Are these graphics normal?

[MDF86 123]

Hi Guys

 

I'm new to DX10, and relatively new (back) to FSX after a lengthy absence.

 

I timed my return to coincide with the switch to DX10, and love the increased smoothness I've noticed, however I'm concerned I have some graphical issue that I don't recall being there before, namely some blurry textures.

 

This is a shot around the Greek islands, and I don't remember textures being quite so blurry in the background when I was using DX9, but like I said, it's been a long while. When I'm closer it's not so noticeable, or if I zoom out a lot, does this look fairly "normal" to you?

 

I would expect more "crisp" definition to the peaks of the land (using FS Global mesh) rather than what I see here, with more clearly defined textures, but maybe I'm being over demanding?

 

Thanks all

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

Although you indicate you zoomed out, you are not zoomed out.  The aircraft would not be that close.  Rendering of textures in the distance is controlled by your LOD_Radius.  Although you might have had it set at 6.5 or higher, it goes back to the default of 4.5 if you go into the FSX settings>Scenery page.

 

You water looks horrible.  You have no clouds in the sky.  Your AA looks bad too as I can see the jagged edges on the top of the aircraft.  You have a nice system that should run FSX well.  If it looks nice in DX9 it will look just as nice in DX10 except for the eye-candy that comes with DX10.  It would be nice to see your DX9 image of the same area.

 

Best regards,

[Jetblst 23]

Quick question?

 

Did you by chance do the following?  (I ask as we have similar systems mine not quite a nice as yours.  But close).  Or let me say, I would do the following.

 

1.  Give Nick N's relatively new set up Bible a look over to make sure your install is stable.  

 

2.  If nice a and stable I would back up my current FSX.CFG.  (They recomend this in the DX10 Guide) HOWEVER,  Remove it and let FSX build you a fresh new one.  Copy it and put it with your backup too.  

 

3.  THEN follow the FSX Basic Install Guide then the DX10 Guide.  I found a few valuable edits before I started in on DX10.  PLUS I wanted to really make sure I was starting at a base point to make trouble shooting and tuning easier).

 

After that grab Steve's Scenery Fixer.  The cost is well worth setting this up right.

 

4.  Flight test like crazy.  Everyone has a different system so there are no magic bullets here.  

 

Take a look at my system.  Nothing to write home about to say the least.  I did everything PER the guides, then I flight tested and adjusted from there.

 

I am now locked down at 30 FPS and while in flight I MIGHT see my frames go between 25 and 33 or so most of the time they stay between 29 and 33. In DX10 of course Frames are really not as important as smooth.  Smooth 20 fps DX10 is better than jerky stuttery say 25 to 45 DX9 fps.

 

 I fly the Eaglesoft Citation X 2.0 (there is a lot of glass in there) and I have no issues, ctd's OOM etc and a smooth running FSX.  Took some time but well worth it.

 

That said.

 

Check your Fiber_Frame_Rate too.

 

FFR is automatically set to .33 without the FFR line in your FSX.CFG.  It is recommended to only use this if you are experiencing the blurries.  I used it because if you set lower from .33 to say .15 or so you might get a bump in performance.  I actually did.  Even though the adjustment is meant for blurries.  Which you say you have.  What FFR does is makes it so your CPU spends more time loading textures and less on rendering.  Finding the sweet spot will require you to experiment between .10 (don't go below that) to .33.  Google FFR if you want to know more.  It's out there.

 

What is your (IN SIM) Detail Radius slider (IQ Slider) set to by the way?  That should not be an issue UNLESS  you have it set to minimum.  Min setting may give you blurries in the distance at low alt.    If you have it set to medium you need to be between 35k and 50k to even notice far off blurries.  Most people do not fly high enough to notice any blurries if you have this set to max.  

 

If set to med or max try FFR.

 

Hope this helps

[MDF86 123]

Although you indicate you zoomed out, you are not zoomed out.  The aircraft would not be that close.  Rendering of textures in the distance is controlled by your LOD_Radius.  Although you might have had it set at 6.5 or higher, it goes back to the default of 4.5 if you go into the FSX settings>Scenery page.

 

You water looks horrible.  You have no clouds in the sky.  Your AA looks bad too as I can see the jagged edges on the top of the aircraft.  You have a nice system that should run FSX well.  If it looks nice in DX9 it will look just as nice in DX10 except for the eye-candy that comes with DX10.  It would be nice to see your DX9 image of the same area.

 

Best regards,

 

Hi Jim

 

Apologies, I wasn't clear, I didn't mean I was zoomed out here, I meant if I do zoom out, the blurry scenery isn't as noticeable, which makes sense I guess.

 

Regards the clouds, I deliberately set to "clear skies" just for testing/tweaking. I have since changed the AA which has improved, and set my LOD_RADIUS to 6.5 (I hadn't noticed it change back to 4.5, even though I was aware it did this when you changed settings in FSX)

 

I have taken a couple more examples in the same area. For both sets of shots I have taken the same shot twice, one at close zoom and one at far zoom to get some insight as to whether or not you think it looks reasonable, or whether something is amiss in my setup.

 

 

Here are my settings from FSX and Inspector:

 

 

 

 

 

And here are some of the main things from the cfg:

 

[GRAPHICS]

ForceWindowedVsync=1

MultiSamplesPerPixel=4

MultiSampleQuality=8

HIGHMEMFIX=1

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=2048

 

[bufferPools]

UsePools=0

 

[Display]

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

[Main]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33

 

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=6.500000

 

If you see anything in here that looks wildly wrong I'd be much obliged if you could let me know. I tried to set up using the "how to" bible (making a clean fsx.cfg also) but I'm in over my head I must admit!

 

Many thanks

Quick question?

 

Did you by chance do the following?  (I ask as we have similar systems mine not quite a nice as yours.  But close).  Or let me say, I would do the following.

 

1.  Give Nick N's relatively new set up Bible a look over to make sure your install is stable.  

 

2.  If nice a and stable I would back up my current FSX.CFG.  (They recomend this in the DX10 Guide) HOWEVER,  Remove it and let FSX build you a fresh new one.  Copy it and put it with your backup too.  

 

3.  THEN follow the FSX Basic Install Guide then the DX10 Guide.  I found a few valuable edits before I started in on DX10.  PLUS I wanted to really make sure I was starting at a base point to make trouble shooting and tuning easier).

 

After that grab Steve's Scenery Fixer.  The cost is well worth setting this up right.

 

4.  Flight test like crazy.  Everyone has a different system so there are no magic bullets here.  

 

Take a look at my system.  Nothing to write home about to say the least.  I did everything PER the guides, then I flight tested and adjusted from there.

 

I am now locked down at 30 FPS and while in flight I MIGHT see my frames go between 25 and 33 or so most of the time they stay between 29 and 33. In DX10 of course Frames are really not as important as smooth.  Smooth 20 fps DX10 is better than jerky stuttery say 25 to 45 DX9 fps.

 

 I fly the Eaglesoft Citation X 2.0 (there is a lot of glass in there) and I have no issues, ctd's OOM etc and a smooth running FSX.  Took some time but well worth it.

 

That said.

 

Check your Fiber_Frame_Rate too.

 

FFR is automatically set to .33 without the FFR line in your FSX.CFG.  It is recommended to only use this if you are experiencing the blurries.  I used it because if you set lower from .33 to say .15 or so you might get a bump in performance.  I actually did.  Even though the adjustment is meant for blurries.  Which you say you have.  What FFR does is makes it so your CPU spends more time loading textures and less on rendering.  Finding the sweet spot will require you to experiment between .10 (don't go below that) to .33.  Google FFR if you want to know more.  It's out there.

 

What is your (IN SIM) Detail Radius slider (IQ Slider) set to by the way?  That should not be an issue UNLESS  you have it set to minimum.  Min setting may give you blurries in the distance at low alt.    If you have it set to medium you need to be between 35k and 50k to even notice far off blurries.  Most people do not fly high enough to notice any blurries if you have this set to max.  

 

If set to med or max try FFR.

 

Hope this helps

 

Hi Jet

 

Many thanks for your response! I think I've probably just covered most of it in my other reply!

 

If no one can see anything I'm doing horrendously wrong in my set up above, I may just back up my current fsx.cfg and start again, although I have only recently done this. I will check out NickN's guide perhaps (I used the "how to" guide in this forum so far)

 

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION is not something I've played around with much, but that could be another part of the jigsaw!

 

Many thanks

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION is not something I've played around with much, but that could be another part of the jigsaw!

 

Your settings are way too high and not even near those recommended in the AVSIM FSX Configuration Guide.  I tend to agree with AVSIM in their configuration recommendations.  The guide also closely follows the guidance provided by Orbx/FTX in their manuals whenever they release a product. I also agree with the recommendations made by NickN in his "Bible".  His philosophy and mine are to eliminate as many tweaks as possible. I have no tweaks in my FSX configuration except LOD Radius is set to 6.5 and Texture_Max_Load is set to 2048. The most noteworthy issue I see with your NvidiaInspector settings is under Texture Filtering.  You state "Application Controlled" and then you enter the AF setting of 16x's.  Huh?  It's application controlled!!!  You can enter 16X's but it's not going to show up in FSX.

 

The 8x's Sparse Grid Supersampling entry is a known FPS killer!  4x's is even considered too high.  See the FSX Configuration Guide for an explanation.  Here's another entry you have that simply will not work in FSX as you stated above this entry that the AA Mode is "Application Controlled".  That means FSX is going to handle the AA not your display driver.  Set this to Override any Application Setting and the AA Setting should be 8xs (Combined: 1x2 SS + 4x MS).  It's all explained in the FSX Configuration Guide.

 

See page 2 of the AVSIM FSX Configuration guide for an explanation of tweaks.  The FFTF entry should not be entered if you are setting it to the default of 0.33.  This parameter was made the default setting for FSX as the parameter helped reduced blurry textures in previous versions of FS (FS9) and does not need to be added unless you want to lower it.

 

Get rid of Bufferpools unless you like flying over trees and other Autogen.  It is used for tweaking Autogen.  Nothing else.  NickN has some suggested settings you can use but they will reduce your fps.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

[MDF86 123]

Your settings are way too high and not even near those recommended in the AVSIM FSX Configuration Guide. I tend to agree with AVSIM in their configuration recommendations. The guide also closely follows the guidance provided by Orbx/FTX in their manuals whenever they release a product. I also agree with the recommendations made by NickN in his "Bible". His philosophy and mine are to eliminate as many tweaks as possible. I have no tweaks in my FSX configuration except LOD Radius is set to 6.5 and Texture_Max_Load is set to 2048. The most noteworthy issue I see with your NvidiaInspector settings is under Texture Filtering. You state "Application Controlled" and then you enter the AF setting of 16x's. Huh? It's application controlled!!! You can enter 16X's but it's not going to show up in FSX.

 

The 8x's Sparse Grid Supersampling entry is a known FPS killer! 4x's is even considered too high. See the FSX Configuration Guide for an explanation. Here's another entry you have that simply will not work in FSX as you stated above this entry that the AA Mode is "Application Controlled". That means FSX is going to handle the AA not your display driver. Set this to Override any Application Setting and the AA Setting should be 8xs (Combined: 1x2 SS + 4x MS). It's all explained in the FSX Configuration Guide.

 

See page 2 of the AVSIM FSX Configuration guide for an explanation of tweaks. The FFTF entry should not be entered if you are setting it to the default of 0.33. This parameter was made the default setting for FSX as the parameter helped reduced blurry textures in previous versions of FS (FS9) and does not need to be added unless you want to lower it.

 

Get rid of Bufferpools unless you like flying over trees and other Autogen. It is used for tweaking Autogen. Nothing else. NickN has some suggested settings you can use but they will reduce your fps.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Jim

 

Thanks for your input, I appreciate you taking the time to try to help me.

 

Everything is just so confusing and so often contradictory! The AF and AA settings for inspector which you have said are all wrong, I took directly from the DX10 "how to" document that's pinned in this forum (ie application controlled and 16x), but you're saying this is wrong?

 

I did have my AA set to 4xSGSS but when you said about the jaggies you saw on the aircraft in my first post, I changed this to 8 and it made it better.

 

I will try removing bufferpools and see if that helps, and experiment with lowering FFTF to attempt to eliminate some of the blurriness.

[pablo636 3]

Hi mdf86!

In your inspector setting you have to set your driver controlled bias in agreement with the value you set in the trasparency supersampling.

For 8xsgss you have to set -1.500, for 4xsgss is -1.000

and also set your negative lod bias to off

 

under the main section is not necessary the line fftf if you use the default value of 0.33(but I don't think that this line causes problems), but with a lod radius of 6.5 I would set a lower value than 0.33.

good luck!

[Jetblst 23]

To echo Jim and Paul J.  All the BP does is of course what Jim says but for us lower end guys it helps offload the CPU to the GPU or letting them both work together sharing the load.

 

If you have a really nice GPU no need for BP.

 

Your TBM seems off. Nick states and I think the guides do to that unless you are using a really low end machine (Tandy TRS 80) then up the TBM to between 80 and 120 or so.  Mine is set to 100.  My <---- rig over there likes 100.

 

Give that a try.

 

FFTF

 

Here.  (Right out of AVSIM's FSX Basic Setup Guide)

 

Fiber_Frame_Time_Faction=0.33. This is the default setting if you do not add this to

the Main Section. This parameter was made as the default for FSX as the parameter

helped reduce blurry textures in previous versions of FS and found to be the best setting.

Computers systems have gotten a whole lot better since then. The parameter is built into

FSX and does not need to be added unless you want to lower it. This parameter gives more

processing time towards scenery versus rendering. The lower you set this parameter, the

more CPU processing is used or diverted to loading textures. Lowering the number can

possibly provide an increase in frame rates. If you are seeing blurry textures without the

parameter, then you can add this parameter and set it at 0.15. Do not lower this parameter

any lower than 0.10. We recommend leaving this parameter out of the FSX.cfg unless you

are seeing a lot of blurry textures (which could be caused by many other things).

 

Basically if you are not having any blurries and do not want a little bit more boost in frames I'd get that out of your config as .33 is FSX default anyhow.

 

Hope that helps.

 

One thing that might help is a little philosophy.  The DX10 move is a bit of a learning curve.  I was in over my head too starting out.  I simply grabbed the guides and googled and searched anything I did not understand.  Or asked as you have here which is great!  Also the guides are very well put together.

 

Simply put, everyone has use the guides to get a benchmark and a place to start from.  THEN each of us must experiment with our own systems to get our results that we ourselves are looking for. 

 

What I did was...

 

Set my system per Nick N.  (Yes the less tweaks the better big time!) When I used to have a tweak laden FSX.CFG all I had was CTD's stutters etc.

 

Set the rest with FSX Basic Setup

 

Grab Steve's SceneryFixer (As we agree, I was in way over my head and my eyes crossed trying to do the patch LOL).

 

Set the rest per DX10 guide

 

Tune per your requirements.

 

That's about it.

 

Good luck!

[Paul J 349]

 

 

All the BP does is of course what Jim says

 

The GPU's frame buffer does most definitely NOT work the way Jim says.

 

pj

[HUSSAR 272]

The 8x's Sparse Grid Supersampling entry is a known FPS killer!  4x's is even considered too high.  See the FSX Configuration Guide for an explanation.  Here's another entry you have that simply will not work in FSX as you stated above this entry that the AA Mode is "Application Controlled".  That means FSX is going to handle the AA not your display driver.  Set this to Override any Application Setting and the AA Setting should be 8xs (Combined: 1x2 SS + 4x MS).  It's all explained in the FSX Configuration Guide.

 

Those settings are for DX9 mode, don't get confused with the settings above to what is needed in DX10, you will get horrible jaggies with Antialiasing set outside of FSX (which is the Application).  Antialiasing must be set to Application-controlled (FSX AA through DX10 Scenery Fixer) and AA-Mode, AA-Setting set to Application-controlled and Application-controlled / Off respectively.

 

Here are my current DX10 settings which work well for my system:

 

 

[MDF86 123]

Thanks Robert, I'll give your settings a whirl and play spot the difference!

[HUSSAR 272]

My Inspector AA settings at 4X SGSS may be a little low for your liking, if you do bump yours up remember that you must also adjust the DX10 SF AA according to the "DX10 How to Guide."

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Those settings are for DX9 mode, don't get confused with the settings above to what is needed in DX10,

 

That's a completely inaccurate statement but... I'll let you be the authority on DX9 and 10 but I wish you would study Phil Taylor's website (the lead FSX developer) on the subject and others around the Internet. There is NO difference between DX9 and DX10 in FSX except for shadowing in the cockpit and some other minor eye-candy settings made by the Aces Team.  Anyone who wants to think otherwise is not living in reality.  If Microsoft developers had intended separate settings for DX9 and DX10, then they would have put that information out when Acceleration/SP2 was released. All they asked you to do was to restart FSX if you went from DX9 to DX10 and back to DX9 so your video card display drivers could change to the appropriate DirectX version.  If you have P3D installed with DX11 technology, do you switch back to DX9 technology because you are running DX9 addons?  The propaganda being put out about DX10 is absolutely unreal.  Now I'm not saying that changing the settings as recommended by Paul in his DX10 guide are not correct. Paul J is extremely computer literate and capable. It's just that they are not needed to enjoy DX10.  The DX10 How To guide has been removed from AVSIM and is not a guide supported or sponsored by AVSIM.  This guide is a guide developed by Paul J and is his alone.  Please do not connect it with AVSIM.  The only official guide for FSX configuration in DX9 and DX10 is the FSX Configuration Guide.  This link to this guide is under Hot Spots at the right of this forum.  Thanks for your understanding. 

 

Best regards,

[HUSSAR 272]

That's a completely inaccurate statement but... I'll let you be the authority on DX9 and 10 but I wish you would study Phil Taylor's website (the lead FSX developer) on the subject and others around the Internet. There is NO difference between DX9 and DX10 in FSX except for shadowing in the cockpit and some other minor eye-candy settings made by the Aces Team.  Anyone who wants to think otherwise is not living in reality.  If Microsoft developers had intended separate settings for DX9 and DX10, then they would have put that information out when Acceleration/SP2 was released. All they asked you to do was to restart FSX if you went from DX9 to DX10 and back to DX9 so your video card display drivers could change to the appropriate DirectX version.  If you have P3D installed with DX11 technology, do you switch back to DX9 technology because you are running DX9 addons?  The propaganda being put out about DX10 is absolutely unreal.  Now I'm not saying that changing the settings as recommended by Paul in his DX10 guide are not correct. Paul J is extremely computer literate and capable. It's just that they are not needed to enjoy DX10.  The DX10 How To guide has been removed from AVSIM and is not a guide supported or sponsored by AVSIM.  This guide is a guide developed by Paul J and is his alone.  Please do not connect it with AVSIM.  The only official guide for FSX configuration in DX9 and DX10 is the FSX Configuration Guide.  This link to this guide is under Hot Spots at the right of this forum.  Thanks for your understanding. 

 

Best regards,

Jim, that's a pretty insulting reply.  I am no authority, I've just been coming to AVSIM to give and get help and I have learned a great deal about FS9, FSX in DX9 and DX10 mode thanks to you, Paul J and many others here at this site.  As for the DX10 guide it used to be posted on the right side of the forum if I am not mistaken and that is why I connected it as you put it, with AVSIM.

 

I have been trying to deal with an issue that I am having with my PC since I upgraded FTX Global and decided to take a break, I took some time to answer the fellows post above because I know how DX10 runs on my computer and I must say that I am really peeved at your reply right now.

 

Have a nice day!

[flyinion 280]

Ok guys after reading this thread I'm seriously confused on the FFTF setting.  I thought I'd read that lowering the number devoted less time to loading textures and that was why if you went below .10 that you could get blurry textures with stuff like OrbX scenery.  

 

Now it sounds like lowering it below .33 but not lower than .10 can HELP with blurred textures in OrbX scenery if I'm getting them at the default of .33?  I've been struggling in some areas of the OrbX NA areas and had though about putting FFTF in my .cfg file but increasing it to like .40 or .45 based on how I was understanding that it worked in order to help some randomly blurring terrain tiles that I get with non-stock aircraft, and in the case of default aircraft over dense urban/city areas in their new Northern California product.