Anyone use Ground Environment Pro?

[Squishy 0]

can you post your .cfg and a screenie of amsterdam etc?

[Squishy 0]

There's nothing wrong with my PC though (besides it being too slow). My card can never run so much FSAA and AF....But my problem is that the textures look like crap even when i max all the settings (+8x AF).. :S...

[Squishy 0]

bump

[Guest TomOOO]

Just my 2p worthOne of the problems of GEpro (which I think is a really excellentaddon), is what level of expectation, and does require some tweakingto get the best out of.1) It really does benefit from a graphics card that allows somereasonable level of AF. My cheapo ATI X600 can only hit x2 AF,but it still OK. If you can increase your AF value then you canincrease your MIPS setting, and the distant textures look sharper.This you have to experiment with - increase AF until fps starts todrop - then set back to best you can have. Then increase MIPSsetting until you get shimmer. ALso use bi or tri linear filtering.2) As already noted, these setting are importantTERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.0000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1though I use 0/9/4.5 and 4 respectively, though altstiff's recommendation is OK, I think increasing the last to 3, 4 or 5 depending on the FSB speed of your computer.3) I found that I had to set my LOD to 19metres to get a reallysharp image, you do this with the followng line. The sharpnessof the GEpro textures appears less with worse LOD values. Inote that altstiff shows this in in fs9.cfgTERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21 4)Expectation : well - the view is always subjective and drawingpictures of scenery is difficult on a computer. Next year'scomputers and with FSX patched a few more times we will start to see LOD values down to a couple of metre - then it will be fantastic. For now enjoy what we have - 19 meter resolution. GEpro looks good from about 2000 feet and above, and really stands out at 3000 feet. These altitudes we are talking about VFRflight. Below these heights you are landing or taking off soshould be concentrating or have your eyes closed. For low level helicopter practice I use the blue sky scenerywhich is really high resolution photographic scenery.Lastly, looking at the attachment picture...1) You don't seam to have AA on, you have jaggies - this couldthe resolution of the jpg though. You have an ATI 9600 which iscertainly better than my ATI X600, so you should be easily go withboth AF and AA at x4 or x8. The distance looks over sharp, haveyou got shimmer. You could also try reducing view distance to about 60 miles, you don't often see futher than this anyway ina plane. RegardsTom

[Squishy 0]

Ey thanks for your post!To begin with, my 9600pro is certainly not better than your X600, in fact, a X600 is a 9600 pro with PCI-X.Im using 2x AF, and was using 2x FSAA too, i turned the FSAA off to see if im GPU or CPU limited at current settings.I'll give your CFG settings a try!:)

[Squishy 0]

Well it seems i was already using the CFG values you posted..Im getting 10fps with cockpit hidden on 2xAA and 4x AF on the default schiphol runway.Can you post a screenie of the same position? and maybe one of flying above amsterdam?thanks

[orbmis 9]

>>>3) I found that I had to set my LOD to 19metres to get a>really>sharp image, you do this with the followng line. The>sharpness>of the GEpro textures appears less with worse LOD values. I>note that altstiff shows this in in fs9.cfg>TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21 >>Hello,I recall reading a while back that the MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL was determined as a result of the corresponding mesh level. I beleive it was along the lines of... 9.9 mesh = max vertex 2119.2 mesh = max vertex 20 38 mesh = max vertex 19Is this still the generally approved method, or have new studies shown that the max vertex should be set to 21 regardless of the installed mesh?Thanks for the update,orbmis

[Holger 0]

Hi orbmis,actually, the correct corresponding values areTMVL21 = 19mTMVL20 = 38mTMVL19 (default value) = 76mWhat TMVL does is force the terrain near the user aircraft into a specific grid size, with the meter value corresponding to the lat/long mesh distance between grid points, regardless of the mesh file resolution available for that area. Farther away from the user FS automatically switches to lower LOD values (wider grid spacing); think of it as a ring of concentric circles.Thus, if you don't have any high-res add-on mesh then setting TMVL to higher than 19 doesn't provide any advantage. In fact, setting TMVL to 21 requires more CPU/GPU work and thus may influence performance and also has a couple of negative side effects, like occasional squared-off terrain shadows.The only potential advantage of a higher TMVL setting is that it also influences the maximum gradient of flattened areas, like road flattens or stream indentations. However, airport flatten edges may actually look worse with higher values because the adjacent slopes become more defined.I tend to keep TMVL at 20 (since I'm using 38-m add-on mesh for many areas) unless an add-on specifically requires a value of 21 or 19.Cheers, Holger

[Guest TomOOO]

OK, after some delay, here are some requested pictures aboveAmststerdam (Schiphol) - I have added the position marking soyou look at the same viewGEproUT-Europehttp://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t252/TomOOOO/sh1.jpg

[Guest TomOOO]

An my browser crashed half way through that upload, so working from a different computer so can't editthe last post - so here are some moreTom

[Squishy 0]

thanks for the picsI guess things look the same now, i noticed that when i use spot view and zoom all the way out, it looks great: