JimmiG

Photographic scenery will always be more accurate than scenery which is based off land-use and road/river databases, using generic textures and objects. Also, I assume the scenery will still work (or be made to work) with XP10 I'll probably buy it when it's finally released. Just don't rename the product to "NorCal Forever"

Another month has come to an end.. Maybe you should start moving the release date forward two months at a time?

It has been a long wait but it looks like it will be worth it. Norcal was the first flight sim region I flew over with Flight Unlimited II in 1997 so it's nice to see it in high detail in X-Plane. I hope it will be affordable enough that I can buy the whole region at once because nothing beats continuous photo scenery.

I think it looks great for photo scenery. You'll always get some uneven quality with large-scale photographic scenery. Seasonal variations and the amount of rain in the weeks leading up to the time when the photos were taken will also make a difference, not just atmospheric conditions. The advantage with scenery made up of generic, repeating landclass tiles is that you can pick the very best texture for each type of terrain. With photo scenery you need consistent, great quality for the entire coverage area. I though the WA scenery looked slightly washed out. Not so much that it bothered me, but I preferred Arizona with its deep and lively colors. This scenery seems to be somewhere in between. Only three days left of April...will you make it?

Well, I actually only have a 2Mb connection, but I left it to download over night and so it was finished the morning after. Quicker than waiting for a DVD to ship, at least. I did get the full 270-280KB/s which is my normal max speed, and the download was reliable with no errors or interruptions (except the user guide error, which wasn't really an error).

Well I bought the commercial version anyway. The demo, even with the stutters and pauses, was enough to let me get an impression of the scenery. Just like you predicted, there doesn't seem to be any problems with the full product. My first test flight was from Scottsdale (demo airport) and I was able to take off and fly around the area without any noticeable stutters or pauses. So if anyone else is experiencing issues with the demo, I think it's safe to say that the full version will work fine. I did get a Verification error on User_Guide.zip. The downloader automatically re-downloaded the file with the same result. However when I manually checked the file with 7-Zip, it came up with no errors and I was able to successfully extract it. I used the Europe mirror.

Only have 9.31 unfortunately. As long as it doesn't affect the full version I guess it's not a big problem... If it does then it's a problem, obviously.

I've been using Win7 as my primary/only OS since the release candidate became publicly available, with zero problems. I've been running X-Plane, MSFS and many other apps and games without issues. Also benchmarked it and found performance in all areas to be on par with, or better than Vista. So I honestly don't think Win7 is the problem although you never know. I tried running X-Plane in Vista compatibility mode and I also tried disabling Aero. I temporarily removed Washington from my X-Plane folder and installed the demo instead. It was perfectly smooth. Tried both flying along the edges of it and across the area. I also tried the Tennessee demo which worked fine as well (although I noticed it uses DDS files). So it only affects the Arizona demo so far. As long as I'm sitting still on the runway, there are no stutters or pauses. Once I begin rolling down the runway, the pauses start about halfway down the runway and get worse as I take off. The faster I fly, the more frequent they seem to get. Between the pauses I'm getting over 50 FPS from the 3D cockpit of the Comanche.

I just tried the Arizona demo and I'm experiencing a small issue. Every few seconds, the whole sim will pause for a split second, then lurch forward. In between the pauses, the frame rate is very high (over 40 FPS). This does not happen with the default scenery over the same area, and it doesn't happen with the full version of RealScenery Washington. What might be causing this and would the full version also be affected in the same way? I have a Phenom X4 9650 overclocked to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of RAM, a 4850 512MB video card, X-Plane 9.31. The sim is installed on a 7200 RPM, 640GB Western Digital drive and I'm running Win7 Release Candidate.

Well I did buy the Washington scenery in the end, and I have to say I'm satisfied. Quality is very consistent with no abrupt color or resolution changes between tiles (like you see in Google Earth etc.). You do need to reach a couple of thousand feet before the scenery starts to look realistic, but for cross country and just exploring, it works very well. Instead of seeing the same field tile, suburban tile etc. repeated over and over, each city and even small town gets the correct street layout and there are no missing towns obviously, since it's a photograph. Washington is my favorite "sim area" ever since Flight Unlimited III so it's good to be able to fly there in high detail again. Loading times are almost the same and framerate is actually better since you normally turn off roads and other features with this scenery (since they're part of the photographs). I find that if I keep the object density at the lowest setting, the 3D objects make it easier to visually determine my altitude around airports etc. At higher settings, the objects look out of place. Also forests look out of place and inaccurate on top of the scenery, even with USA Forests installed, so I just disable them. Many smaller airports are indeed not aligned with the photographic textures. I'm a complete newbie to X-Plane scenery editing, but it would be nice if I could just get the airport layout overlaid on the photographic scenery and then just manually drag and drop the runways and taxiways until they align. Not sure if that is possible or if it's more involved. I would love to see California, but in the meantime I'm also considering the Arizona scenery.

Tried the demos. Still not sure. The default textures in X-Plane are very vivid and realistic IMO. I like them. There's also autogen that looks decent. The problem is that there just isn't enough variety. Mountains, cities etc. look the same pretty much anywhere in the world. You couldn't tell if you're flying over switzerland, new england or canada... Photo scenery is flat, but very varied and detailed, making exploration more interesting. Your prices are very reasonable however, so I might just go for it. A certain Washington scenery for another sim is over three times as much...

I'm considering buying either the Oregon or Washington scenery but I have some questions first.. -What's the resolution of the textures in meters per pixel? How low can you fly before the scenery becomes blurry? Most of the screenshots are taken at very high altitudes making it hard to tell. -I've never used large-scale photoscenery in X-Plane, only in MSFS. How does X-Plane behave with these types of sceneries installed? FS suffered from blurries and longer loading times, but an increase in framerate. Same with X-Plane? How would the scenery perform on a Phenom X4 at 2.7 GHz, 4GB of RAM and a 512MB Radeon 4850? -How long will the scenery be supported and fixed in case X-Plane breaks something? For the life span of X-Plane 9? -Are small airports aligned with their photographic counterparts or will you see double runways like you sometimes do in FS? -Which one is most beautiful? Oregon or Washington