Hey guys,I'm having all kinds of issues with the clouds in XPX. Have a look at the screen shots, you'll see what I mean. My rendering settings are med-high at best (default if it's available). See signature for system specs. These shots were taken in the CRJ 200 climbing out of CYYZ at 21,000ft, using real weather. When climbing through the clouds my fps were low teens to single digits, when I took the screen shots they were low 20's. I don't have HDR on, it's not usable with real weather if there are any clouds at all.I don't set anything in the Catalyst Control Panel, I let XPX take care of things. I have AA at 2x and AF at 16x in the Rendering Options. Have tried various combinations.What I'm wondering, is if you guys with high end Nvidia cards are seeing the same with respect to clouds. To be quite honest I don't feel like flying in XPX anymore, the clouds visuals are, bad. I really like flying the CRJ 200, but all the enjoyment is gone as soon as I look out the window. Can someone with at least a Nvidia 570-580 or 590, let me know if their clouds look the same. You need to be at higher altitudes, below the clouds they look fine. The visuals for me really restrict what I can fly. Just to add, I don't see these issues in other simulators. Is it an OpenGL problem, perhaps with ATI drivers. Do you Nvidia users see the same under similar flight conditions?p.s This is on a fresh install of 10.04 Beta 1. Latest ATI drivers, 12.1 being used.GlenEdit: I don't have these issues in XP9.7, kinda rules out a OpenGL issue??

Edited February 2, 201214 yr by Muskoka

Can you post a screenshot of your settings?

Hi Goran,Here's the settings, modest at best for the hardware I have.Here's a couple of shots just taken from XP9.7. I know, totally different program, but this is how XPX should look (clouds), gorgeous, and 60+ fps, with real weather.Glen

Edited February 2, 201214 yr by Muskoka

Try 20% Glen heres a couple of screen shot about 2000 ft above the clouds and the second about 3000 ft above with 20% cloud base Fps is geting a bit low, but I only have a Core2 duo [email protected] Ghz.Maybe not perfect, but they don't look too shabby to me, "aye".PS. Video is an nVidia GTX 560

Edited February 2, 201214 yr by wb5okj

Also try an "extreme" texture resolution. Other than that and Donald's suggestion, I can't see anything else that would cause that appearance.If it IS an ATI issue, ask Laminar about it. Cameron (owner of X Aviation) has an ATI card and has no problems.

Thanks for the suggestions guys,Ok, I thought it might have something to do with Eyefinity, running across three monitors. So, for this test flight, I switched to just one monitor, at 1280x1024. I also set texture resolution to extreme. I did change the clouds from 15 to 20, and you can see the results in the screen shots. These shots were taken from 20,000ft, using real weather. Let's be honest, the clouds at high altitude do not look very good. One other thing to notice between the 2 screen shots is the wind. From one shot to the next, the only thing I changed was the cloud slider from 15-20, yet the wind switched 44 degrees, just by changing the clouds, within maybe 2 seconds. Also notice it's not a performance issue, I'm getting close to 60 fps.Cloud slider at 15.Cloud slider at 20.Glenedit: Don, you're not getting high enough to see the effect. You have to be 20,000+ to see the bottom of the clouds get "cut off". They do look great from below, or even a few thousand feet above, but get up where the heavy metal flies and they don't look good at all.These are from the same flight.Just below the cloud deck.Just above the cloud deck.Then, when you get to higher altitudes, they look like the first 2 screen shots.

Edited February 3, 201214 yr by Muskoka

Try setting world detail distance to max.

Goran, per the screen shot of my Rendering Options above, "World Detail Distance" it's already at it's highest setting, "very high". It's not a settings issue or a performance thing, it's a problem with "something" in XPX (clouds). I don't have the problem in XP9.7, FSX or FS9.Sure, I can set the cloud slider higher to "cover up / hide" the poor visuals, but then performance takes a beating. Performance is already bad enough with these clouds (if your near them), I don't dare go higher than 20 on the slider. FPS drop to single digits with the slider at 15 when your climbing out and are just below or above the clouds. Performance is not an issue when your a fair distance from the clouds (vertically), and they do look very nice from below or slightly above. The same can't be said from higher altitudes.You know something is wrong when your FPS go from 60+ to single digits as soon as you get near clouds, and, the fact they don't look good from higher up. It's not a specific driver problem with ATI either, I've tried 3 different drivers since XPX came out. Besides, it only happens in XPX, the problem is isolated.These 2 screen shots we taken one after the other, so you can see the poor visual effect with the leading edge of the clouds. Notice how the edges are not smooth and you can actually see them "breaking apart" and being redrawn as you fly. Again, it's not a performance issue, I'm getting 40 fps. It's a problem with clouds / draw distance in XPX.This is a response I received when I filed a bug report about the cloud visuals.

We are working on these cloud anomalies and it may be awhile before we get this fixed as higher priority items are ahead of this issue.

How can "what you see out the window while your flying", NOT, be the highest priority. This should be a basic requirement of any flight simulator. We don't live, or fly in a sterile cloudless world. Having a working ATC, Plausible World, or whatever they think is more important, is useless, if you can't get the flying environment looking proper first. Get the selection of aircraft, flight model, and flying environment sorted out, then work on the "extra" stuff that really has nothing to do with flying. If you can't get the visuals right, I could care less about the rest, that's just common sense when your talking about a flight simulator.Don't get me wrong, I hear you guys, "Muskoka only cares about what he wants, and thinks he knows what's best". I want all the nice added features that you do, I honestly do, but what good are they if the flying environment is not "As Real As It Gets". You can't honestly tell me those screen shots represent the real world. When I'm flying and I see that, I loose all interest in continuing on with the flight. This is a "flight simulator", look like one.There's an old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none". Fix the basics, like the clouds, draw distance, anything to do with the environment your flying in, then work on the goodies like ATC and the plausible world.Glen

the problem you see is due to the clouds being drawn from far away. As there are no clouds between you and the distant clouds, you can see the flaws of the low res distant clouds. These are no doubt the same clouds being drawn when you are in the midst of clouds, but the detail on near clouds is higher so you dont see these flaws.Regarding the issue of priority, what you see isn't a top priority issue as you can at least use the sim. There are other bugs out there that affect users ability to even load the software let alone see the clouds or limited autogen rendering. Once they get the major flaws that cause people to not be able to use the sim at all, they will work on things like optomizing performance (clouds are a big killer of performance, so likely the cloud rendering system will get a good look at - all the while they look at it, they will probably work out any other issues while overhauling the cloud system). The other issues like working on the autogen dispersion and algorithms will be looked at.One thing, according to the blog, is ATI users are more-so affected by cloud issues than others, so yet another thing LR will be looking into issues that would affect your specific setup and your current gripe. I feel your pain, but its like you're complaining that the car stereo doesn't work when the engine itself is at risk of blowing up anytime. Let them fix the big issues then get the other things nailed down.