FTX Trees HD Released

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

A few people have posted over at ORBX official forums that they received no performance boost via carefully done tests. The official response was that if one has either a high end system or is using a frame limiter (ha ha to that), one may not see a boost.

 

In P3d I can't see any impact on frame rates over either default trees, regular ORBX trees or Zinertek trees. However I can now move the tree autogen slider one tick to the max and not see any negative impact either. I am running at 4096 for reference.

[Alessandrov81 2]

 I pointed out some posts where some people from ORBX make it seem it's guaranteed, but I havent been able to check for any reply, since the website is down.

I bought TreesHD in the first place for the FPS increase, so for me it was kind of a disappointment, even though the trees do look absolutely great.

 

You are VERY right IMHO, because that BOLD statement and used WILL instead of SHOULD.

 

it seems that just because Orbx has released amazing products ( at least of a higher level/scope than the other producers) in the past, then everything is allowed and tolerated.

 

So i say if at least the majority of users do not see a noticeable increase (they said up to 20%, and similar to "a CPU upgrade"!!), thus the credibility of Orbx will questionable to most of us for upcoming products.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

 

Yes maybe is system specific but they actually did not say that "it depends on your system", they say:

 

"The most incredible part is that Trees HD will actually IMPROVE your sim's performance! New optimized tree models reduce the burden on your system, resulting in up to a 20% INCREASE in FPS and no increase in VAS usage compared to what you are experiencing now. Call it the world's cheapest CPU upgrade! Beautiful new trees and a performance benefit to boot? "

 

Weird that the piece you quoted from their site says "new optimized tree models", but from what I understood it was just texture replacements and not tree model replacements in addition to the new textures.

 

So did they update the tree models as well as the textures since that's what they are saying in the above snippet?

 

Like Rob mentioned as well, I fail to see how replacing textures that are the same size and compression, or in some cases increasing the size of the texture will yield and performance increase be it VAS or FPS.

[Guest]

Honestly, I never expected to see any VAS or FPS gain.

 

However, I do like the HD trees, they add a level of variance which actually makes for "less distraction" ... meaning the world looks more plausible, sometimes it's the things that don't draw your attention that can make the virtual world seem that more real.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Alessandrov81 2]

A few people have posted over at ORBX official forums that they received no performance boost via carefully done tests. The official response was that if one has either a high end system or is using a frame limiter (ha ha to that), one may not see a boost.

 

In P3d I can't see any impact on frame rates over either default trees, regular ORBX trees or Zinertek trees. However I can now move the tree autogen slider one tick to the max and not see any negative impact either. I am running at 4096 for reference.

 

thanks for the information Jay, so i suppose that orbx testers are using low-mid end systems? Or if i limit frames to 100 i cannot see the improvement? ha ha.

I think the majority of us is limiting FPS in sim or externally so... it would be a relevant information to put in the product description??

 

but I will not judge solely on the basis of tests of others so I guess I will give it a chance... 

Like Rob mentioned as well, I fail to see how replacing textures that are the same size and compression, or in some cases increasing the size of the texture will yield and performance increase be it VAS or FPS.

 

Agreed and i do not think it is possibile (more so!) if the texture size is doubled than default... but again, it would be a relevant information to give in product description, something like: "you can use 1K texture with better FPS or 2K textures with same FPS"

[stook2005 7]

Up to 20% also includes 0%. So as long as fps doesn't decrease, Orbx's claim is valid.

[Demious 23]

The official response was that if one has either a high end system or is using a frame limiter (ha ha to that), one may not see a boost.

 

I think my system would indeed classify and high-end, or close to high-end, but it would have been nice if the information in the promotional posts would have been... What shall I say? Complete?

 

Weird that the piece you quoted from their site says "new optimized tree models", but from what I understood it was just texture replacements and not tree model replacements in addition to the new textures.

 

So did they update the tree models as well as the textures since that's what they are saying in the above snippet?

 

No. From what I read on the FTX forums, I understand that the update concerns textures only, the tree models are still the same.

[Alessandrov81 2]

Up to 20% also includes 0%. So as long as fps doesn't decrease, Orbx's claim is valid.

 

But improvement does not means >0%? And if you do a "CPU UPGRADE" are you expecting 1% or so or at least 10% (noticeable)?

 

you can run as you want, but if I do not see an increase for me I was sold something to another (read again product description on their site and tell me if it is not misleading, in case the majority of users do not have this increase ).

I think my system would indeed classify and high-end, or close to high-end, but it would have been nice if the information in the promotional posts would have been... What shall I say? Complete?

 

 

Same here!

[shipdriver 20]

I just finished some simple stationary tests using FSUIPC to measure at two locations and the impact appeared to vary depending on location. At KSQL in the Bay Area (FTX NCA), fps was basically the same: 37.4fps ON compared top 37.3fps OFF. At Ultima Thule Lodge in the middle of nowhere, Alaska (FTX SAK), fps improved with the HD trees on but not by a lot: 82.6fps ON compared to 79.3 OFF. In both cases, the VAS hit was about 10MB with the HD trees ON. Frames were unlimited and building autogen was at Dense and tree autogen was at Very Dense. All shadows enabled except for terrain shadows and vegetation receive shadows, HDR ON, volumetric fog OFF. ASN was not running for the tests and clear skies selected. Maybe if trees are the limiting factor, there is a bigger gain.

[Demious 23]

Like Rob mentioned as well, I fail to see how replacing textures that are the same size and compression, or in some cases increasing the size of the texture will yield and performance increase be it VAS or FPS.

 

I'm no techhead when it comes to computers, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my idea about the matter was that the overall size of a texture could be calculated from the amount of pixels used in the texture. If you double the size of the resolution, but half the size/thickness of the branches and you remove so many pixels that way, you end up with the same amount of pixels...?

 

Seeing what happens, I'm probably way off, but I'm getting curious now, so if someone can give a little more insight would be appreciated.

[StChalky 10]

One of the admins on Orbx forums responded to a query on how you could get a performance increase when filesize and texture resolution is considerably larger than the originals by stating that "The performance gain doesn't come from the textures, it comes from optimized models.  Many (or all, I'm not positive) of the models have half the drawcalls and 2/3 the polygons of the original trees that shipped with FSX.".  You can read the response yourself in a topic entitled "Trying to understand the why there is an improvement in performance[sic]" in the General Discussion forum.  Their forum is still down but my tablet had cached the page from when I was reading it earlier today allowing me to type the quote above.

 

Edit;  just emailed myself the url  http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/96082-trying-to-understand-the-why-there-is-an-improvement-in-performance/

[Demious 23]

I just finished some simple stationary tests using FSUIPC to measure at two locations and the impact appeared to vary depending on location.

 

That's true. If you're in a tree-rich area, the difference will be much greater then when there are just a few trees around.

[WebMaximus 372]

Oh boy, this amount of comments on this subject is almost starting to get ridiculous.

 

Clearly this is all marketing from Orbx's side and I'm pretty sure they are well aware that the claim in the ad how this will be a "cheap CPU upgrade" might not be 100% true in most cases and that it will probably upset a number of users. However I'm equally sure they already did the maths before releasing the product and writing the ad and came to the conclusion that the extra money they will make on this product by writing the ad in the way they did will still surpass the loss in business caused by upset users.

 

Personally I'm still on the fence about getting this product and if I decide to get the product it will certainly not be to increase my FPS but to get a better variety in how the trees look in my simulator. Looking at some of the screenshots the new trees indeed look very good and for this kind of money I won't consider it a big deal if I'm not as pleased with the product that I was hoping to be. 

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

One of the admins on Orbx forums responded to a query on how you could get a performance increase when filesize and texture resolution is considerably larger than the originals by stating that "The performance gain doesn't come from the textures, it comes from optimized models. Many (or all, I'm not positive) of the models have half the drawcalls and 2/3 the polygons of the original trees that shipped with FSX.". You can read the response yourself in a topic entitled "Trying to understand the why there is an improvement in performance[sic]" in the General Discussion forum. Their forum is still down but my tablet had cached the page from when I was reading it earlier today allowing me to type the quote above.

 

Edit; just emailed myself the url http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/96082-trying-to-understand-the-why-there-is-an-improvement-in-performance/

Ok, so now they are confirming that they actually optimized the tree models and also updated the textures.

 

Can someone who installed this check to see if they have new tree model files?

 

It seems like they have caused some confusion because it seemed like the lead developer originally said they were just making new textures and now they are saying they optimized the tree models as well.

I'm no techhead when it comes to computers, so correct me if I'm wrong, but my idea about the matter was that the overall size of a texture could be calculated from the amount of pixels used in the texture. If you double the size of the resolution, but half the size/thickness of the branches and you remove so many pixels that way, you end up with the same amount of pixels...?

 

Seeing what happens, I'm probably way off, but I'm getting curious now, so if someone can give a little more insight would be appreciated.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way since the whole texture sheet gets loaded into memory.

 

The only way to increase performance when it comes to this type of situation is to use larger texture sheets and then map those textures to more models. So rather than each model having its own texture sheet, you have multiple models calling the textures from one shared texture sheet. Simply put, your reducing draw calls which improves performance. This was done with FlyTampa Dubai and is why they were able to make such a dense city scenery with little to no performance hit.

[Demious 23]

Yeah, it doesn't work that way since the whole texture sheet gets loaded into memory.

 

The only way to increase performance when it comes to this type of situation is to use larger texture sheets and then map those textures to more models. So rather than each model having its own texture sheet, you have multiple models calling the textures from one shared texture sheet. Simply put, your reducing draw calls which improves performance. This was done with FlyTampa Dubai and is why they were able to make such a dense city scenery with little to no performance hit.

 

Ah ok, I'm starting to get the picture. Thanks for the explanation, Jim.