FTX Global Released

[Garys]

FTX Global has been released.  Should be a nice change from default FSX scenery. Apparently the new night lighting is nice as well.

http://www.flightsimstore.com/product_info.php?products_id=2542

[tkellogg]

Thanks for the heads up. Downloading it now.

[Nat Crea]

Wow...might be a good time to upgrade my PC's.
Now the whole FSX world will look right

Nat

[milezee]

Thanks for the heads up. Downloading it now.

Ditto. Rather slow though.

[Ridgenj]

For 99 dollars also a bargain considering the Orbx quality.

Cheers
Luis

[tkellogg]

I started downloading 3.5 hours ago. It said then 8.5 hours to go. After 22% downloaded it still says 7.5 hours to go.

[Ridgenj]

Guess the server is under to deep anesthesia. This gives you the time for a procedure in between.
Last time the server crashed the first day because too many people trying to buy and download. A good position to be as a company but understandable that everyone wants to have it "now"
I will download in a few days because even my super Fios high speed can't handle the bottleneck.
Cheers
Luis

[Garys]

Just a small review,

Im very happy with the FTX Global scenery upgrade.  Following the procedures in the install including backup of the FSX default textures to a second hardrive the scenery was loaded into FSX in about 10 mins. Using FTX Global and enabling Orbx Trees and Road Vectors from within FTX Central I Started FSX.
FSX rebuilds the scenery database as normal. The install process was painless to say the least. As I use FSX on a a SSD, defragmenting of the drive was not required. If you own a mechanical drive defragmenting would definitely be recommendation as there are a lot of files being replaced.

My first comparison was a quick day flight from KSEA to KPAE . Microsoft did a nice job of the Seattle area with a higher level of detail compared to some other cities. Taking off from Runway 34R I headed north. First thing I noticed was that FTX Global didn't really change much inn this areas from the default FSX scenery however frame rates stayed exactly as before which was nice. Upon landing at KPAE I set the time of day to dusk for the return flight to KSEA. After taking off from KPAE it came apparent pretty quickly that the night lighting in FSX was a huge improvement. Leveling of at 3000ft I set the the autopilot up for an approach into 16L so I could enjoy the view.  The rest of the way down I was admiring what the guys over at orbx had done to fsx. Although night lighting is still not as good as XP10 the lighting is 100% better than it was before. The approach into KSEA was far more realistic than it ever was before even using UTX or the higher scenery detail of FTX PNW. The lighting is that good. I Again did not notice any frame rate drop using global at dusk with the new 3d lighting sytem which inherently puts more strain on the system at that time of day.

Over the last couple of hours I loaded up various places in the world that Microsoft didn't put as much effort into and I really do like the new textures that Global offers to FSX in particular the night lighting. Framerates are good and the sim still  flies nice and smooth. Texture popping is still a problem though but as that's a native problem to the FSX rendering sytem it's to be expected that a scenery package wont be able to correct that.

Although FTX Global is not as good as a highly detailed scenery package for a particular area, it does add for an overall better looking default sim with good performance which is what is designed to do. Combined with REX, or your other cloud/weather addon FSX now looks fantastic. I highly recommend this scenery package to anyone who wants a good looking sim but doesn't want the performance hit of a fully featured scenery addon package.

Gary

[fsaviator]

Nice review Gary.  Thanks.
I think I'll add this to my wishlist.

Warren

[rhysb]

Plus the good thing about FTX global is that it finally allows you to fly in and out of the full FTX areas without having to disable through FTX central

[XOrionFE]

I just got this installed last night and did some flying in various areas like Socal where I had only GEX handling the scenery and WOW...what a difference.    I love it!    I also tried flying around San Diego area at night and I have to agree with Gary that the night lighting is spectacular.    I am a huge fan as many of you know of X-Plane's night lighting and it really was a drag flying in FSX after having experienced X-Plane but Gary is correct, FTX Global does a very very nice job of night lighting and looks 100 percent better than it did prior to installing it.    I can actually really enjoy FSX flying again with this software.   Highly recommended. 

PS - I haven't noticed a big hit on my framerates either.   Loving it....

Scott

[Maurice]

I have no reason not to believe all the positive reviews both here and on the web, but I did find a Youtube video where they show GEX & FTX side by side and GEX looks better to me for some reason and in most cases almost identical.

Am I missing something here or is there something fishy going on with that video?

FTX Global versus GEX

Maurice

[XOrionFE]

I saw that video also and I think if you fly in daytime in a populated are like around lax they do look quite close.   However, out further in the country, mountains, desert, farmlands etc I think FTX looks far better.  I always got the grid pattern even with GEX from altitude but I don't see that on FTX.  Nighttime is very different also.   In addition, autogen trees in ftx are very nice.   I did have one issue turn up.  The Saltan Sea looks like a big hole in the ground with water at the bottom so something got messed up.  I have to try to figure out what.

Scott

[Maurice]

Just out of curiosity, do you need to remove GEX before installing FTX Global?

As far as the Saltan sea is concerned, I have seen something very similar with just FSX in that general area (I use FSGenesis mesh). I'm not 100% sure it was the Saltan sea, but it was a relatively large lake deep inside a big hole. So I don't think this is an FTX Global issue.

Maurice

[XOrionFE]

Just out of curiosity, do you need to remove GEX before installing FTX Global?

I don't know if you have to but I did just to be safe.

Scott

[archen]

You can install ftx without uninstalling gex. Ftx just replaces gex textures. During the  install ftx will also backup your current textures so if you uninstall ftx the installer will revert back to your gex textures.

Regards,
Anders

Skickat från min GT-I9505 via Tapatalk 2

[iwik]

Anders,
Not sure if you can get back to GEX after installing FTXG. It appears there is no uninstaller and seems a backup by FTX is not 100% correct, read this and make what you want.

http://www.simforums.com/forums/ftx-global-and-gex-important-update-on-8-2-2013_topic46632.html

Les

[XOrionFE]

Interesting reading.   Seems like a long rant and sour grapes.  I will say this and should have noted in my earlier post....I installed it on my desktop sim where I run all of my payware aircraft such as the Carenado Baron and pmdg 737 ect and enjoy their virtual cockpits.   Well all the sudden my Baron had a transparent MIP! Turns out that FTX Global was not tested at all with DX10 and does not work with it.  The Baron seems to require it.  So alas...it is screwed.  That said, Orbx stated they are going to fix it.  When...who knows.   Personally I don't mind FTX taking over the whole world because I think their scenery and products are the cats ass and without them I think FSX is pretty ugly and dead.   I still prefer X-Plane and eventually that is where I will be anyway but for now there are still some issues that need to be ironed out so I will plug along on FSX with Orbx stuff until then.

All that said, sounds like the only way back now for me if I had to is a complete reinstall.   Hopefully I won't have to for any reason.

Thanks for the info.

Scott

[Garys]

Seems like a long rant and sour grapes. 

Scott

Couldn't have said it better myself. The guy is coming across as borderline psychotic.  As you mentioned there is supposed to be a  global uninstaller and a dx10 fix from Orbx coming down the line as well as a complete new dx10 scenery fixer program in the works by a guy named Steve which should fix most of the dx10 issues we have seen over the years.

Gary