I will very soon be investing in a completely new rig designed specifically for P3D v4. On my existing computer I have been using Pilot's FS Global 2010 mesh with FSX. From what I have read I believe that my existing mesh would work with P3D v4, but that it is officially supported only up to P3D v3, and Pilot's FS Global 2018 is designed for P3D v4. However the latest product is of course Pilot's FS Global Ultimate. The question I have is which product to go for?FS Global 2018 is the successor to FS Global 2010 and apparently has the same resolution of up to 9m (LOD 8 to LOD 12).
FS Global Ultimate – Next Generation is a software, which delivers mesh scenery (= 3D wireframe) for the whole globe. It is the successor of FS Global Ultimate (3 DVD box sets) and available as download for the first time! It comes with many fixes, a bunch of new higher resolution areas and overall a completely new dataset from 2017. Oct 25, 2018 Fs global ultimate eBayFind good deals on eBay for flight simulator global ultimate. Shop with confidence. Steam Community. FSX – FS Global Ultimate Europe.Steam Community. Ms Flight Simulator X. Steam Edition. Sightseeing air flight over Prague and its surroundings with FS Global Ultimate. Departure from.
FS Global Ultimate has a much higher resolution of up to 1m (LOD 8 to LOD 15). Pilot's states that both products are optimised for best frame rates and short loading times, however I would suspect that there must surely be a performance hit using Ultimate compared to 2018.
Ultimate will no doubt look that much better because of the higher resolution, but it also takes up much more disk space (80 GB as opposed to 25 GB). Ultimate also includes bathymetry mesh for submarines in P3D - I had no idea this was possible - do I really need this??!!! Assuming I use just aircraft in P3D, will I see any difference in the appearance of the sea from the air due to the varying sea depth? In other words, is there any point to this if I will only be flying? Ultimate also costs more than 2018.The system I am considering is based on W10 64, i7-7700K up to 4.6GHz, 16GB DDR4 2133MHz, GTX 1070 8GB, 500GB M.2 SSD, 2TB Seagate BarraCuda HDD. I am hoping that this will be no slouch and able to handle more or less anything thrown at it within reason.
I will be running ORBX Global Base, Vector and openLC Europe on P3D, plus a number of high quality European airport addons, and probably REX Sky Force & ASP4.So based on this, which mesh product would you recommend? Is there anyone here who has tried both on the same system and can give a comparison? Many thanks.Adrian. I own nearly all of Pilot's products and had them installed at some point. According to my experience, performance isn't an issue on modern systems at all. Ultimate NT looks excellent and much better indeed with sharp edges, notably in mountains, etc.Despite I settled for Global 2010 right now (2018 should be equivalent) for those reason's:(i) It's officially supported and tested by ORBX. While Pilot's state all their mesh products being ORBX compatible, not only doesn't ORBX confirm this but has given a few counter-examples (look up their forum).(ii) The higher the resolution the more danger of hills/valleys around airports.
These can often be corrected by the ORBX Vector AEC tool (effectively contributed by Pilot's) and/or Pilot's own AFM tool. However, even then you will meet issues around airports, notably such with real-world sloped runways where you may have to leave the sim, try to correct settings in the tools and restart to see if those issues are gone. That does not happen very often but from time to time.(iii) Prepar3d has a strange 'feature' of morphing terrain when you approach it, i.e, it loads terrain at a certain distance and when you approach a point it reloads terrain in a better resolution such that it snaps into place, notably in hills. This 'feature' is dependent on your system, settings, and style of flying, but as a low and slow flyer I am a dedicated victim. The lower resolution 2010 mesh appreciably minimizes this 'feature' for me.(iv) When flying within ORBX fat regions (80% of the time for me), I don't use any 3rd party mesh at all.
Those regions come with their own included 'Holger' mesh begin optimum adapted to the scenery and issue-free.As a final remark. You may or may not acknowledge that Pilot's is pretty much the only flightsim company I know which doesn't maintain a support forum.
They only contact is via personal mail given on their website.Kind regards, Michael. Adrian,Wholly concur with the points made by pmb.Don't forget, it is only part of the world (European Alps, IIRC) where there is 1m mesh resolution. I own the 'bigger and better' Global Ultimate, but have found there to have been some issues with ORBX regions, so regularly reduce the slider in the sim to 5m - something to bear in mind if you're thinking of moving up from ORBX's Global and OLC products.Performance impact is negligible on my PC and load times are very quick, so your upcoming system will perform even better with any of the versions.
Does this refer to the acclaimed FreeMeshX, too? I never tried this myself, thus I am just asking.Kind regards, MichaelI've not tried it either, but I'm under the impression the freeware is only marginally better than stock. My point was that it doesn't take mountains to see the importance of a good mesh, the flatlands actually reveal much more in the subtlety of their variations. Pilot's are the ones that provide altitude correction for Orbx, and their tool that comes with the mesh product for adjusting terrain surround an airport is pretty good in that is creates a slope rather than a flat or step change.
I'm pretty happy with their product. Personally, I wouldn't use either one of them (and I don't). For many of the same reasons Michael stated. I've learned to be very cautious about PILOTS products.There was a time ORBX sang their praises for both the Vector program and the Mesh products PILOTS made 'for' ORBX. But for over a year now, ORBX seems to have distanced themselves from PILOTS.and rightfully so in my opinion (even though ORBX still 'recommends' PILOTS products to be used with ORBX scenery.which confuses the heck out of me).Even the ORBX forum moderators themselves have said in their own posts things like, 'Well, PILOTS hasn't responded to any support posts in our forums since last May (2017), so all WE can tell you is.' What the heck kind of support is that for a product someone STILL recommends using with THEIR own products?' It's up to you.
But I spend my money where I know the developer hasn't 'bailed out' on their products and appears to be hiding under a rock somewhere. If ORBX is saying THEY can't get any support from PILOTS anymore, what do you think YOUR chances are? Personally, I wouldn't use either one of them (and I don't). For many of the same reasons Michael stated. I've learned to be very cautious about PILOTS products.There was a time ORBX sang their praises for both the Vector program and the Mesh products PILOTS made 'for' ORBX. But for over a year now, ORBX seems to have distanced themselves from PILOTS.and rightfully so in my opinion (even though ORBX still 'recommends' PILOTS products to be used with ORBX scenery.which confuses the heck out of me).Even the ORBX forum moderators themselves have said in their own posts things like, 'Well, PILOTS hasn't responded to any support posts in our forums since last May (2017), so all WE can tell you is.' What the heck kind of support is that for a product someone STILL recommends using with THEIR own products?'
It's up to you. But I spend my money where I know the developer hasn't 'bailed out' on their products and appears to be hiding under a rock somewhere. If ORBX is saying THEY can't get any support from PILOTS anymore, what do you think YOUR chances are?Hi Rick,Sorry, but your points have absolutely no merit whatsoever!PILOT'S offer outstanding support via email, I've always had a reply within 24 hours, usually within just a few hours! And why would you expect PILOT'S to support FTX Global Vector in an Orbx forum? Orbx have their own mesh specialist and they sell the product, it's up to Orbx to offer support.For you to suggest that PILOT'S is hiding under a rock and has 'bailed out' on their products is ridiculous and shameful!Far from it in fact, I just saw that they're listed as one of the official exhibitors at the upcoming Las Vegas venue - FlightSimExpo 2018!JeromeEdited May 27, 2018 by jzimmermann. Sorry, Jerome. But I stand by my post. Why doesn't PILOTS have a support FORUM?
Using individual email correspondences with customers to solve support issues raises questions about the validity of the product. It would make MUCH more sense to use a publicly viewable forum to answer support questions. One user posts a problem they are having, and numerous other users having the SAME problem can see it and the solution for it. Why on earth would a developer want to have to answer the SAME support issue over and over again in separate emails to separate customers? It reeks of trying to 'hide' issues from the customer base instead of acknowledging issues within the software.Or an 'at home' developer who doesn't want to (or can't) pay for the costs of maintaining a public forum for their product to begin with. PILOTS used to be a very visible member of the ORBX forums. But as time went by and all the issues with their VECTOR product became apparent, they left.
They even left ORBX high and dry. SOMETHING happened to cause that, and I would be very interested to ask both ORBX and PILOTS about it at the upcoming Las Vegas Convention (which I will attend seeing as I live in Vegas).And ORBX may have a 'mesh expert' for PILOTS mesh products support, but they still seem to be 'winging' it about VECTOR support issues with PILOTS nowhere in site on the forum. Which raises reasonable questions about why ORBX even still recommends VECTOR as a 'must have' product with ORBX (it's not.I use a different vector program that works fine with ORBX, and they have a superb online support forum for their product).Edited May 27, 2018 by FalconAF. Compared to other Developers, Pilots (Stefan S.) was always weak in support imo. Just recently I tried to get some 'email support' about their mesh with no success (no answer). And that was not the first time. A support forum would do wonders.
I have to add that I am a registered owner of nearly all mesh-products since 2008, including the latest Ultimate series.So for me, the support performance of Pilots is disappointing. Regardless, I always liked their mesh products.Edited May 27, 2018 by Nemo. Add the fact that they still have to deliver one last update to FTX Vector for ages (1 year.
2 years?I forgot) according to the contract. After this, ORBX decided to not longer outsource further development of Vector but continue internally. This should shed some light on the performance of Pilot's.And I still think, they should have replied to support questions on FTX Vector in the ORBX forum as an external contract developer.
When Turbulent did external contract development for ORBX, they (Russell Linn and the linke) did reply to such questions.Kind regards, Michael.