Yes, for all practical purposes paddy. But, since the earth is not flat, then plain geometry isn't a perfect representation because the agl distance relative to a fixed point in space varies with the curvature of the planet. But the error there is miniscule.In addition, there are light refraction issues, even in severe clear atmospheres but again, for all intents and purposes, the formula is "good enough for government work."I am rapidly getting over my head here but if I recall correctly the measurement of the "height" above the horizon of celestial bodies is accurate out to AWBDPs (A Whole Bunch of Decimal Places) for various reasons including that only a small fraction of the space between the observer and the planet is "atmosphere" and therefore, refraction is much less of an issue. Of course, with lots of other measurement techniques, such distances can be determined down to the millimeter...or at least to the ultra-fraction of a light year when really distant objects are being measured.RegardsJim

10-4 on the boundary line issue. THAT is NOT RW by any stretch. But, the motto is "As Real as it Gets" not..."It's Real" so again, I think you have to live with it for now at least.But just a WILD guess. I see that you slew up to atlitude. I wonder if MAYBE that has something to do with the end result. Just for grins, take a jet up to that altitude at normal climb rates and see what you see.In addition, other interesting experiments would be:1. Go to a different location...way different...to rule out anything related to the texture/landclass files in the area you have been testing in.2. Pick a different season. Try each actually.3. Pick a spot at least 200 miles from a mountain range to see how FS9 paints vertical scenery vs. horizontal.Just my 2 cents.Best,Jim

Hello Jim,Thanks for your additional and interesting info!Using that formula just for MSFS-hobby, I too think it to be sufficiently correct for use, as you said so already. Thanks again.Regards,Paddy.

Try these things.TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000And further downTERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4Set desktop to 1280x1024, soon as you are on the runway after pressing Fly Now button run the game not in full screen but only maximized. See if this helps (might also help with just 1024x800)

Thanks for all the replies everyone! To answer a few questions raised: The same thing happened on my old video card at 1024, 1152, and 1280.For the first set of shots, I simply slewed straight up. The second set I climbed in the defaul Lear. It doesn't seem to make a difference either way.I then took the advice that said take the picture someplace else, where landclass cannot interfere and that is also approaching mountains. I took this picture in central Australia, which I have NO addon scenery for, everything is totally default. If you look at the river, you can really see the harsh line between the textures.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/106424.jpg

Yes, the harsh line looks really "polygon-made" . Moreover the scenery represents a mosaic-like repetitive structure. We are still far away from photographic world scenery. FS 12 perhaps?? Keep courage!Paddy.

And since when does Central Australia look like that? Last time I flew over it, it was reddish desert!http://members.chello.nl/t.westnutt/realair1.gif

Yep, there's no escaping that line unless you fly with vis. set to around 50 miles or less, combined with a VIS ceiling maxed out at FL990. That's just the way FS9, and FS2002 before it, renders distant landscapes starting between 50-60 miles away from the aircraft. If it didn't render distant landscapes in this manner, the sim would be loading an even greater number of textures, taxing even cards with large amounts of video ram. One can tweak the FS9.cfg all day, and there will still be a limit where the detailed textures end.-John

<>I'm nothing resembling a sim techie but intuitively, your opinion almost certainly must be correct.Compromises must be made somewhere and blurring out scenery you could rarely see in the RW anyway due to atmospheric conditions seems like an excellent choice on MS's part.Best,Jim

>amounts of video ram. One can tweak the FS9.cfg all day, and>there will still be a limit where the detailed textures end.I wonder about the FS-Graphics company (whatever the name) that offers this $60 "system unification" service. Some people claim that this terrain blurrying was completely fixed for them when they took this session. I wonder .. that would be a definite way to test them how good they are. Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

I saw quite a few "post system unification" screenshots posted, but they either had visibility tucked under the radius of the detailed textures, or were taken from such a low altitude that one couldn't really see the line. There's simply a finite limit where the detailed textures end, and even the system unification process can't get around it--it's hard coded into MSFS. But one can discretely set up vis. and other settings to hide the effect, or fly in areas where the effect isn't as pronounced.What is interesting about good 'ol FS2000 is that one could override the limit of detailed textures by hacking the cfg. I did that once for FS2000, and had detailed textures as far as the eye could see. I had them, but saw my fps drop from 25 down to 5 :)-John

In my view static screenshots are useless. If I wait long enough I get all the textures fairly sharp and then the boundary line is quite far - very hard to see. If I were to test this 'unification' service I would be flying at around 3000 ft over (hilly) terrain with speed about 240 kts and see how quickly textures fall into places. Right now if I preform such a test the results are barely satisfactory and the boundary line is definitely visible since many tiles are real slow to update.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Hi. Last time I saw that carpet it was under the cat in the shed.

>Yes, the harsh line looks really "polygon-made" . Moreover>the scenery represents a mosaic-like repetitive structure. We>are still far away from photographic world scenery. FS 12>perhaps?? Keep courage!>Paddy. Man, I've been working my tail off recently to add photoreal textures to the Phoenix valley and that's was an easily accessible source of free and good quality aerial photos from our county website. By the time I'm done, I'll have maybe a few hundred square miles of textures complete, a shaky marriage, and my eyesight diminished greatly from staring at computer screens. How many square miles are there on the surface of the Earth? I'd aim more for FS 50 I think.For $24.99, FS9 seems like quite the bargain warts and all. I think the best we can hope for is that MS, in their typical software cycle fashion, doesn't keep changing their engine every few years and making huge amounts of wonderful free and commercial aftermarket scenery obsolete. Art Martin