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garymcginnis

Weird FS9 Blurry Behavior

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A little harsh...This man has been helping the community for almost a decade.  He certainly didn't deserve that.

 

Looks like you're a bit late to the rodeo.  It appears that they've been responding quite well to one another since that original statement.  I've enjoyed their dialogue of late.

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Hi.

 

This is an interesting thread. I thought I'd add my penn'orth of water-muddying.

 

FS9 internal anti-aliasing doesn't work in windowed mode (the OP's preferred mode) so using Nvidia Inspector or control-panel to apply an 'enhance the application's setting' flag won't work. Best if you disable AA within FS9 and set the relevant Nvidia Inspector flag to 'override application setting'. Enhance + internal AA works well in full screen mode.

 

The crisp ~ blurred ring is a result of the way FS9 reduces definition at a distance from the player's ground-zero. Crisp textures and vector scenery directly below, no vector scenery further out, mips of varying LODs at increasing distance, then generic landclass, then generic global colours. Try a top-down view when paused (Ctrl+S, it's on a toggle) and zoom out a step at a time. You'll see the concentric rings of different LOD/mipmap quite clearly. I'm surprised you haven't noticed them before.

 

The tearing is something I've recently started to suffer from, when I pan the VC or spot views. I put it down to a quirk of my new, second-hand, LCD monitor which has just replaced my old CRT. I never had any tearing on the CRT. Forcing vertical synch on in Nvidia Inspector didn't seem to make any difference. I started with a 75 Hz refresh rate and frame rate locked to 25 FPS but still got the tearing. I subsequently removed the FPS limit as redundant. The image still tears just the same but now there's one less task for my PC to complete in each cycle. Unexpectedly, corner-of-the-eye flicker doesn't seem to be a problem with the LCD monitor despite mismatched FPS and refresh...

 

Stutters? Only where my hard-pressed CPU struggles to keep track of all the AI. The GPU doesn't seem to carry much of a load so I took another task from the CPU by setting pre-rendered frames = 0 in Nvidia Inspector. That made a minor improvement in stutters. Gary, run the Task Manager's performance tab and the Nvidia Inspector GPU load graph while making a FS9 flight and check which piece of hardware is at its limit- that may give you some pointers.

 

Neumanix, I'll have to try your Anisotropic Filter suggestion tonight- I'm not sure what setting I currently have.

 

Thanks all for an interesting discussion.

D

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Hi.

 

This is an interesting thread. I thought I'd add my penn'orth of water-muddying.

 

FS9 internal anti-aliasing doesn't work in windowed mode (the OP's preferred mode) so using Nvidia Inspector or control-panel to apply an 'enhance the application's setting' flag won't work. Best if you disable AA within FS9 and set the relevant Nvidia Inspector flag to 'override application setting'. Enhance + internal AA works well in full screen mode.

 

The crisp ~ blurred ring is a result of the way FS9 reduces definition at a distance from the player's ground-zero. Crisp textures and vector scenery directly below, no vector scenery further out, mips of varying LODs at increasing distance, then generic landclass, then generic global colours. Try a top-down view when paused (Ctrl+S, it's on a toggle) and zoom out a step at a time. You'll see the concentric rings of different LOD/mipmap quite clearly. I'm surprised you haven't noticed them before.

 

The tearing is something I've recently started to suffer from, when I pan the VC or spot views. I put it down to a quirk of my new, second-hand, LCD monitor which has just replaced my old CRT. I never had any tearing on the CRT. Forcing vertical synch on in Nvidia Inspector didn't seem to make any difference. I started with a 75 Hz refresh rate and frame rate locked to 25 FPS but still got the tearing. I subsequently removed the FPS limit as redundant. The image still tears just the same but now there's one less task for my PC to complete in each cycle. Unexpectedly, corner-of-the-eye flicker doesn't seem to be a problem with the LCD monitor despite mismatched FPS and refresh...

 

Stutters? Only where my hard-pressed CPU struggles to keep track of all the AI. The GPU doesn't seem to carry much of a load so I took another task from the CPU by setting pre-rendered frames = 0 in Nvidia Inspector. That made a minor improvement in stutters. Gary, run the Task Manager's performance tab and the Nvidia Inspector GPU load graph while making a FS9 flight and check which piece of hardware is at its limit- that may give you some pointers.

 

Neumanix, I'll have to try your Anisotropic Filter suggestion tonight- I'm not sure what setting I currently have.

 

Thanks all for an interesting discussion.

D

 

When I see stutters, it's always associated with AI too.  Not so bad, really.  But that's the main cause of a stutter when I have one.  Obviously, when I am out in the middle of nowhere, no stutters.  And I would really call the stutters I do have micro stutters--just enough of a stutter to know the sim is loading something.

 

Now it makes sense about not using FS9's AA.  I always fly full screen, there it works for me very well.  I've never flown windowed--maybe once or twice, but that's about it.

 

My terrain settings are an attempt to get the terrain transitions as smooth as possible from the aircraft to the horizon.  Something interesting I see, which I see in real life, is from time to time a small area of textures will blur slightly.  I see this when flying in real life at jet altitudes, the ground below will sometimes blur depending on various factors in the atmosphere.  Next time you go on a cross country flight, pay attention.  It's very interesting to see.  Microsoft obviously did not try to duplicate this in FS9.  The blurring seen from time to time is just the odd texture getting loaded.  But they unintentionally duplicated something I see often in real life.

 

This thread has given me renewed interest in FS9.  It's held up well over the years, I think all would agree!

 

John

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John, have you tried running my DxtFixerX tool?

It's common that AI textures are in dxt3 format with alpha channel switched off. This is a major cause of stutters. These are the longer lasting stutters that can last a second or two.

Download the tool from the library here and point it to your FS9 root folder and let it run. You can then run it again to fix the faulty textures, or do it yourself and convert them to dxt1 without alpha, which is a better but more time consuming option.

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John, have you tried running my DxtFixerX tool?

It's common that AI textures are in dxt3 format with alpha channel switched off. This is a major cause of stutters. These are the longer lasting stutters that can last a second or two.

Download the tool from the library here and point it to your FS9 root folder and let it run. You can then run it again to fix the faulty textures, or do it yourself and convert them to dxt1 without alpha, which is a better but more time consuming option.

 

I'm off to find it right now!  That would be a great find and certainly draw me back into FS9 more!

 

Best Regards,

 

John

 

Edit:  I ran the tool against both FSX and FS9.  Surprisingly, it did not find too many textures out of place.  Just one AI aircraft, and a small group of third party aircraft.  It was just a handful of aircraft that it found.  I think it's a useful tool given its purpose--amazing effort!

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Oh one more thing, you said you locked your fps to 27. Never do that. How would that be able to sync with a 60hz monitor.

It's either 30 or 60 and for most it's 30.

 

 

I will try 30 again but when I dropped it back to 28, the nasty tear line went away. It is just not really really "fluid" like it is at 30 but I also don't have the nasty refresh line/tear.

 

 

The crisp ~ blurred ring is a result of the way FS9 reduces definition at a distance from the player's ground-zero. Crisp textures and vector scenery directly below, no vector scenery further out, mips of varying LODs at increasing distance, then generic landclass, then generic global colours. Try a top-down view when paused (Ctrl+S, it's on a toggle) and zoom out a step at a time. You'll see the concentric rings of different LOD/mipmap quite clearly. I'm surprised you haven't noticed them before.

 

 

Well is there a fix to push that "crisp ~ blurred" out of my sight? I'm getting ready to try @@neumanix settings but just want to see if this is approached from a different angle. There has to be something out there b/c this is quite annoying when flying low.

 

 

 

DxtFixerX tool?

 

I know this isn't for me but I use AlphaSearcher and like it. I haven't done my entire default FS settings but I run all new sceneries (payware/freeware) through it. So when a freeware scenery stutters I know it isn't missing textures and just poor .bgl coding.

 

Getting ready to try the settings, will advise.

 

Gary

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OK....

 

Those GPU settings did not fix the clear to blurry issue. Almost looked like nothing changed. In addition, FS was stuttering very bad (I assume it is the pre-render setting).

 

Here is a video showing all those settings in action locked at 30FPS. Notice the nasty tearing. The stuttering if from those GPU settings. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151703714753179&l=7175947965957912901

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OK (part 2).....

 

Dropping the AF setting down to 2X makes the "popping" blurry to clear go away and just a smooth line of blurry to clear but it is still not ideal and still have my fingers crossed that we all can find a fix. At least now I've got a "balance" if you want to call it that and it is not as annoying.

 

Gary

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Hi Gary.

 

 

Well is there a fix to push that "crisp ~ blurred" out of my sight? I'm getting ready to try @@neumanix settings but just want to see if this is approached from a different angle. There has to be something out there b/c this is quite annoying when flying low.

 

Sadly, there isn't.

 

What you're asking for is the long-sought holy grail. Along with Atlantis it's not available in FS9, although it seems the ground-texture LOD distances can be increased in FSX...

 

Below is a brief sample from Google.

 

 

See posts 16, 17 & 18 here:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/361328-terrain-draw-distance/

 

... and post 3 here (I haven't tried this but it may be worth a go. Note it applies to terrain.cfg and not to fs9.cfg):

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/329728-possible-new-tweak-for-fs9http://forum.avsim.net/topic/329542-help-with-setting-up-fs2004Regards.

 

... or post 5 here (the long one made by Luap. It seems to be from a MS forum):

http://www.simforums.com/forums/blurry-distance-in-fs9_topic31574.html

 

... or, short and sweet, here (post 10, aka Reply #9, by Wideloadwhitford):

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=2121.0

 

 

Best regards,

D

 

edit: If you fly low & slow, you could try adding TableFog=0 to your fs9.cfg and then setting visibility to 30 miles. That will thicken the haze at a distance while keeping terrain directly beneath you clear. Personally, I believe this is the best that can be achieved - obscuring the horrible bits. At altitude you will pop out of the tweaked visibility layer and things will be horrible again but you should be able to extend the visibility layer upwards in the weather settings. TableFog=0 can do funny things to your cirrus (sometimes cutting them in half) but I'm quite happy with that - it's not as offensive as unrealistic terrain.

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OK (part 2).....

 

Dropping the AF setting down to 2X makes the "popping" blurry to clear go away and just a smooth line of blurry to clear but it is still not ideal and still have my fingers crossed that we all can find a fix. At least now I've got a "balance" if you want to call it that and it is not as annoying.

 

Gary

 

I switched my AF setting to 16x some time ago just because I thought if it was the highest setting, then I should use it.  So I switched my setting down to 2X as you've suggested and it actually seems to make FS9 look better to me.

 

As for the TableFog suggestion, Soft Horizons was my attempt to have a good compromise that would work at all visibility settings.  And there's other sky environment packages, some payware and some not, which accomplish the same thing as Soft Horizons does.  It's all a matter of personal preference.  The important thing is to get FS9 optimized to your tastes, then enjoy it.  You'll know from your own observations what works best.  And if something does help, share it with the rest of us.  I know I'm an old dog, but I can certainly learn new tricks. :smile:

 

John

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OK (part 2).....

 

Dropping the AF setting down to 2X makes the "popping" blurry to clear go away and just a smooth line of blurry to clear but it is still not ideal and still have my fingers crossed that we all can find a fix. At least now I've got a "balance" if you want to call it that and it is not as annoying.

 

Gary

 

I didn't go through all posts, so i don't know what is tried allready. I think you should try this: 

 

Set FS9 profile in Nvidia Inspector like here: http://imageshack.us/a/img443/1917/fs9ni.png

 

Download FS9.CFG here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uf664tnt6gig6hi/fs9.CFG

I think i fixed it, there was 3 monitors and 2 grapfic cards... Yoo have two monitors and one graphic card, right? 

 

I changed some settings in fs9.CFG, you can easily set that like before, but try it this way first :)

 

I hope i deleted right monitors, if something is bad, delete all monitors entries and set that again in FS9 Display settings

 

All the best

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Hi.

 

Just re-read this lot and noticed that the second link in my post above refers to post 3... it should have been post #13.

 

Please accept my apologies.

 

I tried Neumanix suggestion of 16× AF and found it was no different to my setting of 4×. I'll try 2× tonight and see if it smooths the transition between terrain texture LODs.

 

Thanks chaps.

D

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@

 

I've looked thru all those links and I'm not sure what I am suppose to read. Some are saying there is no fix while others say there is no fix but you can push the blurry to clear out of sight. Is that the jist? If I can just get it pushed out of sight, that is all I really want.

 

Please advise.


@

 

I tried those GPU settings (see post #53).

 

I will throw that .cfg in but other then "WideViewAspect=True" I've tried them all before. And yes.... 1 GPU and 2 Monitors for my FS rig.

 

Thanks,

Gary


Also it is worth noting that I once tried a GTX650 in this system about a month ago as a test to see if it was my GPU. No difference.  

 

Update

OK... that .cfg did not work since it is built to run in full screen mode.

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@

 

I've looked thru all those links and I'm not sure what I am suppose to read. Some are saying there is no fix while others say there is no fix but you can push the blurry to clear out of sight. Is that the jist? If I can just get it pushed out of sight, that is all I really want.

 

Please advise.

@

 

I tried those GPU settings (see post #53).

 

I will throw that .cfg in but other then "WideViewAspect=True" I've tried them all before. And yes.... 1 GPU and 2 Monitors for my FS rig.

 

Thanks,

Gary

Also it is worth noting that I once tried a GTX650 in this system about a month ago as a test to see if it was my GPU. No difference.  

 

Update

OK... that .cfg did not work since it is built to run in full screen mode.

 

I just tried Zeljko's settings in Nvidia Inspector for both FS9 and FSX.  They seem to make a difference for me too, better than my previous settings.  The difference is subtle, but it's there.  Everything seems just a bit smoother.

 

That's what these discussions are for, so we can have a dialog, break down our own barriers, try new things, and have a better hobby and fellowship.

 

John

 

Edit:  I just tried another session with Zeljko's settings and they worked very well, for me.  I don't know if they will work for others, but I see an improvement in the sim beyond what I thought was possible.

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I'll give them a try again..... one thing I have noticed though, with AF turned on, my FPS acts weird. Like it will hold what it is locked at and then drop all the sudden but when I test it at unlimited, there is no issue. I wonder if my GPU just can't handle AF which is why I'm getting this issue. Never had it before with AF off.

 

Gary

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