I know this is a well-trodden path, and I have spent quite some time scanning through previous posts (some getting a bit ancient) on this topic before submitting this. The array of advice is rather overwhelming! I wonder if anyone has a kind of 'summary' of what has been said before. Has anyone managed to 'fix' this problem, inasmuch as a definitive fix can ever exist? I have tried a few FS9.exe tweaks, but the permutations of the various options are endless. I have attached a typical picture of what I tend to get. The textures nearly always DO resolve into nice crisp ones, but it can take over one minute to do so. The problem is worse (of course) over third party airport/scenery add-ons, which tend to give frame-rate hits. Frame rates themselves are generally OK - about 25fps or more, even when the textures are blurred. I have fps fixed to 36fps; changing to unlimited doesn't help. Oddly, if you are in cockpit view and choose '5' on the keypad, in order to look straight down, the textures are always immediately as sharp as crystal - it's just in all other views that the problem occurs.Has anyone upgraded to a top of the range CPU (e.g. an AMD64 FX53) and found that this has resolved things? No point just throwing money at the problem without some guarantee that it will have some psitive results!Martin :-)

I think that it has something to do with the way FS "scales" the performance itself.If your PC is struggling then the texture "ring" a little further out from your craft will be blurry.I am not sure, but I have a feeling the upper and lower FPS limit locks can affect this.If your FPS go below the lower limit then FS will try the "scale" the settings back as to try and increase the FPS.Or I could be talking rubbish :-lolI would suggest you set your upper limit to lower than 36fps, if you turn on the average FPS counter via the FS9.cfg, fly around a relitivly harsh FPS area, I normally use KSEA as it has a mix of everything, after a while note your average FPS, then lock your fps at that.I don't see this problem on my machine, but I seem to remember when my PC was of a lower spec and the FPS dropped then this would happen.Dan.

I had the same problem. It would appear intermittently and if I rereshed the screen it would be fine for a while. I upgraded the chipset and mb bios and installed the intel application accelerator and it went away. Sorry, not too sure which one fixed it, maybe a combination of them. billg

I think Dan is correct. I am pretty sure this is not a bug, but a feature to keep framerates at the locked level. Back in the fs2000 days, there was a payware utility from Lago called FS Assist which did exactly this. It would reduce texture details to keep your overall framerate smooth (we all remember the wonderful performance with fs2000). Since fs2002, people have complained of blurry textures. "The blurries". My guess would be that MS used this same idea in fs2002 and 2004. With 2000, everyone complained about the terrible stutters, so this was one way to fix that problem. Of course this is all just a crazy theory on my part, I've got no evidence to back it up. The problem is it is difficult to get the full textures to render clearly, even when there is enough processor power.

Perhaps this is something I have to accept - my frame rates in default scenery are usually OK - I have capped them at 36 after trying lots of other values, none of which made the slightest difference.M.

But what I am trying to explain is that if you have your upper framerate limit higher than what you can averagely acheieve then FS will try to scale your sim to try and reach this figure, which is why you see blurry textures.You need to discover what your "real" average FPS is, and then set it at that, that way FS will not be trying to "throttle back" your settings trying to reach a FPS limit it can'tDan.

Martin, I had the exact same thing as you. That could have been a snap from my old systemCeleron 1.4 GhzGeForce 2 32 mbWith a Pentium 4 Prescott E 3.4 and the ATI X800XT 256 MB being driven by the OMEGA 2.5.90 drive suite, I get CRISP, clear ground scenery (textures) right out to the horizon.You might want to try the latest XP 2.5.90 from the Omega Driver website. That might be what you need. The only other thing might be to have 256 MB onboard the video card.I never owned a 128 mb piece before so I can't say that that might be it for sure.Cheers!Mitch R.

It's obvious that for some reason your system doesn't load the textures quickly enough. It hasn't even filled the distant view with textures at all. I assume that if you fly a slower plane like the Cessna 172, textures ramin sharp?What are your current system specs? I have an AthlonXP 2.2 GHz, 512MB RAM and a Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB. Unless your system is weaker than mine there's no point in upgrading because I get nice and sharp textures on mine all the time. Never seen this automatic voodooish "scaling" that everyone talks about. There's already a dozen scenery related options in the display settings - why should FS ignore those just because it can't achieve the maximum "roof" target FPS selected?Setting framerate target to Unlimited often makes the textures load a bit faster so you should set it to that unless you need to limit FPS for some reason.You may want to try changing some lines in the fs9.cfg file:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.900000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=3.5TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.900000This will make FS load the textures farther ahead which can sometimes help.

Yes, thanks for the replies.... My fps, Dan, is capped at 36 because that is roughly what FS9 produces over normal terrain. I agree with you that setting the capping too high only makes FS9 struggle in vain, but I think 36fps is about right for my system.Having spent some hours scouring the web about this, I have already made some changes to the fs9.cfg file and changed values to the following:[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=36TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80 (was 40)[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=95.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5000000 (was 0.000000)TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=5.500000 (was 0.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1307992The change of TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT to 80 or more (some say as high as 400, others say that's way over the top), from 40, was recommended by several people, as were the radius values. As a result (early days yet) is a definite improvement: scenery is sharper and does not come into focus in blocks any more. The downside seems to be somewhat reduced frame rates - or is this my imagination?? I can experiment further of course. I wonder what would happen with TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT set to 400?! I don't understand the TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS value you give though. 3.5? Mine is set to 1307992 - presumably by FS9 itself, as I haven't changed a thing. Something odd here...Martin :-)

Well, after tests I see that these values (which seem to be a popular tweak!) cause me problems:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5000000 (was 0.000000)TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=5.500000 (was 0.000000)Even if I set them to what is supposed to be default, 2.5 and 4.0 - if what I read is in fact true (then why were mine set to zero?), I get 'tears' (as in 'rips', not sobbing...!) in the terrain. On the other hand, the terrain does load up faster and seems altogether crisper. But with these slits of pale blue appearing and disappearing the improvement comes at too high a price and I've had to go back to my 'zero' settings. See attachments: 'Default' means with my original zero settings and 'Tweaked' with some other setting (2.5 and 4.0; 9.5 and 5.5... whatever). The added blue tear, or line, is not water ....Any ideas as to why this happens? I have FS Genesis mesh installed, but would that make a difference? (Might explain my TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS figure??).Thanks,Martin

Sorry - second attachment is here!

Martin, I was happy to read your post, because I have recently discovered bright blue tears in my detail add-on mesh that appeared after I changed some Terrain settings based on forum recommendations.In my case, it was the Extended Levels figure that was the culprit. I had set it to 3, and also experimented with 6... Some claim that any number greater than 4, gets capped at 4 anyway... I'm not sure that there is a common setting that suits all, but going back to my earlier setting of TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=2.5 TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=6.0 TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1 has cured it.

Martin I had 1307992 also for TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS. I don't remember where it came from but I think it was that reading before the patch in my FS9cfg. I went back through tips and tricks and reset some items. I now have 4 for TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS. I'm pretty happy with the way it looks. I'm also running a TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULTI=400I think I noticed a decrease in ground texture studders in spot view.P4 3.0,1024 MB,ATI 9800 pro 128MB,XP pro SP2.

It's all so hard to pin down! For the moment (tempting fate here!) everything is working beautifully. I've no blue tears (though my TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS & TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS are back at their original zeros: as I say, I seem to get these rips in the 'world fabric' when I set them at any other value. I've got the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULTI at 80.The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course: I just took a long flight from Quito in the north of Ecuador down the Andes to Santiago, Chile. FS Genesis (Andes) terrain mesh looked superb, and everything was crisp and clear. If my FS stayed like this I should have no more complaints - but who knows how it will behave tomorrow?!Martin

Bert,This seems to work for me:[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=30TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=80.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=2.750000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1307992I don't understand why some people have single figures for TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS and others huge numbers like me! Maybe something to do with add-on terrain mesh, of which I have quite a lot. It is the TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS which causes the tears in the texture for me. If I make it any higher than 2.75, they appear. If I set the value to zero, as was my default setting, the scenery is quite a bit less sharp. It's a balancing act - not sure if I have got it right yet.Martin