Meh, I prefer the orginal shot above.  Not sure why people love big light orbs... not realistic at all.  In real life flying, even in large cities, all you can see is tiny light orbs (usually orange if in USA based on street lights color temp), and most everything else is black black black.  If you get down low (500-1000 AGL) then you can see more colors from buildings etc.

The UTX lights look better to me.

 

They may look better, but also give significantly less frames. 

We are releasing a V1.1 patch for FTX Global that improves the lights further:

 

- Now 140% brighter

- Better FPS again

- Now vector roads don't use .fx for much better FPS on vectors

- Denser vector lighting

- Added intersection congestion traffic brake lights

 

Here is an example at Boston:

 

 

John that is awesome! Wow, I love the new features of the lighting system. When will the update be available? You guys are amazing, seriously.

We're still testing and tweaking the lights and also doing some SW USA LC fixes as well. FTXG is a very long term ongoing project and there will be constant fixes and upgrades to the base pack for free, including texture, base LC and lighting improvements. The biggest benefit of the V1.1 patch is the improved performance with lights. Just doing a test over Denver, CO right now with X-Dense autogen at night and pretty much locked at 30FPS and it looks like a sea of light. 

 

I can now also run bloom without too much stuttered.

 

Now that I think of it, JP from RealityXP gave me a new bloom shader about five years back which runs even better, I might dig it up and publish it since he gave me permission to do so.

Good to hear that all this work is going into the lights.  Re: the screenshots in this thread, it's hard to judge.  Like Ryan, I think the shot with the current FTXG lights and the default roads looks most realistic.  However, JV's shot is from much lower altitude.  The orbs look big in the foreground.  But the distance looks good, so they might come into their own if you're a couple thousand feet higher.  But if Orbx is still adjusting, then best to reserve judgment 'til we see what the updated nightscape looks like.

John, I'm very happy with FTX Global and glad to see that you guys are committed on constantly improving on it. This seriously is a big game changer to FSX ever since it's release. It totally transformed the entire look and feel of FSX as if it brought this old sim back to the modern times. It really breathed a whole new life back into the sim for me, and I am touched that you are focusing a lot of attention in the night lighting system and getting it as perfect and realistic as you can. Simply beautiful from the shot you just posted. It's a very exciting period for FSX right now and thanks to you guys at OrbX for making this a reality. And it's a great how all your products are 100% P3D compatible as well! 

Very impressive! But OSM data are availale for all parts of the world?

 

If I'm not wrong this is what ORBX will do when releas its OpenLC packages, correct?

 

OSM data is a s good as whomever is adding the source data.  In the past I used to get some OSM that had been converted into shapefile, which FSX sdk can handle.  You need middleware like SBuilderX to assign appropriate FSX guid (texture) to the vectors. 

 

scott s.

.

Question for John Venema...  I want to buy FTXG but my home internet is too slow.  I would like to download FTXG at work, put it onto an external hard drive and run the .exe file on my home flight sim computer for activation.  Will this be a problem in activating FTXG?

Orbx making fsx flyable - AWESOME - that shot is great John, thank you.

 

FYI - I work in Boston nice choice   :p0504:

Question for John Venema...  I want to buy FTXG but my home internet is too slow.  I would like to download FTXG at work, put it onto an external hard drive and run the .exe file on my home flight sim computer for activation.  Will this be a problem in activating FTXG?

No problem at all, that will work fine.

Just dived in and purchased FTXG for Prepar3d and am really impressed with the improvement has made. Visually it's very impressive. I've been head down in X-Plane for awhile, but this is making me come back and want to reinstall every other FSX/P3D addon I have.

 

Just wondering - with the number of updates is there an automated update option (similar to what REX recently introduced), or will it be a manual process of needing to know about an update to then download and install?

 

If it isn't in available right now, is it on the roadmap? I have a tonne of Orbx regions and airports, would be great if FTX central could advise on updates, and then hopefully serve as a download and update center. If it does it already, I'm going to have a closer look at what I haven't been using ....

This is freaking awesome!

 

 

If it isn't in available right now, is it on the roadmap? I have a tonne of Orbx regions and airports, would be great if FTX central could advise on updates, and then hopefully serve as a download and update center. If it does it already, I'm going to have a closer look at what I haven't been using ....

 

You'd better ask that on the Orbx-forum but afaik Orbx doesn't offer this nor is it on any roadmap. That's a pity because keeping track of the Orbx FTX updates is a real PITA... You have to check EVERY addon you have and note the version number. And some are cumulative while others are incremental. It's a real chore...

Only manual updating has always been that way and I don't see that changing Guys

 

 

...keeping track of the Orbx FTX updates is a real PITA...

 

Does the Flightsim Store offer downloads of current versions?  I've been thinking about re-installing some of the regions and was wondering if I ought to re-download, as opposed to working with all the 1.0 versions and all the dozens of updates I already have on hand.  Would fresh downloads solve the problem?