MegaScenery USA 2005 Volume 5 'Mid Atlantic' for FS2004

By Andrew Herd (19 December 2005)

C Aviator's MegaScenery series is like a lucky dip - you never know what is going to turn up next, the only certainty being that whatever does turn up with will be good. This time it is Washington DC and Baltimore's turn and there is a further treat in store, because the textures in this package are partly based on aerial, rather than satellite photography, the advantage to the user being that aerial photos make for better textures, with the advantage of more realistic shadow detail. The area totals 22,000 square miles and measures 210 x 110 miles, making the longest possible straight line flight with MegaScenery textures vertically under you of about 230 miles, or a couple of hours in a laid back 172 cruise. Within the scenery you will find Washington DC, Annapolis, Baltimore, Richmond, Northern Virginia, most of the state of Maryland, the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay, and three major airports - Washington Dulles International, Ronald Reagan Washington National and Baltimore/Washington International - which handle about 4000 movements per day between them. And for any military simmers out there, there is Andrews AFB.

The 5000 square miles around the airports is based on aerial photos, including Washington and Baltimore, the remaining 17,000 square miles being recreated from satellite imagery, and you also get winter and night scenery. I reviewed the 'Full Kit' version, a lush presentation, which in addition to the installation DVD, includes the Washington DC sectional, the Baltimore-Washington terminal area chart, a Baltimore-Washington VFR Flyway planning chart and a thick booklet containing 250 instrument charts, SIDS, STARS and airport diagrams, and an operating handbook. To say everything you need has been provided is an understatement.

The installation is as straightforward as sticking the DVD in the drive and following the prompts, the only significant problem I encountered being getting everything back in the box again. As you might imagine, it takes a while to complete the process, given that 4 Gb of files need to be transferred, assuming you are running the NTFS filing system - the figure being nearer 6 Gb if you use FAT. One gotcha is that if you do use the FAT filing system, the textures which form the guts of this package will only appear in the summer season; attempting to fly within the area at any other time of year will result in featureless gray textures covering the ground. NTFS users don't have this problem, although I should point out that as is normal with sceneries of this kind, one set of textures does for spring, summer and fall, a winter set being provided as shown below right. The installation process ends with a dialog offering to optimize Flight Simulator to run the scenery and if you haven't already done this for another MegaScenery product, I suggest allowing it to do so. Among the Flight Simulator settings PC Aviator recommend are setting extended terrain textures off, which denies you the chance to see textures extending into the far distance, but which cuts down loading times and enhances performance somewhat.

Without any particular reason for doing so, I tested the product by taking a flight south out of Dulles, turning a little towards the SE as Manassas came into view. The plane I used was the Aerosoft PMDG 737-900, which I climbed out at just under 250 knots all the way up to FL300. As it happens, this particular departure offers you an extended period over the scenery area - an east or west course would have seen me to the edge in just over ten minutes, as the area covered by the textures has its long axis orientated north-south, which is a very good choice as it provides great views of the bay. The two shots above were taken just after departure with the 737 at approximately 2500 feet, which is the altitude at which most VFR flights are conducted; if you have a moment, compare the way the textures appear in the enlarged shots with the screenshots below.

Most of our other MegaScenery reviews have had GA VFR type screenshots, so for a change I decided to show one of the series as it would look to a big iron simmer, which gives me an opportunity to discuss some of the pros and cons of using the product for this type of simming.

The package provides replacement textures and corrected Autogen for the entire area, but otherwise leaves everything else as it is in the default installation, so you don't get any new airports or 3D objects. An important point to note is that if you have any addon airports or other scenery already installed in this area, it won't appear unless it is positioned above the MegaScenery in your FS scenery library - layers are displayed in strict numerical order and whichever one is on top gets to suppress anything else beneath it. In my case this meant using the library editor to kick all twelve scenery areas installed by this product down 55 layers, which is... let's see... 660 mouse clicks. I may just have to buy the little crittur some new batteries.

If you have never seen a MegaScenery before, the shots should be enough to tell you that we aren't in Kansas anymore, or even in anything resembling the default FS landscape that we know and love so well, wherever it appears, which is everywhere. Phototextures like this mean that you fly over land that looks exactly like it does in real life, or at least, as it did at the moment the photos were taken, which is good enough for me. Armed with a sectional, you can navigate like real pilots do and trips in slow old-timers like the Cub or the Jenny take on an entire new meaning. It is possible, by the way, to install the package in FS2002, but be warned that 3D objects are liable to turn up in unexpected places and that there will be other alignment issues.

There is, naturally, a price to pay for all this. One of the great mysteries in life is that half the things you really want to do are either illegal, fattening, or increase Flight Simulator loading times and phototexture packages like the MegaSceneries fall solidly into the third category; I have reviewed at least half a dozen addons of this type and have learned that the best plan is to go make a cup of coffee while FS2004 loads. With extended terrain textures (ETT) turned off, we are talking a few extra minutes, depending on your system spec, but with ETT on, you could probably grow the beans and roast them too - I haven't ever actually timed it, but we are talking a long, long time in computer terms, too long to squeeze in a quick flight before going to work, unless you plan on turning up seriously late.

Microsoft created ETT for a very good reason, which was that when the option to use them isn't checked, you get a blurry green mess in the distance. If you stay at altitudes below about 3000 feet, this isn't much of a problem, but the higher you go, the further away your horizon becomes and the more of a problem the lack of ETT becomes, although your sensitivity to the phenomenon may vary and if you never use spot plane view, you probably won't ever be affected by it.

The other problem that all phototexture sceneries suffer from, which is the only good reason I can think of for giving up eating and buying everything PC Aviator have ever published, is that sorting ground textures into their rightful places is low on Flight Simulator's to do list and when the game doesn't have time to get around to it, the textures blur. You can minimise this by flying below 250 knots, setting visibility below 20 nm (realistic in parts of the US, and most of the time in Europe), using a less complex plane, not changing course too often, refraining from swapping continually between spot plane and cockpit views like reviewers do, and - when all else fails - by hitting the pause key and letting the ground catch up with the plane. I mostly got away without blurring while I was flying out of Dulles, but then I kept the speed down, flew in straight lines and ran the package on a system fitted with 4 Gigs of RAM, which is a serious help when it comes to staying out of trouble with a texture rich package like this one.

Some of the early MegaSceneries suffered from a noticeable cyan color cast, but as you can see, this isn't a problem with the Mid Atlantic pack, which looks absolutely superb once you get up to flying height. I could spend my life mooching around these photosceneries and my greatest wish is that when the next version of FS eventually appears, Microsoft will have DONE SOMETHING TO FIX GROUND TEXTURE LOADING, because if blurring wasn't a problem, these addons would be a compulsory purchase for everyone and I would never get any work done at all for flying around gawping at how real it all looks. As it is, I can highly recommend the series and if you haven't any experience of PC Aviator products yet, this one makes a great place to start.

To give an example of the potential of these products, I picked up the sectional provided with the pack to work out where the screenshot below left was taken and fixed the plane's position in a few seconds as being just north-east of Fredericksburg. There are a couple of small airfields shown on the sectional and sure enough, if you look closely, there they are there in the shot, just to the right of the plane.

The shot above right shows what happens when the FS cache fills up and it begins having to shuffle textures. The plane is now at around FL200 and with the visibility set intentionally high, Flight Simulator has begun to fail to load phototextures in the distance - if you look just above the tail of the 737 you can see the angle where a large square of textures is missing and if I panned around, similar areas were visible in front of the aircraft. As you can see from the shot, the irony of the situation is that the higher you fly, the better the textures look, but unless you restrict the visibility, the higher you go, the worse texture loading gets and at times phototexture areas don't see fit to put in an appearance until you are almost on top of them. This being a limitation of Flight Simulator, there is nothing developers can do about it, which is is why PC Aviator suggest chopping the visibility down some, the easiest way to do this being to buy a copy of FSUIPC and set up the visibility options up in that to take account of their recommendations.

As I have mentioned before in photoscenery reviews, another limitation of these products is that FS2004 forces the texture 'grain' to no more than 5 meters per pixel, which means that the average house is lucky to get more than half a dozen pixels devoted to it, so if you live in the area, do not rush out and buy it in the hope that you will be able to fly over your house and wave hello to mother. This is why PC Aviator suggest flying at 3500 or above - because if you don't, you will see the pixellation which is visible in the very top pair of screenshots that began the review.

Besides bringing you an extremely realistic landscape, the other feature of the package is that it installs some incredibly intricate shorelines, like the one visible in the screenshot above left. These have been hand edited and they really have to be seen to be appreciated, because they make such a huge contrast to Microsoft's dumbed down default shores - having accurate lakes and coasts is key to navigating around this area.

The last pair of shots here show the effect of the night lighting PC Aviator supply with the scenery, which is a considerable improvement on the default night lights. If you take a look at the enlargement of the shot on the right, you will appreciate that it is possible to navigate around the area after dark without too many problems, and since I have always believed that the best place for night flying is in a simulator, I might just get some practice in using the product.

Verdict? Another Armchair Aviator for the MegaSceneries. Yep, I know that parts of this piece have been about the limitations Flight Simulator imposes on phototexture packages, but PC Aviator have done a truly excellent job on this title and as long as you are prepared to observe the rules, you will be rewarded by being able to make some truly awesome flights. When I get the review done, my next move is going to be to load TrackIR and take a flight in the Cub with the sectional in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. I have never been to DC and perhaps this is as close as I ever will, but the package certainly makes me want to take to the virtual air and have a good look around the place, which is the test of a good product.

If you are thinking of purchasing the Mid Atlantic MegaScenery, do yourself a favor and consider getting the 'full kit' version. This only costs ten lousy bucks more than the standard pack, but it provides about ten times the entertainment value - and there is something in it for everyone. GA flyers will love the sectionals and airline simmers get a thick set of procedures and airport maps. Given the number of flights that originate and terminate in this area and the fact that several of the airports are available as very upmarket addons, it is easy to imagine adopting the area as home for the next few months.

Until the next MegaScenery comes out.

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