FreeMesh X Global 1.0 - Release Announcement

[il88pp]

I downloaded it all through torrents using Tixati. (I used Tixati standalone unzipped to usb. Worked well.)

Now that I have them I'm seeding them all too, it's just running quietly in the background, has been for almost 24hrs now. My upload speed isn't great, almost 10 Mbps I think, but every little helps.

 

A few things I noticed.

I downloaded a few continents through html as well, but there were errors there.

North America went well. I got part 001 and .002 and put them in the same folder. Then opened part .oo1 with 7zip. The 7zip window looked just like in your example image, with a folder "\scenery" that could be extracted.

 

1st image:

 

 

Then I tried the same with the two parts for Africa. But no success there. I had a corrupt download I think.

I placed part 001 and part 002 in the same folder. When I opened the first part .001 with 7zip there was no "\scenery" folder about to unzip. Instead 7zip showed that the archive "FreeMeshX - Africa.7z.001" contained "FreeMeshX - Africa.7z".

I unzipped it, and it did indeed produce a file "FreeMeshX - Africa.7z".

Extracting that further did not wotk, 7zip said 'this is not a valid archive'.

 

2nd image:

 

I then decided to try again. I re-downloaded "FreeMeshX - Africa.7z.001". Now it works fine.

Yesterday I downloaded through IE11, today I used Firefox.

 

It may be usefull to mention somewhere in the instructions that this is what you will get/see in case of unzipping a corrupt or incomplete download.

 

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The second thing I noticed, the South America part .002 Was not available yesterday.

I tried again today, and the same thing.

On mediafire: "Oops, your download is currently unavailabe, retrying in 30 seconds...". The page was refreshed after 30 seconds, but that did not help.

 

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Another thing, regarding yor instructions/Intro: Nowhere do you explicitly say the parts need to be in the same folder.

It is implied, and the first or second image in your instructions shows them all in one folder (althought the windows explorer window borders are not in the image, so it could also just be a typed list.) but it is not clearly stated that they have to be.

I think a small sentence like: "To extract, make sure all parts are in the same folder, ----- for example ..\FMX\Africa\ and then only extract part .001 ----- ----- -----" would be helpfull.

 

(maybe it's in there and I missed it, in that case disregard.)

[i must admit I downloaded first and read instructions later, so I did save the parts to seperate folders and had to move them later. Reading the instructions first I may not have made that mistake, but I still may have as well... The text could be more clear I think.]

 

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Another thing about downloading that only became clear to me after the fact.

When using the torrents you don't recieve .zip /.7zip files, but folders with .bgl files. This was the first time I ever installed Mesh, and I had no Idea what to expect. But this was a surprise.

 

It meant I had to move large amounts of data after the downloading.

For html I had already (incorrectly) made subfolders such as:

E:\Free Mesh X downloads\North America\NA1 ((for FreeMeshX - North America.7z.001)), and

E:\Free Mesh X downloads\North America\NA2 ((for FreeMeshX - North America.7z.002))

and grouped the parts together later.

 

For the torrents I created similar folders. For example:

E:\\Free Mesh X downloads\Antarctica\

Which After download left me with:

E:\\Free Mesh X downloads\Antarctica\FreeMeshX - Antarctica\scenery\

 

So once the torrents were in, I had to move all torrents manually. To clean up the folder structure.

My folders are now:

E:\\Exra Addon Scenery\FMX\FreeMeshX - Antarctica\scenery\

E:\\Exra Addon Scenery\FMX\FreeMeshX - Africa\scenery\

etcetera.

 

I really expected to end up with .7zip files after the torrents finished.

{If I had known in advance that the torrents resulted in the complete folders, I would have downloaded the torrents to:

E:\\Exra Addon Scenery\FMX\

right away, so the contnents were in place.

I would have put the seperate patch folders there somewhere else, then combined the Patches into one folder, and moved it.}

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While writing this I get the feeling I'm being extremely dumb for not having figured it out.

On the other hand, using torrents is unfamiliar to me, and I never used Mesh before.

That means my plan of attack is usually: "just download it and see.".

In this case, i have a fast PC, and after downloading I just had to move the data from E to E, so that was quick enough.

But I had also concidered downloading the files to a usb-external-HD (expecting to get zip files), then unzipping back to E. Or to a seperate SSD (C:\) , then moving to my HDD. Very happy now I didn't do any of that.

 

For people using older computers, just moving the data could take very long.

There may be more people out there that are unfamiliar with torrents and mesh, I think it would really help to put into the "Announcement" that using the torrent you get folders with files, not zips. And that those folders are already appropriately named.

And that it's best to download them directly to the final install location you want them to eventually end up. So you don't have to move them later.

 

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Thank you vey much for FreeMeshX.

I don't have elevation corrections software, but I'm enjoying the mesh very much. I did not see any anomalies yet. (no airports on plateus spotted yet.)

 

I hope I'm not being to negative again :), I figured it out eventually without to much difficulty. I just saw room for some tiny improvements. I realise it's not easy writing an instruction manual and I hope this feedback helps.

 

Thanks!

il88pp.

[Jim Robinson]

The post directly above yours contains a link cleverly disguised as:

 

Installation Tutorial:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/469373-freemeshx-installation-tutorial/

 

 

...that would have addressed most of your concerns, particularly with downloading/extracting the .7z files. It also explains that the torrent downloads are not compressed and explains how to set up your folders for seeding.

[AviatorMoser]

Thanks for making me aware of the South America download issue. I'm not sure why it's suddenly unavailable, but I'll try to reupload it. I'll also try again to merge the two files we host on MEGA back on Mediafire. For whatever reason, MediaFire hasn't let me upload those two files in the past. The upload just cuts out! Weird.

 

There should be no .7Z files inside the Africa .001 and .002 parts. I've double checked and they only contain a scenery folder. Because they wouldn't extract at all for you, I suspect your download became uncorrupted. In the future, I recommend a lightweight download manager that can be installed as a browser addon. These usually download large files without corruption. I recommend DownloadThemAll for FireFox.

 

As for the torrents versus HTML downloads, they are both uncompressed. The HTML downloads appear compressed, but they are only archived in an uncompressed state for the sole purpose of being downloaded as single archives for one (or two) click extraction. The total file size for each region will be the same regardless of bitTorrent or HTML. Mesh files cannot be compressed any further once they are compiled. It's like trying to compress an MP3 or MP4 video file. It just doesn't work as they are already compressed during compilation.

 

Thank you for your words, il88pp. I know bit Torrent and multi-volume archives has a little learning curve to them, but if there was a better way of redistributing 43 GB of data over the Internet, then I would certainly be doing that! I've found your criticism quite constructive, and I really do appreciate it.

 

And thank you very much with the seeding!

[il88pp]

The error I experienced with 'africa.7z.001' extracting a file 'africa.7z' (instead of a '\scenery' folder) must have been on my end. A corrupted download.

Thinking back, I may have moved the file before the download was complete!

I downloaded it again and extracted and that time all was well.

 

Eventually I managed to get the files through each of the three methods.

 

Thanks again, the mountains really look a lot better now!

 

A question, the terrain you see in the GPS, is that the direct result of the (new) mesh?

Or is the terrain in the gps coming from a different source, and are there therefore now small differences between the gps and the new elevations?

 

Happy flights,

il88pp.

[AviatorMoser]

I know the terrain on the map window will derive from FreeMeshX, so I think the GPS display may also be doing the same. I can't confirm right now.

 

If it doesn't, then you could expect to see major discrepancies between terrain and the GPS in very remote regions of the world where the stock mesh is bad (like South America, Asia, and Africa.

[il88pp]

I did a testflight and it looks like the GPS shows the new mesh.

 

I flew over Columbia. With "FreeMeshX - South Amerika" and "FreeMeshX - Patches" both enabled in the scenery library.

Paused the flight.

Maximised the GPS to fill the screen.

Took a screenshot.

 

Then went to World-Scenery_Library and disabled "FreeMeshX - South Amerika" and "FreeMeshX - Patches".

Then took another screenshot.

Carefully compared the screenshots using 'Windows Photo Viewer', switching back and forth between them.

 

There is a distinct difference.

With FreeMeshX enabeled the terrain in the GPS is much sharper defined. And different.

So the GPS is showing the new mesh. Nice!

 

il88pp.

 

images:

(taken southeast of SKQU, Colombia.)

With FreeMeshX:

 

With the default mesh:

[svpst]

Flummoxed again over da FMX. All of my downloads have gone fine, (after with Y'alls help with the Mega thingy). I put all of the files in folders in my scenery file on my F drive and i have FSX on my C drive (SSD) So, i go out and i add FMX Antartica and FMX Asia through my scenery settings and when i rebooted to see if they were there, they are and they seem to be working fine. I think went to scenery settings, added FMX Europe, South America, Australia, the two patches, everything except Africa. The all showed as being added to my scenery settings, no problem. When i went away and came back, they were not there. Asia and Antartica yes, all the rest no. So i repeated the exercise, they all showed as being added properly to my scenery settings. When i rebooted, all are gone except Asia and Antartica. What think you? Must be the missing link someplace.

[AviatorMoser]

That is strange behavior with the scenery entries disappearing. I've never seen anything like that. Perhaps you can try using symbolic links to link your files from the F: drive to a folder inside your FSX folder. I do this fairly often with my own files.

 

For instance, you can command:

 

MKLINK /J "C:\FSX\FMX" "F:\FMX"

 

The MKLINK /J makes a symbolic folder (behaves like a shortcut) in your FSX folder where it points to your F:\FMX folder. To Windows, it looks like the files are inside the FMX folder is on your SSD, but they won't take up any space on your SSD.

 

Try doing this, and then adding the FreeMeshX regions to your scenery library.

[il88pp]

I don't think you ned a symlink (mklink command)

I have a SSD and a HDD as well.

 

I installed as follows:

 

FSX is on C:\\ =(SSD)

I placed FMX in E:\\ =(HDD)

 

I created Folder: E:\\Exra Addon Scenery\FMX

In ..\FMX I placed folders--:

..\FreeMeshX - Africa

..\FreeMeshX - Antarctica

..\FreeMeshX - Asia

..\FreeMeshX - Australia and Oceania

..\FreeMeshX - Europe

..\FreeMeshX - North America

..\FreeMeshX - Patches

..\FreeMeshX- South and Central America

 

Each of these folders contains one ..\scenery -Folder.

With in this scenery folder the .bgl files.

 

The ..\FreeMeshX - Patches\scenery -Folder contains the .bgl files of Patch 001, 002, 003, and 004.

 

Then I activated all these folders in the Scenery Library.

I did a reboot as well.

They are still listed in the scenery library and working fine.

So no special links required.

And also no need to declare my folder "E:\\Extra Addon Scenery\.." In the FSX.cfg file.

[il88pp]

To test: try downloading and adding any random addon airport.

Place it in your normal ..\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Addon Scenery\ -folder.

See if you can add that to the scenery library.

 

That used to work.

If it does not work now, the problem is not with the FMX folder structure but is something more systemic, whatever you add to the library is not stored.

I'm nt sure but I think that would indicate a problem with the scenery.cfg file.

 

If it does work, and you can add a normal airport just fine, it's not systemic, but has something to do with either the way you installed FMX, or with the way you added it to the library.

 

I noticed that to add the FMX scenery (remember, I have these folders on E: ) was different from the normal adding of scenery.

Steps were:

1 - click "Add Scenery"

2 - Using the drop-down-box, go to E:\\

3 - In the window, double click folder "Extra Addon Scenery"

4 - In the window, double click folder "FMX"

5 - SINGLE CLICK folder "FreeMeshX - Africa"

6 - Single Click in the 'Directory:' -box, behind the word 'Directory:", so the tekst is selected blue. (see image below)

7 - Single Click the "Ok" button.

8 - In the large white area you will see the folder 'scenery' displayed. Click in the white area once.

9 - You will automatically be returmned to the scenery library list. The new area is here at the top.

10 - Click "Ok", to buid the database for the new scenery files.

 

image point 6:

[JSkorna]

Does anyone actually read what the issue is or do they just post anything just in case?

 

The issue IS NOT adding the mesh into FSX. Brian added the folders, saw the mesh in FSX, and was very pleased. He then shut down FSX, rebooted his computer and now SOME of the mesh that he previously ADDED is NO LONGER A PART OF HIS SCENERY LIBRARY.

 

So, what would cause SOME scenery to not be active just because of a computer re-boot? THAT is the problem here. If you DON'T know, DON'T MAKE STUFF UP just to post.

[svpst]

Well i just entered them all through the "addon scenery" file and it worked fine but i didn't want them all on my SSD i have huge scenery on my F drive and want to leave it there and it works for most scenery but these last files not so much. But i have it now, thats for everyone's help. This place is awesome.

[AviatorMoser]

Someone else has had problems adding FMX to the scenery library from a different drive, and they had fixed it by moving the files into the FSX folder. I think FSX removes entries sometimes if the scenery is on a different drive. That's why I suggested the symbolic link solution so that you can point the FMX folders inside the FSX/Addon Scenery folder, but still keep the actual files on a separate drive. That way you can save your SSD space.

[il88pp]

I thought this thread deserved a bump.

Such a fantastic addon. So much better with FMX installed!

Well Dench!

[svpst]

I was having a problem with my scenery on the D drive and my FSXSE on my C drive (SSD) but it was only a few sceneries. Most of the do load fine straight up.