pb16 is here

[steve310002 1,198]

29 minutes ago, tonywob said:

 My biggest gripe at the moment is the glowing trees. I know it will get fixed at some point, but it can look so bad at times that it ruins the sim for low-level GA. Disabling shadows and adjusting the time of day helps.

 

+1

[tonywob 4,768]

21 minutes ago, Jimm said:

What makes the textures on aircraft different than those of trees and buildings?  If you were to look at the trees and buildings at around sunset (or any time where the sun is low enough on the sky), you can see the buildings glow just as bad as the trees

I think one thing is that most aircraft include a normal/specular map which defines how light bounces of an object at a per-pixel level. Most building objects that I've seen are mostly just defined as percentage of shininess, so the entire object either glows or doesn't. So if an object isn't defined as being reflective at all, it will be dark and lifeless, whereas too much and it will glow. It is possible to define which parts of a building are shiny just as you can with aircraft, but not many authors do it. The default autogen for Europe seems to have this set for windows and roof textures. However, with the experiments I did in XP10 some time ago, adding normal/spec maps to scenery objects offered little advantage, but I think we'll see much more of it in XP11.

Regarding PB16, I tried out a few European cities that I know and the improvement in the autogen is fantastic. I can see that there are actually tall buildings exactly where the real ones would be and it makes cities really recognisable. I can even see some edits I did a few years ago for building heights have been used :)

[Jimm 437]

1 minute ago, tonywob said:

I think one thing is that most aircraft include a normal/specular map which defines how light bounces of an object at a per-pixel level. Most building objects that I've seen are mostly just defined as percentage of shininess, so the entire object either glows or doesn't. So if an object isn't defined as being reflective at all, it will be dark and lifeless, whereas too much and it will glow. It is possible to define which parts of a building are shiny just as you can with aircraft, but not many authors do it. The default autogen for Europe seems to have this set for windows and roof textures. However, with the experiments I did in XP10 some time ago, adding normal/spec maps to scenery objects offered little advantage, but I think we'll see much more of it in XP11.

Regarding PB16, I tried out a few European cities that I know and the improvement in the autogen is fantastic. I can see that there are actually tall buildings exactly where the real ones would be and it makes cities really recognisable. I can even see some edits I did a few years ago for building heights have been used :)

Thank you Tony, excellent explanation and it does make sense.  I am sure it would be a pretty large undertaking to add those maps to all of the autogen (maybe the trees too?), but if they reacted the way aircraft surfaces do, then we might be on to something. 

[tonywob 4,768]

Just to add, some autogen does already include this. You can see this on the roofs of industrial buildings which react quite nicely to light changes. However, I think for performance reasons, it's not included everywhere and I've not seen many airport developers using them either.

[FLAPS15 8]

Cheers Jimm,

 

Totally agree system is letting the sim not run at it best potential...GC is weak so sad that a few years back it was top end....but that is progress!

 

Looking at a i7 7700k...and a 1070 if budget allows 1080...that should see some performance improved...

 

All the best

 

Cheers

[Jimm 437]

6 minutes ago, FLAPS15 said:

Looking at a i7 7700k...and a 1070 if budget allows 1080...that should see some performance improved...

This combo works very well in my system right now, despite it being a laptop...a 12lb beast. lol

A 1070 should still perform well, so if money is tight, spring for as much ram as you can. 

[jt8d9a 1,881]

For Sesquashtoo:

 

 

[ryanbatc 12,816]

3 hours ago, FLAPS15 said:

Just given the default planes a go around the Demo with latest 16 release, KSEA area very nice....but for me.....the clouds are still a performance issue..look so much better but Rob me of FPS from 30 down to anything below 24....not sure if XEnviro would do better.

 

Have not got any payware aircraft yet as I am still Demo but I am starting to think that performance would dip further with addon Birds...granted my system is 5 years old i7 2600 oc 4.5 and GT970 to boot...but should still run it..I am waiting to get a new system but wanted the sim to get to RTM before I pull the trigger..

 

Watching with interest!

 

Cheers 

I have the same video card.  If you use a monitoring program like gpuz- you'll find our video memory is typically saturated, at least with the settings I run.  And remember the last .5 GB is very slow.  I was going to an  upgrade to 7700K / 16gb ram / gtx 1070 but I have more house projects first lol

[Paraffin 2,197]

In the latest dev blog post, Ben mentions there will be a pb17 in the next 24 hours to fix a bug introduced in pb16 (cockpit overhead illumination), and that will likely be the last beta of the X-Plane 11.0 series.

So I guess one or two RC versions and then release? Or maybe they'll go straight to release. This hasn't exactly been a traditional "beta" series.

[GusRodrigues 1]

8 hours ago, Jimm said:

As a community, it would be of great help, if you could elaborate on what is "broken".  The MD-80, as well as the B737 are more complex aircraft (compared to say, the C172SP), as well as a first for LR as default aircraft.  If the issues you have found are indeed in need of fixing, please file a bug report ( http://dev.x-plane.com/support/bugreport.html ) so that the right people can look into this and make the fix.  Statements like the one you made won't help the cause.  Since we are so close to an RTM, it is important that LR be aware of anything that might be lingering and get it fixed. 

It has been done before submitting it here.
 

[mattp52 2]

Quote

GC is weak so sad that a few years back it was top end....but that is progress!

Looking at a i7 7700k...and a 1070 if budget allows 1080

Something's wrong with the picture if you need a 1070 to get acceptable performance or are you talking a fully-loaded maxed out rig? The 970 is only a year or so old. From Laminar's stats 30% or so of users are on Macs - how on earth are they going to get on with (in the main) only weak integrated GPUs?

[ryanbatc 12,816]

What's wrong is my video ram is pegged (it's only a 4GB card).  I run orthoscebery with pretty high settings.  And my system RAM is only 8GB, which is also pegged because of other programs I run while I fly.

p.s. It's a 2.5 yr old card.  XP11 is the only thing that has ever worked it.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Does this new update cover the new buildings or is that another process ? thanks

[charleslee201 19]

36 minutes ago, Richard Sennett said:

Does this new update cover the new buildings or is that another process ? thanks

you need to update your global scenery via the xplane installer  for the building update           and pb 16  ,well i think  you know

 

cheers

[MarioDonick 752]

16 minutes ago, charleslee201 said:

you need to update your global scenery via the xplane installer  for the building update           and pb 16  ,well i think  you know

To be precise, you need to update global scenery for more current autogen (types and building heights), and get pb 16 for new artwork for high European-style buildings (i.e. the building objects).