Hi everyone.. I just had an idea that I am sure has crossed someone's mind.

Since the later versions of FS have been known to require a Good gaming machine, I was thinking can't microsoft make a flight simulator based on google maps or satellite images? Wouldn't it require a less strain on your PC? On top of that the simulation would get much more realistic.

If MS dont wanna use Google maps.. they have their own mapping system that they could use.

-Kobester

Sounds like a good idea but personally im not so sure about that, because it could look amazingly realistic at 35,000 feet but on final approach it will be just one flat blurry image. So Im not sure.

If you check Google Earth not with top-down view but more with a cockpit view, with terrain on it's very far from being flat, terrain is quite detailed. Would be an idea, Google Earth even has a very simplified "flight simulator mode" that does pretty much this. But that means HUGE amounts of data to download, stream, cache for each flight...

Ive seen this be done before, quite a good effect, its like photographic scenery that some people (myself included) will spend money on. Problems include, however, a) large amounts of data to download b) varying amounts of detail.

But once its been downloaded, it's stored in cache so when you next fly over that area, it wont need to download.

The program used is called tileproxy, I hope it's alright if I provide a link to an external forum, where you can see some of the results: http://www.horizonsimulation.com/forums/vi...he+scenery+tile

I didnt mean as it flat, I know there would be terrain and all. But I mean the actual image of the ground the streets, cars, buildings. It would look blurry up close especially in the "cockpit view" because these images were taken from sattelite and they look as they are in top down, but not designed sideways.

Of course the tilted view will make it look a bit weird once you're below maybe 1000ft AGL, but that's not much of the flight
The blur then depends on the detail level of the images, but at most places of the US the detail is really high and will most likely look much bettter than default FS scenery...
My country has full aerial photo coverage on GE, so the resolution is constant all throughout the country...
*downloads tileproxy *

I agree with all of that it would be difficult to adjust with tilts and heights.. But What I was thinking is since MS has already worked hard to develop this artificial scenery from scratch back when they first came up with FS series, I am sure they can figure out something to do with the existing satellite images.

Did you not read my post?

Click on the link, and scroll down to the pics people have posted of their FSX using data from google earth. Heck, for the UK, I have photographic scenery installed onto my PC hard drive. Its all flat (i.e. not autogen etc) but the terrain detail is good, and even on flat land, you dont notice the 'flatness' because it all looks better than the default stuff. That, and you can actually fly over places you recognise.

I downloaded tileproxy yesterday and gave it a try. Just awesome!
I was using GE data as it has full aerial coverage for my country, with constant resolution and detail (Google recently bought the company that made all the images a few years ago...)

Here are some shots:
http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b105/Kilrah/tileproxy/

No comment.

Of course on takeoff and when flying really low it does look weird:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b105/Kil..._19-53-43-0.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b105/Kil...17-54-6-687.jpg (the white blobs are planes parked at the airfield... but then again FS actually doesn't even know that airfield, and it's the one I'm going most often in real life so it's cool to have it! It's had a hard rwy for about 10 years BTW, but the photos are older than that.)

As C150 said, it's cool to have that kind of detail on places you know. The stock FS scenery looks good with the trees, buildings and stuff, but apart from roads and rivers everything is just randomly filled. I can take off from my the airport that is next to my city, but there's no city there in FS...

Just one more question.. When u use tileproxy.. does the terrain change as you climb/dcend.. and do the airports change or they remain the same??

The airports are the FSX ones.

The terrain doesn't change according to altitude, it loads in rings around the aircraft, the closer from it the higher resolution.
As the author says, it's mostly meant for low VFR flying at low speed (~150kt) and that's where it will perform the better for high resolution.
I've also done some airliner flight, it of course works too but you'll want to change the default config and set a lower terrain resolution as you're far from it and couldn't see the ultra high anyway, and define larger rings with good resolution as you see farther away. As the textures are lighter they will load faster and follow your position better.

I imagine your computer is pretty good to keep up with FSX plus added scenery. Because FSX alone destroys my frame rates, even though I man-handle fs9.

About 6 months old...

Asus P5N32E SLI, Core 2 duo E6850@3.5GHz
4GB OCZ DDR2@933MHz, 8800GT 512MB@680/1100MHz
Win XP x64, pagefile disabled
2x320GB RAID0, 2x500GB JBOD
37" 1920x1080, 19" 1440x900

Here is a video done with FSX and Tileproxy, to show what it can be like ...

http://www.weatherroanoke.com/wm/flight3a.wmv

(Can I link out to a video??) - If not, I'm sorry.

Just tried tileproxy, but it doesnt work... the DOS screen just says something like : "problem - giving up" and unable to create cache, etc. And then FSX gets stuck at 32% while loading, until I close tileproxy.

Im sure with some tweaking in the future, I could get it working...

Follow this guide: http://www.edtruthan.com/tileproxy/tutorial/

Especially step 2. Just installing won't work without that
Be sure to update the configuration file you downloaded in that step if the installer suggested you non-standard cache folders (it did for me).

Here's another one I did ...

http://www.weatherroanoke.com/wm/flight4.wmv

This one is more VFR-ish.

Right, tried again, downloaded the .ini file, changed the cache lines within it (think I did it correctly.... theres 2 different cache folders, not sure which one Im meant to put). Still get the problem:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k16/mark...03Jul151211.jpg

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k16/mark...04Jul151212.jpg