Best FSX Steam Edition graphics add-ons for Seattle/PNW on a budget?

Seattle/PNW on a budget (FSX:SE) – what I’d do

If you’re on a laptop with limited storage, the trick is to buy stuff that gives you the most “wow” in a small area, and avoid huge regions unless you’re sure you’ll use them a lot.

1) Start with a good airport (small download, big visual gain)
If you spend money anywhere, spend it on the airport you actually fly out of (Seattle-Tacoma, Boeing Field, etc.). A quality payware airport usually transforms the whole experience because you’re always seeing it up close (taxi, takeoff, landing), and it won’t eat your drive like an entire region would.

2) Then add a regional scenery only if you’ll really use it
ORBX-type regional packages look great in the PNW, but they can take a good chunk of disk space and they also add workload to the sim (which matters on a laptop). If you mostly fly around Seattle and nearby, a single airport + a couple of targeted upgrades can be a better “budget per FPS” choice than installing a whole region.

3) Cheapest visual upgrade: water/sky/clouds (no scenery required)
Before dropping big money on scenery, you can get a lot of “graphics improvement” by improving the atmosphere:

• Better cloud textures / sky colors (big change, usually minimal hassle).
• Reasonable weather settings (cloud draw distance and layers can murder laptop FPS if set too high).
• Autogen and scenery complexity tuned for your machine.

Those tweaks don’t need huge storage and often make default terrain feel much more alive.

4) Keep the laptop happy (a few practical settings)
In FSX:SE, going too aggressive on sliders can turn even good add-ons into stutters. For PNW flying, I’d focus on these first:

1. Keep Autogen one notch lower than you think you want (trees/buildings are a big FPS hit).
2. Don’t max Scenery Complexity on a laptop.
3. Watch AI traffic—it’s a silent performance killer around Seattle.
4. Use moderate cloud settings (dense overcast is hard on FSX).

5) Storage strategy
If your laptop drive is tight:

• Favor single airports over whole regions.
• Only install the areas you’ll fly (some products let you choose coverage; some don’t).
• If you have an external drive, that can be an option for scenery, but performance can vary depending on the drive/USB speed.

A couple quick questions so I can point you at the best “bang for buck” option

1. Which airport(s) do you fly out of most in the Seattle/PNW area (KSEA, KBFI, etc.)?
2. What are your laptop specs (CPU, RAM, and GPU if you know it)?
3. How much free disk space do you have right now?
4. Are you aiming for airliners, GA/VFR flying, or a mix?

Answer those and I’ll steer you toward the most sensible purchase path for your setup (and the least painful on FPS and storage).