Scenery Improvement advice please!

Hi everybody, just to let you know what I’m up to.

I have purchased a new Hard Drive solely for the purpose of Installing FS 2004 on a Windows XP OS, so not to get messed up with Windows 7 Issues.

I have also recently purchased Fscene volume 1 Europe and Africa and Fscene Volume 2 North and south America.

I also have the following Six Products which I need help with please:-

BirdsEyeView

EZ SCENERY LIBRARY.

FS GENESIS WORLD.

FScene4X TotalPack (FS9+FSX).

PERFECT SKY 1.0.

PERFECT WATER 1.0.

Can anybody please Advise which of these I Can use in combination with the above 2 Fscenes packs without messing everything up.

Many thanks for any help.

Hi,

Taking your list in order:

Birds Eye View (BEV)- The same type of product as FScene so if you install them together there will likely be issues - especially if they cover the same regions. It may be possible to install your FScene Vols and use BEV for regions not covered by the Vols. It may also be possible to install the FScene4X pack and then install a BEV region afterwards making sure that the BEV package has an higher priority in the Scenery list (IE appears above the 4X entry). However, there will likely be a 'mismatch' where the two scenery packages meet.

EZ - As the name suggests it a collection of the Scenery Objects. It is generally used by a large number of freeware scenery developers. It will not have any effect on any of the products you have listed.

FS Genesis - As it is a Terrain Mesh it only affects the 'dips, lumps and bumps' of the land - IE it makes the mountains, for example, more realistic in height and with better defined crevices etc. Unlikely to have any affect on the FScene products (FYI I use FS Gen with Ground Environment X in FSX- GEX does the same function as FScene).

FScene4X TotalPack - As this pack already covers the Vol 1/2 areas you have brought I can only say that it seems you may have wasted your money. If you install 4X followed by the Vols you will simply being overwriting the 4X files - however I would think that you will probably get a message stating that its already installed. Likewise, if your were to install the Vols then 4X. However, if the Vols offer something different from the 4X package then using the same procedure as described above regarding the BEV product will allow you to use 4X and the Vols together.

Perfect Sky // Water - These replace only the texture files associated with the Sky and Water. FScene does not touch the sky and AFAIK only deals with land mass so both items should not cause problems.

A tip worth noting regarding installing these products - Always place them a low down in the Scenery settings Priority list as possible but above the default areas. For example in my setup I have, at the lowest, the Default Scenery then Terrain Mesh (IE FS Genesis), Scenery Mesh (IE FScene), Library objects (IE EZ Scenery), Individual scenery (IE Airports).

Hi Brian, thanks for your reply and suggestions.

FScene Volume 2 North & South America was'nt a bad buy after all as it came with FScene Volume 1 Europe and Africa. So although not tried out yet I may have gained something after all. Not bad for a Fiver.

Only problem I do have is that over the last couple of days I did have Cruise Ships in Seattle Harbour but they seem to have disappeared. Not even sure which Scenery Files they were in.

Many thanks for help.

Hi Paul,

WRT to the missing ships - AI ships are controlled in a similar fashion to aircraft AI. Therefore, it could simply be down to the fact that they have 'sailed' and will re-appear again in a few 'sim days' time.

However, if you have installed any new scenery since you last saw them then they could well have disappeared due to something n the new scenery.

Also check your AI traffic sliders in settings to ensure that settings have not changed accidently. At lower settings certain AI types will appear less often or not at all.