• Vfr Germany West

Product Information Publisher: Description: Orthophotographic terrain with custom autogen and scenery objects. Download Size: 12 MB Format: Download Simulation Type: FSX Reviewed by: AVSIM Staff Reviewer - August 26, 2008 Introduction: What it is: 12 gigs of highly innovative geo-referenced scenery tiles with precisely placed custom autogen and scenery for one quarter of the German territory, namely the North part as seen in the map below. Please be aware that this package requires the SP2 update for FSX which helps with the autogen loading. The predecessor to this scenery package, was reviewed last year by David Wilson-Okamura and I will not to try to out do his excellent work.

Aerosoft has made four differing layers of scenery products for FSX which are supposed to be compatible with each other. These 4 are: VFR Germany series, Mega Airports, and German airports and German airfields. With that in mind, I’ve steered this review towards comments on compatibilities of VFR Germany 2-North with VFR Germany 1-West, German Airfields 2, and two of the airports from German Airports 2; Hannover and Munster, all of which fall within or next to the confines of VFR Germany 2 – North as seen in the two pictures below. I also have a copy of their product German Landmarks which I will comment on. I will be showing how well (or not so well) these products mesh with the VFR Germany 2’s photoscenery, custom autogen and scenery objects. I will also comment on its borders to generic FSX and Ultimate Terrain for Europe (UT-Eur) tiles.

Jun 09, 2013 According to the developers, Deutschland X is intended to provide the best rendering of Germany ever done for FSX. For the purposes of this product. MS FSX FSX-SE Forum. I have VFR germany south and west and the colors are a bit greenish but the new west looks very good;). VFR Germany or GEX Europe?

Vfr Germany West

Since VFR Scenery 2 comes only in a summer set of photos, I will fly in summer season only (yeah!). VFR Germany series Google map for VFR Germany showing military airports Supplied navigational chart As the map suggests there are to be four scenery sets in the series called VFR Germany; this review being of the second, hence the suffix 2 – North. I do hope there will be a full package available at a discount once this series is complete, since buying all four products at unit prices is expensive.

A more precise coverage is shown in the Google map they supplied along with the above navigational chart available from the start menu (there are two). I found that for the chart to be readable, I had to apply a magnification of 200%, and yet it was difficult to read the small print. What are Orthophotos? As explained in the link to Wikipedia, photography is essentially aerial photographs that have been rendered geologically precise.

They are not satellite images, do not have the correct colors and do not have the correct pixel density. Other products such as the freeware Tile Proxy use actual satellite images, but not here. Orthogonal simply means projected at right angles. Their source that supplied the data for the orthogonally correct placements of details is a company called. For this reason UT-Eur (which uses geo data but not photos) and VFR Germany 2 match up perfectly mainly where roads, railroads, and rivers are concerned. Test System triple-boot Vista32/64/XP32 E6600 quad 2.4G + 4G RAM BFG GTX260 896 Megs OC FSX-SP2 acceleration ASX+XG+FEX / UTX-Europe Flying Time: 21 hours Minimum Requirements: Flight Simulator X with Service Pack 2 Graphics card with 256 MB memory (512 MB recommended) CPU: 3 GHz (duo core highly recommended) 1 GB RAM (2 GB recommended) 15 GB free disk Downloading and Installation: At 12 GB, this is a considerable download for anyone.

Aerosoft have divided it into 12 files of about 1G each which must be downloaded individually. I was unable to queue them using the “Free Download Manager” I usually use, and had to initiate a new download for each of the twelve packages. With speeds averaging 600Kb/sec on my system, this took 30 minutes for each part (multiplied by 12 I was looking at a 6 hour download in reality I took 2 days to do this at my leisure). Also be prepared to possibly have less bandwidth available for other internet activities while downloading these 12 parts, as I did experience slower loading times when loading unrelated site URLs. Some advance planning may be required here: Unlike other downloads, more planning has to be given to this one, namely on which of your hard drive(s) partition(s) will you download, unwrap, and install it all (left undeleted, these add up to 36 Gigs, and if you also download VFR Germany 1, that’s 72 Gigs of space). I had to make room by deleting older download remnants from the past (Gen-X zip, an FEX zip, FSGenesis mesh zips, etc) and came up with a healthier 60 Gigs of free space where I could download and unwrap uninterrupted.

So if you’re running out of space on your hard drives like I was, plan ahead. The first of the 12 files contains the installer setup application, but no readme document.

Fortunately, you do not have to recopy all the cab files into the same folder, just leave them as they were unwrapped into their own individual folders and the install will proceed correctly without any intervention on your part need (but you do have to unwrap each of the twelve individually). Have your serial string copied and ready to paste when needed. There are two pages prompting for the paths to be used, one for the location of your FSX install, and thankfully the next asking where you want this massive VFR Germany to be installed. As seen in the screenshots, I chose a separate partition for the 12.4 gigs that was installed.

Path for FSX Location Path for VFR Germany 2 Checking correct paths Start Menu The full install took 14 minutes on my quad core with 4 gigs of RAM. There is available via the start menu programs a list of charts, a manual, military locations, and an object configuration tool installed in the same folder as VFR Germany 2, so if you move things around again after install like I did these may not be available from their target in the start menu anymore, but will still work as long as the scenery library is updated. To remove VFR Germany 2, you have to use the uninstaller from the start menu otherwise you may not get everything removed. So if you changed folder’s locations, keep this in mind. Interaction at borders of different terrain texture sets: Approach from the west; Schiphol to Hannover; I always prefer to depart from and fly towards custom scenery.

FSX supplies the splendid EHAM (Schiphol, Amsterdam) scenery, and the Hannover custom airport scenery is from Aerosoft. First encounter with the orthophotographic tiles is on departure from Munster airport from German Airports 2 (not included in VFR Germany 2), an excellent rendition by Aerosoft of this pleasant airport.

Note how well it blends with adjoining UT-Eur tiles (photo in next section). However, in the same area and within the confines of VFR Germany 1, there are obvious different photo sets as shown in the picture below. Borders of orthophotos with ET-Eur Not a border just different photo sets Alongside UT-Eur, VFR Germany 2 (VFR-2) shows duplicate roads and similar landclass. There is a shade of green difference colorwise. If you then add VFR Germany 1, the autogen in VFR-2 disappears; moving VFR-2 up above VFR-1 (as it would be if VFR-1 were added first), and the autogen returns to normal for both installations.

City of Osnabruck in VFR-2 area same no VFR-2 but with UT-Eur same in generic FSX Above are comparisons over the city of Osnabruck (near the Munster airport) depicting textures with VFR Germany 2, UT-Europe alone, and generic FSX. Obviously, the more you pay the more you get.

Interaction at German Airports 2: I obtained Munster and Hannover, two airports within the confines of VFR Germany 1 and 2 respectively, in order to comment on their blending in with the adjacent tiles from VFR Germany 2. As expected, aerial photographs of the airports line up perfectly with aerial photographs of its immediate surroundings. In the case of UT-Eur, the roads line up well, and the landclass is compatible.

Downwind HDDV only UT-Eur and with VFR Germany 2 Interaction with German Airfields 2: Another Aerosoft product, German Airfields 2, seamlessly sits inside the VFR Germany terrain as far as accuracy goes, but there can be some that have color differences that clash. There also can be the occasional doubling of objects as with the windmill blades at ETNS as shown below. EDHS with custom neighboring objects All greenish in most places Windmill blades doubled I also noticed that many areas are simply greenish, as I have shown in the picture of EDXJ (German Airfields 2 only) imbedded within the confines of VFR Germany 2. The overall green color of VFR Germany is a known simplification of the textures and I am copying this explanation from the manual: “ Geocontent has worked extensively to match the images but as they are done on different film material, in different seasons and even in different years some color mismatches has to be expected.

Due to the huge amount of data it is not commercially viable to spend the estimated €1.000.000 or more needed to do that work.” The images for German airfields must be satellite photos. This extra add-on providess realism and extra destinations to the German territory which I enjoyed a lot.

Interaction with German Landmarks: If you had German Landmarks installed, or if you install it after VFR Germany-2, there is a configuration tool (in German only but it is obvious what the two choices are) that will let you chose which set of custom objects you prefer to have active. Some may prefer not to use German Landmarks because it is less accurate it its placement which can be made more obvious with the accurate photo scenery below it. I left my copy of German Landmarks deactivated because it also has landclass etc and I prefer to use the VFR Germany series exclusively. Configuration tool Perfectly placed windmills in VFR Germany 2 Various effects, textures, settings: Water: The water textures slider is best set at mid levels (low.2x for better frame rates, max2x for better quality) as the VFR Germany photos (without FSX water textures) can clash with the surroundings. It turns out to be a mix of photos and textures with reflections, and I found it can be even better than the FSX defaults because of the hint of shallows. Water effects set to none compared to low.2x Water effects set to none compared to highest at max2x You do see a distinct border separating the VFR Germany water photo textures from the default (or whatever you had there before). I found that the higher water effects settings helped blend this best.

Road Traffic: I could get much more road traffic by leaving my UT-Eur road scenery active. Otherwise there was only traffic on the major highways of the photo textures of VFR Germany, except for the still photos taken of real traffic at the time. Default traffic –vs.- VFR-2 VFR-2 above –vs.- UTX added Autogen and custom scenery; Simply reducing the autogen one notch from extreme to very dense almost doubled my frame rates and did not affect realism too adversely.

Your results will depend on the amount of video ram your card has. One thing I found out is that the scenery library listing for VFR Germany 1 should come before (on top of) VFR Germany 2 otherwise the autogen in VFR Germany 2 may not be visible.

Autogen at extreme dense can be nice Full settings over Hamburg Flying over Hamburg, I would often get less than 10 fps at extreme settings. Lowering the autogen to dense helped a lot but reduced the level of visual fullness. It is all a matter of compromise. When I see the fps get down in the single digits, I have to reduce the autogen in order to have a flyable play. Custom scenery objects have an effect on performance too, but I like leaving that setting on full. As expected, large cities and custom airports take their toll on frame rates. Fps reasonable on approach but can get tight on final Low fps (Kiel) but lots of eye candy Aerosoft obtains data for building addresses and this correlates precisely with images imprinted on what you get from orthogonal aerial photography: the autogen houses and buildings are precisely positioned on the same image that was obtained in the aerial photo, but it may not be in the correct Cartesian orientation; this requires manual intervention, or luck of the lot.

Also, there are lots of landmarks and custom scenery objects precisely placed (I did not take screenshots of these). Playing with LODRADIUS: The following discussion is of more concern to those that like to fly high with quite a bit of distant textures visible. A simple tweaking of the fsg.cfg to set the LODRADIUS to 6.5 (default on my machine was 4.5) noticeably improved the visual focus of distant details such as roads and rivers (9.5 seems a bit better than 6.5) visible in the distance at an altitude of 10,000 feet.

Various LODRADIUS values at 10,000 feet The downside to increasing the LODRAIUS is its loading on available memory. At 4.5 cells of terrain 385 MB of textures are loaded. I have an 879MB video card and 4 Gigs of RAM (I use Vista64 so it counts but its effectively only 3G in Vista32/XP32), so 6.5 may be my practical limit and it may be less, or more, for your system. Using this argument, performance would be expected to improve under Vista64 and using the highest amount of RAM and video ram available. Increasing the LODRADIUS from 4.5 to 6.5 did not seem to impact my fps all that much so I assume the extra textures were effectively loaded.

At 9.5 it actually crashed my system once, but only after a while, and under Windows XP (never crashed under Vista32 with LOD 9.5). FSX itself only allows you to set the LOD to 2.5, 3.5, or 4.5, but this can be tweaked to higher values by those who know how. (I always make a shortcut in my quick launch toolbar to my fsx.cfg file which I can re-edit at will because this LODRADIUS value is often reset to 4.5 by FSX; I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but it happens often.) Night Lighting effects: Although the VFR Germany series do not have any custom night textures, there can be some night lighting effects as that obtained from autogen; objects such as buildings and the vehicular lights from road traffic. I also have UTX Europe’s street lighting enhancements active where I get very nice extra third party effects. All this actually makes for a nicer effect than default FSX, in my opinion, as I do not like the coverage by flood lights everywhere on all city streets as we get from FSX default and UTX terrain night textures. You do get silhouetted dark trees with some cars with headlights moving through them, this is more evident at dusk.

The picture comparison below is hard to see but if you expand it, you can make out the street lights of UTX-Europe that help a lot as only some autogen has night lighting effect with VFR Germany on its own as in the lower part of the comparison. It would be nice to see some improvement here. UTX added above, VFR Germany alone below Forest enhancements: Forest area FSX default compared to same in VFR Germany 2 Elsewhere and nicer (VFR Germany 1) As can be clearly seen from the comparison coupled above, VFR Germany makes the forested sections so much more real. There is the aerial photo underneath, which in and of itself can lend some pseudo dimensional illusion, and then with the autogen trees properly placed only in the forest area. The result is quite amazing throughout the territory covered. Using third party scenery apps: More specifically in my own case, Instant Scenery by Flight1.

Having reviewed this product earlier, I have a complimentary copy and used it to enhance the scenery at a port which did have some limited water objects with VFR Germany 2 alone. I placed each extra ship on top of shadows of real ships visible from the photo image used by VFR Germany for the port. Worked seamlessly. Instant Scenery enhancing VFR Germany Performances Even with my weaker video card, the HD3870, I usually enjoyed high frame rates except in highly dense areas such as Hamburg and Kiel. As is the nature of the beast called FSX and not the fault of the VFR Germany series, there were occasions of single digit frame rates. Low fps departing Hamburg more acceptable fps on approach Good fps at upper levels It helps to have a high end system.

There are times when certain pieces of the picture suffer from the dreaded blurriness, but in my case, these were few. Best and most solid performance was under Vista 64 where I sometimes saw my total RAM usage go above 3.1 gigs, although it was usually much less. Using the F16 by Aerosoft: By far the more demanding of aircraft, these tend to make such a high demand on texture turnover that the blurries are inevitable. I got my hands on the new F16 from Aerosoft and it can go high fast.

At FL380, I didn’t notice any blurries at all, but when I descended below 9000 feet, the autogen started to get drawn quite a bit, which adversely affected the quality of the terrain textures. One drawback at high altitudes is that the water islands become obvious, whereas at lower altitudes they are not so obvious, as shown in the picture. Good at high altitudes but poor low and fast Water islands become obvious Compatible with their F16 NB: Please be aware that although a lot of the pictures have the fps readings displayed, these very often represent the situation in a pause mode.

Summary / Closing Remarks The VFR Germany series of scenery enhancements is by far the most remarkable and innovative scenery add-on I have yet reviewed from any vendor. I cannot fully express my satisfaction with what Aerosoft is doing. Always a step ahead of the crowd, they have managed to develop photo realistic aerial imagery with objects and autogen placed to near precision.

If only it were not so expensive for them to get the data they need, then this would surely be the way to go for flight simulation for the entire FS world. In addition, the highly skilled renditions of many airfields and airports available from other Aerosoft products for the German territory flawlessly compliment this VFR Germany scenery and gratefully amplify my already orbital level of enjoyment. In closing, let me say that I have to hurry back to FSX and continue these treasured and pleasurable VFR (and big jet IFR) flights involving VFR Germany 1 and 2. Unexpectedly, it works better with high end systems, and if you have an older computer with little in the area of RAM and video ram, you will not get as smooth an experience as I did with my over-clocked 896Meg BFG GTX260 in Vista 64 with 4G of system RAM. Whereever autogen is called upon to be drawn, you will have lower frame rates, as is the case in most scenery situations. Lowering it by one notch, although reducing the immersion quality, helps a lot. Printing If you wish to print this review or read it offline at your leisure, right click on the link below, and select 'save as' Standard Disclaimer The review above is a subjective assessment of the product by the author.

There is no connection between the product producer and the reviewer, and we feel this review is unbiased and truly reflects the performance of the product in the simming environment as experienced by the reviewer. This disclaimer is posted here in order to provide you with background information on the reviewer and any presumed connections that may exist between him/her and the contributing party. © 2008 - AVSIM Online All Rights Reserved.

From the first version of FS, simpilots dreamed about having large areas covered with high detail aerial images and having all buildings placed in the correct locations. Well, now we can show you that we got very close to that. Using totally new technology and combining several databases this scenery offers the best representation of the terrain possible in FSX.

No matter if you fly as low as 1000ft or at FL35! Features:. 95,000km² of aerial images at a stunning resolution of 1m/pix. Almost all lakes, rivers etc. With water masks (reflecting and landable for floaters).

Thousands of important VFR reference points like transmission towers, factories and much more. New custom-made autogen replacing the default autogen buildings with typical German looking buildings. Autogen buildings placed at their exact locations using a database of more than 8 Million (!) objects!