December 2003: Release version 2.9
Like you’ve all read on our forum, last Saturday (6th September 2003), we had a meeting of the team members and concluded the planning of a new version of NL2000-scenery. This version, called version 2.9, will be ready in December so that you can enjoy hours of flying over a more complete FS-Netherlands during the Christmas period.
Why version 2.9?
We will be calling it version 2.9 because there will be many changes to the version 2.2. On top of this, it is the predecessor of our version 3.0.
What can you expect from version 2.9?
Foremost, the surface has been tremendously improved; the landscape textures are more varying, the colours are more natural and the textures change according to the seasons. For the sport lovers amongst us; all the golf courses have been added.
On top of this, you will now be able to land with a water-plane on the diverse rivers and lakes, of which the Netherlands is well known for.
New buildings and objects have been created, like the Old Church in Delft, high-rises in The Hague, communication towers, ships and windmills. And with thanks to our new team member, Frits Tappe, we have added the city of Arnhem.
Obviously we have also improved the airports; Schiphol, Lelystad, Teuge, Middle-Zeeland, just to mention a few, that have been almost completely rebuilt. And if time allows, we will try to add the static aircraft in a separate file, so that AI-traffic can also be enjoyed by the fans.
The Frame rates!
The frame rates have always been an issue with our NL2000-scenery. During the last two years we have mentioned on our forum, amongst other things, that we were trying out new mesh scenery. Unfortunately we have not achieved the performance improvements that we had hoped for. Because the visual quality of the scenery did not really improve with it as well, we have decided to use the same technology as in version 2. This doesn’t mean we haven’t done anything on the framerate. We have done our absolute best in optimising as many objects and airports as is possible, mainly on the areas that needed it most. Because of, it is certainly improved, but not as spectacularly as we had hoped for. Luckily though, due to the technical advances in computer speed over the last two years, we expect that more people will be able to enjoy the scenery.
FS2002 and FS2004
At this moment we are in the stage of beta-testing. To our judgement version 2.9 will work with both FS2002 and FS2004.
Over the coming weeks…
…we will keep you posted on the improvements. For us it will certainly be an exciting and hectic year’s end.
Screenshots
Also new screenshots are online now. This time a preview of Schiphol (EHAM). This version is still under development, for example the gras polygons are not there yet. Click here to view the screenshots!
