what scenery is better GLOBAL EARTH or SFD GLOBAL

[Indy409]

TRYING to figure out which is the best to get?

[John W]

I don't think either makes that much of a difference. There are videos on the internet that you can watch to see the difference and make a decision for yourself. One thing however is that Global Earth is actually a global replacement for the default ground textures while SDF Global does not do the entire earth. So it depends on the area you would like to fly in.

I myself live in the western US and decided to install Ortho4XP textures for that region. The trouble with doing texture replacements, Ortho included, is when you want to add seasonal textures like Winter. The current set of seasonal texture packages do not work on all textures. So you have to apply one utility that will add Winter to the default ground textures and then another (Winterizer) that will add Winter textures to Ortho scenery. But the combination will not add Winter to custom airports that have their own custom ground textures. I do not know if those seasonal texture packages will work with SDF Global or Global Earth.

If you want to go the Ortho route you can do a search for Ortho4XP on the internet and find the utility to download that you use to generate the Ortho tiles. Keep in mind that Ortho takes up a lot of disk space depending on the resolution of the tiles you create and the number of tiles. I have Ortho installed for all of the Western United States and that takes up over 800G of disk space.

[Indy409]

Originally posted by John W:

I don't think either makes that much of a difference. There are videos on the internet that you can watch to see the difference and make a decision for yourself. One thing however is that Global Earth is actually a global replacement for the default ground textures while SDF Global does not do the entire earth. So it depends on the area you would like to fly in.

I myself live in the western US and decided to install Ortho4XP textures for that region. The trouble with doing texture replacements, Ortho included, is when you want to add seasonal textures like Winter. The current set of seasonal texture packages do not work on all textures. So you have to apply one utility that will add Winter to the default ground textures and then another (Winterizer) that will add Winter textures to Ortho scenery. But the combination will not add Winter to custom airports that have their own custom ground textures. I do not know if those seasonal texture packages will work with SDF Global or Global Earth.

If you want to go the Ortho route you can do a search for Ortho4XP on the internet and find the utility to download that you use to generate the Ortho tiles. Keep in mind that Ortho takes up a lot of disk space depending on the resolution of the tiles you create and the number of tiles. I have Ortho installed for all of the Western United States and that takes up over 800G of disk space.

Yeah I did the ortho route but it takes a lot of space up after a while and a lot of the orthos I came across had cloud shadows on the ground and that really ruined it for me since I like to fly in the Bahamas