This thread seems to have jumped the shark, so let me attempt to get it back on track.

 

Boez kindly sent me his 'Spring MIP Color RingTextures' I've been toiling away testing a variety or tweaks I'd collected to se if any of them could be used to push inner LOD_Radius rings or force the loading of higher MIP textures into the mid-distance scenery. Alas - I was not successful.

 

It did lead to a realization - LOD_Radius effects the scenery MESH detail applied - more distant scenery gets a lower detail of mesh. And depending on the scenery, the mesh is just as important to the appearance as the texture detail (in some regions, perhaps more important).  So, there's another avenue of pursuit - how to compel FSX to load higher complexity mesh further afield. I suspect that loading hi-rez mesh has less of a performance impact than scenery textures, making this an attractive challenge to crack.

 

Also, I did stumble across a tweak that may provide some benefit. The parameters of interest are Bojote suggestions from a couple of years back. I tweaked the originally suggested values since his didn't actually seem to do anything.

 

In your fsx.cfg, under [Terrain], add the following lines:

MIN_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL=12

MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL=15

 

With Boez help, we decided that the effect of this tweak is to force FSX to apply the base texture tile detail1.bmp further out into your scenery than is normally done. You can toggle this off and on using the Scenery Configuration flag: Texture Detail. In some scenery, the effect is quite good - in others, almost unobservable, so YMMV.

 

The effect on my SkyBlue Arizona photoscenery is actually pertty 'effective'. OTOH, I could barley notice it with the Orbx FTX Global textures I have as my default. Here's some screen shots I took to demonstrate various settings:

pic 1: zoom 1.0 so you have a context

pic 2: LOD_Radius 4.5, MIN & MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL absent zoom 3

pic 3: LOD_Radius 4.5, MIN & MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL at 12&15, zoom 3

pic 4: LOD_Radius 6.5, MIN & MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL absent, zoom 3

(you'll notice the mesh is more complex at 6.5)

pic 5: LOD_Radius 6.5, MIN & MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL at 12&15, zoom 3

 

Click on the pics for full 1920X1080.

 

 

 

 

Hi Odourboy, 

   

   Picture 5 is the clear winner with regard to resolving distant images/textures, and adding more complexity to the near bluffs.

 

   You do not specify if you have an addon mesh project, such as FS Genesis. I wonder if that would make a difference. I have not re-installed my FS Genesis mesh products since moving to P3D, and wonder if increasing from the default 38.2 M to 9.6 M would also produce this enhancement.

 

   Sounds like a homework assignment is in the works!

 

JKH 

 

 

Picture 5 is the clear winner with regard to resolving distant images/textures, and adding more complexity to the near bluffs.

 

As it should be - Picture 5 is taken at LOD_Radius 6.5 and with the texture detail enhancement. The scenery used in those pics were Blue Sky (Arizona). It includes 10M mesh so I've already got the advantage of a good mesh for this test.

Cool - thank you!

 

I think I will wait for P3D V2 to re-install my FS Genesis products - they add up to a LOT of data.

In your fsx.cfg, under [Terrain], add the following lines:

MIN_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL=12

MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL=15

Ran some tests with this one.

 

LOD=4.5

 

 

LOD...=4.5

MIN...=12

MAX...=15

 

 

LOD...=6.5

 

 

 

LOD...=6.5

MIN...=12

MAX...=15

 

 

 

1. The MIN... and MAX... settings only made the water detail disappear. No other changes than that. (The changing grainyness is due to FSX randomly applying its detail noise texture during each loadup.)

 

2. LOD... affects vector line, mesh and texture resolution in the distance.

 

 

Maybe I've missed a remark that MIN... and MAX... is best suited for photo sceneries. For landclass based stuff, however, it is absolutely useless.

Maybe I've missed a remark that MIN... and MAX... is best suited for photo sceneries. For landclass based stuff, however, it is absolutely useless.

 

 

In some scenery, the effect is quite good - in others, almost unobservable, so YMMV.

Yep - for your scenery looks pretty useless. For me, with FTGX, 'almost' absolutely useless. I did notice a slight improvement in some very distant hills, but for all intents, useless. However, since the OP was using photo scenery, I thought it might be of interest. In my desert scenery, it was of benefit. Sorry if you feel I wasted your time.

Nah, never mind. It's one more variable out of the equasion and that's a good thing.

Nah, never mind. It's one more variable out of the equasion and that's a good thing.

Bjoern - I just realized that your photos are of far off scenery looking from far off. Did you inspect the scenery zoomed in at all? I zoomed in to 3.00 to see the full effect of the application of detail1.bmp. Not suggestion you're wrong, but the pictures you posted MAY be misleading.

 

The main point of my post was actually to highlight the significance of mesh detail in the equation. Any thoughts on how to increase the mesh being applied to more distant scenery?

 

Further, I totally disagree with you. It obviously improves the appearance of my SW photoscenery. It very marginally improves my FTGX scenery. It has no negative impact on the appearance of any scenery. It has no significant performance or footprint impact. That makes it a pretty fine tweak!

 

 

It did lead to a realization - LOD_Radius effects the scenery MESH detail applied - more distant scenery gets a lower detail of mesh.

 

I think you will need to replace all the textures with transparency including bkg.bmp (it's alpha is set to empty) and/or place a border to make it more clear ... this might confirm your hypothesis.

 

 

 

I think I will wait for P3D V2 to re-install my FS Genesis products

 

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't hear any news that P3D V2 was going to be compatible with any existing FSX/P3D products?

 

 

 

The main point of my post was actually to highlight the significance of mesh detail in the equation. Any thoughts on how to increase the mesh being applied to more distant scenery?

 

Tessellation   ... oh what, never mind ... sorry couldn't resist.

 

 

It allows tasks to ping-pong back and forth between cores, hyper-threaded or not, and the ensuing cache thrashing just slows things down.

 

In theory, if you set the affinity for the thread and also set the "ideal" parameter it should NOT move the thread around to other cores (HT or real).  I haven't tested this yet real world ... it's in my scope of a project I'm currently working (nothing to do with FSX) on but not there yet.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't hear any news that P3D V2 was going to be compatible with any existing FSX/P3D products?

 

A lot of addons will still be compatible, but it remains to be seen exactly what this means.

 

 

A lot of addons will still be compatible, but it remains to be seen exactly what this means.

 

Well that is good news.  Going to be an interesting next few months for us Flight Sim enthusiasts.

Well that is good news.  Going to be an interesting next few months for us Flight Sim enthusiasts.

Yes, never imagined I would be this exited in the fall of 2013 after what happened over at Microsoft HQ in january 2009. Lockheed Martin is stepping up their game!

 

 

I think you will need to replace all the textures with transparency including bkg.bmp (it's alpha is set to empty) and/or place a border to make it more clear ... this might confirm your hypothesis.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the pictures I posted confirm my hypothesis. LOD 4.5 clearly shows reduced mesh/tessellation (whatever) than does 6.5 and it's not a big leap to claim that it would look better, even if the textures were identical.

 

 

As far as I'm concerned, the pictures I posted confirm my hypothesis. LOD 4.5 clearly shows reduced mesh/tessellation (whatever) than does 6.5 and it's not a big leap to claim that it would look better, even if the textures were identical.

 

Agree, the mesh does appear to be of higher poly count ... was just suggesting a way to prove it clearly by using textures to emulate a wire frame.

Agree, the mesh does appear to be of higher poly count ... was just suggesting a way to prove it clearly by using textures to emulate a wire frame.

Did you try my tweak on your Boston scenery? I'm curious if it adds anything at all to the stuff past the line.

 

FWIW, I don't know what Bjoern is running, but my water textures (FEX & DX-10) look perfect with those extra constants in the config. No impact at all that I can see.