The Atlantis Lost in History

There are some speculations that this is the Atlantis that lost in history.
Find out where it is in the Discord Channel. 

718: Scenic Spots Close at Hand

No idea where to fly to today?  Here’s the flightspots I ran into this morning which offers suggestions to many scenic places around the world in MSFS.

All you need to do is

705: Free Iceland Mesh

In case you are not aware, Orbx has just released a free Iceland Mesh which is compatible with the new World Update 5 for Nordics.

The description says the mesh is 100% self-contained with virtually no noticeable performance impact and changes made to the default contents.

Glad to find this enhancement since the Nordics update, not sure if you agree or not, seems a bit below the standard of what the previous updates offered.
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News: Zinertek Strikes Back

To those who haven’t decided to choose from Zinertek’s Enhanced Airport Graphics or REX’s Real Global Airport Texture, their headaches should get intensified as version 2.0 of Zinertek Airport Graphics is scheduled to come in a few days on 20 June — a strike back to REX’s airport texture release ?

The company says that there will be new and reworked textures to bring various improvements to the existing version.

Mark the date on your calendar and stay tuned.

Edit: Update to version 2.0 has been postponed to 26 June to ensure the new version won’t cause CTDs with World Update 5, according to Zinertek.
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702: Airport Enhancement – REX vs Zinertek

After Zinertek released its Enhanced Airport Graphics for MSFS a few months ago, REX Game Studio just follows to announce their Real Global Airport Texture for MSFS as well.  To me, it’s pretty similar to what they compete in FSX/P3D environment before.

In terms of pricing, REX’s version is $17.95, which is about a dollar more than Zinertek’s $16.97.

Does that extra dollar makes REX’s new product better than Zinertek’s?

Let’s put aside the quality of enhancement first, the extra one dollar does give users a choice of 4 combinations spawned from New & Used Taxiway Markings and Heavy & Light Rubber Buildups, against Zinertek’s only one universal style.

How are they different and are they better ?

Followings are two sets of photos briefly comparing the two products.  I’ll give my choice at the end of the story.

Since the size of the photos are a bit large (1,800 x 1,100) , be patient if your network isn’t fast.

699: Payware Meshes are still worth it

Unlike the way I spent for FSX and P3D, I am quite cautious about getting airports and sceneries for MSFS these days as the overall presentation in the simulator is quite good already.

One exception, however, is the enhancement addons, such as Meshes.

No doubt, there are some pretty good freeware meshes or DEMs available as mentioned in my Post 689. But I must say that many payware products are still worth of what they are — the New Zealand Mesh from Orbx and the Switzerland Mesh from FSDreamTeam are two good examples.

689: Adding Funs with DEMs

Just in case you are not aware. There are some high-resolution DEMs, Digital Elevation Models, you can download from Flightsim.to, which can largely improve the rendering of terrains in their respective regions.

Not sure if you want it?  Here are two sets of photos comparing the terrain appearance of LSGR Reichenback Airport, which I randomly picked, in Switzerland with and without using the 20m DEM from Troglodytus.

In photo set 1, with DEM, the taxiway and runway intersection now has a gradient; the roads and other objects on the hill sides seem more rational; and the edges and shapes of the mountains in the background are more prominent as well.

688: The Hong Kong City Times is Pretty Good

In my last post “Make Hong Kong More Lively”, John M. Helms in the Comment section asked if it is true that the roads in the Hong Kong City Times payware look like dirt roads.  I replied yes, in many areas.

After that, I sent a note to the developer asking the same question.  The developer replied: “Yes it is due to the satellite image being used from the default MSFS, they are yellowish, they are from the outdated Bing map. But our scenery includes some part of custom satellite image already, such as the central and west kowloon, more will be added in the next update.”

I guess many friends might be wondering what exactly the answer meant in his reply. So I captured a few pictures for those who are interested.

687: Make Hong Kong more Lively

If you own the Hong Kong City Times from SamScene3D, note that it has just updated to version 1.3.1, in which many animated billboards plus various visual improvements are added.

To make it more lively, do supplement it with the Port of Hong Kong by superspud.  The freeware blends with the Hong Kong City Times nicely and fills the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals, the eighth busiest container port in the world, with many many many