FS2004 scenery which shows roads and highways?

I guess this is asking too much, but I really do not understand why
Microsoft did not include a few main roads in my big city. I do not see any
roads anywhere yet.

So, I ask. How about FSgenesis? Is there a demo/shareware/freeware/anyware
scenery which shows roads and highways?

Lastly. Is the lack of roads and highways due to performance concerns?
Otherwise, I just do not understand why they are missing.

I am talking not only about roads and highways being there, but also about
them being almost well defined as runways in airports.

Thanks in advance.

John Doe wrote:
I guess this is asking too much, but I really do not understand why
Microsoft did not include a few main roads in my big city. I do not see any
roads anywhere yet.

So, I ask. How about FSgenesis? Is there a demo/shareware/freeware/anyware
scenery which shows roads and highways?

Lastly. Is the lack of roads and highways due to performance concerns?
Otherwise, I just do not understand why they are missing.

I am talking not only about roads and highways being there, but also about
them being almost well defined as runways in airports.

Thanks in advance.

I guess that it's not just the performance issue, but rather the fact
that MS didn't want to spend too much time on anything out side the
airports (apart from major landmarks). With roadways constantly changing
it would be dificult to keep up to date during the games developement.
AFIK it's just the interstates and expressways in the US or motorways in
the UK that are shown. MS have provided the ability for third party
scenery addons for individual areas which saves them alot of work. A
equivilent complaint amongst FS users is the lack of decent buildings in
the larger towns, but if MS had spent the time doing that for every
large city and town in the world (or even in the US) then we would only
be seeing FS2000 now.

About the best you can do on this is to try to find a VFR scenery
package for the areas that you want. These addons usually use aerial
photos for the ground textures and should theoretically have every land
feature ie. not only roads but rivers wooded areas, housing estates etc.
In my experience these are usually low resolution to keep the frame
rates from dropping to a slide show. But my pc is not that fast. Anyone
have any better experience with fast pc and good graphics card?
Anyway you can usually make out enough to navigate using real life charts.
Good luck.

gerrcoin wrote
John Doe wrote:

I guess this is asking too much, but I really do not understand why
Microsoft did not include a few main roads in my big city. I do not
see any roads anywhere yet.
snip
Lastly. Is the lack of roads and highways due to performance
concerns? Otherwise, I just do not understand why they are missing.
I am talking not only about roads and highways being there, but also
about them being almost well defined as runways in airports.

I guess that it's not just the performance issue, but rather the fact
that MS didn't want to spend too much time on anything out side the
airports (apart from major landmarks). With roadways constantly
changing it would be dificult to keep up to date during the games
developement. AFIK it's just the interstates and expressways in the US
or motorways in the UK that are shown.

I do not see roads/highways in my big city, definitely not clearly.

MS have provided the ability for third party scenery addons for
individual areas which saves them alot of work.

With $50,000,000,000 USD (fifty billion United States dollars) in cash,
Microsoft can afford the resources.

A equivilent complaint amongst FS users is the lack of decent
buildings in the larger towns, but if MS had spent the time doing that
for every large city and town in the world (or even in the US) then we
would only be seeing FS2000 now.

Why is that?









About the best you can do on this is to try to find a VFR scenery
package for the areas that you want. These addons usually use aerial
photos for the ground textures and should theoretically have every
land feature ie. not only roads but rivers wooded areas, housing
estates etc. In my experience these are usually low resolution to keep
the frame rates from dropping to a slide show. But my pc is not that
fast. Anyone have any better experience with fast pc and good graphics
card? Anyway you can usually make out enough to navigate using real
life charts. Good luck.


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From: gerrcoin
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.simulators
Subject: FS2004 scenery which shows roads and highways?
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John Doe wrote:

I do not see roads/highways in my big city, definitely not clearly.


Perhaps I should clarify a point here. You are not going to see any
road as clearly as the runways and taxyways, unless they are placed in
High Res ground textures. MS do put in some major roads but only as
grey lines on the ground.

With $50,000,000,000 USD (fifty billion United States dollars) in cash,
Microsoft can afford the resources.

Not just a factor of money, but time and effort on behalf of the
programmers. I would imagine that they would rather spend the time
trying to get the flight models right and get rid of the bugs.
Plus there is a reason that they have all that cash. MS are not
generally known for their not-for-profit projects.

A equivilent complaint amongst FS users is the lack of decent
buildings in the larger towns, but if MS had spent the time doing that
for every large city and town in the world (or even in the US) then we
would only be seeing FS2000 now.


Why is that?

With an average of about 2 years in developement between the FS
releases (FS2006? anyone) that doesn't leave a lot time to spend on
the visuals. Better to let private groups make their own packages.

The larger cities have textures and buildings on the scenery mesh but
in the less important cities (even if it's big to you) they just use
sat photo textures with those crappy autogen buildings. This saves a
lot of effort for the design team. Also if they were to do
semi-realistic buildings and ground textures for every large city
(remember that the scenery databases cover the whole world) then the
size of the distribution would be rather bulky. At present it's 3 CDs
and nearly 2 gig of hard disk space, and that's with the generic and
autogen generously applied.

What may have to happen in future releases is that MS may keep an
online database of all scenery and when you purchase the game disc you
download the relevant areas that you want to fly in. I think that
X-plane already operates this system.

gerrcoin wrote
John Doe wrote:

I do not see roads/highways in my big city, definitely not clearly.
With $50,000,000,000 USD (fifty billion United States dollars) in cash,
Microsoft can afford the resources.

Not just a factor of money, but time and effort on behalf of the
programmers.

That is true, however meaningless.

I would imagine that they would rather spend the time
trying to get the flight models right and get rid of the bugs.
Plus there is a reason that they have all that cash. MS are not
generally known for their not-for-profit projects.

That is for sure. Microsoft is proven monopolists.

A equivilent complaint amongst FS users is the lack of decent
buildings in the larger towns, but if MS had spent the time doing that
for every large city and town in the world (or even in the US) then we
would only be seeing FS2000 now.

Why is that?

With an average of about 2 years in developement between the FS
releases

So hire more programmers.

(FS2006? anyone) that doesn't leave a lot time to spend on the visuals.

Same argument.

Better to let private groups make their own packages.

They could support the private groups instead of leaching off of them.

The larger cities have textures and buildings on the scenery mesh but
in the less important cities (even if it's big to you) they just use
sat photo textures with those crappy autogen buildings. This saves a
lot of effort for the design team. Also if they were to do
semi-realistic buildings and ground textures for every large city
(remember that the scenery databases cover the whole world) then the
size of the distribution would be rather bulky. At present it's 3 CDs
and nearly 2 gig of hard disk space, and that's with the generic and
autogen generously applied.

I have had a 60 GB hard disk for two years. I have a 44 GB spare hard disk.

What may have to happen in future releases is that MS may keep an
online database of all scenery and when you purchase the game disc you
download the relevant areas that you want to fly in. I think that
X-plane already operates this system.

There you go IMO. Why not already? They haven't had time to copy the system
or what?

* John Doe :

gerrcoin wrote

With an average of about 2 years in developement between the FS releases

So hire more programmers.

Perhaps someone at Microsoft has read Frederick Brooks' /The Mythical Man
Month/?

--
Dave Pearson
http://www.davep.org/

Yup, been my experience that the last thing you ever want to do with a software
project is to hire more people. Just makes the project later and of less
quality. I suppose one exception would be you could add 1 or 2 extremely
talented testers who have worked with the group before. The Mythical Man Month
is an excellent read.

--
....Carl Frisk
Anger is a brief madness.
- Horace, 20 B.C.
http://www.carlfrisk.com


"Dave Pearson" wrote in message
.. .
* John Doe :

gerrcoin wrote

With an average of about 2 years in developement between the FS releases

So hire more programmers.

Perhaps someone at Microsoft has read Frederick Brooks' /The Mythical Man
Month/?

--
Dave Pearson
http://www.davep.org/

* Carl Frisk :

Yup, been my experience that the last thing you ever want to do with a
software project is to hire more people. Just makes the project later and
of less quality.

Indeed. Actually, now I come to think of it, I do seem to recall that TMMM
isn't lost on Microsoft 'cos I'm sure it got mentioned in /Show Stopper/
(the story of the development if Windows NT).

I suppose one exception would be you could add 1 or 2
extremely talented testers who have worked with the group before.

Oh, you don't want testers; they just find problems and slow you down. ;

The
Mythical Man Month is an excellent read.

Sure is. It's a long time since I read it, I should probably go and read it
again.

.. o O ( Hmm, I see that SimRadar are abusing this newsgroup too. I got an )
( unsolicited email from them telling me that you'd followed up my )
( post and telling me I had to opt-out of that facility. Grr. )

--
Dave Pearson
http://www.davep.org/

Dave Pearson wrote

* John Doe :

gerrcoin wrote

With an average of about 2 years in developement between the FS
releases

So hire more programmers.

Perhaps someone at Microsoft has read Frederick Brooks' /The Mythical Man
Month/?

After reading the other post and guessing at what that book is about, it is
an interesting theory IMO, which seems to correspond with my fleeting thot
Bill Gates led the drive to produce a very complex operating system
(windows).

But then I wonder how Linux is successfully being developed by independent
programmers all over the world.

Whatever.

* John Doe :

After reading the other post and guessing at what that book is about, it
is an interesting theory IMO, which seems to correspond with my fleeting
thot Bill Gates led the drive to produce a very complex operating system
(windows).

The key point is that you seldom get better efficiency and better output by
throwing more programmers at a problem. There comes a point where you get
diminishing returns.

But then I wonder how Linux is successfully being developed by independent
programmers all over the world.

Leaving aside the free (as in freedom) issue for a moment; the GNU/Linux
model is almost akin to the FS arena right now: different groups of people
working on different problems and providing a pool of solutions that the end
user can draw upon. Microsoft provide a kernel (MSFS itself) and other
developers around the world provide lots of extra facilities and features
that we can add to taste. It's not perfect but it does seem to make for a
thriving community and does seem to provide work and income for many people.

--
Dave Pearson: | lbdb.el - LBDB interface.
http://www.davep.org/ | sawfish.el - Sawfish mode.
Emacs: | uptimes.el - Record emacs uptimes.
http://www.davep.org/emacs/ | quickurl.el - Recall lists of URLs.