Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

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Bixby
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Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by Bixby »

Recently installed p3dv5.2 and transferred orbx base + vector + Regions and airports.

Thinking of getting open LC and/or True Earth Great Britain South. Any thoughts on using both or just one? Does True Earth make open LC not needed?

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment.

bullfox
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by bullfox »

Orbx has a bundle for all three True Earth UK and True Earth Netherlands. I bought the bundle a few days ago. It took about six hours to download the whole thing ( I have good download speeds) and added about half a terabyte to my M2 drive. I have the global base pack and global vector. There is a note on the product page with each of the UK True Earths that the only prerequisite product needed in The True Earth Libraries, which downloaded automatically at the start of the process. I have been flying around and enjoying UK True Earth. If they go on sale I will add some of the UK payware airports.

I also have the True Earth North American regions. my general opinion is that if you fly above 5,000 feet there is not a lot of difference between True Earth and MSFS. The difference is flying much lower and into the non payware airports. With the problems the recent MSFS updates have caused I am not anxious to try MSFS. When A2A starts releasing airplanes I would take that as a sign the MSFS is moving in the right direction and would consider it.
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Skycat
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by Skycat »

True Earth is essentially a complete package for the area it covers, and what you're paying for is a terrain based on satellite imagery (similar to MSFS 2020). True Earth will take priority over all other ORBX terrain products except airports.

Landclass covers a much larger area but it assigns the general textures in your FSX libraries to plausibly represent the region.

In short, you can can have either or both. True Earth takes up a lot of space and memory but it is as close as you can get to MSFS's quality of scenery. Landclass is a more economic solution.
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bullfox
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by bullfox »

I will add that I don't see much difference in frame rates between True Earth and non True Earth areas. They do take a lot of memory. I have gone over 8 Gb of vram twice in True Earth. Once flying into San Jose and once flying in to Tacoma but you can control vram by lowering the settings. Usually at fairly high settings vram is about 4Gb. You can get a terabyte of storage now for less than $100.00. If Orbx kept making TE regions in the US I would keep buying them but I think that is not likely for a while. they can do them for P3D and X Plane with about the same effort so I would hope there is a market. But I think for now all the developers are milking MSFS for all they can get out of it.
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Bixby
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by Bixby »

Thanks Bullfox and Skycat.

I moved from fsxse to p3d precisely because I was tired of waiting for msfs to get it right.

So, as I only fly a2a GA aircraft usually below 4,000 ft. agl, which scenery, (openLC or True Earth) gives a better visual experience. That's subjective I know. However I do value the opinions of the members on this forum.

Disc space and vram are not really a concern. Nvidea 3080 uses 2 -2.9 GB when running now. Thanks again.

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Skycat
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by Skycat »

Well I only have True Earth Washington, which is layered over FTX NA Pacific North West, NA California (s), NA Rockies, OpenLC USA, Global Vector + Base. Within that area of coverage, True Earth is more accurate than PNW; and PNW is much more accurate than Base+Vector+OpenLC alone. However, the benefit of True Earth is apparent mostly if you are flying VFR and know landmarks. At very high altitudes it won't make much of a difference which you use; and Landclass may even look better -- I've noticed some color mismatches with True Earth especially where it borders default texture tiles.
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Skycat
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by Skycat »

Here is a discussion you may find useful for deciding: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/5912 ... rue-earth/

I live in Montana so I can't directly compare my TrueEarth to places I know. I do really like my FTX packages though especially the Rockies. True Earth did seem to improve the Seattle area though over what was in FTX PNW. It also is murder on VR frames.
Pax Orbis Per Arma Aeria

bullfox
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by bullfox »

I have True Earth Washington, Oregon, Northern and Southern California. I think generally in the eastern part of these state the colors are too brown and red, but much of that can be fixed in the display settings. I live in Oregon and it is probably the least desirable of the western True Earths. for some reason Medford and many of the other smaller cities have bluish streets, but the general layout is accurate. I spent 27 years in the SF Bay Area and find the depiction in True Earth generally accurate, but of course there are always things to nit pick. The western parts of all three states are generally colored correctly and look pretty good. I have found some elevation errors in some airports and reported them. My problem is that coming late into P3D, I built a new computer for P3D and MSFS in May this year, it seems to me that all the support and all the interest at Orbx has gone into X plane and MSFS. Maybe the feeling is that P3D is a saturated market and the are looking toward X plane and especially MSFS as new market opportunities. I guess Orbx expanded and now they need to cover the costs of the expansion. So many developers are going into MSFS that it seems to me that the MSFS market will get saturated pretty quickly. there may be a boom now, but a bust is coming and a lot of the developers will go back to what ever they were doing before MSFS.

I am going to make a prediction. Sometime next year MSFS will go to a monthly subscription model. Once the rush of new customers tails off monthly subscriptions are the only way to keep up the cash flow. This is one of the reasons I am not going heavily into MSFS. We'll see, I guess.
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MkIV Hvd
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by MkIV Hvd »

I have all the True Earth sceneries but don't use the US west coast bunch as I find them too dark and red and can't be bothered to tweak settings. Also, what hasn't been mentioned is that True Earth sceneries do not reflect seasonal changes. That's probably not such a big deal in England, but on the US west coast, it's an issue due to seasonal changes being displayed in all Orbx airports that make the airports ridiculously stand out in the TE scenery that's locked into summer time.

Cheers,
Rob
Rob Wilkinson
A2A: Civilian Mustang, T-6, Bonanza, Comanche, Cub, C182, Spitfire, P-40, Cherokee, P-51 - VATSIM P4 and some other stuff...

Bixby
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Re: Orbx True Earth + openLC compatible?

Post by Bixby »

Thanks all for responding and Skycat, the link was informative.

For now I will forego True Earth and stick with Global Base + Vector + openLC + Regions + Airports. I am very happy with these addons.

Again, thanks. Great people here. <Salute>.

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