Scenic Utopia - San Diego Buildings Now Available

One of the worst performing products I have ever encountered. Knocks 50% off my FPS with all settings set to minimum, no AI, no traffic, no weather! And this is on a high-end 5Ghz. system. No support or contact information even provided... only a link to try to fix OOM errors. And believe me you will get them. Never felt the need to warn others of a product before, but I guess there is a first time for everything.

Merry Christmas

I cannot recommend this product. Even after complete uninstallation my frame rate is down from the 20-30's to 7-8. I may have to do a complete reinstall of FSX, to get my frame rates back so I can use FSx. He's done something to the scenery part of FS, but where. All my sliders are medium...I just lost $15.00

This scenery performs in much the same way that Aerosofts US Cities X does in using a lot of system resources however, to everyone having trouble, this can be easily fixed by using the following link to optimize your FSX.CFG : http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

I sincerely apologize for your grief however, keep in mind that FSX was designed for systems from 2006, not the ones we have today with 6 cores and Gigs of memory on our video cards. This means that to utilize your power such as your 5GHZ system, means that you need to tell your configuration to do so through those above tweaks.

I have a 3.2 GHZ system and I'm consistently running 25-35 FPS with AI and full autogen!

Please follow the recommendations in the User Manual before you are so quick to give up.

See Frame Rates in TOP LEFT CORNER (39.4):

Well I completely disagree with Wintonicus. FSX was designed for people who had 2006 computers to purchase more high end computers to run the program..You know when you purchase a product, you expect the product to work on the computer that you have, unless beforehand the designer recommends the system that it will run on the best. Sp1, SP2, Acceleration, etc. Completely upsets a lot of us when something is downloaded, that the designer didn't follow through on to make sure everything was working correctly, such as a panel. Radio doesn't work, Autothrottle doesn't work. You need knowledge of the cfg file to fix what doesn't work. Or a plane is all over the place in handling. Back to the cfg file. I don't mind too much about a free download, panel, etc, but when you have to pay for something it should work, without having to jump through hoops to fix it. We all do not have high end computers, and some of us
do not have the knowledge to fix something. For me I did read the manual and went through the procedures expecting it to work, and I was not quick to give up. I went through a process of elimination trying to figure out which program was giving me the problem. Megascenery or this program. Took me about an hour to figure out that it was this program. Going to a third party to make the program run does not make some of us happy about what we just bought.

Have you ever tried running Aerosoft's US Cities X? -Many experienced your very same gripe until they tried the tweak.

Unfortunatley, as our computers advance, so will the complexity of scenery. -and just who is going to update FSX for you.....ACES Studios??? -No, you are.

If you really want a scenery product with 20 buildings instead of 2,000 then that can surely be arranged, I just can't say it would be as enjoyable.

Point is, the product is stable for thosee who update their CFG file through the link. You can't expect the product to do that for you out of the box when so many in the community alreay have. It's far more simple to direct new people to it.

The gripe remindes me of people who buy a new car that requires 91 gas and then put 89 into who later complain about poor performance.

I assure you, it's a miniscule amount of work compared to the months that went into making it and it definetly improves the area. I would have said the same thing as you if I had installed it on a default FSX.CFG file.

Also, with the 2006 computer power thing. -Yes, they designed for future high end computers but, only to a certain extent. You have to keep in mind how quickly technology changes and this is already 6 years later.

I do agree though, that documentation should have been very clear about what's required from you for it to work. Thank you for your honesty. At least it's only performance related though.

The developer assumes one has not applied the Bojote tweaks (I have). I also run Aerosoft Cities X - Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, and have not encountered any issues like with yours. If I try to load your buildings with MegaScenery (as shown in your screenshot), FSX will not even load. But the intention here is not to "rake you over the coals" since I live in San Diego so I really would like to enjoy your hard work. But with no contact info for you the only remedy is to take this to a public site.

Please request a refund if the product isn't meeting expectations.

I agree, more documentation and contact info is needed and is currently being updated. Keep in mind, there's also a link on the fspilotshop for "contact manufacturer".

I'm just very curious about your setup to have encountered such a state. If I learn of more details regarding your setup, I might be able to help you. Please send them to scenicutopia@hotmail.com

I've tested it for hours under many different configurations and even left a plane in a holding pattern for an entire day without problems.

Also, regarding your FSDeveloper post, many of the buildings are imported from sketchup but I would say 95% of them required extensive revision ie. applying textures, deleting too many polygons.

I sincerely apologize for the difficulties. It's sort of like getting a new part for your car and it doesn't yet fit quite right.

Trouble Shooting
"Flight Simulator has run out of Memory"
Use Bojote's TweaKing and Tuning Tool for FSX.

Now please point me to where it says, update your cfg file. (BEFORE YOU INSTALL THIS SCENERY)..in the manual..... Would it have been possible for you to include the instructions in the manual for us dummies out here, that aren't that knowleadgeable about cfg files. Some of us are very careful of files that we are not sure of, to be downloaded to the the computer.

I am sure the San Diego Buildings scenery is fantastic, as I have visited San Diego many times, thus the reason for buying it. I am sorry that you misconstrude this as a gripe, as your knowledge of scenery is vast. Mine is not.

I don't mean any offense with the word gripe, I mean it in a purley legitamite way.

You have every right to express your self and make legitamite gripes as I would too.

My knowledge is not increadibly vast either. I simply created something that worked very well on my system and did well in a stripped-down freeware form. Based on that, I proceeded to sell it.

I am very sorry that it did not work out for your system and I completley condone a refund at your request.

Also, I did not state the tweak as a requirement because so many already have and rather saw it as instructions for those who didn't. -I've already updated the wording of that part.

How do I get past the registration entry sceen?

I have copied and pasted the registration/key number sent me by FSPilotshop into the box provided during the install process but the NEXT button remains shadowed so all I can do at that point is BACK or EXIT

The registration number does appear in the registration box after I paste it but I can not make any progress beyond that point?

Is WINTONICUS the author/developer? Are they also the support person?

If not - how do I contact the support person for this product?

Thank you very much for your candor. I would not like a refund. I will contact you. I will get this scenery installed, as it emcompasses evrything that KSAN has in the way of scenery, which I think has it all over KSFO.

Yes, I am the developer and have just sent you an email that hopefully gets you going.

Originally Posted by tacomasailor

How do I get past the registration entry sceen?

I have copied and pasted the registration/key number sent me by FSPilotshop into the box provided during the install process but the NEXT button remains shadowed so all I can do at that point is BACK or EXIT

The registration number does appear in the registration box after I paste it but I can not make any progress beyond that point?

Is WINTONICUS the author/developer? Are they also the support person?

If not - how do I contact the support person for this product?

The problem seemed to be caused by the fact that my e-mail program DOES NOT run on my FSX computer. The FSX machine is dedicated to running only FSX and TrainSim. It appears that the installer is looking for an e-mail containing the registration code in the same folder where the installer resides.

I saved the .eml file containing the registration code in the same folder as the San Diego Building Installer. When I ran the installer the registration code was already present in the registration box.

However - I had previously put a .txt file in the same folder as I did the .eml file and the installer did not find or would not use that file.

Patch 1.0 has been released for Scenic Utopia -San Diego Buildings.

This patch replaces the default files that were previously instructed to remove and instead installs a modified file.

This modified file removes the default buildings from the downtown area while leaving your default airports intact.

Patch:
http://rapidshare.com/files/35981843...ego_Patch1.exe

Updated Instructions:
http://rapidshare.com/files/13011839...0for%20FSX.pdf

I tried Bojote's TweaKing and Tuning Tool for FSX as you suggested - the result was a message from FSX that the .cfg was corrupted and could not be loaded

During the last five years I have spent endless hours modifying my cfg, nVidia settings, system settings to get reasonable performance out of my 3.4GHz/4 GB system that is dedicated to FSX - nothing else runs on the machine. And I do have some experience making computers run well. I spent 30+ years having a very successful career tuning computing systems hardware and software.

My i5-750 system will run a low level 175 knot pass over Seattle and Boeing Field with almost all settings at MAX values and still deliver 21 - 22 FPS. I think I have my particular system pretty well tuned to run REX, ORBX PacNW, UTX and deliver a high quality image and experience. There is no stuttering and very clear images displayed.

Using the same settings and flying around San Diego with standard scenery I see 16 - 22 FPS (FRAPS) while flying a supercub at 2000' over downtown, KSAN, North Island, Balboa Park...etc.

When I enable your scenery I see about 3.5 to 4.5 FPS - that is double the frame rate hit I have ever seen with any other scenery product I have installed.

I am sure your scenery is nice but I am having trouble seeing it!

I aplogize once more. I've asked the pilotshop to take it down until I can streamline the product for more systems. I should have released a beta first. It's difficult to troubleshoot different configurations from one computer.

Please ask the pilotshop for a refund and I'll be sure to send you a free copy of the optimized version once it's complete.

Just to show what kind of frames I'm getting, here's a video.

Scenic Utopia -San Diego Version 2 has been Released!

The initial release of version 1 had memory leakage problems. Because customer service is so important, I've worked through the past 3 days and nights to fix the problem.
ALL CUSTOMERS WHO PURCHASED VERSION 1 CAN LOG INTO THEIR ACCOUNT AND DOWNLOAD VERSION 2.

I'm relieved to say that Version 2 is finally a stable product and that measures have been taken to ensure that this never happens again. Thank you very much for your patience with this and I wish you happy flights ahead.