Test machine specs: MSI X670E, AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX, 48gb RAM
Reviewed for: FS2024
Now that Tuwaiq’s online store is accepting foreign credit/debit cards — and their 50% product discount is ongoing — I decided to bag myself a few of their products. I had viewed the marketing images of Riyadh city and thought it looked ‘just okay’; but its inexpensive price tag, and a need for a city to go with Azrsim’s King Khalid airport, convinced me to buy.
DETAIL
I have to start by saying, Tuwaiq needs to fire its scenery photographer! The city in the sim looks much nicer than the marketing images suggest, and the scenery covers a far greater area than I expected. Sure, the dev could have included more low-rise buildings but everything of significance is here, and the Asobo autogen actually does a reasonable job of recreating an archetypal Middle Eastern desert settlement.
The buildings themselves are not super-high quality (not on the level of Orbx, for example) but they’re pretty good, and generally sit well with their surroundings. Their textures are mostly high-res (certainly higher than is typical for Samscene these days), and despite not having parallax interiors, they do mimic the effect convincingly, until you get really close. If you look hard enough, you’ll notice some slight repetition in these 2D interior effects but it’s not something that’ll immediately jump out at you.
The night-lighting is very attractive, if not overly garish. However, knowing 21st century Saudi Arabia, it probably accurately reflects reality! There are all sorts of aircraft hazard lights going off, and the timing is different for each building, which is a cool little effect few other devs think about. There’s one skyscraper (owned by a bank) that is only illuminated from certain angles, and judging by the consistency of the effect, I doubt it’s something coincidental.
PERFORMANCE
This area of the world is largely untouched by MSFS development so performance is, as expected, a non-issue (even with Azrsim’s nearby airport installed).
VERDICT
There are a small number of sceneries out there that can surprise even the most hardened sceptics and Tuwaiq’s Riyadh Landmarks v2 is one of them. I’ve not been this pleasantly surprised for a while. While it’s not at the same quality level as cities produced by Orbx, it’s not far behind. Texturing and detail are generally very good, and the structures blend reasonably well into the default terrain. Night-lighting is excellent, even if it is more ‘in yer face’ than the real-world city. The randomly blinking hazard lights really add an extra layer of immersion and I don’t (off the top of my head) recall seeing the effect so well done in any other city scenery.
The coverage goes way beyond what you see in the promo images, with a fair bit of hidden detail you really have to go a-hunting for.
At the current sale price, it’s a beautiful little add-on for anyone looking to build their Middle East experience — and for owners of Azrsim’s OERK, an absolute necessity since some of the airport’s approaches offer good views of the city.
