So...I have most Orbx regions and airports. I love NCA. But I've held off on getting SCA. My concern is the reports of low FPS I've read. My question is if I don't fly over LA or San Diego, will my performance be about the same as NCA? I'd like to get the Agua Dulce airport, and maybe Palm Springs, but would mostly fly over the rural areas.
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The Staff of SOH
Orbx SCA question
- Thread starter griphos
- Start date
I probably should have stipulated I run FSX. I'm not sure if there's a difference. I'm wondering if the performance hit happens anywhere else besides San Diego and LA. Would flying Agua Dulce or Palm Springs (on the other side of the mountains) be okay?
I run an i5 at 4.4 oc and a GTX 970 4 gb
I run an i5 at 4.4 oc and a GTX 970 4 gb
heywooood
Mayor Emeritus of Taco City
I would expect that too. Being a resident of So.Cal I am also interested in the Orbx scenery but have not bought it for the same reason..
Now if Ramona and Carlsbad can be flown with solid frame rates (I like 30+) then I would buy it but if the whole show is under 20?
Fugedaboudit
Now if Ramona and Carlsbad can be flown with solid frame rates (I like 30+) then I would buy it but if the whole show is under 20?
Fugedaboudit
My experience has been that SCA has a bit more performance hit than, say... NCA. The latter has always run great on my system, but SCA definitely causes a bit of a hit in the more populated parts of the region. Also, SCA seems to have a bit of a memory leak for me... after flying in the more populated parts of the region for a couple hour flight my system resource use is noticeably higher. This is with FSX Accel... I am as I write this moving over to the Steam Edition, so maybe the situation will change for the better.
Having said this... my solution is simple: When flying in SCA I just lower my Autogen from full right to one notch from full, and all is well. I'm certainly glad I bought SCA. It is clearly outstanding, and flying in the region is always enjoyable... after I dial back the autogen.
HTH
Greg
Having said this... my solution is simple: When flying in SCA I just lower my Autogen from full right to one notch from full, and all is well. I'm certainly glad I bought SCA. It is clearly outstanding, and flying in the region is always enjoyable... after I dial back the autogen.
HTH
Greg
With Orbx SCA I had problems with low frame rates, stuttering and CTDs, mainly in the vicinity of the Long Beach area. Turning down the FSX autogen setting didn't seem to help much, but turning down the scenery complexity setting did help (but then the scenery objects disappear). I didn't have any major problems running Orbx SCA over inland areas, over Palm Springs (Orbx KPSP) or over (Orbx L70) Agua Dulce. I ended up leaving Orbx installed in order to retain the Orbx airports and scenery objects, but I am now also running MegasceneryEarth 4X photoscenery over the Orbx autogen scenery (the photoscenery automatically takes precedence over autogen), which reduces the load on my computer.
FSX with Acceleration; i7 3770k overclocked to 4.3 GHz; nVidia GTX 670 GPU.
FSX with Acceleration; i7 3770k overclocked to 4.3 GHz; nVidia GTX 670 GPU.
trucker17
Charter Member
I have ORBX SoCal. i run it in a laptop that is 8 years old.
I get some stutters, here and their in the LA Basin and San Diego, but no more then i get anywhere else.
With SoCal you definitely need to turn down your graphics settings in FSX.
But you also have to remember that their are more then just computer quality at work here. You have to figure your computer performance, scenery size and aircraft. Some aircraft freeware and payware are heavy on FPS themselves. All these things effect your FPS as well as background programs, Graphics card, etc, etc, etc.
My laptop runs windows 7 HP, with a 1T harddrive, and 8Gigs ram. Big system with lots of power, but that does not matter much when you use a lower grade graphics card.
My self i have no complaints with ORBX SoCal. Its an awesome addon, that covers a vast area.
Here is the coverage area for Northern California.
And the coverage area for Southern California.
I get some stutters, here and their in the LA Basin and San Diego, but no more then i get anywhere else.
With SoCal you definitely need to turn down your graphics settings in FSX.
But you also have to remember that their are more then just computer quality at work here. You have to figure your computer performance, scenery size and aircraft. Some aircraft freeware and payware are heavy on FPS themselves. All these things effect your FPS as well as background programs, Graphics card, etc, etc, etc.
My laptop runs windows 7 HP, with a 1T harddrive, and 8Gigs ram. Big system with lots of power, but that does not matter much when you use a lower grade graphics card.
My self i have no complaints with ORBX SoCal. Its an awesome addon, that covers a vast area.
Here is the coverage area for Northern California.
And the coverage area for Southern California.
scotth6
Charter Member
You pretty much hit the nail on the head in your post Griphos. The only areas that struggle a bit are LA and San Diego. Even then if you have only SCA without heaps of other addons the performance isn't too bad. I tried adding Aerosoft's US Cities LA, and that pretty much turned in to a slide show, SCA on it's own is not too bad. There are options to turn things off if you need to. Aerosoft's Las Vegas wasn't too bad on top of SCA. I also tried Latin VFR's San Diego, and unfortunately that was a no go, but I only tried that once. I could probably even get that to work OK if I played with the settings a bit.
Cheers,
Cheers,
Thanks for all the helpful feedback, guys. I have Megascenery LA, and used it when I used to fly on Pilot's edge a lot (it's no longer installed). But I really don't have much interest in flying over LA or San Diego. I guess the real pilot in me just gets sweaty palms thinking about all the clearances and radio traffic I'd have to simulate. 
I would just be flying SCA with those two Orbx airports, and no other addons, and I don't fly very demanding aircraft. Just the high quality A2A and RealAir GA stuff mostly.
It was also helpful to look at the coverage map again. There's lots of desert to explore where I suspect fps won't be an issue, and the coast from Monterrey to Santa Barbara likewise should be beautiful and not too demanding.
I think I've decided to pull the trigger.
Thanks.
I would just be flying SCA with those two Orbx airports, and no other addons, and I don't fly very demanding aircraft. Just the high quality A2A and RealAir GA stuff mostly.
It was also helpful to look at the coverage map again. There's lots of desert to explore where I suspect fps won't be an issue, and the coast from Monterrey to Santa Barbara likewise should be beautiful and not too demanding.
I think I've decided to pull the trigger.
Thanks.
I bought Orbx SCA and felt the scenery in the city was a little generic so I overlayed Megascenery on it and the combination works pretty well adding some nice features.
I use my own Gillespie Field as the Orbx version isn't really any more accurate than the stock version.
You can fly quite a lot of San Diego without getting clearances. The VFR corridor over San Diego Bay is really nice on a clear sunny day.
I use my own Gillespie Field as the Orbx version isn't really any more accurate than the stock version.
You can fly quite a lot of San Diego without getting clearances. The VFR corridor over San Diego Bay is really nice on a clear sunny day.
strykerpsg
SOH-CM-2023
Hmmmm, I had not heard of that capability. I thought they were similar products and therefore not compatible. Any chance you can post of comparison screenshots of the with and without megascenery? I really like as much detail as possible, as to me, it just adds to the depth of immersion when I can identify more accurate city blocks and outlying areas for VFR flying.
Surprisingly, MegasceneryEarth (photoscenery) and Orbx are compatible. If you have both turned on, the Orbx airports and scenery objects remain, but the photoscenery replaces the Orbx autogen scenery. In many cases the two sceneries blend together well. This can be a useful combination, giving 3D scenery at the airports, where you usually fly low, and giving precise photo-real scenery accuracy in other areas where you fly higher. It's very easy to switch back and forth between the photoscenery and Orbx on-the-fly by going to the FSX scenery library and turning the photoscenery on or off. In areas where my computer struggles (Long Beach), I prefer the Orbx/photoscenery combination. In other areas, pure Orbx might be better. It has a lot to do with the particular area, and personal preferences.
strykerpsg
SOH-CM-2023
Apologies for multi-quoting you, but I just wanted to clarify....in the upper quote you state they are compatible and blend well together, so I can have both 3D objects and photo real scenery. That's what I would like, however, having used photo scenery before, I did not like the very 2 dimensional appearance when flying down low.
In the second quote you mention ease of switching back and forth....is that just mean your preference in say an area very FPS heavy, like a large city and one is operating an older system that struggles with the autogen 3D objects? I didn't want to misunderstand that it's an option for one or the other, just that there can be that option if needed, during the occasional slide shows with FPS on an older system. I hope that made sense and did not sound contrary to what you mean.
Thanks for the feedback. I am hoping to see a screenshot, but if not, may just purchase a photoreal set that matches one of my Orbx regions.
strykerpsg
SOH-CM-2023
Thanks for sharing Johannes. I am not certain it's an additional financial transaction I want to add to FSX or not. Perhaps I will try a small photo scenery add on, and give it a try this weekend. One of the best benefits of hanging out in this forum is the ability to learn something new from time to time, as well as see the great paints and screenshots.
Nice screenshots also. Thank you.
Nice screenshots also. Thank you.
scotth6
Charter Member
Hi. You should checkout Bluesky Scenery. They have almost all of California covered, along with several other states. It is excellent PR with water masking etc, and best of all it's free. It's been a while since I downloaded any tiles, so they may have even finished California by now.
I have quite a few US States by Megascenery Earth, and also a few that Bluesky scenery have done, and I would say that Bluesky are done better than the payware, especially regarding water masking.
I have also tried out PR scenery with ORBX on top. I usually leave ORBX entries untouched,and move any photoscenery down to the bottom, below any other addons and just above the default FSX entries. This way, some 3D objects appear in the scenery, and as I use ORBX and other airports, they are placed over the top of the photoscenery. The only thing you may have to adjust manually is mesh, as ORBX includes some, as does Bluesky scenery, so you just use one or the other.
I would highly recommend all of the Blueskyscenery titles. One of the best freeware offerings out there.
http://www.blueskyscenery.com/
http://www.blueskyscenery.com/CA.html
Cheers,