Test machine specs: MSI X670E, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX, 48gb RAM
I already had Digital Design’s Lyon and Salzburg while on Xbox and was quite impressed. I this week added their Sochi (review pending) from the Marketplace sale and was again impressed — so I decided to take a punt on this new, full-price airport.
DETAIL
While overall not quite on the level of Pyreegue or Jo Erlend Sund, there are similarities that make Pulkovo (as ULLI is also known) very comparable. The main terminal building is beautifully crafted and features a fabulous, almost-complete interior. In fact, the interior is one of the best of 2024 and easily matches anything done by either dev mentioned above. The exterior texture work is superb, being entirely high-res and featuring some very convincing weathering/wear-and-tear. The landside area is very well done, with custom roadways, ramps, signs, vehicles, static/animated people, and an assortment of typical fixed clutter. The parked vehicles gradually lose their quality as you move away from the terminal, eventually becoming those horrible default things — which to be fair are perfectly acceptable in areas likely to be less scrutinised.
Moving airside, the quality is again phenomenal — although I do feel the amount of clutter is slightly insufficient for the airport’s size. Still, what is here looks fantastic and we see a leaf’s been taken from the Erlend Sund/Marcus Nyberg book, with a good assortment of custom animated vehicle traffic. What does impress me is how every nook and cranny of this airport has been blessed with clutter — even areas well away from the majority of the action. Dotted around the airfield are a few static aircraft, placed so that they won’t interfere with your operations. They’re not the absolute best, quality-wise (they look a little dodgy really close up), but they are certainly good enough to serve their purpose.
Where this airport really shines is in its peripheral areas, which are crammed full of detail that equals the quality of the more prominent, airside areas. Hotels, supermarkets, malls, office blocks, warehouses, custom roads (with streetlights), interchanges… and of course many city details located some distance from the airport. It’s just a shame none of the approaches pass directly over the city but we obviously can’t blame the dev for that!
At night the airport looks just as good, with great lighting inside and out. The distant city is also lit, with several prominent landmarks strikingly visible from the airport. Of particular note is the city’s tallest building, the Lakhta Center, which flashes its bright yellow lights intermittently.
PERFORMANCE
In spite of the airport’s size, performance is excellent — likely helped by not being anywhere near a dense photogrammetry area. There is some quite aggressive LOD in places but that’s becoming increasingly common with these ultra-high detail airports. If that’s what it takes to make them run smoothly, I’m all for it!
VERDICT
I always said I’d avoid Russian airports due to the lack of real-world routes currently available to fly — but between Digital Design and Drzewiecki, we now have four top-quality Russian airports (Pulkovo, Domodedovo, Sochi and Sheremetyevo) and their respective cities. Besides, there are still many destinations outside Europe still offering connections to Russia, so it’s not like you’re severely limited unless you only fly Euro routes.
This scenery offers a great airport and a lot of the city of St. Petersburg. It’s clearly been designed around a freeware project by SkySorceress called ‘Landmarks of Saint-Petersburg and ULLY airfield and ULLQ heliport’ (available at flightsim.to), which it complements. I’m not actually sure what’s part of that free package and what’s not, however it appears that Digital Design’s landmarks are better quality, based on what I know for a fact is theirs.
I definitely recommend this scenery but it’s important to be aware of the current route limitations due to real-world events. Unless of course you fly your own way, not bound by the constraints of reality! ULLI is one of the best packages of 2024 so far, in just about every way, and has a very reasonable price tag considering what’s included.
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