Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2504 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Flight 1
• Released on: 2007-05-18
• Platform: Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description
FS Global 2008 is a completely new designed product. It holds worldwide Mesh Terrain data in an astonishing resolution on the basis of SRTM data released at the end of 2006!

Worldwide Mesh Terrain Data
FS Global 2008 vastly improves the scenery display in Microsoft Flight Simulator. While the standard scenery in Flight Simulator is rendered with elevation points 1.2 km apart, FS Global 2008 provides new Mesh Terrain with points only 76 m, in some areas such as the Alps only 19 m apart - that's up to 63 times more detail! No longer will areas appear a poor presentation of real life - now mountains soar as they should and valleys plunge. Textures have a perfect fit on the surrounding terrain. Even coastlines and rolling hills will be more real making every flight a genuine delight.

NASA-Technology for Flight Simulator
This scenery is based on the 'Shuttle Radar Topography Mission' (SRTM). The complete world topography has been measured in February 2000 using two highspeed radar cameras that have been mounted on the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The latest version of this data (released at the end of 2006) is combined with various sources to build one of the most detailed mesh sceneries for Flight Simulator available yet.

This package contains two versions in one box. The version for FSX and the version for FS2004 on 4 DVDs (2 x DVD5 and 2 x Double-Layer DVD10) are packed with Mesh data.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant!!
Put simply, this is by far the best add-on for FS2004 and FSX I've bought so far. It may cost a bit more than other add-ons, but for what you get for your money, it's a price worth paying.

For your money, you get 6 DVD's of enhanced modelling terrain (three for FS 2004 and three for FSX) and a brief manual on how to install them both. Be prepared though, for a very long wait for the software to be installed onto your hard drive. As a guide, it took my PC 45 minutes to fully install both of the discs for FSX, and it ate up 13GB of storage space, so make sure that you have plenty spare on your hard drive. (As a quick suggestion, once the software has been installed, defragment the hard drive you have put it on. This will speed up file access in the future)

Complaining aside, once you get the simulator going again, the transformation is actually very good I'd say. The ground details still look a bit blurry on lower settings, but the mountains and hillsides really do rise `majestically out of the ground' like it says on the box, which makes mountain flying more like, well, mountain flying rather than flying over the occasional hill. Coastlines also resemble their real life equivalents, and the sea no longer floats over the land for no apparent reason. Personally, I thought that there was going to be a massive drop in performance as well, with the extra detail being added, but in my case performance has actually improved. Okay, it takes a few minutes longer to load before you can begin flying, but as I've said before, it's well worth the wait. Also, I can quite easily run the game with the Auto Generated scenery set to Dense with no drop to the frame rate at all.

So in short, it's a bit too expensive for most people, it clogs up your computer, takes a long time to load e.t.c but for anyone interested in the greater details of this world, it's a must have.

I loved it!
This is a great piece of software for both FS9 and FSX alike. Installation took about as long as it takes to install FSX, so I knew I was in for massive improvements! By adding 13GB of compressed data into the scenery library, you are literally revamping every inch of the flight sim world, noticable at least slightly anywhere around the globe.

After loading up the flight, I immidiately visited destinations such as Mont Blanc and Everest; even Sheffield resembled vagely its real-life counterpart with the odd hill here and there! To add to the already delightful notion of a 'new world', FS Global also increases the resolution of the textures in places where geographical land marks have really 'risen from the ground'.

I suppose the bonus of this add-on (and probably inherent from the higher than usual price tag), is that this software stays with you for every second, unlike add-on aircraft which come and go. Also, since the extra scenery is not interacting with its surroundings (such as weather and road traffic), there is a zero drop in fps.

For the sake of balance, I should warn that this software will not enhance every inch of flight sim as majestically as certain places, so don't feel dishartened when flying over an area that looks almost unaffected, as it is the areas of vast improvement that will surely tip the scales and persuade you to buy this product!

A must have
This is a very good addition to both FS9 and FSX. It basically adds elevation mesh across the entire planet , which means mountains ,hills and valleys all get enhanced for the better. Comes on 6 disc , 3 for each sim , total space required is 13 gb a sim . Very easy to install with no loss of FPS performance while flying . Unlike other addons that just give you one new plane or a scenery enhancment for one area this does so much more ,improving any where you could wish to fly.