About The Airports KDEN KDTW Such large airports like these certainly require a lot of hard work and a talented team to recreate them in flight simulator and Imagine Simulation was up to the task. Download, Installation and Documentation The Denver and Detroit scenery are both available strictly by download. The Denver scenery is 29MB and the Detroit package is 39MB. On broadband you can expect to see good speeds from the server and it took just less then 2 minutes to download each of these packages. On dialup the download should take less then 2 hours. The packages are delivered in the secure Flight1 Wrapper which allows you to purchase the sceneries after the download is complete. The installation was quick and simple. You are presented with two executable installer files, one for FS2002 and one for FS2004. After running the appropriate file you are asked for your installation key, and although the key is long, you can easily cut and paste the key or select the text file that contains your key and it will automatically be filled in for you. When the key is entered correctly the installation begins. Once all the files are copied over, the installer will create the entries into the scenery.cfg file and create a back up of the old file in the unlikely event that something goes wrong. Once this is done, your scenery is ready to use. If you’re like me you’ll just want to jump in and explore for a bit. Others may rather read the included documentation before heading off to the airport. Imagine Simulation has provided a 16 page PDF file for Denver and a 15 page file for Detroit. Both are packed full of information about the airports; how the animated jet ways work, frequently asked questions and tips for getting the most out of the sceneries. The manual states that the minimum system requirements are a 1.8 GHz processor, 512Mb of RAM and 64Mb video card. In my opinion you will need a slightly higher performance video card to really enjoy the scenery, however the rest of the recommendations are reasonable. The manual also outlines some steps to make sure you are getting the best performance out of your flight simulator. First Impressions After initially loading these sceneries, I was very impressed at how great they looked. Although I have never been to Denver or Detroit, my first impression was how real they looked; perhaps this is due to the amount of detail provided in these packages. Everything has been included, even a complete fence at each airport and every lamp post is accurately placed. Also to my surprise, the airports aren’t empty! Imagine Simulation has included plenty of static aircraft, ground vehicles and even ground crew to give you the feel of actually being there. Initially I wasn’t impressed with the performance, as I was unable to get over 10 frames per second. After some quick support from the developer, we figured out that it was an issue of my computer under-performing and after doing a clean installation of Windows everything was fine. This is not to say that everyone has to reinstall Windows to use these products, it was merely a rare situation that I encountered. The Airports KDEN One thing that can either make or break scenery is textures. Without textures the scenery is dull and boring even with models containing the highest of details. Textures can also provide detail without using performance expensive polygons. The ground textures such as the runways, taxiways and grass look awesome and realistic; however, the building textures that look excellent at long to medium ranges are not as good up close. This is likely a compromise between texture quality and performance that had to be made to ensure that it would run smoothly on a wide range of systems; it would have been nice to provide a choice between low and high quality during the installation.
Textures aside, this scenery is amazing. I spent many hours just slewing around the airport gawking at all the details included. The small details include roads that go in and around the airport, street signs, billboards, light posts, pylons and even lots of baggage and cargo containers. The ground vehicles have flashing beacons to make them completely visible, even at night. There are even ground personnel standing around the airport so you are never alone at Denver. The important details aren’t missed either; the terminal is exactly the way it looks in photographs that I have seen, including the amazing white fabric roof over the main terminal. It would have been nice to have semi-transparent terminal windows, so you could look into the terminal as you can in some other sceneries but this is a luxury that I can live without.
I’ve noticed that many scenery add-ons don’t have perimeter fences surrounding the airport but Denver does feature a complete and secure fence. My guess is that many designers stay away from fences because frame rate performance would have to be sacrificed. The fence in Denver doesn’t look great (very low detail) but it sure is nice to be able to tell where the fence is, and also the added security of being in a safe virtual airport. Another typical feature that is included with many scenery packages these days is animated jetways. This system provides guidance to pilots while parking at the gate in order to make sure the jetway will be able to properly line up with the aircraft door. The Denver jetways work reasonably well for most aircraft, although I did encounter some problems using them with certain add-on aircraft. The developer has advised me that an update should be released shortly to correct the problems with the jetways.
KDTW Detroit was also created by the same people who made the Denver scenery (Imagine Simulation) so it borrowed and improved on many aspects of the Denver scenery. You’ll find the same level of detail at this airport as in Denver with a few extras. The terminal design includes glass windows along the roof area and these are transparent, which is a nice touch.
The real airport is also currently undergoing a major construction and renovation project, so there are even cranes included in this scenery and the framework for a new terminal that is being built. Although I must say, I haven’t seen the workers make much progress on that building!
Northwest Airlines pretty much dominates this airport in the way of traffic, so there are plenty of Northwest aircraft around. Other airlines around DTW include but are not limited to KLM, United and Southwest. The airport also features a few cargo aprons which are home to UPS and Fedex.
I should also mention that the animated jetways work much better in Detroit then they do in Denver, but as previously mentioned, Imagine Simulation will be releasing an update to Denver so that they work just as well there as they do in Detroit.
Frame-rate Performance As with many other scenery packages, DEN and DTW do not score well in the performance category. On high-end computers you can achieve acceptable frame rates to make flying in and out of Denver and Detroit enjoyable, but on aging computers the performance may vary. I have included a table below to show the difference between the add-on scenery and default scenery (on my computer) so you can judge how well these packages might run on your computer.
* Results recorded using the exact same scene with and without add-on scenery Conclusion Despite performance problems, if you have a newer computer with plenty of power, you will be quite satisfied with these packages. These scenery packages are definitely worth trying, especially if you live in the Denver or Detroit areas or have r traveled through these airports. When I flew
into DEN or DTW I got a real sense of being there, and since I haven’t
been to either of these cities in real life, it was fun to taxi around and
take in the sights of these virtual airports.
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