The Balearic Islands are an autonomous Spanish region lying between 90 and 200 km east of the Spanish mainland. They consist of three bigger islands: Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza, the two smaller ones Formenterra and Cabrera as well as 146 very small uninhabited islands. Some call Mallorca the 17th German federal state as it is a very popular tourist location for Germans but also for other Europeans. It only takes a two or three hour flight from most European countries to escape grey autumn weather and enjoy the Mediterranean sun.
Unfortunately the island have a bad reputation for drunken tourists but as long as you keep away from the party areas you will be able to enjoy a wonderful place. As this is a first-class review I did not only check the product thoroughly but I went to Mallorca to check if the scenery comes close to the real thing. (Maybe I went there for some other reasons, too but it sounds better that way.)
With their Mega Airport Frankfurt I own one of Aerosoft's latest products and I expected something equally well done. As my PC is a little older I was wondering if the Baleares would perform as well as Frankfurt. Both sceneries have similar performance requirements. I have been very happy with Frankfurt but had some doubts as the Baleares not only include airport scenery but photoscenery of all five islands.
Balearic Islands X is a massive package. The boxed version offers a DVD, detailed charts of the main airports and a manual with installations instructions, recommendations for the best settings and some history. The DVD includes both versions: FS2004 and FSX. The FS2004 version requires 2.7 GB of space on your hard disk while the FSX versions weighs 6.7 GB. The difference between the two is the texture quality. While the FS2004 versions offers 4.7 meters per pixel, the FSX version has a stunning 0.5 meters per pixel.
There are no seasonal textures as the Balearic islands are warm and mostly dry throughout the year so the face of the islands doesn't change much. Apart from that it would have increased the size of the scenery and it hadn't been possible to publish it on a single DVD.
As already stated all of the islands airports are included in great detail and are practically the same in FS2004 and FSX. Apart from that you will find a few landmarks and a detailed mesh scenery. In the FS2004 version Aerosoft included some road traffic near the airports and lots of airport ground traffic.
The package is installed in a folder called Aerosoft inside the main FS9 folder. Each island is placed in a separate folder so it is possible to disable a single one if you wish.
The package costs $59.99 / € 50.00. This might sound a lot for a single scenery but given the fact that you get five high quality airports, a detailed scenery of all islands, both the FS2004 and FSX version as well as a detailed documentation, the whole thing looks a lot more balanced. Just remember the large file size. For any of those who don't want to spend so much money there are three separate packages of the main islands on offer.
The setup will ask you quite a lot of questions about what sceneries you have installed in the same area before it finally starts copying the files. The whole process is flawless but you can expect it to take a few minutes as there are a lot of files to be copied.
As I had checked the Aerosoft web site for screen shots and the simply amazing product video my expectations were high. Other web sites had rated it one of the best sceneries around. My concern was how well it would work on my ageing computer.
My first impression was one of an almost completely red-brown island. On my fast arrival with a 737, reducing the time acceleration only when I reached the island, it took a while for the textures and mesh to load. Frame rates were high and the only thing I realized was a very brief stutter when I got near Mallorca airport.
The port offered the sight of some ships and I saw cars and trucks making the roads around the airport come alive. Looks like it's better to change for something slow for further explorations.
If you start a flight at one of the airports you will realize that it takes a little longer than usual to load all scenery. For this review I chose slow GA aircraft to get the best impression of the area.
First I check Palma airport. It is lovely, very detailed and true to life. There is a lot of road traffic and you will find some airport vehicles driving around. One of my first thoughts was, that there were textures missing on the main building but having a closer look I found that there are subtle grey ones. When I checked the real airport on my holiday I realized that the building is made of concrete and the sim offers a good representation.
Exploring the island I found that the textures were slightly below my expectations. Comparing it with freeware like Netherlands 2000 and Bluesky Scenery you won't get the same experience as those use a higher resolution. However a downside of photoscenery is that some places look weird from certain angles and e.g. cars on the roads look as if a giant steamroller flattened them. Balearic Islands X for FS2004 uses a compromise which works fine. You will find roads, towns and beaches in the right shape but don't expect to find the hotel you stayed at.
The performance is very fine and my frame rates stay at the usual 25. Only when I take a direct look at the detailed airport there is a very brief stutter but then everything is back to normal. However I find that even flying slow and low sooner or later my PC will show trouble in loading all textures in full quality. Since I use an old computer it is not a big disappointment and the overall look of the island remains fine. This slight issue is even less apparent on the smaller islands Ibiza and Menorca.
Aerosoft recommends to reducing autogen and AI traffic to 30 - 50% in order to speed things up. I didn't realize a big effect doing so and since default AI traffic isn't very dense I decided to stay at 100%. I found the best way to keep up frame rates is by turning off the clouds - a kind of weather that is very common on the Balearic Islands.
The mountains at Mallorca are an impressive sight. Concerning the airports you can expect the same high level of detail at Ibiza and Menorca as well. The GA airports at Mallorca and Menorca are also well done but you won't find any AI traffic on and around the airports.
I ran into a few issues while testing the scenery although none was bad enough to take the fun out of it.
The first issue is the lack of night textures. At night you should very clearly see roads and towns. All you can see are a few lights and a few more at the major cities but orientation is generally difficult (picture below left).
Aerosoft states that they used autogen on about 70% of the islands. Using autogen in photoscenery means hand placing it. Still I wonder why they left it out on the other 30% because in some places it is really missing. Alcudia in the north of Mallorca is just a flat spot, missing realism (picture below center).
The mesh e.g. at Cap de Fermentor is incorrect. It is an impressive part of the island with very high cliffs. Aerosoft faultily displays it as a flat end of the island (picture below right).
At Son Bonet airport at Palma there are a few green lines probably where the texture files meet. It is visible only from certain angles but at day and night.
Aerosoft offers a large scenery for a reasonable price. The airports alone are well worth the money though I remain slightly disappointed with the textures on the rest of the island. My mark for the FS2004 version is good although it is helpful to use a faster PC. If you expect a real wow-feeling you will only get it with the FSX version and a fast computer.
Default FS2004 AI-flight plans used with the following AI aircraft:
A318, A320 and A321 by DJC
Boeing 737-800 by AI Aardvark
Dash 8-Q400 by TFS
B767 by AI Aardvark
Water texture compilation by Kevin Rangel, original work by Lynn and Bill Lyons, Roger Austli, Ed Truthan
Processor: 2.8 GHz
RAM: 3 GB
Video card: 512 MB Nvidia
Bastian Blinten
b.blinten@gmx.de
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