Hi everyone,I have a couple of problems with FS2004 ...1. When flying above mountainous areas the fog boundary in the valleys seems to have a hard edge.2. The real weather download always seems to generate a light fog or mist even on a perfectly sunny day.3. I am getting terrible texture shimmer on buildings and trees when flying.I am using DirectX 9.0b and a GF4 Ti4600 with the nVidia 45.23 reference driver.Has anyone got any ideas to fix the above ?Thanks,Sean.

I noticed that shimering efect too, when I adjust mip mapping to a higher level it does this and also seems to have a lens effect, but lowering mip mapping makes the detail non existent. Could be my crappy GF2 MX card though...[h4]Best Wishes,Randy J. Smithhttp://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-8/196432/winglets_lg.jpg [h3] AMD XP 2200 |MUNCHKIN 512 DDR RAM |ECS[/b ][i] K7S5A MB[/i] |GF2 MX 32 MEG and still runs GOOD!|WIN XP PRO |MITSUBISHI DIAMOND PLUS 91 19"[/h3]

I also get the hard edge with fog and haze. I used to think that was just how COF did fog, but I've seen screens from other people that show fog looking better than mine, so I think something is wrong.Here is a pic of how fog looks on my PC:

http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/37671.jpg

[p class=dcmessage]My system specs:WinXP ProAMD 1900+1 GB RAMGeforce 4200 Ti with 45.23 driversDX 9.0bDoes anyone know of a way to fix this?Sean: note that I don't have your shimmer though...

Peter Dowson, if I understood him correctly, sats this is a function of how FS9 handles visibility layers. It essentially treats visibility as a cloud layer with a top on it. What I had asked Peter to consider doing in FSUIPC, is adding some code to force FS9 to make a gradient out of the top x amount of pixels in the Y axis so that the edge looks fuzzy instead of sharp. He seems to think he can't do it, and that his tweaks essentially affect the global weather only, not local or external weather. Anyway, this problem AND weird water reflections are two graphic areas I WISH that MS would address in a patch. It's really sorry to see whole vistas screwed up such that they no longer look at all real.Cheers,Noel

Hey Sean. If you want real world dynamic weather without the haze layer you must first select real world weather (updated every 15 minutes) and select OK. Then go back to the weather screen and select User Defined Weather and then Customize Weather. From there you can click on each weather reporting station and change the visibility to unlimited. This will get rid of the haze and keep the dynamic weather as long as you are near the weather reporting stations you just changed. You can also zoom out to select more reporting stations along your intended path.Hope this helps,Ken

Thanks for the tip Ken ! This has helped on the odd occasion when I am "fogged in" on a clear sunny day. :-)

You're welcome. I wonder if our problem is due to the type of graphics card we use. Does everyone have the fog/haze problem?Later,

I don't think it's videocard related, Ken.Sean and Mengy are both using nVidia cards, I'm using a Radeon 9700 Pro, and I'm seeing the same thing. In FS2002 you used to get this with all clouds (from above), now it's just the visibility layer.Replacing the visibility layer with a stratus overcast would make it look like this. Autogen objects still produce hard edges, though:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/37970.jpgMartijn

That image looks excellent !

That looks a lot better than the default visibility layer Martijn. How does one go about replacing the visibility layer with the stratus overcast layer?Thanks,

Anybody?

so none of you guys is interested in resolving the problem with hard edged fog......

Sorry guys, I didn't visit this forum for some time so I missed your posts.It was just a test-I apologize if I had given the impression that it was a dynamic solution-note I did say: 'stratus overcast WOULD make it look like this'I simply made a stratus overcast cloudlayer from groundlevel to 500ft. in the regular FS9 advanced custom weather dialog. So this is not a magic setting that will replace the visibility layer with an overcast stratus layer under all circumstances-and you will not have the fog when you descend into it-unless you put in a visibility layer that's just a bit lower, so the hard edges are hidden below the clouds-but even so you might still see them here and there depending on your cloud density settings etc. I suppose.I imagine something that does this might be programmed into a weather program like Activesky or perhaps FSUICP, though...Best,Martijn

I read above that Pete Dowson isn't able to solve this problem. Because MS treats visibiltylayers essentially as topped cloudlayers perhaps cloudguru Chris Willis might add something of his wisdom to solve this irritating MS feature. (The only thing that REALLY bugs me about MSFS ;)) Rob "Holland&Holland" de Vries http://www.emotipad.com/emoticons/Flying.gif"A Bad Day At The Field Is Still Better Then A Good Day At Work"

Rob, from the description above it looks like Pete might have been trying to change the visibilty layer itself. Perhaps hiding it under another cloud layer might be an answer-but the local weather might still complicate things. And I don't think the visibilty layer is a cloud-layer at all. Inside it, it's a function that gradually fades out objects that are further away from you. Once above it, it looks like a single semi-transparent sheet instead of being built up out of seperate sprites like the clouds are. Well, let's just hope that someone will find a way around this problem, perhaps when the SDK's come out. This IS the most serious graphics glitch in FS9. It sure is a letdown to rise above the fog only to see the mist lying below you like a puddle of spilt milk. BTW I love your 'attempting to fly' smilie!Cheers,Martijn