Should I use a "Demo" scenery..?

I am thinking about using a "Demo" scenery. I remember years ago, "Demo" aircraft, and "Demo" sceneries were for temporary use only, and they had visible banners, messing up your views, and reminding you, that you were using a "Demo". Is this still true? I've noticed lately, some "Demo" sceneries for major U.S. cities, say nothing about banners, or limited time use. In fact, these freeware "Demo" sceneries make it sound as if, you can use them forever, and the descriptions sound like they're just as good as their paid versions. Am I missing something? Thanks..... I don't want to waste my time. Can you advise me, please? :confused:

I rarely bother with demos because there are plenty of FSX youtube vids around that let us see just how good (or bad) something is.

Anyway stuff is so cheap nowadays that I usually buy the full product, and if I don't like it, hey it's only money..:)

there are plenty of FSX youtube vids around that let us see just how good (or bad) something is.

 

Unfortunately, those are often in combination with other products, and sometimes are even "enhanced" by post processing. And they tell me nothing about how they'd perform on my machine, so I like the demo idea.

 

But the only demo I can comment on is the ORBX Pacific Northwest, which is excellent. The demo covers the Olympic Peninsula and doesn't time out but, of course, is only a small portion of the full product. The demo made me hunger for more, so I've bought all of the ORBX North America sceneries, plus a couple of their add-on airports -- love'em.

Guaranteed the "Demo "scenery will have something going on when it's used. Flashing messages or banners or a very short time limit. I've tried several over the years and it's all pretty much the same.

 

ORBX freeware is very good and I use the PNW scenery often. It is restricted to Springtime

usage.

My only beef with demos is that they might do something to your registry or whatever behind your back, and also when you un-install them they might leave gunk lurking somewhere on your system, or perhaps I'm just being paranoid..

Some demo sceneries don't give anything like what you are describing, but are smaller versions of the full things. Fewer objects and so on. I'm assuming you are referring to the DrZewicki sceneries? I had the New York demo, and ended up getting the full version.

Unfortunately, those are often in combination with other products, and sometimes are even "enhanced" by post processing. And they tell me nothing about how they'd perform on my machine, so I like the demo idea.

 

But the only demo I can comment on is the ORBX Pacific Northwest, which is excellent. The demo covers the Olympic Peninsula and doesn't time out but, of course, is only a small portion of the full product. The demo made me hunger for more, so I've bought all of the ORBX North America sceneries, plus a couple of their add-on airports -- love'em.

 

+1 for ORBX demos. There are two of them. The PNW mentioned by Larry and the full island of Tasmania. You can get them both here: https://fullterrain.com/demos .

 

Be warned though...you're going to get hooked on ORBX and it is an incurable disease.

 

Doug

+1 for ORBX demos. There are two of them. The PNW mentioned by Larry and the full island of Tasmania. You can get them both here: https://fullterrain.com/demos .

 

Be warned though...you're going to get hooked on ORBX and it is an incurable disease.

 

Doug

 

Can't spel, huh? I always use spelchek. ;)

I am thinking about using a "Demo" scenery..

 

If you're a newcomer to simming it's worth mentioning that there are two sorts of scenery- Photoreal and Non-Photoreal.

If you want to be able to see your house, your dogs kennel, the pub, chip shop and every road, street and back alley, Photoreal is the ONLY scenery that gives you that because it's literally a photo of the ground, and you can therefore navigate by eyeball following roads rivers rails and landmarks.

Non-photoreal such as OrbX may look pretty, but you'll soon begin noticing things missing like your house etc, and will be tearing your hair out..;)

If you're a newcomer to simming it's worth mentioning that there are two sorts of scenery- Photoreal and Non-Photoreal.

If you want to be able to see your house, your dogs kennel, the pub, chip shop and every road, street and back alley, Photoreal is the ONLY scenery that gives you that because it's literally a photo of the ground, and you can therefore navigate by eyeball following roads rivers rails and landmarks.

Non-photoreal such as OrbX may look pretty, but you'll soon begin noticing things missing like your house etc, and will be tearing your hair out..;)

 

I have a different Belly Button (like opinions, everyone has one) in this discussion. How do you fly is always my first question? When asked about scenery style. That goes a long way in determining which is better for you.

 

If you want every detail being perfect and fly at high altitudes, the Photo Real works best. However I most often fly low and slow or Short Take Off & Landing flights (STOL). When doing that Photo real doesn't work for me. At lower altitudes photo real scenery generally looks like some giant has stomped all over the scenery with his shoe. "Houses, Stores, & Banks" (as the song goes) all look as if they are only a few feet tall.

 

In short I love ORBX and its' counterparts because buildings, trees, etc. are much more three dimensional. I feel I wasted my money on the onepiece of Photo Real scenery I ever bought. If I regularly flew an aluminum tube at FL25, I might feel different.

There is quite a lot of free demo files on here, pretty good for free

 

http://www.uk2000scenery.com/free/My_Homepage_Files/Page1.html

I agree with Rupert -- photoreal is a blur for me, and no depth to it, since I don't usually fly at jet altitudes, although there are photos carefully integrated into a few spots in scenery such as ORBX that actually works fairly well, in conjunction with the other stuff in there (such as Yellowstone's Old Faithful area in FTX NA GOLD CRM - Central Rockies).

Here's my FSX Tiger Moth over Henley-on-Thames in GenX Photoreal Southern England scenery, sure the buildings are flat 2D, but at this height they give the illusion of being 3D.

The ground itself is NOT flat if there are contours, hills and mountains below.

The trees in this shot are true 3D because I use the 'Treescapes' prog that adds 3D trees, looks fine to me..:)-

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/FSX-TMothb.gif

 

 

 

And by having a paper map like this open in front of me, I can navigate by eyeball for hundreds of miles following roads rivers, railways and landmarks, knowing that everything on the map corresponds exactly to the photoreal scenery with nothing left out.

Throw in a bit of fog to make it a challenge and it's even more fun..:)

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/FSX-henleyb.gif

...but at this height they give the illusion of being 3D.

 

It's good that it works well for you, but you're a lot higher in that shot than I frequently am (often 50-200 ft. AGL, scaring "traffic" on the roads or "people" in their houses -- I like to do some things that aren't a good idea in real life) and, in any case, you can't be that high for takeoff and landing. And obviously our perceptions differ a lot, since even in your pic some of the town doesn't appear (to me) to be 3D.

 

So different things for different folks (and operating styles).

Whatever works! I don't see a right or a wrong. We've all got our own bellybuttons. I think everyone should consider both types of scenery and make the choice that works for them.

 

BTW:My ORBX with Scotflight even has the Falkirk Wheel in what appears to be full 3D. It looks almost exactly like I remember it when traversing it by narrowboat. From 5,000AGL it might seem out of place by a click to two, I can live with that.

 

I have a 2.16 miles to an inch Hamlyn Ordnance Survey Atlas of Great Britain and I've flown ifr (I Fly Roads) in many parts of Great Britain using it and never found the ORBX depictions to be far enough different from the Ordnance Survey to cause a problem.

This dialogue sums up OrbX, a guy said in a thread-

 

"A mate of mine has ORBX Australia i couldnt wait to see it. I thought we would check out the streets we live in and then have a look at Ayers Rock. My surrounding area is all residential. ORBX shows lots of tall buildings which is completely wrong. Ayers Rock has buildings and homes near it which is not correct. I will say the senery is very nice but its not accurate."

 

And this is a reply-

"The regional sceneries from Orbx were never intended to be exact replicas of their real life counterparts, so if this is what you were expecting, then yes, you would be disappointed."

 

FULL THREAD- https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?288432-ORBX-not-as-good-as-i-expected

 

So like I said, if you want to see your house and everything with 100% accuracy, Photoreal is the only way to go.

We seem to have deviated from the OP's question, but hopefully he has sufficient info now to decide which way to go.

We seem to have deviated from the OP's question, but hopefully he has sufficient info now to decide which way to go.

 

+1 Would have been a good idea, by the OP, to mention exactly which Demo he wanted to try. Probably would have saved a lot of back and forth debate.

+1 for ORBX demos. There are two of them. The PNW mentioned by Larry and the full island of Tasmania. You can get them both here: https://fullterrain.com/demos .

 

Be warned though...you're going to get hooked on ORBX and it is an incurable disease.

 

Doug

 

There are a few other free ORBX airports that can run stand alone.

iE: CEN4, CEJ4, KPDX, CBB7, 7WA3, and others.. Also KHQM, but I think that

comes with the PNW demo, which you would want with KPDX too..

CEN4 is one I use quite a bit for a north country airport.

All those will work fine with FSX default scenery. Even better if one has FTX

Global and Vector. And if one does have the FTX stuff, there are a lot of freeware

airports you can add.

 

In short I love ORBX and its' counterparts because buildings, trees, etc. are much more three dimensional. I feel I wasted my money on the onepiece of Photo Real scenery I ever bought. If I regularly flew an aluminum tube at FL25, I might feel different.

 

I think Global and Vector are pretty good overall as far as tubeliner flights.

The main thing is accurate waterways, coastlines, etc.. Which you have fairly

accurately with Vector. I like photoreal only if it's populated with objects.

Don't really care for the flat as a pancake look when near the ground.

But photoreal with objects can be really nice. I think some ORBX scenery is that way.

IE: I think Yosemite is part protoreal textures, but it sure ain't flat.

 

I fly both high and low, so I ended up going the ORBX route. I was sold on it the first

time I saw the PNW demo and KHQM. "Bowerman"

You can fly out of there and head over to the farms and countryside for low level

mayhem. Fairly realistic looking, even low to the ground.

The Iceland scenery also has some good areas for that. That's where I did a Spartan

Executive video with some low level action.

Like Lnuss, I like to scare the farmers, farm animals, cars, boaters, etc.. lol :cool: