There has to be something said for ORBX's coined 'texture flow'.I just cranked my last hold-out from Very Dense (in Auto-Gen) to Extremely Dense.The added detail is worth the 2 FPS hit it cost me to do it. :) I'm now running around at about 28 average instead of staying mostly at 30 FPS.I have a question for ORBX. Did you map out this scenery to be seen/used with full detail at VERY DENSE, or do you have to go to Extremely Dense to see all it all?. What I am asking, is do you have all the elements in Very Dense but with just MORE or them showing if you use Extremely Dense, or does ONLY the E.D. setting 'give it all'?ThanksMitch POST EDIT: I just went back to VERY DENSE. Things look right, mountain ranges, etc. It didn't look right at E.D. I'll stick with Very Dense. Thanks

Hi guys,Mitch, there's nothing special about the way autogen is handled in FSX PNW. Just like everywhere else in FSX moving the autogen density slider a notch to the left removes 20% of the autogen in a more or less random fashion, with Extremely Dense giving 100%. Thus, at Very Dense you get 80%, at Dense 60%, etc.For those of you who have difficulties with autogen building densities in urban areas I'd recommend trying a lower value for TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL in fsx.cfg. TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL is a "hard cap" meaning it limits the total number of buildings displayed in one land class cell (~1.4 sq km). To find a good value for your system you need to consider two things: (1) as mentioned above the autogen density slider removes 20% of the overall autogen density with each slider notch to the left. (2) even the most dense urban areas don't have more than 1300 building annotations per cell. Thus, at Dense you'd only see 1300*0.6=780 buildings to begin with and a MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS value of anything greater would have no effect.If, for example, you'd like to keep the autogen slider at Very Dense while reducing building density by a third in urban areas the equation would be 1300*0.8=1040 and 1040*0.66=686 meaning your MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS parameter should be at about 700. Moreover, since most rural areas only have a few hundred buildings per tile to begin with you don't lose building density in the rural areas.With my elderly Q6600 rig I use a value of 600 and an autogen density slider setting of Very Dense and the big cities work fine and still look great.Cheers, Holger

Mike, I have a bum mini-stick on a Saitak x52 throttle that makes the cursor scroll down. I have to hold it off-center so I can select the FSX profile from the profiler menu where it is set to 'Not Programmed'. Maybe I'll dump some alcohol on it. jja

Hi jja - That sounds like an old problem on the early X-52s. I've had them from the beginning - have 2 now. The way I got around it was to disable the mini stick through the WinXp Control Panel. I'll have to check at home (in library now) to see how I did and will report back - probably tomorrow. Howard

With my elderly Q6600 rig I use a value of 600 and an autogen density slider setting of Very Dense and the big cities work fine and still look great.Cheers, Holger

Hi Holger - First off - thanks for your fantastic work - and I haven't even received my DVD edition yet which I pre ordered.... I'm sure I'll love it.I was wondering what value you use or suggest for the tree tweak (lots of nice trees in PNW pics I've seen)? My system is also elderly but I do enjoy FTX Australia with it.Thanks Howard

Hi Holger - First off - thanks for your fantastic work - and I haven't even received my DVD edition yet which I pre ordered.... I'm sure I'll love it.I was wondering what value you use or suggest for the tree tweak (lots of nice trees in PNW pics I've seen)? My system is also elderly but I do enjoy FTX Australia with it.Thanks Howard

Don't tweak the autogen setting for trees. Try different settings in FSX and find out what settings that gives you the best trade off. I use very dense for PNW. If this setting doesn't give you a smooth flight over an urban are, then reduce the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL setting in fsx.cfg until you get a smooth flight. Don't bother with fps. Just check if your flight is smooth or not.

Hello Howard,I did some formal testing on the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS and MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES parameters recently and it turns out that they behave differently. MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES can also act as a hard cap but in most cases it doesn't. It depends on the way the tree annotations were placed with the FSX SDK autogen tool. This tool gives the devloper an option whether to place larger boxes, which the sim then fills with trees at random locations, or with individual small boxes that place only one or a few trees at specific locations. Usually, the small boxes are used in urban and agricultural areas where it's important that the autogen trees get placed on the individual tree crowns shown in the ground texture.The testing showed that the sim ignores MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES if there are more individual boxes than the value set for MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES. In other words, if an urban tile has 2000 trees and your MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is at 1000 then you'll still see 2000 trees (at Extremely Dense autogen slider setting).Moreover, if there are ovelapping boxes (a common method to place more than one tree species in an area) then the MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is additive for each box, meaning two boxes = double the tree density, etc. In short, it seems as if the best approach is to use the autogen slider to establish a tree density that works for your system and then the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS parameter as described in my previous post should urban areas still cause problems. You can experiment with a lower value of MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES, say 500 or 1000, but it's unlikely you'll see much of a difference, at least not in urban and agricultural areas.By the way, all this isn't specific to FTX PNW; the two parameters behave the same everywhere in the sim.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: Interestingly, I also discovered that due to this behavior with MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES there is no maximum value for tree density in FSX. According to information from ACES the maximum value of MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is 6000. However, given that this parameter is ignored when there are more annotation boxes I've been able to place 10,000 or even 20,000 trees per 1.4 sq km tile in my test area :( While that is close to a realistic tree density in real-world forests it's also rather academic because at that density even the best hardware takes a nap :(

Hello Howard,I did some formal testing on the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS and MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES parameters recently and it turns out that they behave differently. MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES can also act as a hard cap but in most cases it doesn't. It depends on the way the tree annotations were placed with the FSX SDK autogen tool. This tool gives the devloper an option whether to place larger boxes, which the sim then fills with trees at random locations, or with individual small boxes that place only one or a few trees at specific locations. Usually, the small boxes are used in urban and agricultural areas where it's important that the autogen trees get placed on the individual tree crowns shown in the ground texture.The testing showed that the sim ignores MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES if there are more individual boxes than the value set for MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES. In other words, if an urban tile has 2000 trees and your MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is at 1000 then you'll still see 2000 trees (at Extremely Dense autogen slider setting).Moreover, if there are ovelapping boxes (a common method to place more than one tree species in an area) then the MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is additive for each box, meaning two boxes = double the tree density, etc. In short, it seems as if the best approach is to use the autogen slider to establish a tree density that works for your system and then the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS parameter as described in my previous post should urban areas still cause problems. You can experiment with a lower value of MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES, say 500 or 1000, but it's unlikely you'll see much of a difference, at least not in urban and agricultural areas.By the way, all this isn't specific to FTX PNW; the two parameters behave the same everywhere in the sim.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: Interestingly, I also discovered that due to this behavior with MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES there is no maximum value for tree density in FSX. According to information from ACES the maximum value of MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is 6000. However, given that this parameter is ignored when there are more annotation boxes I've been able to place 10,000 or even 20,000 trees per 1.4 sq km tile in my test area :( While that is close to a realistic tree density in real-world forests it's also rather academic because at that density even the best hardware takes a nap :(

Well, that is an interesting finding. Thanks for that info Holger.Pierre

Mitch, there's nothing special about the way autogen is handled in FSX PNW. Just like everywhere else in FSX moving the autogen density slider a notch to the left removes 20% of the autogen in a more or less random fashion, with Extremely Dense giving 100%. Thus, at Very Dense you get 80%, at Dense 60%, etc.------------------------------------------------------Thanks Holger! So 20 percent left or right, more or less. I found that for myself, Very Dense looked most appealing. So...that's where it will stay. :)You did a great job on this. Truly stellar.Mitch

Those are interesting findings. I haven't seen this documented anywhere before.This makes the max values in the .cfg infinitely more useful than the slider inside FSX. Why would you want to reduce autogen in rural areas (where it already is pretty sparse and the FPS tends to be great) by 40% just because you have framerate problems over huge cities with thousands of buildings per cell? It's like turning up the heat in the summer because it might get cold in the winter...The most logical solution then would seem to be to leave the autogen setting at Extremely Dense, and then tweak the cfg entry for acceptable performance over the most complex city scenery.For trees, I've always used 2000, which seems to work fine on my system.

Less buildings - more trees! :(

Wow, having lived in the area for 5 years I can say based on those shots theyre truly amazing!! Im in the process of building my FSX rig now, Ive been out of flight simming for a couple of years but its products like this that have me climbing the walls to get back into it!!

PNW has me seriously planning a new FSX rig...Thinking about basing it on the i7-860 and an eVGA P55 mainboard, Win7X64 off a Raptor 150, and FSX on a Raptor 300 (SSDs are too expensive for me right now, the cost/performance ratio or "bang for your buck" does not cut it for my budget and purpoese... in a couple of years time, this will no doubt be a different story, as ever)I'll stick with the current GPU for the time being, and put 4Gb DDR3 (upgrading to 8Gb later)...This is my current planning... I love FTX AU and PNW... though I think my kids and partner are beginning to hate it :(Andrew

PNW has me seriously planning a new FSX rig...Thinking about basing it on the i7-860 and an eVGA P55 mainboard, Win7X64 off a Raptor 150, and FSX on a Raptor 300 (SSDs are too expensive for me right now, the cost/performance ratio or "bang for your buck" does not cut it for my budget and purpoese... in a couple of years time, this will no doubt be a different story, as ever)I'll stick with the current GPU for the time being, and put 4Gb DDR3 (upgrading to 8Gb later)...This is my current planning... I love FTX AU and PNW... though I think my kids and partner are beginning to hate it :( Andrew

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Andrew, just as a guideline for you. On my i7-975/nVidia GTX285 (1GB), and running with nHancer 2.5.7., Nick Needham's nHancer setting to the letter, nVidia driver suite 196.21,the FPS Limiter set to 30 FPS, and FPS set to UNLIMITED in FSX, and while flying over either cities such as Seattle, Portland, etc...I easily track 28-30 FPS on my system. All settings are to the right with FSX Graphics screen EXCEPT AUTO-GEN set to Very Dense, rather than Extremely Dense. That was a 'how-it-looks' choice rather than my system not being able to maintain 28-30 FPS at the max setting. If you upgrade to an i7-whatever, and an nVidia-based card, you will be thrilled with the performance. I also run with W7 Ultimate 64 bit, with all the latest updates, etc. I also always have A.S. 6.5 and A.I. Smooth running every time I head up....Mitch

A few panorama shots:

Hello Howard,I did some formal testing on the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS and MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES parameters recently and it turns out that they behave differently. Cheers, Holger

Thanks Holger - this info give me a better idea as to what to do with trees.Howard