Here 3 screenshots of v1.2 , v1.3 and v1.3 with the waves 2x larger.the refelction of v1.3 is good , but I would like to have less sandy shimmering.From lower altitues v1.3 is looking very good.Than a picture from the sea out of a real airplane. That kind of refelction would be nice on high altitues.

Not wishing to reduce *******'s mojo in any way (this is a great mod, keep up the good work) but I'm not quite sold on the new water in 1.3. I tried it, and then backed it straight out.

Correct, the negative lod bias will make the textures very sharp, but it also means you need to run higher Aniso OR the MIN/MAX detail texture lines above.You can mod the shaders to set the LOD bias back to its normal value for the terrain so you don't get this 'sand' effect, simply go to the ShadersHLSL folder, look inside the Terrain subfolder and open the file called terrain.fhx inside that file, you'll find the LOD bias settings for the texture samplers for Terrain, you'll notice I only modified the BaseTexture sampler, so simple look for the -8 and change it back to either -4, -2 or even 0 which is the default. The setting is called MipMapLodBias and one of them will have a -8 next to it

Thank you. I will set them so that they do not shimmer any more.Gerard, this will stop the shimmering for you as well.

*******,I've just had a look at the files and noticed that you've edited the "MipMapLodBias = -8;" to a few more lines than just the BaseTexture sampler. Here's a comparison of terrain.fhx between sm v.1.3 and the original shaders:I'm going to change all of them back to the default setting of "(State_MipMapLodBias);" by doing this, am I correct in saying I do not change any of your improvements other than the texture sharpness?

I tried several diffrent settings , amongst them the default settings, but the sandy effect did not go away.Than I found out what to do :It depends on what Wave Animation you use.In REX I always used It's water.That worked fine till I tried v1.3. I got a very sandy effect.Then I tried Clear Lake and everything was improved by 200%. The sandy effect exists , but is much less now. The higher the waves the more sandy effect.There has to be done more testing. Here v1.3 with Clear Lake. The reflecting effects are better in v1.3 ; when the sandy effetc can be solved it will be a winner on my system.

*******,I've just had a look at the files and noticed that you've edited the "MipMapLodBias = -8;" to a few more lines than just the BaseTexture sampler. Here's a comparison of terrain.fhx between sm v.1.3 and the original shaders:I'm going to change all of them back to the default setting of "(State_MipMapLodBias);" by doing this, am I correct in saying I do not change any of your improvements other than the texture sharpness?

Correct, you are simply changing the LOD bias, thats all..

I tried several diffrent settings , amongst them the default settings, but the sandy effect did not go away.Than I find out what to do :It depends on what Wave Animation you use.In REX I always used It's water.That worked fine till I tried v1.3. I got a very sandy effect.Then I tried Clear Lake and everything was improved by 200%. The sandy effect exists , but is much less now. The higher the waves the more sandy effect.There has to be done more testing. Here v1.3 with Clear Lake. The reflecting effects are better in v1.3 ; when the sandy effetc can be solved it will be a winner on my system.

By the way the 'sanding' little 'particles' effect you see, is due to Aniso+Negative LOD bias, I can change this, but want to make 100% sure people don't like it. You can also change this, via 'Waterconstants.XML tweaking, by INCREASING the BumpScaleUV value for MID and HIGH study the WaterConstants.xml file first, it contains (3) sections, it applies effects to water based on your altitude

Thanks for your reply on the settings *******.

By the way the 'sanding' little 'particles' effect you see, is due to Aniso+Negative LOD bias, I can change this, but want to make 100% sure people don't like it. ....

I remember one could set negative lod bias through either nvhardpage (Nvidia) or Ati tray tools (ATI). Not being sure if it can still be done on the current gen vid cards. If so, I would vote for it to be done there and not in the shaders themselves. I remember way back when I had nvidia gpu's , I did not like the effect setting negative lod had either. Seeing that this might be personal it would be good to set it elsewhere no?Realizing I have an old card, it's good to let the majority speak about it being applied or not...

I remember one could set negative lod bias through either nvhardpage (Nvidia) or Ati tray tools (ATI). Not being sure if it can still be done on the current gen vid cards. If so, I would vote for it to be done there and not in the shaders themselves. I remember way back when I had nvidia gpu's , I did not like the effect setting negative lod had either. Seeing that this might be personal it would be good to set it elsewhere no?

Gerahrd, doing it in the Shaders allow for greater control, I can decide 'where' to apply specific filters and/or Negative LOD bias, any other way means a 'general' setting, whcih affets other things such as water reflections on runways

Gerahrd, doing it in the Shaders allow for greater control, I can decide 'where' to apply specific filters and/or Negative LOD bias, any other way means a 'general' setting, whcih affets other things such as water reflections on runways

Thanks, your choice makes perfect sense now.

I tried several diffrent settings , amongst them the default settings, but the sandy effect did not go away....

Gerard, did you rebuild your shaders after applying the changes?If I do not rebuild after changing, the previous effect remains.I rebuild them as instructed by ******* with SHADER_CACHE_VERSION=x under the [GRAPHICS] section in your fsx.cfg (replace x with an incrementing number each time you want your shaders rebuild after a change)

Anyone can tell me the default values of fWaveBumpUVScale ( FSX root , WaterConstants.xml )?I accidentely deleted the default one and now only have the modified one. Thanks in advance.

Anyone can tell me the default values of fWaveBumpUVScale ( FSX root , WaterConstants.xml )?I accidentely deleted the default one and now only have the modified one. Thanks in advance.

Here's the content of the default WaterConstants.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><SimBase.Document Type="WaterConstantFile" version="1,0">	<Descr>AceXML Document</Descr>	<WaterConsts.ConstantSets>		<ConstantSet>			<Shader20>				<fWaveFresnelFactorMin>0.475</fWaveFresnelFactorMin>				<fWaveFresnelFactorMax>0.588</fWaveFresnelFactorMax>			</Shader20>			<Shader30>			</Shader30>			<Wave>			</Wave>			<Shader40WaterClassSet>				<Shader40>					<fWaveFresnelFactorMin>0.000</fWaveFresnelFactorMin>					<fWaveFresnelFactorMax>1.000</fWaveFresnelFactorMax>					<fSpecularPower>53.384</fSpecularPower>					<fSpecularBoost>1.005</fSpecularBoost>					<fSpecularBlend>0.605</fSpecularBlend>					<fWhiteCapPower>0.844</fWhiteCapPower>					<fWaveBumpUVScale1>3.847</fWaveBumpUVScale1>					<fWaveBumpUVScale2>3.563</fWaveBumpUVScale2>					<fWaveBumpUVScale3>1.822</fWaveBumpUVScale3>					<fWaveBumpUVScaleDetail>4.217</fWaveBumpUVScaleDetail>					<fWaterBumpRotation1>141.516</fWaterBumpRotation1>					<fWaterBumpRotation2>331.488</fWaterBumpRotation2>					<fWaterBumpRotation3>62.388</fWaterBumpRotation3>					<fWaterBumpBlend1>0.757</fWaterBumpBlend1>					<fWaterBumpBlend2>0.751</fWaterBumpBlend2>					<fWaterBumpBlend3>0.567</fWaterBumpBlend3>					<fWaterBumpBlendDetail>0.616</fWaterBumpBlendDetail>					<fWaterBumpWind3>0.599</fWaterBumpWind3>					<fWaterBumpWindDetail>0.497</fWaterBumpWindDetail>					<fTimeX1>-1.283</fTimeX1>					<fTimeX2>-1.423</fTimeX2>					<fTimeX3>1.074</fTimeX3>					<fTimeXDetail>-2.882</fTimeXDetail>					<fTimeY1>1.004</fTimeY1>					<fTimeY2>1.838</fTimeY2>					<fTimeY3>-0.036</fTimeY3>					<fTimeYDetail>2.740</fTimeYDetail>				</Shader40>			</Shader40WaterClassSet>		</ConstantSet>		<ConstantSet>			<Elevation>MID</Elevation>			<Shader20>				<fTimeX2>-1.000</fTimeX2>				<fTimeY2>1.000</fTimeY2>				<fTimeScale2>0.050</fTimeScale2>			</Shader20>			<Shader30>				<fTimeX2>-1.000</fTimeX2>				<fTimeY2>1.000</fTimeY2>				<fTimeScale2>0.050</fTimeScale2>			</Shader30>			<Wave>			</Wave>			<Shader40WaterClassSet>				<Shader40>					<fWaveFresnelFactorMin>0.000</fWaveFresnelFactorMin>					<fWaveFresnelFactorMax>1.000</fWaveFresnelFactorMax>					<fSpecularPower>69.513</fSpecularPower>					<fSpecularBoost>1.004</fSpecularBoost>					<fSpecularBlend>0.719</fSpecularBlend>					<fWhiteCapPower>0.838</fWhiteCapPower>					<fWaveBumpUVScale1>2.405</fWaveBumpUVScale1>					<fWaveBumpUVScale2>2.405</fWaveBumpUVScale2>					<fWaveBumpUVScale3>1.352</fWaveBumpUVScale3>					<fWaveBumpUVScaleDetail>16.527</fWaveBumpUVScaleDetail>					<fWaterBumpRotation1>141.516</fWaterBumpRotation1>					<fWaterBumpRotation2>330.804</fWaterBumpRotation2>					<fWaterBumpRotation3>62.388</fWaterBumpRotation3>					<fWaterBumpRotationDetail>156.024</fWaterBumpRotationDetail>					<fWaterBumpBlend1>0.751</fWaterBumpBlend1>					<fWaterBumpBlend2>0.746</fWaterBumpBlend2>					<fWaterBumpBlend3>0.723</fWaterBumpBlend3>					<fWaterBumpBlendDetail>0.000</fWaterBumpBlendDetail>					<fWaterBumpWind3>0.595</fWaterBumpWind3>					<fWaterBumpWindDetail>0.000</fWaterBumpWindDetail>					<fTimeX1>-0.869</fTimeX1>					<fTimeX2>-1.006</fTimeX2>					<fTimeX3>0.727</fTimeX3>					<fTimeXDetail>0.659</fTimeXDetail>					<fTimeY1>0.727</fTimeY1>					<fTimeY2>1.214</fTimeY2>					<fTimeY3>-0.036</fTimeY3>					<fTimeYDetail>-2.185</fTimeYDetail>				</Shader40>			</Shader40WaterClassSet>		</ConstantSet>		<ConstantSet>			<Elevation>HIGH</Elevation>			<Shader20>				<fTimeX2>-1.000</fTimeX2>				<fTimeY2>1.000</fTimeY2>				<fTimeScale2>0.050</fTimeScale2>			</Shader20>			<Shader30>				<fTimeX2>-1.000</fTimeX2>				<fTimeY2>1.000</fTimeY2>				<fTimeScale2>0.050</fTimeScale2>			</Shader30>			<Wave>			</Wave>			<Shader40WaterClassSet>				<Shader40>					<fWaveFresnelFactorMin>0.000</fWaveFresnelFactorMin>					<fWaveFresnelFactorMax>1.000</fWaveFresnelFactorMax>					<fSpecularPower>69.513</fSpecularPower>					<fSpecularBoost>1.004</fSpecularBoost>					<fSpecularBlend>0.719</fSpecularBlend>					<fWhiteCapPower>0.844</fWhiteCapPower>					<fWaveBumpUVScale1>1.248</fWaveBumpUVScale1>					<fWaveBumpUVScale2>1.248</fWaveBumpUVScale2>					<fWaveBumpUVScale3>0.674</fWaveBumpUVScale3>					<fWaveBumpUVScaleDetail>0.100</fWaveBumpUVScaleDetail>					<fWaterBumpRotation1>141.516</fWaterBumpRotation1>					<fWaterBumpRotation2>328.752</fWaterBumpRotation2>					<fWaterBumpRotation3>62.388</fWaterBumpRotation3>					<fWaterBumpRotationDetail>0.000</fWaterBumpRotationDetail>					<fWaterBumpBlend1>0.746</fWaterBumpBlend1>					<fWaterBumpBlend2>0.746</fWaterBumpBlend2>					<fWaterBumpBlend3>0.682</fWaterBumpBlend3>					<fWaterBumpBlendDetail>0.000</fWaterBumpBlendDetail>					<fWaterBumpWind3>0.595</fWaterBumpWind3>					<fWaterBumpWindDetail>0.023</fWaterBumpWindDetail>					<fTimeX1>-0.728</fTimeX1>					<fTimeX2>-0.798</fTimeX2>					<fTimeX3>0.589</fTimeX3>					<fTimeXDetail>-1.000</fTimeXDetail>					<fTimeY1>0.312</fTimeY1>					<fTimeY2>0.935</fTimeY2>					<fTimeY3>-0.036</fTimeY3>					<fTimeYDetail>1.000</fTimeYDetail>				</Shader40>			</Shader40WaterClassSet>		</ConstantSet>	</WaterConsts.ConstantSets></SimBase.Document>

<fWaveBumpUVScale1> 3.847 </fWaveBumpUVScale1><fWaveBumpUVScale2> 3.563 </fWaveBumpUVScale2><fWaveBumpUVScale3> 1.822 </fWaveBumpUVScale3>Gerhard,Can you confirm that these are the default settings as my default settings where way lower as far as I remember ( 08.-1.8 )

Hmmm, you got me thinking now....It's the file I backed up before I started out with the shader mods. I do have REX installed and if REX changes that file, it would have been changed from a virgin FSX install... do you have REX installed? If so, it might be a matter of setting the theme you had before changing the files.