Attn: sgreenwood -- Thanks - One question here

[Guest]

Hi SteveThanks for posting the seattle area. I must have been using 90m source all this time. The detail of your 38 stuff is incredible!!! Ive got the rolling hills and true elevations. A truly different experience all together. I do have one question for you. The "Terrain Mesh Complexity" slider. I am not seeing one bit of difference between 20% setting and a 70% setting. I have always left this low because I could not tell any difference except for a teeny FPS gain at the lower settings. Can you elaborate on this if you get some time. Left my email at your site as I do wish to purchase the west coast mesh.Again, thanks so much for your time and effort. Happy 4thRegardsBobG

[Guest Heather 636]

I wholeheartedly agree. Looks great Steve! Thanks!Below are before and after shots.Perhaps others will, from these, take an interst in your other upcoming material.Cheers!Heather

[Guest sgreenwood]

Hi Bob and Heather, thanks for the support.It is surprising how much difference good mesh can make. I would like to think it can help make flight simulation attractive to a much broader audience. (More indulgent spouses, when they realize it may have educational value for the kids?) :)Bob, you may have noticed that there are no tips on my website "Tips" page yet. There are so many variables involved that affect the impact of any single setting that I want to do more testing and review the suggestions of others before sticking my neck out too far. I will give you my current impression regarding the "Terrain Mesh Complexity" slider, but welcome any clarifications.This slider adjusts the value of the TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR entry in FS2002.cfg, although this parameter uses a different range of numbers in the cfg file. The parameter name suggests the sim relaxes its effort to use all the information available to render the terrain, thus reducing the CPU processing load. It seems to reduce the accuracy most in the distance, less so in the foreground. I usually operate with values in the 85-100% range, and do see a change in the distance at which the detail falls off, as well as changes in FPS.But whether you see any changes in the distance depends on many factors. If details are not visible at 100%, you won't notice any loss of detail as you reduce the slider.As I understand it, textures in the foreground are made up of 256x256 bitmaps; as you move further from the aircraft, this resolution is reduced, in stages.The FS2002.cfg parameter TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS affects the use of these resolutions. The default value is 1, I suggest setting this to 4.Two other parameters affect the distances at which these transitions occur. I am not very clear about how these parameters work together, but it has been reported that the largest values the sim will use here are 9.9 TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.90000 (2.5 default)TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.90000 (4.0 default)TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES should be checked in the Scenery menu.TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21 (19 default) seems to increase the number of elevation points used, reducing the size of polygons, giving smoother curves and sharper peaks. The improvement is significant, but is only useful with 30m or better mesh. (And not everyone likes the smoothing effect.)The ruggedness of the terrain can also be a factor. Vertical surfaces often seem to be rendered with relatively higher resolution. I suggest using an area with both flat and variable terrain for testing.Video cards/drivers/settings are also important, but I am not going to try to tackle that issue here.Some final thoughts: Experiments, and compromises that accomodate personal preferences, are in order. It is important to take screenshots to compare the effects of changes in these settings. The sim makes changes to the FS2002.cfg file when it shuts down, so you often have to shut down before adjusting values in an editor. The sim may have overwritten the last change you made if the value was outside the acceptable range of values (but not always). Unfortunately, all this additional detail requires processing power. Hardware and drivers set the upper limits for all of us. Meanwhile, small FPS-friendly aircraft, flown slowly, with a low fixed FPS, help a lot. I am sure much of this is not new information for you, but perhaps some of it may help you get even more satisfaction from your use of the mesh.Stevewww.fs-traveler.com