FlightSim.Com Review: Japan Scenery Volume 1


Tokyo by day and by night

Although this scenery is titled 'Volume 1, Tokyo Photorealistic Scenery', it is actually a complete scenery package for the whole of Japan. While the Tokyo Bay area is given the photorealistic treatment, the rest of Japan is enhanced with 38m, 76m and 152m terrain mesh, making flights anywhere within Japan a whole new experience.


No scenery of Japan would be complete without a beautiful rendition of Mt Fuji

Japan Scenery is a stunning package that is almost ahead of its time. It is very processor and video card intensive, which may present problems to anyone not using state-of-the-art computer systems such as the new 3.2 GHz Hyper-Threading CPUs from Intel. I myself have an AMD Athlon XP2000+ CPU with 512MB DDR and a 256MB Radeon 9600XT video card, and my system struggles with this package.

Even though it will tax current systems, the big advantage of buying cutting edge technology such as this is that you can use it with reduced functionality today, and enjoy it, and yet when the next generation of Microsoft Flight Simulator comes out, or when the inevitable hardware upgrade happens, the scenery will still be up-to-date. So I expect this package to be in use for at least two more generations of the simulator program, unlike most add-ons that are usually relegated to the history folder shortly after a new version comes out.

The program is a massive 2.7GB comprising 60,000 individual files on a single DVD. As far as I know there are no plans to produce CD versions. There is website support for patches and enhancement releases, and for access each DVD is given a customer access code. Documentation is limited to four A4 image files of text that briefly explain the coverage of the program, installation, and support options. It might be nice to have more of a traditional style manual to flick through, but then again what instructions do you really need to enjoy a scenery package?

Approaching Tokyo proper across the rice paddies

The Tokyo Plain is rendered in exquisite photoreal detail, with literally hundreds of hand-made buildings, bridges, roads and other features that are unique to Tokyo, seamlessly integrated with the autogen scenery. An 'ultraprecise' rendition of Tokyo's Haneda Airport contains every building, road, lighting and feature of the real thing. Given the amount of work put into this package, the purchase price could be seen as quite reasonable.

The rest of Japan is the usual FS2004 landclass and autogen laid down over highly detailed mesh. The rather brief instructions mention that there are three levels of detail (LOD) used in the scenery, 38m, 76m and 152m, and all three are used concurrently for best frame rates. What this actually means I don't know, it might mean that depending on the requirements for individual areas, differing resolutions are used, or it might mean that at different draw distances the differing resolutions are called upon for display. Whatever it does mean, it works. The countryside, particularly in the mountainous regions, is quite breathtaking.

If you see this you need to defragment

Installation is a snap. Well it can be. If you have already defragmented your hard drive, then you can get right into it. If not, you will almost certainly need to defragment or you might have corruption of scenery tiles. How do I know this? Because I was too eager to get underway and simply popped the DVD in and clicked on install. Forty plus minutes later after watching the progress bar inch across the screen, I was flying over Tokyo and presented with large areas of weird colors and black squares. With my tail between my legs, I uninstalled (which must be done manually), defragmented and then re-installed. All my problems disappeared.

The moral is: read the manual, which recommends a full defragment directly before installation and advises that it will take 40 minutes or more. The good news is that you only need to click a couple of buttons at the start of the procedure, and the rest happens without further input. You can go and make dinner!

After the long wait for installation, the waiting isn't over, and this is where your computer's specs will really start to matter. One drawback of having such a detailed piece of work is the way it taxes the computer in ways that normally don't appear. And tax it it does. On my mid-range system, it takes over 5 minutes to load a Tokyo flight, whether it's at the airport or flying overhead. That might not seem too bad, but at the same time, if you want to change display settings, or you want to reset the flight or if you crash (and survive), you'll find that the reload time is pretty well the same. In a worst case scenario, where you've loaded a flight, then decided that you need to increase the scenery detail, and then decided to change the time of day, you will have to be sitting patiently watching the progress bar for close to twenty minutes.

The good news for the future is that the new 3.2 GHz HT CPUs have been shown to reduce the loading time to less than two and a half minutes, and as CPU speeds increase it will obviously decrease further. The long loading times have certainly taught me to plan exactly what I want in a flight carefully before I click on the start flight button.

Included in the installation are several saved flights, most or all based in the photoreal Tokyo Plain scenery area. There's a mixture of starts at airports together with 'in the air' starts. They are a painless way to get introduced to how the scenery will look as you fly over Tokyo. This is where you will be faced with long load times.

Outside the Tokyo basin, where normal FS2004 autogen and landclass exist, the load times are much more normal, and what you've become used to in the rest of the world. Although not as authentic or detailed as the Tokyo basin, the detail is much higher due to the much better mesh, and as a result the flying experience anywhere in Japan is a whole step up from the default.


Flying around Tokyo at night is just pure heaven

The first thing I noticed in the demonstration flight over Tokyo is the incredible detail in the features of the central part of Tokyo. I've never been to Tokyo, and after flying around in this scenery I probably don't need to! Screenshots can never do justice to really good scenery like this, as even the best moments appear flat in comparison. After you've had your fill of day flying there's a whole new world to see after dark, as the night lighting effects are quite breathtaking.

Because screenshots don't do justice to this package, at the end of this review you'll find links to a few of the official demo videos and another one made by me, and I recommend you download and view them to get more of an idea of the feel of the scenery.


Tokyo's Haneda Airport is rendered in exquisite detail

Featured in the program is a highly detailed rendition of Haneda Airport, Japan's busiest. And by highly detailed I mean highly detailed. It appears every fence, parking space, road, tunnel, terminal and any other feature you can think of has been modelled in extraordinary detail.

This is what happens when flying anything with a bit
of speed, the system just can't keep up.

As you fly out from Haneda Airport you are almost immediately over the central business district of Tokyo, and marvelling at the range of detail also modelled there. Low down, say up to 3000 feet, the photoreal nature of the scenery isn't immediately obvious, but as you climb and the details of the fields, rivers, parks, and rice paddies resolve, the sensation that this is Tokyo sliding by underneath is reinforced.

However as with most things, the detail and complexity use up the computer's resources, often too quickly. In anything faster than a Cessna or Piper I find that the scenery refresh rates don't keep up and after several minutes flying across the photoreal scenery the detail is lost and the scenery gradually changes to a blurry featureless plain. This is particularly pronounced in the Learjet and other fast aircraft.

Despite this limitation, when I flew an approach in a 737 to Haneda Airport across the bay, I didn't notice that the scenery wasn't updating as much as it could be because the airport itself loaded up in plenty of time, and with my gaze fixed in the threshold of runway 34L, I didn't notice much else! It was only when I replayed the approach that it was obvious.

So, until the next generation of faster machines catches up to this scenery, it is best enjoyed at a leisurely pace.

The frame rates that this program displayed are quite exceptional considering its complexity and level of detail. All the included buildings, bridges, roads, etc. are made in Gmax and as a result there is little effect on frame rates even in the most complex areas of the city. As a guide, you'll get pretty well identical frame rates to what you currently get in and around Seattle, with the biggest hit at the Haneda Airport, which got a bit jumpy on my machine, and about the same as what I get at Seattle-Tacoma, or any other of the complex default airports. It's certainly better than some of the medium detail airports I have downloaded that were built in other design technologies.


The 38m to 152m mesh across the whole of Japan makes mountain flying a real treat.

The rest of Japan is as you would expect from a package of this quality, with the 38m mesh giving unparalleled detail across the whole country. There's something I really like about the extra contours, valleys and rills that a good detailed mesh delivers. I have spent quite a few hours flying around in the mountainous areas rather than Tokyo I must admit.

Outside Tokyo the photoreal treatment gives way to normal FS2004 landclass and autogen. Where the two different texture types meet at the edge of the Tokyo plain there's a definite line. It might have been possible for the developers to have blended the edges a little more by Photoshopping the FS2004 textures into the edge tiles of the photorealistic scenery, but to me it doesn't really present a problem. If I think I might be bothered by the sharp line as I cross over into the photoreal scenery I can always concentrate on something in the cockpit or a map for half a minute or so.

The only problem I sometimes strike is the mesh in the really hilly or mountainous terrain can't load fast enough and the textures get left behind. But as the screenshots above show, the detail available in a normal situation is hard to beat.

I like the package and I appreciate the amount of work that has gone into it. The rendition of Tokyo, with the plethora of authentic G-Max buildings, the photoreal textures, and the ultra-precise airports is possibly the best combination available yet for Microsoft Flight Simulator. When you add in the rest of Japan as detailed mesh, the package starts to look quite extraordinary. However it comes at a hefty price: €89.99 or around $100 U.S. including postage. The question is, is it worth approximately twice what the Flight Simulator program costs in the US? Each flightsimmer must decide for himself.

I wish the developers of this program all the best for their excellent product. I think that outside Japan the market will be very limited, but at the same time for anyone who wants some of the best scenery available anywhere, this is an outstanding product that will provide hours of entertainment as you explore the nooks and crannies of Japan and its biggest city, Tokyo..

Pros	Cons
The incredible detail	Scenery refresh doesn't always keep up (system dependent)
The frame rate friendliness	Long long loading times (system dependent)
The whole of Japan mesh enhancement	The price

See a short video I made of an anonymous pilot doing some non-approved flying around Tokyo here. (11MB)

Japan Scenery Volume 1

By John Dow (12 August 2004)