hi everyone, I've been having this problem with FSX for years now and it has finally gotten on my last nerve. I use Radar contact and had an approach into KSAT (san antonio) last night. After the final assigned vector heading, I was unable to spot the airport with clear skies. I have spent 15 minutes searching avsim and google, however I can't seem to find anything. How can I make FSX draw its airports (runways in particular) farther out than 18nm? For example..using default KLAX, clear skies, approaching from the west over the pacific..within 40nm I can see an empty green patch of land where the airport will exist..then when I reach exactly 17.9nm to the LAX Vortac the runway texture and other static scenery such as buildings pop up suddenly...then at 11.9nm the aprons kick in, 9.5nm the Papi lights and taxi ways appear. And only when I am at 3.5 nm away the actual runway markings and threshold appear. Is this something that everyone will just have to live with forever? Is there something I can change in the fsx.cfg? It happens on the highest scenery setting and also the lowest. It also happens at the nearby Santa Monica municipal. I am using dx10 but it appears that this happens in dx9 too. Also i am using unlimited FPS and have only added a few things to the config such as the affinity mask, LOD = 8.5, bufferpools at 400000000. I have an I7 cpu with a Nvidia Gtx 280. Any suggestions? I would love for the runway outline to show a little bit sooner...perhaps 25nm out. Or would that be unrealistic? Thanks for your time

I don't know the answer to your issue, but it's the same for me and I'll be looking to see if there is a control for this. In the meanwhile, lowering your visibility to about 40 or 30km can help make it not so noticable. I just let my eyes get fooled a bit, but then I only have a modest video card and system.

Hello frostlp , I like your avatar :(

That's something I don't like in FSX as well: Even with all sliders maxed, buildings pop out of the nowhere when I'm "almost there" and make a city where a few miles further out only a desert was visible - very nasty!Andreas

The magic number your after is "LOD_RADIUS=" in your FSX config file but it can bring your machine to its knees pretty darned quick if you increase it. Your aircraft in FSX flies in a series of concentric bubbles as scenery penetrates each bubble more detail is added. So if you increase the size of the "LOD_RADIUS" you are going to put a lot more strain on an application that is already texture load bound. This gets particularly bad when you visit an airport that has other airports nearby and there are plenty of those. Just put up with it and blame it on smog or dust or whatever you fancy. BTW I have actually been flying (RW) on a cloudless day and not been able to identify my local airfield at five miles out (we have dirt runways which don't help). :(

It's been really frustrating, especially with large aircrafts like pmdg's searching for visual contact to make the turn onto finals. ATC (Radar contact) had already set me up perfectly. If the underlying texture (which fsx loads first) is grey where the airport sits, it can be a nightmare determining the general direction of the airport in an urban area..and by the time that I have visuals I have already overshot it completely. When Im searching for airports, I look for that underlying texture (either grey, green, or brown) as I know an airport will be there..and it can be really confusing if there are several airports nearby. Perhaps this is realistic? Is it really hard to spot airports within an urban area? I know i can just use the navigational display in the 767/747 or use ILS, however I like to use raw data on a perfectly clear day with good visibility.Btw, I already have the LOD radius in the config at 8.5..and it helps greatly with the blurry textures in the distant. Everything looks fantastic without any kind of huge drop in FPS. My only problem is with the airports, I wish that fsx would draw the outline and the outline of the runways a little bit sooner so I can make my approach correctly.Oh..and let me add that I also 98% of the time use the zoom factor of .30-.40 in the cockpit. When im searching, I zoom pretty much all the way in and it can a headache. Am I just going about it the wrong way? What procedures do you use for this limitation of FSX?

It's been really frustrating, especially with large aircrafts like pmdg's searching for visual contact to make the turn onto finals. ATC (Radar contact) had already set me up perfectly. If the underlying texture (which fsx loads first) is grey where the airport sits, it can be a nightmare determining the general direction of the airport in an urban area..and by the time that I have visuals I have already overshot it completely. When Im searching for airports, I look for that underlying texture (either grey, green, or brown) as I know an airport will be there..and it can be really confusing if there are several airports nearby. Perhaps this is realistic? Is it really hard to spot airports within an urban area? I know i can just use the navigational display in the 767/747 or use ILS, however I like to use raw data on a perfectly clear day with good visibility.Btw, I already have the LOD radius in the config at 8.5..and it helps greatly with the blurry textures in the distant. Everything looks fantastic without any kind of huge drop in FPS. My only problem is with the airports, I wish that fsx would draw the outline and the outline of the runways a little bit sooner so I can make my approach correctly.Oh..and let me add that I also 98% of the time use the zoom factor of .30-.40 in the cockpit. When im searching, I zoom pretty much all the way in and it can a headache. Am I just going about it the wrong way? What procedures do you use for this limitation of FSX?

You'd be suprised how hard it can be sometimes to find an airport in the middle of a bigger city. Roads and highways all look similar to runways from a ways out, so I think that it is somewhat realistic.

You'd be suprised how hard it can be sometimes to find an airport in the middle of a bigger city. Roads and highways all look similar to runways from a ways out, so I think that it is somewhat realistic.

I agree-way too easy in fs to find runways.

I agree-way too easy in fs to find runways.

Are you ever going to give me something to disagree with you about Geof?