As far as I know FTX Global mostly just replaces default FSX textures with better looking ones (and that automatically doesn't mean they consume more resources) and I think they also made some changes to autogen placement or something.

 

I don't think FTX Global did anything magical that GEX hasn't done so far, where the real new stuff will come in are the OpenLC packs which will increase variation of different ground textures used through custom lanclass and totally new textures instead of just replacing default ones. 

 

Also note that when FSX came out nobody could really run it with max or nearly max autogen and high texture quality and still have acceptable FPS. 

 

By the way, do you suggest ACES team should have also covered whole world with Flytampa quality airport scenery just because that's possible? 

I suggest that the entire world should have been covered by what FSXG brings to the plate, as that is what we fly over and interact with. Airports I have no problems with as they were delivered and in that level of detail. I land on runways, and taxi to the gate. But...I fly over the world connecting any two airports, and  yes, the team in charge of world textures...YES...could have given us what we got from ORBX those many years ago, since release. YES...an absolute to that question!

 

They addressed the system-of-the-day with the use of dummy-down sliders to most graphics. The user (and we did...) would play with them to get an FPS rate that they could live with. That should have not been a 'filter' for substandard graphics.  That would not have been a good reason to deliver the world as they did. No sir.

 

 

as the originators of the code, the very genesis of that code, they would have had the ultimate understanding of what they were coding

 

I think they did know this - lets not forget that FSX was a marked improvement over it's predecessor FS2004 in many ways... from autogen density, texture resolution, mesh resolution, and landclass diversity. Through years of experiments and experience, Orbx and others have taken these platform improvements and pushed them even further.

 

Let me twist your question/opinion around a bit:

• If back in 2005 during development, ACES knew how their scenery platform would be used in 2013, would they simply build in what Orbx is doing today, OR would they take a few weeks to build in hooks, tools, and capabilities to make what Orbx is doing today even better?
   
• Along the same lines, of Orbx-quality global scenery was present in the 2006 initial release, would the 3rd party scenery world have left it alone, OR would they have found some other way to extend, expand, and improve the world we fly over even further?

I feel even if today's Orbx-style scenery was in place from the start, enterprising developers would still have found ways to improve upon it over the course of seven years. In that parallel universe I'm sure we're having the same discussion about what it would be like if all those improvements were already built in... lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum.

 

-Greg

I think if someone had a solution to how AutoGen scenery appears, I might have more interest in GEX/FTX world.  I have GEX and may try FTX some day but the way AutoGen pops into the environment is a HUGE distraction for me even if I could ignore that the "scenery" below has no relationship to real world beyond a "regional" scope.  I haven't found a solution to the AutoGen object popping into view ... if someone has a solution, please let me know -- I've tried a lot so far with not much success, even the carefully edited FSX videos online can't escape the AutoGen scenery popping.

 

Don't get me wrong, GEX/FTX are certainly MUCH improved over FSX default and great products for areas I don't have photo scenery ... they bring seasons, night, etc. etc.

I think they did know this - lets not forget that FSX was a marked improvement over it's predecessor FS2004 in many ways... from autogen density, texture resolution, mesh resolution, and landclass diversity. Through years of experiments and experience, Orbx and others have taken these platform improvements and pushed them even further.

 

Let me twist your question/opinion around a bit:

• If back in 2005 during development, ACES knew how their scenery platform would be used in 2013, would they simply build in what Orbx is doing today, OR would they take a few weeks to build in hooks, tools, and capabilities to make what Orbx is doing today even better?
• Along the same lines, of Orbx-quality global scenery was present in the 2006 initial release, would the 3rd party scenery world have left it alone, OR would they have found some other way to extend, expand, and improve the world we fly over even further?

I feel even if today's Orbx-style scenery was in place from the start, enterprising developers would still have found ways to improve upon it over the course of seven years. In that parallel universe I'm sure we're having the same discussion about what it would be like if all those improvements were already built in... lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum.

 

-Greg

-------------------------------------

 

Hi Greg,

 

I only suggest that the purchaser of the RTM year should have had ORBX'esqe visual level of quality (as it was posible in the day), and in agreement with you, other enterprises would pick up the creative ball and run with it. That is the beauty of SDK open architexture! There will always be persons of interest waiting for patents to expire if need's be...and 'thinking outside the box' innovation coming into play... So therefore was the cause to post...these were highly paid engineers and graphic artists, and they should have given us their best and ORBX recognized it wasn't, and rushed in to fill the void YEARS after the fact. So again I type...what prevented them so?

.

I think if someone had a solution to how AutoGen scenery appears, I might have more interest in GEX/FTX world. I have GEX and may try FTX some day but the way AutoGen pops into the environment is a HUGE distraction for me even if I could ignore that the "scenery" below has no relationship to real world beyond a "regional" scope. I haven't found a solution to the AutoGen object popping into view ... if someone has a solution, please let me know -- I've tried a lot so far with not much success, even the carefully edited FSX videos online can't escape the AutoGen scenery popping.

 

Don't get me wrong, GEX/FTX are certainly MUCH improved over FSX default and great products for areas I don't have photo scenery ... they bring seasons, night, etc. etc.

Try VERY DENSE for both Autogen and Scenery complexity sliders. No popping observed with FSXG on my high end system.

 

 

Try VERY DENSE for both Autogen and Scenery complexity sliders.

 

Already at max.  Are you flying in circles?    That's the ONLY time AutoGen doesn't pop into view for me.  But like I said, I haven't seen an FSX video yet (that uses AutoGen) where objects don't suddenly appear in the distance, the higher the LOD_RADIUS, the worse it gets.  I was hoping you have some setting that I hadn't tried yet, sadly no :(

...

I still would like someone with the technical expertise to suggest what ORBX did, and in what ACES, did NOT when releasing their FSX default texture sets at RTM.

See "the FTX technology" here: http://fullterrain.com/about.html

 

Your company (culture) sounds much like 1980s American Airlines - absolutely no place to work at (for me).

Not sure if you're talking about the ground textures or the autogen trees themselves.

 

The FTXG textures are the same 1024x1024 pixels (1m/pixel) textures as GEX and indeed the default FSX textures too. What it comes down to is artistic skill, making every pixel count and contribute with something to the final texture.

 

As for the autogen trees, since they're just flat texture sheets, using an "alpha channel" for transparency, it's very easy to fake detail like branches with almost no FPS hit. For the GPU, it's very simple, it's just rendering one additional "color" (the alpha channel), in addition to the regular Red, Green and Blue channels. The RGB channels provide the detail, the Alpha channel tells the sim which parts of the tree is "see-through".

In my opinion there were a lot of things ACES didn't know about their own platform at the time MS discontinued FS development. That's evidenced by the fact that drawcall batching didn't come along until SP2/Accel, and further evidenced by the fact that most of the default libraries that were batched still contain LODs which of course are rendered useless when drawcall batching is employed. That incidentally is why you see the flickering in 90% of the default terminal buildings and such, the main models and the LODs are fighting over the same real estate in the sim.

 

Was ACES simply too lazy to remove the LODs prior to batching the libraries? I don't think so - in reality I'm guessing they didn't fully understand and therefore didn't remove the LODs because they assumed they would still be working. There is a horrendous amount of superfluous geometry in the default libraries because of the LODs, I removed the LODs from my own personal copy of "vehicles_aircraft.bgl" for example and the filesize of that library dropped from over 20 megs down to about 11 megs. An additional performance gain could have been realized in addition to that gained by batching if ACES had removed the LODs as well, and with a side benefit of flicker elimination. At the time they were trying very hard to improve the performance of FSX to quell the noise from the FS community with regard to performance and IMHO if they had realized the LODs were no longer necessary they would have taken the necessary steps to remove them. Therefore the idea that addon developers have refined the sim beyond what ACES had the knowledge to do in 2006 is entirely valid as far as I can see.

 

Just my .02...

 

Jim

There is a horrendous amount of superfluous geometry in the default libraries because of the LODs, I removed the LODs from my own personal copy of "vehicles_aircraft.bgl" for example and the filesize of that library dropped from over 20 megs down to about 11 megs.

 

With ModelConverterX? And did it improve performance for you? (Stupid questions, I know.)

 

 

I think that ACES simply did not have the time to redo the libraries. They worked on Acceleration and DX10 support while implementing draw call batching.

 

Generally, most of the "issues" in FSX are most certainly simply caused by lack of time and an impatient and ignorant management. Remember, by 2006 flight simulators were already a niche product and patience is very thin when a team isn't working on a cash cow and takes an excessive amount of time.

With ModelConverterX? And did it improve performance for you? (Stupid questions, I know.)

 

 

I think that ACES simply did not have the time to redo the libraries. They worked on Acceleration and DX10 support while implementing draw call batching.

 

Generally, most of the "issues" in FSX are most certainly simply caused by lack of time and an impatient and ignorant management. Remember, by 2006 flight simulators were already a niche product and patience is very thin when a team isn't working on a cash cow and takes an excessive amount of time.

 

Yep, MCX. No, didn't see a huge improvement in performance if any at all, possibly would have if aircraft models were placed in much higher concentrations, but batching itself makes the few extra polygons here and there not quite as important as they were to us in FS9. It's an ongoing project, I've processed several other libraries as well, mostly just to get rid of the flickers though. I've also found a lot of cases where the flickers weren't caused by LODs, but rather just some really f**ed up modeling.

 

I think you nailed it re: ACES and time constraints/ignorant/impatient management and that's likely left us with a lot of hard-coded issues as well that could have been fixed if they'd not been under so much pressure to get it finished up and released to the consumer. That's how the world works more often than not from my experience though :smile:

 

 

I removed the LODs from my own personal copy of "vehicles_aircraft.bgl" for example and the filesize of that library dropped from over 20 megs down to about 11 megs.

 

Jim, is this file available in AVSIM?

 

Thanks, Rob.

Jim, is this file available in AVSIM?

 

Thanks, Rob.

 

No, i never uploaded it but check your PMs.

 

Jim

 I haven't found a solution to the AutoGen object popping into view ... if someone has a solution, please let me know -- I've tried a lot so far with not much success, even the carefully edited FSX videos online can't escape the AutoGen scenery popping.

I know a possible solution. But you don't want to know what it is because it would be exceptionally painful to do (and will only work on vegetation).

 

There were different focus groups assigned to varied tasks, and as you suggest,making the umbrella argument, wouldn't fly in my corporate culture...you delegate, and each focus delegate comes together with .deliverables. Those assigned to texture and autogen  should have had the skill set to produce at RTM.  There was no soft focus and generalization I assure you at head's up meetings with department heads. If there was..that would have been grossly lax on Microsoft's part. Where I work, you wouldn't last past one project, and if you were under contract...perhaps early termination, and out the door....bye, bye......

 

We must (in my cooperate culture) execute deliverables that are top notch, and one past the median  research of the competition, or else why am I there, and why are they paying me....and if not delivered, you hit the bread line....   I have seen more than one or more colleagues be shown the door because of their 'soft delivery focus'. To suggest that MS's ACES team had a 'lot more'...to focus on, is the sound of death in any cooperate professional career, if.... stating 'the reason to not deliver excellence...' is/was "we has so much to focus on, Vice President,'at the Team Meeting Oversight. . If ORBX could deliver this quality of texture and autogen...WITHIN the confines of untouched FSX core code WRITTEN by that ACES team... so should they (ACES themselves)  have given the end user/client no less.in visual quality at product release.  A  tasked 'large/soft focus' is no excuse for non performance and delivery in the board room.  But anyways, this is coming off topic.  I still would like someone with the technical expertise to suggest what ORBX did, and in what ACES, did NOT when releasing their FSX default texture sets at RTM.

 

MItch

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Sorry about the typo: two instances of 'cooperate' should of course be; corporate.  Typing on an iPad  virtual keyboard can be challenging with large hands, lol!

Oh, BTW, if anybody has installed iOS7....if you go on the Net and  Google 'battery drain'...you will find a lot of good information, on what is new, what is running as default in the background, and what features, you can turn off, or live without as enabled, 24/7, This will bring back your battery draw to what it was, with iOS6.3   Just a head's up.  I have found iOS7 to be quite an upgrade and appreciate all the new features it brings to the table.  It really makes the iPad 4th generation fly that much faster in I/O. Ok, back on topic...

Already at max.  Are you flying in circles?    That's the ONLY time AutoGen doesn't pop into view for me.  But like I said, I haven't seen an FSX video yet (that uses AutoGen) where objects don't suddenly appear in the distance, the higher the LOD_RADIUS, the worse it gets.  I was hoping you have some setting that I hadn't tried yet, sadly no :(

Robains, no, I don't have any popping up of autogen, but in thinking back, I did have with my prior graphic's card. I now have a high-end EVGA GTX680 2GB running at a high rate of stable overclock (as set up by their O/C utility.  So, with my i7975 Extreme/GTX 680 2 Gig one-two punch, no popping and get a very fluid and constant 30 FPS (locked within the sim) at Very Dense for both sliders. It could be a system thing on your end. This is my first EVGA product, and as a result of its performance and reliability to date, would certainly order another in their product line if the need is seen. So far though, the GTX 680 2 GB has been a beast, and gives FPS and visual rendering to the 'nines'. Highly recommended. Can't speak for any model beyond the 600 series, but for the 680 variant....I sure can!!!  So no special setting that you probably have not already in your .cfg file.  I also run with 5.5 for the LOD.  BTW, if it can help, below is my .cfg file. Please adopt and use what you don't have already, or wish to try...

 

Post Edit, Robains, since having come back from a visit to West Virginia (to visit  Antietam and Gettysburg), I have been flying at length over Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania in FSXG, and let me tell you...that Tri-State area is heavily forested as well as good autogen disbursement. I experience no popping of any kind, no matter where I pan, whether in the cockpit, or out in SPOT VIEW, everything is 'there' in real time. Again, could be the i7975 Extreme at 4.02 O/C / and GTX680 at O/C in play here for the no popping autogen on my monitor. 

 

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