10 hours ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ray,

...and a few more! A little more up your street, methinks?

I'm using AS2016 + ASCA (Full Dynamics) + ENVTEX  this time.

This combo, along with Adam's PTA Preset and his recommended REX4 TD Sky textures provides the best and most satisfying general balance of colour and lighting for me.

Regards,

Mike

Hi Mike,

Your screenshots are excellent and have given me great hope I can achieve something similar. They are miles better than what I'm seeing. Did you set everything up yourself from scratch or use someone else's settings and then tweak them?

Incidentally, if you want a functioning ADI start P3D with the Piper Cub with engines running as your default flight. Then go to an airport of your choice, kill the engines and then select Concorde. Then go through the start-up procedure. I had the same problem and doing that fixed it for me.

@Afterburner, yes I will. I'll also view Mike's images on my P3D display and compare them to how they look on my laptop and iPad. That will give me a clue to how well the TV is setup.

Incidentally chaps, when you talk about calibrating your display there are three options as I see it:-

1) Pay for the services of an ISF Calibrator - cost around £300.

2) Buy a Spyder and do it yourself - cost around £60-£100.

3) use the inbuilt calibration service in W7 / W10 - cost nil.

For those of you who have a calibrated display which option did you choose?

@vgbaron, thanks for the advice Vic. Experience helps I imagine. But having watched a 30min video by a chap called Ben on PAT last night it opened my eyes as to what's possible with PAT. I'm going to spend some time today installing it and trying some different settings. I'm reasonably happy with the colour, brightness and contrast of my TV.

Right chaps. As requested here are a couple of screenshots showing how Concorde looks in P3D v3.4 for me. I've also included an FSX shot for comparison.

I think you'll agree there is a significant difference in contrast. I've downloaded and installed PAT. Could anyone please suggest which part of PAT I should concentrate on to improve the overall picture. I have adjusted contrast and brightness settings and viewing Mike's shots they look great on my Sony TV So I'm happy that once I've adjusted things in PAT there should be a significant difference.

FSX.

P3D

P3D airborne

P3D Concorde VC

I've found that Mip map VC Panels makes the VC quite blurred. I've turned it off.

Hi Ray,

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Did you set everything up yourself from scratch or use someone else's settings and then tweak them?

I have never immersed myself in tweaking the numerous parameters in PTA. Other stalwarts have done the work already for us.

Each time you tweak a value it has to be applied. Then you reload P3D and wait for the Shader cache to be rebuilt. You decide whether or not you like the change or it was too much or or too little or you have gone the wrong way with your choice. You exit P3D and repeat the cycle again and again and again.....you get my drift. Life is just too short. Unless you are an enthusiast or have an obsessional determination for getting ithings right you will be faced with hours of experimentation and probably still won't be happy at the end of it all. In the end it's about finding the best compromise which delivers what you would like to see most of the time. I know I keep banging on about Adam's 21.11 Preset, I believe the results speak for themselves. I regard it as being a well balanced set of Shader tweaks that are delivering everything I would hope to achieve. This version is the end of a protracted period of evolution involving incredible patience and persistence on the part of its creator. However, if there is some aspect you felt could still be improved then ask for advice and I'm sure someone will point you in the right direction.

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Incidentally, if you want a functioning ADI start P3D with the Piper Cub with engines running as your default flight. Then go to an airport of your choice, kill the engines and then select Concorde. Then go through the start-up procedure. I had the same problem and doing that fixed it for me.

Thanks Ray. I'll certainly keep this in mind if or when I finally figure out how to keep this beautiful bird in the air! With Concorde I'm ashamed to admit my skills are limited to Ctrl+E and F4 ...LOL! I love Concorde and still regret her departure from our skies. We have G-BOAA near us at East Fortune, National Museum of Flight Scotland. I've visited her many times. It's such a shame a way could not be found to keep one of them flying just as 'The Vulcan To The Sky Trust' did with the Avro Vulcan XH558. Sadly, while her flying career is now over she is still being maintained in superb serviceable condition.

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

those of you who have a calibrated display which option did you choose?

X-Rite Colorminki Photo. Not sure whether it can be used to calibrate TVs, however, probably not.

This article might help: http://www.color-management-guide.com/calibrate-hd-tv-plasma-monitor-video-projector.html

Regards,

Mike

Ray, did you already try adjusting the brightness setting in P3D ?

After that you can finetune with PTA.

29 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I've found that Mip map VC Panels makes the VC quite blurred. I've turned it off.

After looking at your screenshots it looks far too dark indeed, I would first use the controls from P3D to adjust brightness and without HDR you missing a lot...

Further as suggested,  I would fine tune the settings with PTA.

You can use a preset which you like as a starting point and then go from there in the PTA sub forum you will find some examples.

Personally prefer to make my own because I can do it better here local for my own stuff :-)

As for Mip Maps it can be different per aircraft.

Hi Ray,

Here are my current settings which seem to be working well for me. Every system is different but you may be able to get something out of them.

Prepar3D Graphics Settings

Prepar3D Lighting Settings

Note: These HDR settings will NOT be appropriate unless you are using Adam's PTA 21.11 Preset.

 

NVIDIA Control Panel

Prepar3D:

Antialiasing - Mode: Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting: Use global setting (Application-controlled)           (entry greyed out)
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1                      
Monitor Technology: Fixed Refresh
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single display performance mode
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
Preferred refresh rate (Ancor Communications Inc ROG PG278Q): Application-controlled
SLI rendering mode: NVIDIA recommended (SLI)
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality: High Quality
Triple buffering: Use global setting (OFF)
Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting

NVIDIA Profile Inspector (Ver 2.13)

Prepar3D:

SLI compatibility bits (DX10 + DX11) - 0x080040F5 (Daylight, Evolve, Monster Hunter Online Benchmark, Ryse: Son ofRome...)

Frame Rate Limiter: Off                                 (greyed out)

GSYNC-Application State: Fixed Refresh Rate

Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1 

Preferred Refreshrate: Highest available

Triple buffering: OFF        (greyed out)

Vertical Sync: Use the 3D application setting

Antialiasing - Mode: Enhance the application setting

Antialiasing - Transparency Multisampling: Disabled                    (greyed out)

Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling: 2x Sparse Grid Supersampling (MSAA: 8 Samples in P3D)

Note: Using a value of 4 along with an MSAA= 4 Samples in sim can be very heavy on resources. I discovered that upping MSAA to 8 Samples along with a more modest value of 2 for SGSS also works quite well while allowing more overhead for stuff like multiple cloud layers.

Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp

Texture filtering - Quality: High quality

Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance

 

Regards,

Mike

1 hour ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ray,

I have never immersed myself in tweaking the numerous parameters in PTA. Other stalwarts have done the work already for us.

Each time you tweak a value it has to be applied. Then you reload P3D and wait for the Shader cache to be rebuilt. You decide whether or not you like the change or it was too much or or too little or you have gone the wrong way with your choice. You exit P3D and repeat the cycle again and again and again.....you get my drift. Life is just too short. Unless you are an enthusiast or have an obsessional determination for getting ithings right you will be faced with hours of experimentation and probably still won't be happy at the end of it all. In the end it's about finding the best compromise which delivers what you would like to see most of the time. I know I keep banging on about Adam's 21.11 Preset, I believe the results speak for themselves. I regard it as being a well balanced set of Shader tweaks that are delivering everything I would hope to achieve. This version is the end of a protracted period of evolution involving incredible patience and persistence on the part of its creator. However, if there is some aspect you felt could still be improved then ask for advice and I'm sure someone will point you in the right direction.

Thanks Ray. I'll certainly keep this in mind if or when I finally figure out how to keep this beautiful bird in the air! With Concorde I'm ashamed to admit my skills are limited to Ctrl+E and F4 ...LOL! I love Concorde and still regret her departure from our skies. We have G-BOAA near us at East Fortune, National Museum of Flight Scotland. I've visited her many times. It's such a shame a way could not be found to keep one of them flying just as 'The Vulcan To The Sky Trust' did with the Avro Vulcan XH558. Sadly, while her flying career is now over she is still being maintained in superb serviceable condition.

X-Rite Colorminki Photo. Not sure whether it can be used to calibrate TVs, however, probably not.

This article might help: http://www.color-management-guide.com/calibrate-hd-tv-plasma-monitor-video-projector.html

Regards,

Mike

Mike,

It just so happens I've downloaded Adams file from the PAT site so I may pluck up the courage later and apply it. I have tweaked my TVs brightness and contrast and it doesn't appear as gloomy now but there is definitely a lack of contrast. There's no 'bite' in the picture at all. But comparing my images the FSX one does look a little high in contrast as parts of the fuselage are whited-out. The P3D image does show better shading but still needs a bit more punch.

Am I correct in assuming if I bugger anything up with these shaders I can just restore the defaults using PAT?

Get that Concorde tutorial out and use it as your bible. I might not know much about shaders but I do know Concorde and she is a delight to fly. Yes, it's a damned shame one wasn't left flying for shows. I spent a day at Manchester when she flew out for the last time. Wonderful but sad day. I also saw the Vulcan twice in the last 2 years at Woodford where she was built. Another magnificent aircraft. Take care of the one up there.

Ah right so you bought a Spyder did you and used that site for guidance? I may consider doing that because it's not too expensive and it will be easier than trying to do it by eye.

---

1 hour ago, awf said:

After looking at your screenshots it looks far too dark indeed, I would first use the controls from P3D to adjust brightness and without HDR you missing a lot...

Further as suggested,  I would fine tune the settings with PTA.

You can use a preset which you like as a starting point and then go from there in the PTA sub forum you will find some examples.

Personally prefer to make my own because I can do it better here local for my own stuff :-)

As for Mip Maps it can be different per aircraft.

Thanks Andre. I'm pleased you agree with me that the screen is too dark. I have increased brightness a little today and it has helped. But I'm going to try Adam's preset and will report back later. I intend to stick to HDR.

42 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

 

Am I correct in assuming if I bugger anything up with these shaders I can just restore the defaults using PAT?

 

Hi Ray,

Yes, the 'Prepar3D Tweak Assistant' (PTA) has that as one of its menu options. It will restore those Shader files from backups created when the utility was run for the first time. Also remember to create a backup of the ShadersHLSL folder in P3D root before doing anything else. You may never need it but this will give you another backup.

42 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Ah right so you bought a Spyder did you and used that site for guidance?

Actually it was the X-Rite Colormunki Photo and, no, I followed instructions provided by X-Rite who were very helpful. My first attempt was unsuccessful - dare I say it, everything was far too dark! I emailed them for support and they soon sorted me out :) I found that site this morning and thought there might be something in there you would find helpful.

Any PTA Preset is not cast in stone. You can, should you choose, tweak away to your hearts content knowing that you can always recover the original Preset or revert back to P3D default conditions. Just create those backups first! I've lost count of the numbers who have landed themselves in trouble and were unable to recover. We are not allowed to share these P3D Shader files. However you could reinstate the default files by uninstalling and then reinstall the P3D Client. If in doubt consult one of Elaine Dixon's (aka Poppet) excellent tutorials.

Regards,

Mike

1 hour ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Ray,

Here are my current settings which seem to be working well for me. Every system is different but you may be able to get something out of them.

Prepar3D Graphics Settings

Prepar3D Lighting Settings

Note: These HDR settings will NOT be appropriate unless you are using Adam's PTA 21.11 Preset.

 

NVIDIA Control Panel

Prepar3D:

Antialiasing - Mode: Enhance the application setting
Antialiasing - Setting: Use global setting (Application-controlled)           (entry greyed out)
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1                      
Monitor Technology: Fixed Refresh
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single display performance mode
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
Preferred refresh rate (Ancor Communications Inc ROG PG278Q): Application-controlled
SLI rendering mode: NVIDIA recommended (SLI)
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality: High Quality
Triple buffering: Use global setting (OFF)
Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting

NVIDIA Profile Inspector (Ver 2.13)

Prepar3D:

SLI compatibility bits (DX10 + DX11) - 0x080040F5 (Daylight, Evolve, Monster Hunter Online Benchmark, Ryse: Son ofRome...)

Frame Rate Limiter: Off                                 (greyed out)

GSYNC-Application State: Fixed Refresh Rate

Maximum pre-rendered frames: 1 

Preferred Refreshrate: Highest available

Triple buffering: OFF        (greyed out)

Vertical Sync: Use the 3D application setting

Antialiasing - Mode: Enhance the application setting

Antialiasing - Transparency Multisampling: Disabled                    (greyed out)

Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling: 2x Sparse Grid Supersampling (MSAA: 8 Samples in P3D)

Note: Using a value of 4 along with an MSAA= 4 Samples in sim can be very heavy on resources. I discovered that upping MSAA to 8 Samples along with a more modest value of 2 for SGSS also works quite well while allowing more overhead for stuff like multiple cloud layers.

Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp

Texture filtering - Quality: High quality

Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance

 

Regards,

Mike

Mike, you are aware that SGSS and MSAA need to have the same value ?

Otherwise there is a conflict and you image will look no better than both at 2x..

Thanks Gerard. Many are identical but I have a few different. I don't plan on using Nvidia Inspector as I've seen warnings that fps will be affected.

I've applied Adam's file and on the ground things do look better now. But the biggest difference is in the air. The ground has a blue cast to it. I know it's meant to look like that with all the UV but it does look a bit overblown. How can I dial that back please?

I didn't take a backup of the P3D\ShadersHLSL folder as I assumed PAT would do that and in fact it has. Only 6 files have been modified and I have those 6 in the PAT backup.

So the cockpit is looking okay now. I think mipmapping was the main culprit. Just need the outside view making less blue.

Ray , each time before applying another or a modified PTA preset , first install the default Shaders with PTA.

Regarding too blue : go to Raleigh Scatering where you can set the color of it and the range/thickness.

 

10 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Ray , each time before applying another or a modified PTA preset , first install the default Shaders with PTA.

 

Gerard,

By that do you mean another person's file (ini)? So if I wanted to try your preset (assuming you had one) I would first restore the original shaders?

But if I want to make a single change to an existing preset do I still need to do that?

With each single change it would not be needed, but I do it anyway.

Just dl several customer presets , try them and start with the one that pleases you most.