Learn the correct FSX scenery library order, from airports and regional scenery to landclass, photoreal coverage, mesh and default layers.
In FSX and FSX: Steam Edition, scenery at the top of the Scenery Library has the highest priority. Put specific add-on airports and their exclusions above city or regional packages, followed by landclass and vector scenery, photoreal coverage, and mesh. Keep FSX's main stock scenery block below the add-ons and in its original order.
Recommended FSX scenery library order
For most installations, use this order from highest priority to lowest.
| Priority | Scenery type | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 1, highest | Specific airports, airport corrections and exclusions | These must override older airport layouts, default objects and lower-priority scenery. |
| 2 | Airport companion scenery, cities and local landmarks | Keeps detailed local objects above broader regional coverage. |
| 3 | Regional scenery packages | Regional roads, objects and terrain changes should remain below individual airports. |
| 4 | Shared object libraries | They mainly need to be active. Placing them below the scenery that uses them is a tidy, conventional arrangement. |
| 5 | Landclass and vector scenery | These define broad ground texture placement, roads, water and coastlines. |
| 6 | Photoreal or resampled imagery | Local airport imagery may sit higher when its instructions require it; broad photographic coverage normally stays low. |
| 7 | Terrain mesh | Mesh supplies ground elevation and rarely needs to sit above airports or regional scenery. |
| 8, lowest | FSX stock regional and base scenery | Preserve the original relative order of Microsoft-supplied layers. |
This is a safe baseline, not a rule that every scenery type conflicts with every other type. Our breakdown of airport, regional, landclass and mesh add-ons explains what each category changes.
How does FSX scenery priority work?
FSX treats the library as a top-down priority stack when two active areas provide conflicting data of the same type. A higher airport can replace a lower airport record, while lower scenery continues supplying anything that has not been replaced.
Exclusion files must be above the scenery they are intended to remove. An exclusion in a lower layer cannot reliably remove buildings or features supplied by a higher layer. This is why moving only an airport's exclusion folder can produce duplicate terminals, runways or static objects.
Terrain systems behave differently. FSX normally favours the most detailed mesh available, even when that mesh is low in the library. Layer order is more relevant when meshes have comparable detail or overlapping package-specific data. AI traffic files and shared object libraries also gain little from being placed at the top; activation and duplicate files matter more.
What if an add-on contains several scenery folders?
Keep a multi-folder add-on in the relative order specified by its documentation, even when that differs from the general list above. Packages may separate airports, exclusions, 3D objects, libraries, imagery and elevation corrections because each component needs a particular position.
For example, the documented internal sequence for NL2000 v4 places airports above traffic, 3D scenery, libraries and resampled maps. That sequence applies to that package; it is not a universal instruction for unrelated add-ons.
Do not merge every supplied scenery folder into one directory. Apart from making removal difficult, that can separate textures from their BGL files and destroy the layering intended by the developer.
How do I change the FSX scenery order safely?
Use FSX's Scenery Library rather than manually renumbering entries in scenery.cfg.
- Back up the active configuration. Save a copy of
scenery.cfgbefore a large reorganisation. Boxed FSX and Steam Edition can store their configuration in different user-profile locations. - Open the library. From the FSX settings screen, open Scenery Library. The top entry is the highest-priority entry.
- Move complete package groups. Use the Move Up and Move Down controls, preserving the add-on's own internal order.
- Check every entry. Confirm that it is enabled and points to the correct parent folder. If an area is absent or its path is wrong, follow our FSX scenery installation and activation checks before rearranging other layers.
- Apply and restart FSX. Allow the scenery database to rebuild, then restart the simulator before testing the affected airport or region.
Should terrain mesh be above airports?
No; terrain mesh normally belongs below airports, regional scenery, landclass and photoreal layers. A high-resolution mesh can still be selected from a low library position because FSX considers mesh detail as well as layer priority.
Moving mesh repeatedly is therefore a poor fix for a raised or sunken airport. The usual cause is a missing airport flatten, an elevation-correction file or another airport BGL. See our guidance on choosing and layering global mesh when combining several terrain products.
What causes duplicate or sunken airports after reordering?
The symptom usually identifies which part of the scenery stack is conflicting.
- Duplicate runways or terminals: two add-ons probably contain airport or AFCAD data for the same ICAO code. Disable the older conflicting add-on rather than deleting the stock airport.
- Default buildings remain visible: the add-on's exclusion layer is missing, disabled or below the scenery it must exclude.
- Sunken airport or plateau: an elevation correction or flatten is missing or in the wrong place. Leave correction files where the package installed them, including
Scenery\World\scenerywhen the instructions deliberately use that folder. - Missing terminals or objects: a required object library or texture folder is absent. Moving the library to priority 1 rarely fixes missing files.
- Incorrect coastlines, roads or water: competing vector or regional scenery is active. Reordering an airport alone will not resolve that conflict.