I think it helps.Here are two shots. Both over the Teton National Park. One with unlimited visibility and the other with 30 mile visibility. I think the reduced visibility helps to soften the colours and (to me at least) gives a more pleasing appearence. FS9 landclass and mesh FSGenesis.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/72266.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/72267.jpg

Reduced visibility is more realistic as well, since you rarely get unlimited visibility.

I agree, my normal setting is 20 or 30 miles and in most cases that looks pretty good to me. It's something that people doing screen shots for aircraft and scenery products should pay more attention to.TonyDigital-Flight

Yes, limited visiblity looks best - I almost always fly with 20-30 miles visiblity.Unfortunately the weather system in FS2004 results in the sky turning completely white when you set visiblity to 10 miles. That's not realistic at all since you can have blue skies and less than 10 miles visilbity in reality.

Yep, I starting dropping the visibility to improve the framerates but discovered it actually looked better too so it sort of a win-win scenario... :)

Unfortunately the weather system in FS2004 results in the sky turning completely white when you set visiblity to 10 miles. That's not realistic at all since you can have blue skies and less than 10 miles visilbity in reality.I agree there! I tried to post something like that on flightsimnetwork to see if I could change something in the fs9.cfg. If anyone has any ideas how to do it that would be great.FS2002 did a better job with clear skies and 10mi or less with haze. It didn't do a good job with overcast and blue haze. on the other hand,FS2004 did a good job with 10mi haze with overcast or mostly cloudy weather with 10mi haze or less. It didn't however do a good job with clear skies or few scattered with haze.To make it realistic, in the new fs2006 version there should be blue haze with clear to scattered clouds no matter how much visibility there is. In mostly cloudy and overcast conditions you should have grey haze. FS2006 hopefully will incorporate all that into the weather interface. I know 3d clouds and this new interface is rather new in this current version but I would like to see drastic improvements in the new version. Overcast should fully look overcast and flying into the clouds you should have 0 visibility for good VFR conditions. Clouds should match alittude height as well. I know when I set 5/8 cumulus at 15,000ft it looks like 5,000ft off the ground. The clouds need to have correct proporations by the height and distance away from your aircraft and the ground. Also there shouldn't be sunlight on buildings or your aircraft if the clouds are blocking the sun. If the clouds are at a distance and not blocking the sun, then sunlight is okay on the aircraft and buildings.Cirrus clouds need improving as well. You noticed in fs2002 that flying into a cirrus cloud layer it became almost whiteout conditions so you knew you were flying into a cloud bank. This is also very realitic with T-storms as well.In fs2004 the clouds are thin as paper and you go into and out off so quickly that you can't tell that they are clouds. Cirrus clouds are clouds so lets have some volume in them.Now there are great improvements already that I do like in fs2004 like there sunsets and the thunderstorms that lightening lights up the cloudsAlso the 3d clouds were a nice improvement compared to fs2002.Any comments are welcome.

Use Bluesphere texture replacements. Covers all seasons. Details and comparisons from here, files in the library. Completely resolves the issues.http://members.chello.nl/g.kranenbarg/gwkhome/BlueSphere.htmAllcott

Hi VictorEDIT: disregard - i found I had to edit fs9.cfg to get lower than the GUI would allow.Dave

Wierd question:How do you reduce visibility in FS9? I've been through the options menu but I haven't found any setting that does that. Do you do it with FSUIPC?Thanks.

Hi Anthony,Now as wierd as you may think. I had to go look also. The visiblity can be changed in one of three places, in the FS9 world/weather section under the customize weather button. The second place which is where I do it, is in the weather generation programs like ActiveSky or FSMeteo. Thy provide a setting to limit the visibility to some amount of statue miles. Mine is set at 50. The third place is inside of FSUIPC (registered). There is an entire page dedicated to visibility settings.Hope this helpsBobKDEN

Hi Bob,can you shed some light on what the settings should be for about 30nm in FSUIPC please, I have the registered version, but it's a bit confusing to me, all this 1/1000th of a mile stuff !thank you.Steve.

"Use Bluesphere texture replacements. Covers all seasons. Details and comparisons from here, files in the library. Completely resolves the issues."Yes, Allcott, I could not agree more. The first leg of a somewhat tedious flight back to the UK recently was from Albuquerque to Minneapolis St Paul. Looking out the window as we climbed to cruise level I was amazed to see how close to reality the sim is with the BlueSphere Project textures. Gerrit Kranenbarg has certainly researched this aspect very carefully indeed and I for one am extremely grateful for his efforts.I have Sight Distance set to 80 miles and Cloud Draw Distance set to 50 miles. FSUIPC does the rest.Mike

Thanks, I figured it could be done through FSUIPC. The reason why I asked was because in FS2002, there was a setting for that.>>>>>can you shed some light on what the settings should be for about 30nm in FSUIPC please, I have the registered version, but it's a bit confusing to me, all this 1/1000th of a mile stuff:) ) That way, the visibility looks better at 11NM than what FS9 renders for 10NM. Of course, I simply turn this off if the station is reporting anything less than 6NM.EDIT: This works wonders with FPS. Especially at large cities and airports like NYC. By reducing the visibility, apparently the objects beyond the scenery restriction aren't loaded into the sim, thereby increasing FPS.

Thanks for this little tip about reducing visibility.Out of curiosity, I ran a quick test last night with vis. set to 30 miles & it appears to have cured my stuttering problems. FPS was never a problem but stutters & micro-pauses in turns were. A quick test from a known flight that caused stutters for me went very smoothly. I always assumed that my GF3 Ti-200 card wasnt capable of loading the textures quick enough. But reducing visibility (thereby reducing the amount of textures loading at a distance)produced a very smooth flight for me.I will test this out more tonight just to be sure. Who knows, it could have been a fluke but I liked what it did.

Hi Guy's.Anthony, I'm sorry but, I'm still a bit confused. I have attached a screen shot of my FSUIPC settings, and also, do I set anything in FS9 itself, and in the FS9.cfg too.I would be greatfull if you could post a screen shot of the FSUIPC settings for 30nm for me as I seem to be having a mental block with this whole thing, if I set a visibility restriction on FSUIPC then am I right in saying it will over ride anything set in either FS9 itself,and the FS9 .cfg too.I appreciate that this may all seem straight forward to some, but alas not to me, sorry.thanks for you're help all.Steve.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/72516.jpg