Reinstall problems...

[KCD]

A couple of days ago, I started a new install of FS9. It had been 6 years and with one minor glitch after another, it was time. Because I planned to port aircraft, gauges and some other stuff to the new install, I renamed my old install something else so as not to confuse the installation program and commenced the process (see active post this forum entitled: "Need help with interesting problem...". All seemed to go reasonably well until I turned the sim on this morning to see how things had gone (I'd been busy since the install and had not had a chance to check).

The problems I had been having with the old install were gone, and everything seemed OK... until I took off from KMVY on a flight to KACK in a C402. Default airports were fine, ATC working fine, sky and water OK, land masses OK, but very sparse buildings and no towns where towns ought to be (and were in the original install).

Question... What could be the root cause of the program not installing clusters of buildings and towns in places where it should have? Is there a special CAB file that contains that sort of data that might have been overlooked by the install? If so, where do I look, and how do I insert it? I really am not anxious to start over yet again if it can be avoided. I am not very good at this type of stuff and usually mess it up, so any assistance is most welcome.

Thanks,

KCD

[Jim Robinson]

Missing landclass that you probably had installed in your old install. That could be because you haven't installed Ultimate Terrain yet or were you using any other landclass enhancement (i.e. FSGenesis US Nat'l LC project)? Also, do you have your Scenery complexity and autogen density cranked full right?

Jim

[KCD]

Jim,

Thanks for the response. I do not believe I ever owned either "UT" or "FSG". Reason? I never understood the difference between "landclass" and "mesh"; what one did that the other didn't. So, I never realy ventured into that stuff. I did have a couple of mesh add-ons, but those can be reproduced easily enough and I will try that. As for my settings, everything is maxed, and Scenery Complexity and Autogen are far right. Everything is so far right that I think in the interest of "frame rate flicker", I should back some off a little bit.

Any other ideas?

KCD

[NonCon]

You can try using your old fs9.cfg file it see if that helps. However, that could have been a source of your original problem.

KJ

[Jim Robinson]

Mesh is network of elevation points that define the mountains and valleys in the sim, your ground textures are draped overtop of this mesh of elevation points to make up the 3D terrain. Landclass is basically a "map" that determines what type of ground textures will be displayed in a given area. Default landclass is pretty bland, understandably MS didn't spend a lot of time getting it right, so often you'll see stark prarie or conifer forests where most of the smaller cities should be. I'd still guess that you had some type of LC addon in your prior installation, it may have even been a small area bundled with another scenery that you're missing now. There is one landclass file in the default FS9 installation, if you have a file in your "Flight Simulator 9\Scenery\BASE\Scenery" folder named "worldlc.bgl" and an active scenery layer named "Default Scenery" near the bottom of the list in your scenery library, you know you're seeing everything default FS9 has to offer regarding landclass.

I think you can get the US Nat'l LC project for around $10 USD from FSGenesis, and that will make a huge difference, but of course it only covers the USA. Ultimate Terrain aslo comes with LC for cities and towns, but it doesn't change anything outside of the city/town areas where the FSG landclass does. On the other hand UT will do wonders for the accuracy of lakes, streams, roads, etc in your sim. I use both, UT has an option to turn LC off, which lets you see the enhanced rivers and roads while still using the FSG landclass underneath. There was a freeware version of the FSG landclass available years ago, I think it's availability has been supressed in every way possible so you'll purchase the payware version, but you might try tracking down "US National Landclass Beta Preview", the filename was "lcus_09b6.exe", but you won't find it in the file libraries. Google may give you results though.

Jim

[KCD]

KJ...

Thanks, but I already tried that and no joy.

Jim,

Thank you for the explanation. It is one of those things I always thought I should know after having been a simmer since toe early days; I was just to embarrased to ask. I will give your ideas a try and thanks again got your patience and help.

KCD