Ground textures get blurry too near at the aircraft. NEED HELP :(

[mixen82 2]

Hi everyone,

 

I know, this has been discussed a xillion times before, but my problem is really bad, so I want to give it a try. Especially because all solutions mentioned in the other thread came up negative.

 

Because of the architecture of FS9, the grounf textures used in the distance get les detailed the further away from the aircraft they are, as FS uses a lower LOD model for object further away. But my problem is,that is seems that my textures get blurry and less details way to close to the aircraft. 

 

I have tried to modify the related entries in my fs9.cfg. I have also read and understood Jobia's amazing documentation ( only in German ), but nothing helped. The problem is, that the textures get blurry and less detailes about 6 to 7 miles away from the aircraft. That is unacceptable, especially because I usually do IFR commercial airliner flying within Europe and across the pond. So in high altitudes the visual experience is just bad.  :Cry:

 

Attached is an image of what it looks like, and that is only at an altitude of 10.000ft. (!!!!)

 

I do not think it has anything to do with my system:

 

CPU: Intel CoreI5 3550 ( 4x3.3GHz )

Mainboard: MSI Z77A-GD65

Memroy: 16GB Kingston HyperX Genesis

Video Card: nVidia GeForce 660TI 

 

The strange thing is that I had a much sharper and detailed visual appearance before, but I have not changed anything compared to then, so I wonder what has changed.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

And please no bashing just because I started a topic that comes up on a regular basis, thank you.

 

cheers

Mike

 

Edited July 27, 2013 by firehawk44
Photo deleted; Exceeds 1600W and 400KB weight limits

[mebull 27]

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Are the textures we see in the screen shot default? If they are I also notice a lack of autogen - it is there, just not in the numbers I would expect (see the area below and left of the Airbus tail. Have you made any modifications to the Autogen\ default Xml file or the terrain.cfg file? If the textures we see are default and the answer to the other questions are "no" then I would take a look at the FS9.cfg files [Terrain] section settings.

 

Regards,

Mel

[mixen82 2]

Hi Mel,

 

no, they are GE Pro ground textures. Autogen "lever" is at max. I too noticed that there should be many more autogen visible. Autogen\default.xml and terrain.cfg files are completely unchanged, I have never modified those two files. Terrain section in the fs9.cfg reads as follows:

 

TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_MAP=1

TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_OBJECTS=1

 

and

 

TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000

TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=0.000000

TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=200.000000

TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21

TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8

TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5

TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=4.000000

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.000000

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

 

On the last 3 entries, the factor 4 is the maximum that leads to a change, higher values have no effect to the visual appearance.

 

cheers

Mike

[Jure 36]

Mike,

 

the trick I use is this: after starting a flight with whatever airplane, I adjust the spot view distance as follows:

 

1. Set zoom to 0.9

2. set the distance from the airplane so that the whole airplane is comfortably visible from a side, or 45 degrees.

 

As I wrote, it's just a trick, but it works. Some airplanes set a high zoom in spot view by default when loaded and therefore the ground textures will seem blurrier than otherwise.

 

Regards,

Jure

[mixen82 2]

Hi Jure,

 

thanks for your tip, I use that one myself the problem is that the problem even occurs when I am in virtual cockpit view ( I use walk and follow to get some kind of "window view" ) and set the zoom factor to 0,64, wghich gives a pretty realistic view in VC. Even there the textures a blurry.

 

cheers

Mike 

[mebull 27]

 

 

Terrain section in the fs9.cfg reads as follows:

 

Mike,

Sorry it took so long for me to get back to this post. There are a few settings in your terrain section that caught my attention. They (the settings that differ from mine) may be causing your issues. Based on what you have written in your response to my questions, I think this is about the only area that could be responsible.

 

Here are my settings for you to try if you would like. At least to see if there are any positive / negative results.

 

[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.0
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

 

Regards,

Mel

[ironbird 1]

Hey Mike,

 

Could you please do screenshots of all your Display settings in FS9 and provide them here. Also let me know how is your VC tweaked in the CP. Bear in mind that all the settings in fs9.cfg are controlled through the program internal Display setup, so there is nothing more you can do by editing the lines manually in the text file.

 

Cheers,

Alex

[mixen82 2]

Hi Mel,

 

I have tried your settings although I knew that they would not solve the problem. Instead they led to the known "blue hole"-bug at LOD transitions. So I reset them back to my original settings.

 

Hi Alex,

 

Somehow the forum engine prevents me from attaching images. I will try to attach my display settings later :(

 

cheers

Mike

[mebull 27]

 

 

So I reset them back to my original settings.

 

Sorry that did not work for you, but at least that is eliminated. I'm curious about what you described as a 'blue hole' bug. Could you please explain that in more detail for me.

 

After thought here; If you are referring to blue slivers showing up in the terrain in the distance that look like torn mesh, that is exactly what it is. This problem can be fixed. If you are using the default FS9 mesh change your "TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21" back to "TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19" that should help. If you are using a add on mesh of higher resolution such as 38m mesh then adding a intermediate level or two of mesh called a buffer mesh will in effect fill these blue areas and they will disappear. That will allow you to display the terrain a higher level such as 20 or 21 without the slivers except in a rare instance.

 

Search "Blue Slivers" from the main AVSIM forum page. There is a lot of detailed information on the subject.

 

You might try my settings again - with the change mentioned above, see if that helps.

 

Regards,

Mel

[mixen82 2]

Yeah, those are ecactly what I was referring to. I will now try to add a intermediate level as you described, as I indeed use mesh of higher resolution. Thanks for the tip. After that I will retry your settings again. I will keep you advised if that helped.

 

cheers

Mike

 

 

[mixen82 2]

Now I have installed a LOD7 buffer mesh and the blue slivers are gone trying out your values in the fs9.cfg had no effect. I changed them bach to mine.

 

cheers

Mike 

[Scorp 15]

What I'm seeing in your FS9.cfg setting that will cause this problem is:

 

 

TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=0.000000

      change to 10.000000

TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=200.000000

      change to 100.000000

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=4.000000

     change to 9.500000

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.000000

    change to 9.500000

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

    change to 8

also make sure your global max texture size is Massive.

 

If that don't fix your problem then the only other thing I can think of is memory starvation, and that's usually a texture problem.

[mixen82 2]

Hi Tommy,

 

as expected, the changed you suggested had no effect, so I changed them back to mine. BTW: maximum values under TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS, TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS and TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS are 4. FS will ignore all values above 4, resulting in no visual effect. But nonetheless I tried, but as mentioned without success. 

 

I don't think that memory starvation is the problem here: 16GB system memory at 9% load when FS is runnning (along with Win, Antivir and a few other programs), 2GB Video memory, at 56% load when FS is running. CPU sits almost idle at 1% load.

 

cheers

Mike

[Scorp 15]

Hi Mike,

 

Sorry that didn't work for you. On my system I can tell a big difference between TDR / TER 4.0 and 9.5 which is why I suggested that, slong with TEL at 8. I know this has been discussed to death over the years, for some it worked, some it didn't. I do seem to recall that someone from Aces had suggested the 9.5 settings.

 

Memory starvation can still be a problem, FS is still a 32 bit app. so it doesn't matter how much system memory you have FS will never use it all.

Are you using Ultimate Terrain, 32 bit textures,  a lot of AI, photo scenery, etc ?

 

On my system I start to see what you are seeing when memory usage in task manager starts getting up around 1.8-1.9 GB, at 2.1-2.2 GB I see exactly what you're seeing, my system has 4 GB ram, 1 GB video ram, and page file set at 3 GB.

( It's an old system)

[mixen82 2]

Hi Tommy,

 

right, some had sucess with it, others like me didn't. Too bad it doesn't work for me :( problem would be soled right now. So troubleshooting continues.....

 

No, I use GE Pro textures. Just recently I tried to get it fixed with using the textures out of the Reality packs, available as freeware here on Avsim. But the prob was still there. In addition, those textures did not look too good, so I switched bach to GE Pro. I am not using any photoscenery besides those included with several payware airport sceneries. While I like the look of photoscenery when flying at high altitude, they look just ugly on approach. The abstinence of autogen in photosceneries make it worse. But I use massive AI traffic, I would say about 80 to 90 % of the real world traffic is covered in my sim. I don't use payware AI traffic addons like MyTaffic or Ultimate traffic. I install AI Planes and flightplans manually by using Traffic Tools. A LOT of work I can tell you, but also a lot of fun, at least for me

 

I think to remember that I read somewhere that there is a way to bring FS to using more memory than originally intended to cope with higher end machines available today. Do you know how this can be achieved? I think I read something about a little patch style tool, but I am not entirely sure about that.

 

cheers

Mike