Shimmering (swimming textures)

[Guest Mike_MAC]

First of all, I have been monitoring this forum for say 4 years now and used many tips in this forum, thanks for that.I'll introduce myself first:23 winters oldATPL holder (theory)PPL (A)200Hrs total timeNow to get back to the subject, I'm using fs9 for some time now but I have a few problems or actually 1 major problem, my textures are crisp and clear but they are shimmering all over the place, I tried just about everything, tried every AA an AF setting there is with no succes, changed the settings in fs itself but just can't solve this problem. If anyone can help please I'm running out of options hereMikeP4P 800 Deluxe (newest drivers and bios)P4 2.4c@ 3Ghz512 mb PC2700 (PC4000 very soon)Geforce FX 5900 Ultra (52.16) (tried the 53.03)Maxtor 80GB@7200rpm

[Guest DanielBu]

Hi there,could you post your settings, especially your resolution and mip map settings? Generally I'd recommend a mip mapping detail setting of 4 (or maybe even 3 and a higher AF setting) and AF of 4 or 8, there shouldn't be much shimmering going on with these settings. Antialiasing should help too.-Daniel

[Guest Mike_MAC]

Thanks for the reply Daniel,I'm running 1280*1024*32 (max for my monitor) and 4*s AA and 8*AF, setting a higher level of AA actually decrease quality, I'm happy with my fps and overal quality but I would really like to get rid of this shimmering of the ground textures, they start when I leave the 2d cockpit for the 3d environment, the trees and buildings are bad but the bridges is the worst especially the suspension. Ifiddled some with the mip map slider but that didn't help so now its back on 4. I changed the fs9.cfg, I set the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400,TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.500000I can't really see the difference with these settings except for the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400 after that the textures loaded much faster. I tried different drivers without succes, Any help would me much appriciated, Posting a screenshot is useless, don't now how to make a small video to show what I mean, thanks in advance,MikeP4P800 Deluxe (newest bios and drivers)P42.4C@3Ghz512MB PC2700 (soon PC4000)80GB Maxtor@7200rpmGeforce FX 5900 ULTRA 52.16

[Guest DanielBu]

Hmm...what if you reduce the mip detail level to 3? The textures will become slightly ugly, but if you are referring to the same shimmering that I am referring to, it might help with your configuration.-Daniel

[Guest Mike_MAC]

thanks again Daniel,I'm afraid not, setting the mip map any lower just results in a ugly picture, the ''dancing'' of the objects still remains, setting it any higher then 4, the problem is even more pronounced.Thanks,Mike

[Guest DanielBu]

And what if you turn AF off? But maybe it's the z-buffer (the shimmering is different though)...it should 32bits.-Daniel

[Guest Lurk]

Hello.I've decided to hit hard on this topic.I find the problem aggravating, and I was hoping it would get more attention.Maybe just a few unlucky ones are experiencing it. I've downloaded Rage3DTweak, which allows to tweak many parameter in DirectX, but I haven't had any success so far. As much as I can, I will try to bump this topic to the top of the forum to see if we can find anyone with a possible solution.Just to make sure we all agree, I'm not talking about diffused shimmering of distant scenery and autogen, which can be reduced to an acceptable level by lowering the mip-mapping slider, but rather about the AWFUL and EXTREMELY NOTICEABLE trembling of distant mountain horizon and clouds intersecting with mountain ridges. I hope I've been clear enough. Thanks for your attention.luca

[Guest Mike_MAC]

Hello.I've decided to hit hard on this topic.I find the problem aggravating, and I was hoping it would get more attention.Maybe just a few unlucky ones are experiencing it. I've downloaded Rage3DTweak, which allows to tweak many parameter in DirectX, but I haven't had any success so far. As much as I can, I will try to bump this topic to the top of the forum to see if we can find anyone with a possible solution.Just to make sure we all agree, I'm not talking about diffused shimmering of distant scenery and autogen, which can be reduced to an acceptable level by lowering the mip-mapping slider, but rather about the AWFUL and EXTREMELY NOTICEABLE trembling of distant mountain horizon and clouds intersecting with mountain ridges. I hope I've been clear enough. Thanks for your attention.lucaThanks for that post Luca,Like I said in another post on this subject it really surprises me that there is so little attention for this, it is hard to believe we are the only ones having this problem, it is even harder to believe people are experiencing the same problem but are not annoyed by this.I will too keep fiddling with the settings untlill I can come up with a solution, any other form of flying than solid IMC is very annoying, let's hope someone comes with a answer for this,Mike

[Guest Lurk]

Hi Mike, I've posted this topic by mistake in the other SHIMMERING AND DANCING topic, so now I'm pasting it the right place. Hope I haven't created too much confusion."...it is even harder to believe people are experiencing the same problem but are not annoyed by this."You've said it all! The thing is SO bad!Today I'm home from work, and here I go wasting a few more hours hopelessly trying to resolve this FLYING KILLER. At least it's good to know someone out there knows what I'm talking about. And I'm afraid my eyes will not be able to get over this "bug".As exagerated as I may sound, It's either the shimmering going away, or the sim going off my hard drive.luca

[Guest Mike_MAC]

Thanks Luca,It's a good thing to pinpoint this discussion, it doesn't help if everyone is talking about something else, I made a similar post on the simflight forum, just to increase the change of finding a solution, I will not leave this issue unsolved, I'll keep on trying,Mike

[Guest Minstrel185]

Hi all,I've had the same problem and it was driving me nuts! After trying various drivers and tweaking various settings without success, I set all the Scenery settings to Low to see if the shimmering stopped, with the intention of working up from there if it did. I'm on a 3.2GHz P4 with 9800 Radeon Pro 256Mb and Catalyst 3.9 drivers.The shimmering did stop at the lowest settings so I gradually increased them to see where the problem started. Surprisingly, I was able to get right up to maximum on the Scenery settings without the shimmering. On the Hardware settings, all the boxes were ticked, mip mapping at 4, hardware-rendered lights at 6, 6 x AA and 1024x768x32. It was OK on 1280x768x32.Having done that, it was mostly OK on subsequent fs9 sessions. The shimmering has occurred a few time since but not often. When it does I just set the Scenery settings to Low again, enter the flight and set all the settings straight back to where I want them. A couple of times this hasn't worked but restarting fs9 as well as doing the above has then fixed it.I don't have a clue why this works and I haven't spent any more time to work out whether it is one particular setting that is a problem. It would be good to have a complete cure but in the absence of that this fix works for me and I can live with that.Hope this helps somebody.

[Guest yarvelling]

I have an athlon 2600XP based system with 1 gig 333mhz DDR Ram, and Radeon 9700(np). I use the Cat 3.4 drivers. The shimmering used to drive me nuts too....especially bad when flying over cities when all the windows in the buildings swam and danced all OVER the place!!I have the scenery barely shimmering now, and the city problem brought to a less distracting level by setting AA to 4x, and Aniso at 8x, in the Radeon display control panel. In game, I found that selecting tri-linear filtering pretty much cured the city/windows problem. I also have the Texture_multi at 200 in the FS9.cfg. Mipmapping is at 4. The only problem now is of the inevitable frame-rate hits when around densly populated airports, etc...oh well!!!

[Guest mej023]

I experienced the shimmering. My fix was two things. First I reduced my mip map settings (I think it is at 4 or 5 right now) and then I disabled my throttle control on my joystick. I think it was "dirty" and causing most of the problem. Hope this helps!

[Guest Lurk]

Just to make things sure, I hope we all agree that AUTOGEN AND DISTANT SCENERY SHIMMERING doesn't have aything to do with TREMBLING OF DISTANT MOUNTAIN HORIZON AND CLOUDS INTERSECTING MOUNTAINS. To my opinion, the two problems are of different nature and should probably be treated that way. Mip-mapping settings, as well as anisotropic filtering or AA, don't have ANY effect whatsoever on the TREMBLING issue.luca

[Guest Mike_MAC]

I've contacted Creative labs support for my Geforce FX5900 Ultra, since so few of us are experiencing this problem it's not unthinkable that the hardware is faulty, I simply don't have any other options to try. If there is something interesting in their reply I'll post it here.Mike