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Mesh XP East USA 2Publisher: TaburetReview Author: Paul MortSuggested Price: $18.99/images/fsc/wbicons/store-buy-now-button.png /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east17.jpgThis is my second review of aMesh XPscenery from Taburet. If you happened to have read myprevious review,which was for the British Isles, you will remember that it was highlyrated by myself (even for those simmers who use X-Plane's defaultground textures). Today though we are looking at another Taburet product, this timein the form of Mesh XP USA East 2. The package promises to enhancethe mesh and landclass of its chosen area, whilst improving both roadsand water bodies. In a nutshell, it means that every single lake,river, pond and marsh is represented in the package, and for Florida,that's important! Like before, this product is best used with a photographic overlayof the area, but as a user who prefers to use X-Plane's defaulttextures, I thought I would see how it performs without. Taburet have split the Eastern USA into two separate products (1and 2); a wise decision in my mind, as at just over 1 GB in size, itgives the user a choice of which areas they wish to fly over - plus itsaves valuable hard drive resources. I have chosen the second in theseries purely because I prefer this area to the first. The PackageAs with the previous Taburet UK package I reviewed, installing itis just a simple case of downloading the zipped folder, unzipping itand then dropping the Mesh_Usa_East_2 and MeshXP_Usa_East_2 foldersinto your X-Plane Custom Scenery directory (it couldn't be muchsimpler). The documentation is good, with the exception of thecoverage area map, which is barely legible. /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east19.jpgThe map supplied with the package... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east25.jpg...one found on the internet. For those of you with a moving map, the one supplied will notpresent a problem. However, if you're relying on the suppliedversion, then I wouldn't really bother as it's not detailedenough. Test FlightTo begin my test of the scenery, I am going to start at one of themost southerly airports, in this case Miami International Airport(KMIA), with my chosen aircraft being the venerable B-17. Usingrunway 30, I will be flying north. /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east02.jpgReady for takeoff... The first point of interest on the moving map(Little Navmap),is Hialeah, the sixth-largest city in Florida. With my X-Planesettings mostly at medium, the city is well represented, including allmajor roads and waterways. Buildings are relatively sparse, but thisis down to my rendering settings rather than the product. /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east23.jpgHialeah displayed on Little Navmap... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east14.jpg...and from the air. I reduce altitude slightly and continue on to my next waypoint ofMiami Gardens; a suburban neighborhood with a population of just over110,000. At just under 800 feet, and with the help of my moving map,I can see that I am over a large number of residential and commercialbuildings... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east13.jpgView of Miami Gardens from the moving map... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east09.jpg...and in X-Plane. One thing you will really notice when using an add-on package suchas this, are the numerous isolated waterbodies and waterways whichwould otherwise be missing from the default X-Plane scenery. Again,using my moving map, I was able to distinguish (to quite a highdegree), each one of these, and for VFR flyers, they are agodsend! /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east16.jpgMiramar Boulevard on the moving map... Looking once more at my moving map, I am able to identify the roadbehind the aircraft as Miramar Boulevard, which is a testament to theproduct's accuracy. /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east18.jpg...and in X-Plane. Next stop is Cooper City (named after Morris Cooper, who foundedthe community in 1959). Climbing to 2000 feet ensures that I get agood view of the scenery below. In the distance I can see runway 09at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (KFXE)... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east05.jpgRunway 09 KFXE. Looking at the moving map I noticed a rather unique shape,something akin to a UK styled domestic radiator... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east20.jpgWould this be represented in the sim? Let's find out... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east04.jpgSure enough, it was, complete with correct road placement - all credit to the developer! Ploughing on over small inhabited areas of land, I take a left turnover Beaty Farms Inc (FA00) to a heading of 326 degrees, which sets meup nicely for runway 15 at Pompano Beach Airpark (KPMP). Whilst onfinal I couldn't help but notice the idyllic sounding Sandalfoot Coveshown on the moving map. Sure, it sounds nice, but being situatedright on the glideslope sure isn't going to be peaceful! /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east12.jpgSandalfoot Cove. Destination KPMPWith my test flight of the package over, I settled down on runway 15. /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east07.jpgA perfect landing. ConclusionSo is this package worth purchasing? If you have a photographicoverlay of the area, then it's a definite must have, as the accuracyof the roads, waterbodies and waterways are all far superior to thoseoffered by the default X-Plane 11 scenery (they match those in reallife). Used like this, the results can look spectacular... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east10.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east21.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east06.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east01.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east08.jpgAll of the photographic textures used in the above screen shots arefrom my review system using theUS Ortho Project.These can be downloaded free of charge - just make sure you have aspeedy internet connection! As you can see, they look incrediblyrealistic, but remember, they do take up a lot more VRAM, especiallyif you use high texture settings in X-Plane. If you use the default X-Plane 11 textures, then the results,whilst different, are equally pleasing (for myself anyway). Myrendering settings, as mentioned earlier, are at the medium scale forframe rates purposes, hence the reason for a few scarcely populatedscreen shots, but if I up the settings and sacrifice performance, theresults look this on my review system... /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east15.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east11.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east24.jpg /images/reviews/mesheast/t/taburet-mesh-xp-east03.jpgSumming up: the results offered by this product are highlyimpressive (with and without photographic scenery). In terms of cost,it's highly competitive and retails for US $18.99, UK £14.14 andAUS $25.04 at the FSPilotshop.com. The only one slight negative point (which isn't particularly vitalto flying) was the poor quality coverage map. However, this is easilyrectified as you can find a replacement free online (albeit, withoutthe product's boundaries). Review SystemX-Plane 11.20Intel i5 3.1 GHz 16 GB RAMNvidia GTX 650 GPU/images/notams/notams18/tabu0424.jpg Paul Mort Purchase Taburet - Mesh East USA 2 for X-Plane
