Need Help With Square Lines At The Horizon And Water Texture...looked Everywhere!

[Guest saturno_v]

Hello GuysI did search everywhere for answers before posting and I cannot come up with any solution. It is very frustrating, and I posted the same message in other forums as well, hoping to find some advice.My rig is a Gateway gaming laptop (Core 2 Duo 2.26 Ghz, 3 MB cache, 4 GB RAM, NVIDIA 9800M GTS 512 MB, 320 GB 7200 rpm HD) and I have no problem reaching 90 fps+ with complex planes (I can land with 100% add-on traffic in complex add-on airport without going under 40 FPS) so performance is not a problem.The problem is not matter how I try, I still have square lines toward the horizon, especially on water, as soon as I reach 15-20.000 ft of altitudeIt does this with any plane. I use Active Sky for sky textures and clouds. I use a free replacement water, a bit oldThese are my screenshots:These are my settings in FS9.cfgUPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=40TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=96.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.800000 TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.80000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4[sCENERY]IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5DYNAMIC_SCENERY=1DYN_SCN_DENSITY=5DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1SUNGLARE=1LENSFLARE=1My sight distance is set to max (150 miles/240 km)I tried to rise the texture bandwidth to 800 with no results whatsoever.I changed the MIP mapping level from 8 to 4 and back to no avail. None. The lowering of the MIP settings I thought it should reduce the "blinking" of certain textures at some airports and in some situations...in my case it didn't help that much in that regard.In the portion of less defined water texture beyond the square line I can see an annoying white caps "blinking" as you can see it in the second screenshot.My questions are:1) There is any way I can get rid of these demarcation lines or reduce them? It is a structural limitation of FS2004 I have to live with or something is wrong with my system? I recall looking at some screenshots from other users at cruising altitude without noticing these square lines.2) There is any free utility that makes the horizon line less sharp (like in real life) regardless of the texture you use for water, land and sky and weather settings (I mean even in clear skies)??3) What is the best freeware water I can use?4) What is the ideal sight distance setting? Mine is too high?Finally, my last issue is with my new LCD monitor (30") my wife just bought for me.When I am on external view or tower view, the screen shows frequently some annoying flickering band across the center of the screen...not a specific texture blinking (it does it with any scenery, default or add-on), just the kind of flickering you get from wrong frequency setting in a CRT monitor...but this flickering doesn't affect the 2D panel or the aircraft surface (when in external view)..it seems to appear only for the surrounding environment and, again, it's not constant...if I switch view often or turn around often it disappear to reappear shortly after.The monitor doesn't have this problem at all outside of flight simulator useDo you think it could be some sort of signal interference with the VGA cable?? Switching to a HDMI cable may help??I apologize for the long post but I'm getting very frustrated and I hope someone can help with these problemsThank you in advance for any suggestion you may have!Regards

[Guest belga1]

Hello,

My sight distance is set to max (150 miles/240 km)

What is the ideal sight distance setting? Mine is too high?

Reduce the sight distance.(30-60 miles)

There is any free utility that makes the horizon line less sharp

Make a search on Avsim with words "soft horizon"

What is the best freeware water I can use?

Search Avsim with the word "Real environment Pro"

Finally, my last issue is with my new LCD monitor (30") my wife just bought for me

Wife is always source of problems ... Cheers.

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

Everyone has had these lately, including myself. I'm not sure what the real fix is for it, but I'm fairly sure Windows XP SP3 did it, as FS is not the only graphic intensive program that has taken a hit to graphics quality since then. The Sims 2 and Half-Life 2 have been behaving strangely on my system since the hard lines have appeared on my system. I used to run sliders at full with no noticeable problems on my system and now I get artifacts such as that, including strange white shimmering bands at the lower edges of my screen when I'm on the ground in small aircraft such as the Cessna 172 or Cessna 206. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to get rid of SP3 without fully wiping my system to see if the change solves anything.

[Nightflier101BL 11]

Let's see if I can help for once....I used to have these problems too. I think it's just an issue with FS where it just can't display sharp resolutions too far away. So here is what I did ( it may work for you). Some things I'm going to list here my not have any relation to the problem, just I'm listing everything I have with visibility settings. I'm also using FS2004. I have an old system with an Athlon FX-57 cpu, Nvidia 7900 GTX 512, 2 gigs RAM. I am also a real-world pilot and can vouch for settings as they do look this way in real life ( give or take some small details)First, in FSUIPC (I'm using version 3.80), under the visiblity tab, check "appy visibility limits" and use clear-2900/cloudy-2900/overcast-2000/rainy-1800. Check visibility smoothing options to change 10% every 2 seconds (or whatever you prefer).In the simulator set sight distance to 60mi, cloud draw to 50mi, 3-D clouds to 100%, and cloud coverage to maximum.In ActiveSky, under visibility check ----visibility smoothing, enforce visibility limits, fog layer generation (personal pref), and haze layer (personal pref), minimum visibility 0, and maximum 30In your FS9.cfg, ( I'm just pasting the relevant info here)MAX_UNLIMITED_VIS=96560CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=53D_CLOUD_PERCENT=100DETAILED_CLOUDS=1CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=8CloudsImpostorRingRadius=80000.000000[Display]Mode=1280x1024x32RenderToTexture=0TriLinear=1TableFog=0[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=35TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=120TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=8[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4[GRAPHICS]FULL_SCREEN=1PERFORMANCE_MODE=0DEF_PERF_MODE=6TEXT_SCROLL=1AUTO_LOD=0DETAIL_TEXTURE=2WATER_EFFECTS=0TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_MAP=1TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_OBJECTS=1EFFECTS_QUALITY=2GROUND_SHADOWS=0SMOOTH_VIEW=1IMAGE_SMOOTHING=1TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=2048 (you have to watch this one, since it likes to default back to 1024 now and then. I use it to alleviate some stuttering issues)COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=1LANDING_LIGHTS=1IMAGE_QUALITY=0TEXTURE_BLDG=1TEXTURE_GND=1TEXTURE_WATER=1AIRCRAFT_TEXTURE=2SEE_SELF=1TEXTURE_QUALITY=3LOD_TARGET_FPS=24NUM_LIGHTS=8And then finally, in when I'm sitting in the cockpit, I like to change all my view distances (all except the forward view) to zoom out to .75 - this is more realistic looking. Then once at altitude, I'll zoom out the forward view, but always back to normal for landing.I'm also using GEPro ground textures if that makes a difference.Hope this helpsRobertPS- let me know if this helps you. By the way I'm not using SP3.

[microlight 0]

Download John Cillis' Soft Horizons - it will deal with the hard horizon line. Also, make sure that you've got the 'extended terrain textures' box ticked in settings/scenery - that might help.;)

[Guest belga1]

Hello,

but I'm fairly sure Windows XP SP3 did it

XP SP3 had nothing to do with the enumerated problems by the original poster ....I use FS2004 under XP SP3 myself and all is perfect !BTW I give some good solutions in my first answer ... this up to the original poster to use them or not.Regards.

[out 769]

I haven't found a way to get rid of SP3 without fully wiping my system to see if the change solves anything.

John, I've just uninstalled SP3 after having my inbuilt (Realtek HD) sound card problems. I couldn't be heard while flying on VATSIM.It helped. What I did was just the uninstall (from the Control Panel) and then of course redownload and reinstall of all crucial Windows updates.Best regards,Rafal

[JET 1 0]

XP SP3 had nothing to do with the enumerated problems by the original poster ....I use FS2004 under XP SP3 myself and all is perfect !BTW I give some good solutions in my first answer ... this up to the original poster to use them or not.

Yes I also will have to say that unfortunately SP3 uninstall or any other "magic trick" will not cure this, as there is nothing to be "cured".That is the way the sim works folks, a fact that has been repeated numerous times on this and other forums.The "lines" or "the cross" is simply the way FS9 handles distant textures and scenery. The only major effect is whether you have "extended terrain textures" ticked or not.It can be minimized a little by unrealistically low sight distance settings or soft horizons etc but it simply will not fully go away or even become more diffuse.

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

I never used to have the cross. I have screen shots from a year ago and I have smooth transitions in them clear to the horizon. I first noticed it on my system after SP3 installed and noticed that several games have been taking an extraordinary amount of time to load and like to dump textures. I cannot say for certain that SP3 is specifically the culprit as it is all circumstantial evidence at best, but at the moment, it seems to be the primary suspect in my search for a fix. This problem seems to be coming a frequent topic lately, along with the OOM errors that lead me to wonder if there is some other common issue at hand. I've also installed a new graphics card around February, an nVidia 8800GT, and newer nVidia cards seem to be a common mention in the threads, perhaps that plays into it, though I do not recall myself having this issues after installing it.