pedro. There definitely is a performance problem here to be considered.

Yesterday I took a boeing 757 for a flight EDDF-LOWI-EDDF.

While approaching Innsbruck my frames dropped to somewhere between 10 and 15.

But there were only two small AI planes (WelcomeAir dorniers) on the apron, so it's not AI which is the problem.

While returning to Frankfurt I had around 20 FPS on finals with Fraport full of planes.

Then it doesn't look like a problem of my PC or my system itself.

I don't know if it comes from the LOWI texture sizes or the amount of details (or both).

Or maybe it's due to the interaction of several additional ingredients to LOWI: AP2004, UTE, GE and FSG.

Gianni, if you're reading these words:

I am not accusing your scenery of anything. Let me repeat - it is a beautiful and precious addon. You've made a great and ejoyable scenery!

All I'm saying is that there are some performance problems. I don't know what experience other customers (except for Pedro) are having while approaching Innsbruck. In a known Polish forum a user complains about LOWI performance problems suggesting the 500MB of 1024x1024 textures may spoil his fun.

If you believe that might be the texture problem, maybe you could think of an alternative resized textures patch? Some payware developers (e.g. FlyTampa, FSDT) offered it after some users noticed unexpectedly low performance.

I realise 'approaching LOWI' is not only the airport, but also the city, so it must come for a price. Of course!

But, at the same time, I have enhanced city areas on approach to big hubs like: LOWW, EDDF, EHAM, LFPG, EFHK or LHBP.

In all of these cases performance is a bit or significantly higher than in Innsbruck.

I'm open for any necessary co-operation/testing to improve this anyway excellent scenery.

Best regards,

Rafal

My specs:

Windows XP Home 32bit

FS9.1 (optimised and well maintained)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHZ

2GB RAM

NVidia GeForce 8800 GT

Hi Rafal,

thank you for your kind words. Well, there is any time room for improvement. I will have a look on this when preparing the FSX-version - because as far as I can see optimization for framerate purposes for the FSX-version has to be looked for anyway.

It is quite hard to verify your observations because my production environment is nearly the same like your system and my framerate is never going below 30 fps (neither in hard weather conditions nor with heavy traffic). Just a small hint: if you get troubles with your frames, please deactivate the bgls named "tree...." and try to find out which one is hitting your machine most.

greetz

[designteam 167]

Good job, Goulash!

Maybe Gianni will let you publish your AF2 here for others to download.

If you don't mind either, of course.

By the way, was the described situation with runway 26?

Cause I saw AI departing from 08 with no problems.

Best regards,

Rafal

I appreciate your worlds - but please don't get me wrong: we will not spread modified AFCAD-files officially because our one is optimized for AI-traffic purposes in our view. Changing the width of the runway may lead to problems with AI-airplanes due to the fact that the hold short nodes then are too far away from the runway and planes are not able to line up. This may lead to jams on the intersections. To avoid this the nodes then must be dragged nearer to the runway and the planes then will stop on a position which does not comply with the photo texture. What I do not understand is why to change something that works so far? The AFCAD-runway is not visible in the scenery - so why should it be modified?

[Rafal Haczek 1612]

Hey, Gianni!

Thanks a lot for coming and responding.

What makes a developer pro is the way he offers his support. Much appreciated!

Well, if you have a similar configuration to mine and see no significant FPS drop, then the problem is not clear and is hidden deep.

Then I will do more testing. I could just drop flying to LOWI for some time but this addon is too good to just skip it.

I'll try with the trees like you're suggesting. I'll also try uninstalling AP2004 (I won't touch UTE and FSG though, since they influence almost the whole continent).

The AFCAD-runway is not visible in the scenery - so why should it be modified?

I don't know. I haven't seen Goulash's afcad yet.

I have no problems with AI aircraft so far.

Best regards,

Rafal

[designteam 167]

Well, if you have a similar configuration to mine and see no significant FPS drop, then the problem is not clear and is hidden deep.

Then I will do more testing.

OK - then let's dig together from both sides of the hill. Would be nice if you were posting your observations here.

PS: another one: Some objects become invisible if you are setting your scenery density to normal (eg the fences). This would be another possibility to reduce processor load.

greetz

[Rafal Haczek 1612]

Gianni,

Thanks again for your interest.

Please don't worry about my case too much. Not seeing much performance complaining from other users I start thinking it is my individual problem.

So there is no need for you to spend your time working it out just for me.

I would rather wait for the resized textures you mentioned in another post. If it doesn't help, I'll look for solutions on my own and report here if I find them.

Thank you again for making Innsbruck alive!

Best regards,

Rafal

[lonepilot 0]

please deactivate the bgls named "tree...." and try to find out which one is hitting your machine most.

greetz

Hi Gianni!

I renamed all those bgl to .off and yes, I had a substancial increment on FPS, using 2D panel.

If I switch to VC though (only on short-final for a more accurate visual preception), they remain a bit low for my interest.

But, anyway... I'm happy! The results were good!

Thanks for the tip!

Best regards,

[JohnT 1]

Hi,

Just installed this scenery, but have some problems.

1) On initial installation, it failed to see that I had both, Austria Prof and GA1 in place.

As I had AP2004 installed in a different location than the default, I un-installed it and re-installed it to FS9/Aerosoft folder. But again on re-installation of LOWI app, it still failed to see APro. So once again I re-installed APro, but this time into the main FS9 directory. On re-installing LOWI_Appp, it now recognised that APro was in place. However it still did not see GA1. GA1 is installed by default in FS9/Aerosoft folder along with every other Aerosoft addon scenery.

On running FS9 I see as shown by the attachment. I have done a search and re-named every other AF2_LOWI file I can find ***.BU , but still see as the attachment.

Regards JohnT

[JohnT 1]

Hi,

Just installed this scenery, but have some problems.

1) On initial installation, it failed to see that I had both, Austria Prof and GA1 in place.

As I had AP2004 installed in a different location than the default, I un-installed it and re-installed it to FS9/Aerosoft folder. But again on re-installation of LOWI app, it still failed to see APro. So once again I re-installed APro, but this time into the main FS9 directory. On re-installing LOWI_Appp, it now recognised that APro was in place. However it still did not see GA1. GA1 is installed by default in FS9/Aerosoft folder along with every other Aerosoft addon scenery.

On running FS9 I see as shown by the attachment. I have done a search and re-named every other AF2_LOWI file I can find ***.BU , but still see as the attachment.

Regards JohnT

[Waleed 29]

Say it aint so.

On the european page, the release date(without guarantee) is set for the end of July, while on the German page it is for September???