[robfosters]

Got to tell you about this free add on for FSX. Most free add ons to FSX are either planes or liveries, but I love this little program.

It's called Gmap and you can get it from FSWidgets...

It is basically a web browser disguised as a Garmin nav. Basically FSX sends it the lon and lat of your planes position and GMAP plots it and downloads the correct map for where you are. It downloads every second and is nice and quick. You can all have different overlays, but my fav as shown is HYB (sat and Ter). You can also load your fsx flightplans into it to see where you will fly over and it even supports aviation charts.

It also runs alone so does not impact FPS at all. I have it setup on a small second monitor. really helps to the experience.

First pic is slightly zoomed out and second shows me coming into land at LaGuardia. I went round again

[tonybro]

Just about to download, thanks for the heads-up....

[SkyCaptain]

nice find downloading now.


I dont want to start another FSX thread so will jack this one a little

Do you know much about the scenery add ons?

Ive got VFR Terrain England & Wales and ive also got FS Global X 2008

Im just wondering if the VFR Terrain will have better UK data than the FS Global set and wether both sets can be loaded together? I dont want to lose the world data from FS Global but im not sure if the VFR set will look better than the FS Global UK data.

[robfosters]

To be honest, VFR is photoscenery, which i'm not keen on. It looks great from 30,000 feet, but once you take a cessna down to 2-3000ft, It shows it flaws.

I think FS global is better all round. But you can use all packages together.

If your serious about flight sim, consider this:

The best way to use fsx is with 3 seperate elements:

1. GEX - This is ground environment. It is a perfect mapping of the earth terrain. Mountains, valleys, canyons and so on.

2. UTX - Ultimate Terrain X. This is a perfect representation of the earths material features (houses, roads, landmarks) and so on.

3. REX, Real environment Extreme. This is an environment package which models the textures of earth, sea and all else perfectly.

They all work together in tandem. FSX maps the terrain using GEX, puts the UTX data over the top and uses REX to simulate natural elements perfectly. Add to this an advanced weather program like ASA and you have yourself one serious flight sim.

[SkyCaptain]

ok cool, thanks for that The screenies on the Real Environment website look pretty mad! roll on payday

[robfosters]

Yes, it does coral seas superbly. I just take a cessna and plot a GPS route around the caribbean islands. Ap on and sit back and relax, it's stunning.

Did you not find the UTX screenies quite impressive as well?

[SkyCaptain]

yeah that looks fab too, in fact ive just ordered a copy of the european pack Only thing im a little worried about is the lag that its going to generate, i dont really want to knock any settings down, but we shall see.

One other thing, is there any way of getting proper commercial flight paths from anywhere so you can load them in and get the route plotted on the GPS screen thing?

[tonybro]

I'll be having a good look at them too.

I'm a 'fun' sim pilot nothing too serious but I would like it to look better... ;-)

[Iaind]

I currently have FS2004 and a load of the scenery packages for this - Ultimate Terrain Europe, Ground Environment, Flight Environment and the ScotFlight scenery package. Living close to Prestwick and Glasgow airports, I like to fly out of them.

I have been considering upgrading to FSX for a while, and whilst I know the above packages will not run on FSX, what scenery packs would you suggest? I believe that GEX is currently only the USA and Canada, is there a good terrain mesh package for Europe and the UK around?

TBH, I want the ground to look as good as possible as I tend to fly low and slow (doesn't hurt as much when i crash) so I am prepared to invest some time and cash in getting the best scenery possible.

Cheers,
Iain

[SkyCaptain]

well the one I use is FS Global X 2008. It has discs for both version of FS and looks lovely. Im just waiting for the the Ultimate Terrain Europe to drop thoruhg my letter box and that should sort things out nicely for me.

The only thing i find a little annoying is the scale of the landmasses. Back in my hometown (Penzance) theres an island out in the bay with a castle on top, St Michaels Mount. Its never rendered properly which is really annoying as it would look fab! Same goes for the Isles of Scilly, theyre far too small. it would be nice to get a properly scaled europe or even just a UK pack released.

[GMC79]

Question- How much better is this than A century of flight? Screen shots look awesome. Love flight sims but a century of flight dont really have much terrain/plane detail even a max settings.
Worth me buying for a look?

[mrbobc]

is fs global 2008 worth it? fancy posting some screenies?

it cost more than the deluxe fsx atm, though i really like fsx i cant justify that much for an add-on.

[SkyCaptain]

yeah its worth it, looks fantastic! Im just about to fly off to Turkey so havnt the time to sort screenies out. I'll do some next week if you havnt found any by then but its defenitly worth it.