Another area that is more demanding of our hardware with FSX can be found in the improved land textures and elevation data. I’ve found I can pretty much crank up the terrain features without worrying about performance problems, which is nice since they are quite nice. I don’t think anyone can debate that overall FSX land quality easily surpasses FS9. Again, there are always places and locations that don’t meet or exceed our expectations, and indeed some of the textures chosen for some areas are a bit questionable (the great mid-western desert phenomenon is a popular topic in the forums these days), but overall FSX does a better job of replicating terrain features to a higher level than FS9, resulting in a less “artificial” look and feel. I almost hate to state that as a real pilot, with many thousands of hours in the air, terrain and water palettes are much less vibrant in real life than in simulations, and FSX does a better job overall (except for sometimes overly blue water) with toning down the colors.