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One of the (few) remaining annoyances

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The last few years a lot of things have been improved in P3D for which I am very grateful. There is however one thing that quite often spoils the immersion for me and I wonder if anyone knows a solution for this. Well, actually there are two annoying things: the other is the late loading textures but somehow I can ignore that. What I can't ignore is: the constant changing of water. 

 

it seems that at least a few times per minute some water reflections disappear or pop up or get repositioned. They never ever are solid. Trees come and go, mountains pop in and out. And also the water 'movement' regularly resets or changes instantly, as if it is a badly looped animation. While late loading textures often can only be seen when you actually look for it, those water reflection are extremely obvious and can change the entire look of the screen. Yesterday I flew along the coast of Norway and it almost drove me crazy. Not a minute went by without changes. Add to that the fact that reflections in P3D often are completely wrong (offset) and you got my number one annoyance in P3D...

 

Anyone knows if there is something you can do about this (apart from removing all reflections and waves etc...)? I am surprised why this is still so bad. What's so hard about fixing the reflection and the water? (I am not talking about waves and white crests which imho quite often are unrealistic... why the heck does everyone want white crests all over the water!).

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We flightsimmers have to be the most OCD gamers on the planet.  I have to agree with you on all counts Jeroen.

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We're spoiled, so it's only natural that we continue to complain. That said, in great contrast to Microsoft, Locheed Martin listens and improves. Prepar3D has been the best ride I've had since using Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer in 1988, and by that getting hooked on flight simulators. You name them, I've owned them, but nothing compares to Prepar3D. Apart from a few annoyances, Prepar3D has matured into an amazing platform in combination with the many payware and freeware addons available to us. Can't wait to see what the next five yeras have in store for us!


Simmerhead - Making the virtual skies unsafe since 1987! 

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We're spoiled, so it's only natural that we continue to complain. That said, in great contrast to Microsoft, Locheed Martin listens and improves. Prepar3D has been the best ride I've had since using Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer in 1988, and by that getting hooked on flight simulators. You name them, I've owned them, but nothing compares to Prepar3D. Apart from a few annoyances, Prepar3D has matured into an amazing platform in combination with the many payware and freeware addons available to us. Can't wait to see what the next five yeras have in store for us!

 

Agreed. But I wouldn't call being annoyed by a very obvious problem with water spoiled.  :wink: LM is doing an awesome job so I am simply surprised that this hasn't been taken care off since it IS (imho) a real immersion killer. When I am not flying above water I quite often have the feeling 'I am there', enjoying God's great creation, the landscapes are amazing, the mood is awesome, the planes are real, but above water I am reminded of the fact I am enjoying pixels and vectors.  :wink:

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Agree with OP.

Have no idea what to do about it....but totally agree..

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This repeatedly discussed water issue is the only thing stopping me moving to P3D.  As I tend to fly around the UK most of the time, water is never far away.  I suppose I'll just have to try it for myself though and hope that turning down the effects will make me happy.  I've always thought that reflections, waves and crests were overdone in most screenshots and videos anyway, so hopefully dumbing things down to how "I" think they really look will do the trick.

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Cheers

 

Paul Golding

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Easy solution -

Do not fly over water! SOLVED!


Sorry guys, just HAD to do that. :Devil:

 

I would imagine it's on the LM to-do list. Considering what the to-do list looked like after v1.4, they've made great strides. The old saying "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" seems to apply here. If what Jeroen posted bothers you, occasionally remind LM that it needs fixing. f it is a large enough group, it might move up in priority.

 

All in all, I am still amazed at how far they've come.

 

Vic

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I've always thought that reflections, waves and crests were overdone

 

They totally are - Really hope they can tone it down - I have the same issue with my Pac NW USA flying...  (water looks wrong)

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Paul - you hit the nail on the head - it's how YOU like it that's important. A purely subjective matter that gives LM a moving target to please the majority.

 

I don't believe I've heard many state that they LOVE the water, we all seem to have some sort of an issue with it but it sure varies with the individual.

 

For me, for the most part, I like it visually except for some of the shimmering. Version 3.1 is a big improvement IMHO.


 

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it seems that at least a few times per minute some water reflections disappear or pop up or get repositioned. They never ever are solid.

 

Could you make a video of that Jeroen? I do not recognize this at all. What are your water settings? Do you use third party water textures/effects? One of the last flights I did was from W16 to KFHR. I saw a lot of water during that trip, but none of the issues you describe...


Cheers, Bert

AMD Ryzen 5900X, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3080 Ti, Windows 11 Home 64 bit, MSFS

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IMOH the representation of dynamic water is one of the least important things in a flight sim.


Regards,

Chris

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Hi Jeroen, I don't think I've seen these specific issues you've described either. Are you using REX water textures, and have you cleared your shader cache?

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Guest

 

 


IMOH the representation of dynamic water is one of the least important things in a flight sim.

 

What's IMOH?  In "flight sim" or did you mean "for me"?

 

 

 


What's so hard about fixing the reflection and the water?

 

It's a precision problem ... but increasing precision usually means lower FPS.  Flight simulation is all about compromises.  With that said, I recommend you produce a video demonstrating the issue to LM (post on their forums) ... a well organized presentation of an issue (read remove your emotional content) will get looked at ... just don't have expectations on a fix or try to establish any priority.

 

What I mean by precision, back in the early v2.2 days during low sun situations with distance clouds, the shadow cast from a distant cloud, if one happened to be in the far end of the shadow cast, would cause a huge FPS drop (over 30%).  As a result, LM implemented some optimization to prevent render pipeline from stalling (saturated) with a loss of graphical precision (on/off effect) but also no more FPS hit.  In the 3D globe simulation it will always be a case of optimization and there will be conditions where the ugliness of those optimizations make themselves painfully present.

 

Dynamic Reflections (as nice as they look) is also another process that can stall the render pipeline (especially at Ultra setting) is the scene has a lot of other content  that interacts with dynamic reflections.  It's a cool feature and welcome ... but LM keeps pushing the bounds of CPU/GPU capabilities ... fortunately we can turn these features OFF.  Before you say "well why provide the feature if we can't use it" ... we can use it, carefully and judiciously ... and as hardware improves we'll be able to leverage these features more frequently (and ultimately in all situations).

 

You might be able to tweak it via the HLSL files, if you can find the right code ... but I haven't looked and can't say if it is possible.

 

Cheers, Rob.

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This repeatedly discussed water issue is the only thing stopping me moving to P3D. As I tend to fly around the UK most of the time, water is never far away. I suppose I'll just have to try it for myself though and hope that turning down the effects will make me happy. I've always thought that reflections, waves and crests were overdone in most screenshots and videos anyway, so hopefully dumbing things down to how "I" think they really look will do the trick.

Restart Dreamfleet 2000, make a P3D native DC8 and call it good :)


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