Flightbeam Studios

KDEN Denver International for FSX and P3D

By Thomas Jones - In Partnership with Flightsimglobal.com

i7-2600K turboboost to 4.6ghz | Nvidia ASUS GTX580 1.5gb | 16gb 1600mhz RAM | 2x 1TB HDD | Windows 7 64 bit

Intro:

Denver International Airport is located in Denver, Colorado in the United States. It has the reputation of being the largest airport in the United States based on area covered. Denver also hosts the United States' longest runway available for the public. Frontier Airlines, United Airlines, and Great Lakes Airlines all hold hubs at Denver International. In 2013, Denver was named the fifteenth busiest airport worldwide. The airport is located twenty-five miles Northeast of the city of Denver.

Flightbeam Studios has chosen Denver International Airport as its fourth scenery for FSX and Lockheed Martin's Prepar3d. Their last scenery was Washington Dulles International, and Denver is a major upgrade from that already incredibly detailed airport. The list of features is as follows:

Stunning 2048x2048 High Definition textures throughout airport

Flightbeam Version 3 Active Jetways

Custom terrain, depicting slopes and dips between taxiways

Completely custom ultra realistic see through windows with dirt, reflections and smudges

Custom animated vehicles

3d grass throughout airport

Animated runway guard hold short lights

Nearly 12,000 acres (50sq/km) of custom buildings/textures!

Special environmental effects such as water puddles and lamp glows

High tech optimization for best performance

Static aircraft models throughout the airport

.. and MUCH more

Installation: Flightbeam's airports have, and continue to be easy to install for anyone. Simply run the .exe file, and start FSX when complete. Once in FSX, go to the Addon Manager and enter the activation code for Denver. All done!

What is included in the package? Well.... a lot! Just from the list in the introduction, one can see

that Denver is an impressive package right there. Once in the simulator,

Denver becomes so much more. It becomes such an immersive

experience unlike any other. When starting at a gate, I instantly noticed

I was able to see inside the terminal. This was not just a fancy effect

from a 2D texture. The terminal interior is actually modeled to a

reasonable extent! Not the whole interior is modeled, only the parts

you would see from the ramp. As a result, as you taxi around the

terminal area the view of the interior changes. A spectacular touch.

The jetways are quite an impressive sight, too. They have a vast

amount of detail modeled on them, but not only that, they move to

your aircraft too! The facilities around the gates are equally detailed

with all of the proper markings and equipment present, right down to

the stopping locations for different aircraft types. Also present around

the airport are a variety of trucks, trailers, baggage carts, catering

vehicles, cars, and much more for you to discover!

On the North side of the terminals, Flightbeam placed two 727s,

one of which is a former FedEx Express aircraft. After a quite check of

Google Earth I saw that those aircraft are actually there. Nice to see this

kind of detail being represented.

The cargo ramp is not forgotten either. A couple of FedEx aircraft

models sit on the ramp with cargo containers and a few custom objects

around them. So if you are a cargo sim pilot, then add Denver to your

destination list!

The main building for Denver, the Jeppesen Terminal, is arguably

one of the most unique airport terminals on Earth. If you have no idea

what it looks like, just imagine a very large, white tent with many

points. Looking at the Flightbeam's rendition of the Jeppesen Terminal

in comparison to pictures of the real one, it is easy to tell Flightbeam did

an immaculate job at recreating this unique structure.

At night, the Flightbeam team really show their skills. To me,

someone who doesn't know the first thing about developing scenery

from scratch, the night lighting seems like it would be the most difficult

thing to do. Each light around the airport must be accounted for and

the objects around them must be lit up appropriately. Not to mention

the lighting around the terminals. Denver looks absolutely stunning at

night. The lighting is so subtle and lifelike that I had a hard time

believing this was in an eight year old simulator (yes, it's been that

long). I normally don't fly in FS at night, but I may have to start after

looking at Denver.

Blending with surrounding scenery is spot on. Initially, I saw that

the terrain around the airport was mismatched with the area outside of

the scenery. It turns out that on Flightbeam's site, there is a download

for new terrain textures that line up with ORBX's FTX Global, which is

what I have installed, hence the mismatch. The first texture set is for

default FSX terrain. Both sets of terrain blend seamlessly with their

surroundings, when the proper one is used. The terrain around the

airport is also varied in elevation. You will find many dips and shallow

areas around the airport grounds, just not on the taxiways or runways,

which is an FSX issue for AI traffic to work properly. Finally, the most

impressive thing I noticed, was that when it rains in FSX, puddles

actually form on the airport grounds. Impressive stuff!

Performance Like I seem to say in all of my reviews, with this level of detail one would expect a deterioration in performance. Again, like usual, the answer is not at all. Performance at Flightbeam's Denver International is superb. I managed to run the 2048x2048 textures, the PMDG NGX, my AI traffic (World of AI), and still maintain a frame rate above twenty-five frames-per-second. A lovely experience. For my system, there seemed to be a bit of minor pop-up in the object loading. What I mean is, as I got closer to a specific location, the items there would suddenly appear. This is an inherent issue with FSX, and the addon manager that comes with Denver has a slider to counter-act the popup to some extent.

Overall: Flightbeam Studio's Denver International Airport is their greatest airport yet. The airport fits seamlessly with its surroundings, lighting is fantastic, performance is spectacular, and the detail is phenomenal. I find it hard to believe that this is the ancient FSX we have come to know and love/hate. Flightbeam has impressed again, and as long as they continue the trend I see great things in the future for both them and the simming community.