FTX Central Question

[Deleted]

Good evening all.

I have a quick question about FTX Central. Its new to me as they didnt have that back when I took some time off from bush flying.

I have everything I own installed and it says that North America is active which I assumed is correct but then when I installed the global freeware update and applied it, it made Global active.  So that made me start to wonder, surely when I have North America active like I thought I needed Global is also active right?  I know that might be a silly question but I just want to make sure that I am not missing anything as I dont see how it make both active at the same time.

thanks for your help

[Deleted]

Man, a friend and I have been having that very discussion of late. The lines are getting far more blurred since OpenLC Alaska/Canada, Vector and Global came out. Frankly I think you can fly anywhere in NA if you have North America active. If you have Global active instead, you will lose the fat region airports that aren't in the default FSX, as I did with Rivers Inlet the other day. Give it a try and see how it works out. I would NOT, however, have "Hybrid" checked. That's caused a few people some serious headaches, me being one of them.

[Deleted]

Hmmmm well now i am confused then. It seems that surely Global is active all the time since its global textures and land class right? I mean if I have NA active which gives me all of my airports that I bought the Global improved textures are there too right? haha Its really rather confusing. I do currently have hybrid selected I know because the manual recommended that. You say it gave you headaches huh?

Ugh my brain is starting hurt now.

[Deleted]

Ok I read some more and maybe how it works is if we are flying in an ORBX full region when the textures and land class are already determined by the region addon and there is no need for the Global improvements but if we fly outside that ORBX full region then that is when the new Global textures and land class shows up?

[Deleted]

Yes. And no. However, maybe. Confused? Good. Situation normal <LOL>.

Yeah, that was all written before Vector and OpenLC as well. If you are primarily flying in the fat region, then leave it at North America. It overrides the Global textures anyway, unless you only have Global (and not NA) checked. If you fly out of the fat region, then you probably want Global checked, but I'm seeing far less difference now than I used to. In the fat regions though, you definitely want to have NA enabled.

If that makes sense, take 2 aspirin and call the shrink in the morning

[spud]

Todd,
you have it pretty much correct. The ORBX full fat regions (PNW, SAK, etc.) are basically stand alone scenery. The textures and elevations are very detailed and will give you excellent scenery as is. As you surmised Global (which is replacement textures for FSX and a bit more) is for flying outside of the ORBX regions to give you much better scenery than the old FSX textures which SUK!
To keep from having to shut down FSX and open FTX Central and switch from, for example, PNW to PFJ as you fly northward its best to set FTX Central to Global with Hybrid checked and apply that selection. This allows you to fly from a region to the great beyond or turn around and fly from 'out there' into a region without having to switch anything. There will be some very small differences but nothing glaring from the full region.
I normally just select Global/Hybrid and fly (dum dee dum dum, bobs head)
Now for the good news. ORBX has announced that very soon they will release a new FTX Central/ORBX Library version that will eliminate the need to switch anything any longer, so what I just said will be a thing of the past at that time.

[Deleted]

Ohh boy, ok so in my FTX Central v2 I can either activate GLobal or I can activate North America which. I have no options to activate individual regions within NA such as PNW or SAK. So are you saying that if I have it set to NA active if I fly between PNW up to SAK I need to stop in between those regions and do something in FTX Central? Hmm I must have been really confused and hope that is not the case.

It is my understanding that for instance I have all of the regions from PNW and N. Rockies up to SAK so if I stay within those regions it will all be active because its under the North America section and active in FTX Central.
If I want to fly outside of those regions like to say Ontario or somewhere that there is no ORBX specific region THEN i would want to stop and switch to Global being active to get the best scenery.

I really that is correct haha

I really appreciate you alls help.

[Deleted]

    Todd; I understand what you are going through---I have been there !!, for what its worth, I now do what Spud suggested and fly and enjoy. Hopefully ORBXs upcoming mod will help clear the air a little.

                 Carm.

[spud]

Todd,
just set it to Global/Hybrid and go flying period.
Just picking Global without the Hybrid being 'checked' is NOT what your looking for.

[Deleted]

Yeah, but if you're flying in a fat region, you're going to miss out on all the airstrips that Orbx put in which aren't in the default FSX database. I'd rather go the other way around to be honest.

[Deleted]

Ok I just set it to North America activated since according to their documentation the region overrides any global scenery and since you can only activate the one region, ie. North America I am going to assume that all of my scenery within NA are active such as PNW, SAK, Pacific Fjords etc. At the moment I am not flying outside of those regions anyway but will email ORBX and ask for a more clear explanation of how their voodoo works and of course offer my advice as an invested customer that they get their ducks in a row and make the whole thing easier to deal with.

Thanks again all for your help.

[scottb]

I don't think it was every required to switch anything between any of the North American regions. The only time it was an issue would be going from Australia to the US or something like that. I'm in ORBX regions most of the time so I leave it set to North America. On the occasions when I fly out east, it doesn't seem to be any problem.

-Scott

[Deleted]

Cool! That is what I was hoping

[spud]

Kee ... rap. Certainly mucked up that explanation about switching etc. Sorry Todd. My example of flying northward from PNW to PFJ etc. was totally incorrect. No excuse just been staring at my monitor too much. Doing a total re-build of over 500 scenery installations due to HD crash and rebuild.
It is correct that if you have North America "active" then all the regions from SAK to SCAL are active at once.  Switching would be necessary if you were flying from say KSEA (Seattle) to YSSY (Sidney).  Somewhere you would have to quit the sim start FTX Central and switch from North America to Oceana to have the correct scenery textures for Australia when you arrive. (moving between different regions makes switching necessary.)
Setting FTX Centeral to Global Hybrid before the flight would make switching unnecessary and the scenery would be very close to using the individual regions (NA/Oceana) with minor differences that, to me, are not even noticeable.
 As far as the payware ORBX airports are concerned they, of course are designed to use with the payware regions and as long as you have the region for where the airport is located installed the display is the same even though Global is active.
They are not in-activated as they install into the area (CRM, SAK etc.) of the ORBX folder for which they are designed.
As I posted all this is going to be done away with in a short time when ORBX changes the FTX Central and ORBX Libraries with an update.
Here is the discussion on the up coming changes.

www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/114988-unified-lclookup-and-what-to-expect/

[Deleted]

Haha hey Spud no worries mate. I had Boolean algebra classes in collage that were easier to get my head around then the ORBX "situation"

I really appreciate you trying to explain it. I really do.


Thank you