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Overview &
Background
My first
impression's of the world when FSX was released was how much better it was
presented graphically straight out of the box. I know there has been
much criticism about the desert world, and this criticism is certainly
justified. Having said that however, in my view the ground textures, sky and water all have more
depth to them than FS2004 did after install. There is no doubt that FS2004 add-ons
have allowed the earlier version of the sim to replicate much of the
quality seen in FSX, but only after downloading freeware or
payware add-ons to help
enhance the base look. So how does one then enhance the look of FSX, and
would you even want to?
HiFisim Flightware, known for their award winning Active Sky
product for FS2004 (now available for FSX), have produced a texture Enhancement
package called X Graphics, which I'll refer to as XG from now on.
XG allows you to change the textures in your FSX world for the following
components: Clouds, Sky, Water, Roads and Rail, Airports and Lights and
Sound. (Sounds as in thunder and rain)
This review will look at the
download and install process, documentation supplied with
the package, and then look at the dialogue windows XG uses to make
changes and
how these work. I have included a series of screenshots that show the
'default' textures at work, and then the same location with my
selection of XG textures. Finally I give my last thoughts and we rate
the package.
My system specs:
NEC
H7101k running an IntelŪ PentiumŪ D Processor 820 (2.80GHz, 2X1M L2
Cache, 800MHz FSB),
2GB/533MHz DDR2 (4 X 512MB)
200 Gb SATA HD (7200 RPM)
MSI
7900GTO (512MB) graphics card
Sony
wide screen LDV TV
Download
,Installation and Documentation
Our review copy of XG was the
download version. This is a hefty 449Mb zip file, so I would
suggest it's not for those
with dial-up connections. Recognizing this HifiSim have a CD version available for those who
either want a packaged product, or downloading is simply not an option.
Once safely on my hard drive I unzipped the package and was presented
with an initial How to Install README file. The download version
is presented exactly as it would be on the CD, right down to the CD auto
run. The README advises the two options available to install, either use
the Autorun in the top folder or go into another folder and double click
the set-up file. I chose to
double click the auto run file and was presented with a 1 button install
dialogue box. I clicked that and the installer went to work doing its
thing. The entire install process took less than 5 minutes, and when you
consider the amount of textures that were being copied across this was
pretty good. I ended up with a shortcut on my desktop, and HiFi was
added to my list of All Programs through my START button. One thing I
did note was that no uninstaller was included through START/All
Programs/HiFi, so if you want to uninstall X Graphics you need to go
through Control Panel and use Add/Remove. This is a bit of a pain but
not the end of the world.
Its important to note at this point
that XG does not replace any default FSX
textures immediately, so all your files are safe. Neither does it
replace textures that make up the countryside, cities etc, so the desert
remains, you'll need a landclass file to fix that puppy. Once installed I
proceeded to open XG via the desktop icon, and was presented with the
dialogue screens that would enable me to select the changes I wanted to
make. These we will look at shortly.
X Graphics installs its documentation
in the form of html pages, and these can be reached through START/All
Programs/HiFi/Documentation and also one of the tabs in the XG dialogue windows screen
itself. The documentation covers each of the dialogue windows in XG, and I found
the level of information provided be about
right detail wise. I found the dialogue screens to be very intuitive and self
explanatory, so the readme reinforces this with specific details where
required. To be honest I didn't read any of this information after
installation, I started the software and got into it immediately. My
typical approach is get into it, and if I get stuck then I'll refer to
the info. One of my 'standards' if you like is that if I cant get into
things pretty quickly just playing with it, then its too complicated.
Naturally there are always exceptions to this, but I find it a good
benchmark personally. So in this case I
found XG to be so intuitive and clear I didn't feel the need read up
front. I knew where to go if I got stuck, and must
admit to learning one new thing when I read through the information
after having used the software for a week or so.
Changing the
look of the FSX world
Having not used this type of package
before I really wasn't sure how this would work. Double clicking the
desktop icon presented me with the first dialogue screen (1) and things
immediately became quite clear how it all worked. I flicked through each of the windows
and once I got to the Options Tab (8), clicked the 'Back-up FSX
Textures' button. This is probably the golden rule in all versions of
Flightsim, back-up your originals in case you don't like the new ones.
Once done I went back and started with the themes window (1).
The themes window gives you an
overview of what XG texture set you currently have installed in FSX, but
on the initial load it shows off the 50
themes that are supplied with XG. Themes you create and
save are also presented on this window. The various tabs break down the
different texture sets such as sky, Airports/Roads etc. This was a good
'quick start' approach as the quantity of themes that are pre-set are
large and would cater to most tastes. However I'm a fiddler, so moved on
to the next tab.
Runways, Airports and Clouds
The next window dealt with clouds, and
set the tone for what I could expect to see on all the remaining windows
in terms of layout and how various textures were to be selected. The texture options
are presented as frames from a camera, clicking on the arrows either
side of these frames scrolls through the options available for that
selection, and shows you what the texture will look like in the larger
window below. Pressing the down arrow button just below the frame brings up a clickable list
of options.
This is very handy as some of the textures available are very extensive and can
take some time to scroll through.
Just above the frames are additional tabs that break down the
current selection further. An example of this is on the airports Dialogue screen (6), Runways and taxiways have their own tabs for selection. The
Runways tab allows you to change not only the material condition for
both concrete and asphalt i.e. old, cracked, dirty etc, but also the way
snow sits during winter, how bright runway markings are displayed and what
bump map will be used (The bump map determines what the surface texture
will look like, whether it has lots of bumps or impressions, just like
the rivets on FSX aircraft skins). The Taxiways tab provides access to changing the
asphalt and concrete material type, how taxiway signs appear, what the
ground bump map looks like and also the 'clutter' texture, which gives the
appearance of lots of vehicles' and the like around the airport.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
What became obvious was the vast
range of options XG presented me to the point where its almost
overwhelming. This was particularly evident under the sky tab (3) In the
sunset selection alone there are well over 100 texture options
available, which pretty much ensures that you will find the look that
best represents your part of the world, or in my case, New Zealand.
While were looking at the sky, XG also allows you to change the
way the moon and sun appear along with lightning and the way sun flare
is displayed.
Lights and Sound
The 'Lights n Sound' section was a
surprise as I did not expect sounds to be included in a texture pack.
This allows you
to determine the look of both the aircraft landing and strobe lights as
well as airport lights. Various levels of detail are available form 4
to 6 star lights (these literally have 4 or 6 points) to the color of
the aircraft landing lights. Airport lights can be set to be brighter or
sharper. The sounds add depth to both thunder storms and the sound of
rain. I
changed this and turned the volume up and nearly jumped out of my skin
the first time a clap of thunder cracked through the landscape, so it
was quite a powerful change. So to with the ambient sound of rain
falling both inside the flight deck and outside.
Water
The water dialogue section allows you
to choose textures that suit the conditions you might choose to fly, and
are changeable for both low, medium and high settings with unique
texture sets for each level. For example, if your Shader settings are on
high 2.0 and you want waves that look rough you can select them, if they
are low 1.0 and you want stormy seas, 'click' and you got 'em. You can
also select to have water with cloud reflections for the low setting, which will be a real plus for those with more modest machines as
it allows much higher quality base textures without the hit some get
with Shader setting on 2.0. (See the screenshot below
Water Low
for a comparison). You can also
choose from various water color shades for both Ocean and Tropical
Ocean, along with inland water shades and colors.
Options Galore
The last screen is the options screen
(8). This allows you to decide what format you want the textures saved
in (DXT5 or 32bit), what size (128x128 - 512x512 - FSX Default size is
256x256), and then also pick and choose
from the total texture pool what makes it to the final install. Being
able to choose texture size is a real bonus because it allows you to
cater the textures to your machine. FSX ships with textures presented at
256x256 in DXT5 format. By choosing to size textures at 128x128 you
could effectively improve your FPS because FSX is not having to process
larger images, at the same time if you have a more powerful system, you
could save them at 512x512 and utilize the extra punch your PC offers.
Having the 32bit option is also interesting, and to my mind at least
demonstrated that HiFiSim had thought about the future of this product.
32bit textures are typically the best quality, so as technology
continues to catch
up with FSX, XG will allow you to capitalize with textures that
are effectively as clear and crisp as you will be able to get. For the
purposes of this review I chose to keep the textures at the default
settings, that being 256x256 and in DXT5 format. The options screen (8) allows you to
pick and choose the various textures that will make your final install,
which you can save as a new theme or as a modified version of one of
the pre-set themes. This window also allows you to decide how fast the
slideshows will run through images on all of the other dialogue screens.
Once you are ready to install your new theme, and after you have backed up
your FSX default textures (These can be reinstalled anytime at the click
of a button) click install theme and in a relatively quick time XG will do its thing. You
are then ready to run FSX and see the
results of your selections.
How does it
look?
The following set of screenshots have
been taken in the same location and at the same time of day to give you
an appreciation of the difference my selection made over FSX default. An
important
point to note is the selection presented offers a tiny insight into the
potential XG offers (You can see more on the HiFiSim website), its simply not possible to show you everything on
offer. Screenshots showing FSX default textures are at the top, XG enhanced
are below. I have also taken them with bloom both off
and on as this gives you an appreciation for the difference this makes.
Runway - 23L NZAA
321 - Sunset
(Bloom)
Sunset
Auckland City
Waihopai Day
Waihopai Sunset
Auckland Traffic
Runway Signs NZAA
A321 Strobes
Queenstown
Queenstown 2
Queenstown
(Bloom)
West Auckland
Water Low
Marlborough
Sunset
NZQN
Omaka
DC3
Whenuapai
NZAA Ramp 2
Woodbourne - Dawn
NZAA Ramp
More Screenshots
at the HiFiSim Website
Blenheim Coast
Conclusion
XG
expands FSX visually, and in some cases the difference between the default
and XG textures is startling. While I have been using the software for a couple
of weeks, I have really only just started exploring the combinations
possible. Because its so easy to use I have found that I am more inclined to
choose a theme and install it rather than go through individual
selections, and the neat things is I am
able to do this in only a few minutes.
When I first installed XG and looked
through the options available to me, I'll be honest and say performance
concerns crossed my mind and questions arose about what sacrifice would
I have to make for the textures installed. The HiFiSim website
recommends a 2.0 GHz processor or better, 2 gig of ram and a fast
graphics card with at least 256mb of ram, so I knew I wouldn't have any
problems with the specs as they are on paper at least. The improved
visuals did not appear to make any difference in my frame rates, and as
mentioned earlier, in some cases it may well improve things. The
interface is very user friendly and as I have said earlier, very
intuitive to use. If you feel comfortable playing with FSX settings,
you'll' feel at home with XG. The sounds were an added bonus, and are a
step up from the default just as the textures are. At US$34.99 I believe this
package is good value, particularly given the scope of options
available. My key gripe would be in the difficulty I had in deciding what combinations
I wanted to include, having said that this scope also ensures that XG
isn't something I will use a couple of times and then forget, coupled
with the texture format options, I see XG as a package that will grow
with FSX. Its also important to note here that if XG is coupled with the
FSX version of Active Sky, which has already proven itself in FS2004,
the potential for truly amazing weather and visuals is something
to think very seriously about, and takes us fully into the realms of "As
Real As it gets" (At the moment HiFiSim have a deal going, buy both and
save $10)
I do acknowledge this package wont be
for everyone, and some may question why the need when FSX does an
excellent job already. What appeals to me is the enhanced visuals XG
offers, and the ease in which I can change these each time I load FSX if
I wish. The fact some future proofing has been built in is an important
feature to ensure its relevance going forward, and the ability to resize
textures smaller or larger to suit your computer is awesome. XG will appeal most to
those, who like me enjoys looking at the outside world. If I was more
into the flying and being the serious pilot with my head down, this may
not be so important, in which case the money spent on XG may better be
spent on a high detail aircraft. The outside world is actually
an important aspect of Flightsim for me, I love watching the sky and the
way FSX displays light early in the morning and during sunset, and that's why I was so excited to see what XG
could do. Personally, I wasn't disappointed, and its for this reason I
award X Graphics an X
Rating of 5.
