scenery compatible?

[trasno]

Hi all

Which versions of Flight Simulator have scenery compatible with CFS2? FS200, FS2002?

many thanks

Trasno

 

[bearcat241]

All FS2000 will fit. Some FS2002 will, but you can't tell by just browsing the packages or even reading readme.txt's. These things can be deceiving because few, if any, FS2002 scenery designers actually test their FS productions in CFS2 before releasing. So, they will seldom know when their product is compatible with CFS2. They might add a line in their readme saying "for FS2002 only", but when you plug it into CFS2 it works fine. But because of the differences in designing methodology, even when it does load in CFS2, FS2000 and FS2002 scenery will never be destructible GSL scenery, so please be warned of that.

 

[trasno]

Thanks bearcat, but I was talking about stock flight simulator scenery, as it comes from the cd.

But from your answer I think that FS2000 is compatible and FS2002 is not.


Trasno.

 

[bearcat241]

Thanks bearcat, but I was talking about stock flight simulator scenery, as it comes from the cd.

Well Ok then my friend...why didn't you say stock?...i thought you meant addon stuff.

I saved this guide below from 2002 as a full HTML, but you'll note that steps 4 and 5 have critical example images missing (should be in the red print areas). Can't do anything about that now because the imbedded image files are so old now. But you can glean something from the overall outline i hope. I never used it myself, because i never bought FS2000, so i can't attest to its usefulness.

**********************************************************************************************************************************

How to Make FS2K scenery, airports and navaids functional in CFS2

by H_riptide

Warning: Use these procedures at your own risk. They work fine on my setup but if yours gets ruined by this then blame the person in the mirror. OK you've been warned!
Steps:

1. Open windows explorer and go to the FS2K scenerydb folder.

2. Goto C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenedb\afdfiles\scenery
Copy the files of the world you are interested in using. For example, for Pakistan and nearby areas use: indiaafd.bgl, mideafd.bgl and asiacafd.bgl to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 2\SCENEDB\afdfiles\scenery

Now those cities will show up on your CFS2 Goto menu.

3. Copy the SCO and ASO folders to CFS2 as follows :
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\sceneydb\sco (copy entire sco folder) and C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\sceneydb\aso (copy entire aso folder) to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 2\SCENEDB

Now, install "sco" and "aso" scenery to CFS2 just as you would install any other scenery.
These sceneries are necessary to prevent the "missing scenery object" error messages from appearing while running CFS2.

4. Install the scenery (for example, the area around Pakistan)
Goto C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenedb\EASTHEM and copy the INDIA, ASIAC and MIDEAST folders to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Combat Flight Simulator 2\SCENEDB
Install these 3 sceneries to CFS2 as your would any other scenery.

This is the scenery and navaids for those areas.

5. Check your CFS2 scenery library mine looks like this:

Top
bottom portion::::

Note: If you are missing anything then you must copy it from FS2K and install it as described above!

If you install cities from FS2K then make sure that you also have installed the proper area that the city is in (for example London (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenedb\cities\London) requires C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\FS2000\scenedb\EASTHEM\EURNW.

For example, in the U.S. you will need to install (as a scenery) USGL for the "Chicago" scenery to work.

Have fun and experiment!

 

[trasno]

Thanks Bearcat

 

[simonu]

fs2000 stock scenery looks much better in cfs2 than it does in fs2000.

but thats not really saying much...

whilst dogfighting extra300s downtown makes for amusing quick combats.

and some of the landmarks are quite cool

the fs2000 seasons wont work, the landclass texture set isn't as good out of the box as those that have been specifically modified for cfs2 be they based on fs2002 or fs2004

fs2000 uses a type of ground poly for rivers lakes and some of the cities that does not hug cfs2 mesh
this creates aborations like lakes that float above the ground and rather spoils the realism of the sim.
the global airport data list is immense and does not display well in the cfs2 select airbase dialog you will end up having to use the advanced dialog to find the place you want to start from.


To sum up, whilst the fs2000 stock scenery will not crash cfs2, to get a satisfactory modern world you will end up stripping out a lot of the files.

At least thats what I did a few years back, in the end I was just left with the object librarys,

which by the way can have dp files made for them and thus be used in mission builder and GSL. DP files will make them smoke, burn and explode when hit, but they wont collapse or disapear as they have no damage models built in.

This last point is applicable to fs2002 object librarys which contain a lot more interesting objects that are also multi LOD and so give better frame rates.

I can give you more details about this if I have not put you off the whole idea ;-)

the attached files will tell you abit more about the fs2k2 librarys
the index.txt is brief, the zip contains an excel spread sheet with all the details of whats in each library, most of the object names are obscure. If you want to use landmarks and city objects outside of their intended areas the files will need tweaking, that would be best discussed via pm.

 

[trasno]

Thanks Simonu

Trasno