XP12/11 HD Mesh Scenery v4 Now Available

HD Mesh v4 install notes / common gotchas (XP11/XP12)

Nice to see v4 getting some love again. For anyone grabbing this and wondering how to actually get the benefit (or why they don’t see any change), here are the practical bits that usually trip people up.

1) What HD Mesh v4 actually does
It’s a mesh replacement (terrain shape + landclass detail). It won’t add custom buildings/landmarks by itself, and it won’t “stack” with other meshes for the same tile.

2) You only install the tiles you need
You don’t have to download the full 117GB. Just grab the tiles covering where you fly.

3) Folder placement
Each extracted tile folder goes in:
X-Plane 11\Custom Scenery\
(or your XP12 Custom Scenery folder if you’re testing there)

Don’t leave it nested like:
Custom Scenery\zzz_hd_global_scenery4\zzz_hd_global_scenery4\Earth nav data\...
It should be one level deep (the scenery folder itself sitting directly in Custom Scenery).

4) scenery_packs.ini ordering (this is the big one)
X-Plane loads from top to bottom. Meshes need to be below airports/cities/overlays so they don’t “flatten” or suppress them.

General rule of thumb:

• Airports at/near the top (including custom airports)
• Overlays (like forests/roads/OSM overlays)
• HD Mesh v4 tiles down near the bottom
• Any other mesh products also near bottom, but remember: only one mesh per tile “wins”

So your HD Mesh entries usually belong above “Global Scenery” entries if those exist, but below overlays and airports.

5) Don’t mix multiple meshes for the same area
If you already use something like Ortho scenery that includes its own mesh, whichever is lower in the .ini will take priority. If you’re expecting HD Mesh detail but your Ortho mesh is winning (or vice versa), you’ll get confusing results.

6) Quick way to confirm it’s loading
After a flight loads, open:
X-Plane 11\Log.txt
and search for the HD Mesh folder name. You should see X-Plane listing the scenery packs it found and loaded.

A couple quick questions so I can steer you correctly

• Are you installing this into XP11 or XP12 right now?
• What other scenery is in the same region (Ortho tiles, overlays, simHeaven, etc.)?
• If you can paste the relevant section of your scenery_packs.ini (just the lines around the HD Mesh entries), I can tell you immediately if the order is the problem.