Don’t ask me why, when I live in Central Mississippi, that I love the United Arab Emirates so much, and especially Dubai. I’ve never personally been there but for some odd reason I just love that place. OMDB is one of my most favorite airports to fly in and out of. And when I saw that ORBX released their Dubai City Scape package it was a “MUST BUY” for me. I’ve got no regrets! This scenery pack performed wonderfully for me. So well in fact, I didn’t notice any performance hit at all. I don’t use the developer mode so I don’t monitor framerates. But even with my middle-of-the-road computer, this scenery pack looks positively AWESOME!!! Thank you ORBX for another great product!
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I live in Dubai and I bought it yesterday. For like 7 € is a bargain anyway 
There is no comparison with the default scenery which misses many many buildings, has a totally flat Palm Jumeirah and Bluewaters, etc. There is also the hope that ORBX will keep it updated as the city develops (still many construction works).
You are also right on the great performance, I can just add that I noticed a much higher VRAM occupation (up to 12-13 GB). No problem for my RTX 3090 but lesser GPUs may suffer.
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Thanks for the insights!
I’m thinking about getting the Dubai scenery, too, but I’m curious about the area it covers. When I recently went to Dubai in MSFS and was on approach to OMDB from out over the Gulf, I noticed a lot of unrealistically high-rise autogen buildings between the airport and the sea. In reality (checking with google maps), these buildings seem to be mostly one- or two-story buildings.
Does the OrbX scenery also cover this area in a more realistic manner?
Yes, the area north-east of Trade Center towards the airport is rendered correctly with low story buildings. You can see it in this video, around minute 5:23. And as far as I could see, the city is rendered down to Jebel Ali port, all container terminals included.
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Perfect, thanks! I guess I’m going to get it, then. 
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The thing that makes me think it twice about payware sceneries,is this.What happens when Asobo releases the update for that part of the world? I mean,the freeware i can uninstall right away(which i already have for some things) and all is well.
But payware ? It is not then money tottaly wasted ?
It doesn’t matter the high or low price.What matters is money 100% wasted.
Unless this is not the case and the scenery also stays alongside with the asobo update
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Personal Comments:
You run that risk with any payware scenery. London is certainly an example. But I suspect it will be some time before WU catches up to the Middle East, and as we’ve seen with WU to date, it’s as much a wide update rather than deep as Orbx would dive into a particular area. So for the relative low price and if you like the city, why not?
A lot of the decisions around WU also have to do with updated overhead aerials and improved DEM. I’m sure with real world events over the past decades, such things more than exist for SWA region, but that also begs the question if it’s publicly available given what still happens there today. That’s a polite way of thinking WU will continue to march South in Europe - maybe the Adriatics or Mediterranean.
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Orbx always does a very good job at updating their city packs so that they become compatible with the world updates.
I strongly disagree with the idea that it’s wasted money if one is interested in the city. Photogrammertry cannot compete with bespoke models in terms of details, and doesn’t hold up at certain distances.
Orbx’s packages (and more, like SamScene3D for instance, who did Tokyo) do a great job in adding details that the photogrammetry isn’t good enough to show, making sure that the skyline of a city remains recognizable at any distance, and helps with outdated areas of the photogrammetry that miss newer landmarks. It also massively improves night lighting.
Orbx’s London and Paris and SamScene3D’s Tokyo are all worth it for what they add on top of the photogrammetry and landmarks included by Asobo/Gaya.
They all have airports with approaches in which the photogrammetry really doesn’t cut it, and the same goes with Dubai.
The first World Update added Yokohama as well, but you can bet your shoes that I can’t wait for Orbx’s Yokohama city pack. I love the city and visited it often before the pandemic (and can’t wait to go back). and the photogrammetry really doesn’t do it justice. Considering a lot of Haneda’s SIDs fly right over the city’s most iconic district, I’m sure the city pack will have a lot of added value for me, and at the usual price they do, it’ll be worth it for me.
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Happened to me with London and Paris. Both from Orbx. Now with a Germany WU, I’m afraid Frankfurt from Orbx might also be affected. Not yet confirmed.
The packs still improve upon the new photogrammetry cities BUT not good enough anymore for me to spend money. But still not 100% wasted. Still better than payware airports which are absolutely wasted when WU’s do them.
Also strongly disagree with this. Even great developers like Gaya hold back a lot when they make world update airports.
Many elements are basically of default quality. For instance, jetways are completely default and normally not representative of the real airport, the overall level of detail is lower than what you would expect from a good payware airport, and the ground texture are nearly completely stock, with the bad-looking “aircraft shaped smudges” that show where aircraft from the aerial imagery have been hastily covered.
If I’m interested in an airport, I’d be still extremely willing to pay for a better payware version. For instance, I’d pay $25 for a good Tokyo Haneda right now, since the hand-crafted one doesn’t really cut it for me in terms of quality and details. The same goes for Stockholm Arlanda, and I’m very sad that the developer who was working on it (who is extremely good) isn’t sure whether they’ll finish it or not due to the world update.
Don’t get me wrong, I love world updates, and their content is great for the price of zero, but it doesn’t hold a candle to even mid-tier payware airports.
So…for some there are problems(and a lot i see) and for some they’re not.
I think i’ll stick with asobos scenery.
Money spent on something that cause problems,is wasted money
Uh? payware packages don’t cause any problem. Any redundancy is quickly removed by the developers.
Have i read wrong by the other guy who says he had problems ?
Likely they just meant that those packages have been made redundant (according to them) by the photogrammetry. That’s not a problem per se, just a personal perception of value.
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I don’t see how owning something and using it for months until Asobo release a world update there is a waste of money. Do you continue to play every game you have ever purchased, or do you finish them and move on? Why would it be any different here. It’s like ten dollars.
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It changes the value of my purchase.
I bought the add on with the knowledge that the default scenery looks that way and I wanted to spend money to improve it, only to find out that it will be improved for free anyway.
The cost is not relevant. It’s the fact that I made a purchase based on whatever price that was at the time based on the current situation in the game. I didn’t buy the scenery just to use it for “months”. I bought it thinking I would use it for as long as I wanted to.
Of course it’s not the same for everyone. But for me, if I knew that both London and Paris would get photogrammetry, I would never had considered buying the ORBX sceneries.
No product lasts forever.
And the fact that bespoke models are infinitely superior to photogrammetry and are not an alternative, so you can use both at the same time and get a much better result, is also a fact.
Hence, your purchase still has plenty of value.
I usually buy these because I don’t like how photogrammetry looks. I like to fly with autogen plus 3rd party city landmarks. I’m just waiting for someone to give New York and San Francisco a proper treatment
Yep still looks like a city in the desert
You can use it as long as you want it to, the only reason to stop would be if Asobo eventually put something out that was better and you chose to go with that instead. As somebody has just said as well, bespoke models are better than photogrammetry anyway so it’s unlikely to even be improved.
I guess I just find it a strange qualification to put on a piece of ten dollar payware that it must last for all time, when literally nothing else does. Are you never going to upgrade/buy a new PC again? Even MSFS won’t last forever…
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