Texture Resolution

[ssair1 92]

I have a 3440*1440 monitor. Would there be any visual improvement from a high 2048*2048 texture resolution to a 4096*4096 ultra texture resolution? Am I just wasting resources by running at ultra? 

Regards, 

 

[Nighthwk 566]

8 minutes ago, ssair1 said:

I have a 3440*1440 monitor. Would there be any visual improvement from a high 2048*2048 texture resolution to a 4096*4096 ultra texture resolution? Am I just wasting resources by running at ultra? 

Regards, 

 

There’s a difference, but not a huge one. Personally, I can’t tell the difference so I don’t bother on a 1440p monitor.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

It depends on the airplane you are flying... some airplanes come with 4096 textures, and up close there is a difference.. 

Personally, I find 2048 a good compromise - but try it! 

[ssair1 92]

Thank you, Milton and Bert. I've taken some screenshots of the exact scenery with high and ultra settings and honestly: I don't see a difference. And Bert, I'm still a little dumbfounded by this whole affinity mask business; I'm running an i7 7700k overclocked to 4.9ghz, what affinity mask setting would you recommend: I'm currently at 116 and have noticed some improvement.

Kind regards, 

[niyoko 7]

1 hour ago, ssair1 said:

I have a 3440*1440 monitor. Would there be any visual improvement from a high 2048*2048 texture resolution to a 4096*4096 ultra texture resolution? Am I just wasting resources by running at ultra? 

Regards, 

 

How is view on the flight deck and in the sim in general with your monitor? I have just one 22inch 1080p display. I'd like to increase my viewable space in Prepar3D and usable space for development.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

57 minutes ago, ssair1 said:

And Bert, I'm still a little dumbfounded by this whole affinity mask business; I'm running an i7 7700k overclocked to 4.9ghz, what affinity mask setting would you recommend: I'm currently at 116 and have noticed some improvement.

Kind regards, 

If you have Hyperthreading ON  (8 cores showing in Windows Task Manager) try 244 or 253.  I am using 244 and quite like it for overall smoothness in dense scenery.

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=244
// 244=11 11 01 00
// 245=11 11 01 01
// 246=11 11 01 10
// 253=11 11 11 01
// 254=11 11 11 10

BTW:    116= 01 11 01 00 

[somiller 694]

On 12/1/2017 at 8:14 PM, ssair1 said:

Thank you, Milton and Bert. I've taken some screenshots of the exact scenery with high and ultra settings and honestly: I don't see a difference. And Bert, I'm still a little dumbfounded by this whole affinity mask business; I'm running an i7 7700k overclocked to 4.9ghz, what affinity mask setting would you recommend: I'm currently at 116 and have noticed some improvement.

Kind regards, 

Personally, on your system, I wouldn't worry as much about affinity mask for P3D, I would be more concerned that any addon (things like Active Sky, TrackIR, ChasePlane, Ezdok etc.) affinities are set to avoid core 0 and 1 for sure, and better would be to limit them to cores 6 and 7 (assuming Hyperthreading ON). Most addons aren't resource hogs, but any addons competing with P3D, especially on cores 0 and 1, will hurt P3D performance.

[tman41291 4]

2 hours ago, somiller said:

Personally, on your system, I wouldn't worry as much about affinity mask for P3D, I would be more concerned that any addon (things like Active Sky, TrackIR, ChasePlane, Ezdok etc.) affinities are set to avoid core 0 and 1 for sure, and better would be to limit them to cores 6 and 7 (assuming Hyperthreading ON). Most addons aren't resource hogs, but any addons competing with P3D, especially on cores 0 and 1, will hurt P3D performance.

I didnt know you could specifically tell the addons to avoid those cores. Would you mind giving either a quick instruction or link in this thread of PM me?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

2 hours ago, somiller said:

Personally, on your system, I wouldn't worry as much about affinity mask for P3D, I would be more concerned that any addon (things like Active Sky, TrackIR, ChasePlane, Ezdok etc.) affinities are set to avoid core 0 and 1 for sure, and better would be to limit them to cores 6 and 7 (assuming Hyperthreading ON). Most addons aren't resource hogs, but any addons competing with P3D, especially on cores 0 and 1, will hurt P3D performance.

This advice is getting very confusing...

Either set an Affinitymask for P3D, moving it off Cores 0 and 1 (244), OR set affinity for your addons..

If you do both, you are making things worse..

Sorry...

 

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

On ‎02‎.‎12‎.‎2017 at 2:14 AM, ssair1 said:

I've taken some screenshots of the exact scenery with high and ultra settings and honestly: I don't see a difference.

You would only see a difference when the scenery actually has 4K textures and if you zoom in really closely.

The texture resolution setting basically controls how many pixels there are in the texture images that are grafted over the 3D models. It will not magically scale up textures to 4K where the underlying picture only has 1024x1024, so unless you actually have content with 4096x4096 textures, the setting doesn't change anything visually. But if you have for example a cockpit with 4K textures, you can zoom in a lot more until it becomes blurry. In that case the parameter gives you a choice - to use the 4K textures which are more performance intensive, or to be content with lower resolutions, maybe gaining a few FPS or saving some memory.

Best regards

[charlie130 196]

On 12/2/2017 at 0:50 AM, ssair1 said:

I have a 3440*1440 monitor. Would there be any visual improvement from a high 2048*2048 texture resolution to a 4096*4096 ultra texture resolution? Am I just wasting resources by running at ultra? 

Regards, 

 

I have a 1440 monitor and set 4096 texture resolution on all the time. The simulator will not use them unless it comes across a scenery or aircraft that's actually been drawn with 4096 textures.

FSDT LAX for example, looks lousy untill you use 4096 texture resolution in settings. The rest of the time the sim will just use what's there, 2048 and 1024. Since VAS is not an issue in P3dv4, it's only the CPU moving the code around from memory to GPU that's an issue. But I don't see any lower smoothness on a three year old PC with 4096 set. But that's probably because there's not much 4096 scenery about!

Cheers.

[onebob 125]

2 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

But if you have for example a cockpit with 4K textures, you can zoom in a lot more until it becomes blurry. In that case the parameter gives you a choice

Don't we have to set this value in the .cfg file as well

[PANELS]
MAX_VC_TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=4096 ( for airplane add-onns that have 4096 textures)

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

9 minutes ago, onebob said:

Don't we have to set this value in the .cfg file as well

[PANELS]
MAX_VC_TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=4096 ( for airplane add-onns that have 4096 textures)

TBH, I'm not sure about that. I have been using high-rez VC textures in the past (FSX) when this parameter didn't exist, and it seemed to work. But maybe high-rez didn't mean 4K back then.

AFAIK, LM will set this default to 4096 in one of the next versions.

Best regards

[F737MAX 5,492]

11 hours ago, somiller said:

Personally, on your system, I wouldn't worry as much about affinity mask for P3D, I would be more concerned that any addon (things like Active Sky, TrackIR, ChasePlane, Ezdok etc.) affinities are set to avoid core 0 and 1 for sure, and better would be to limit them to cores 6 and 7 (assuming Hyperthreading ON). Most addons aren't resource hogs, but any addons competing with P3D, especially on cores 0 and 1, will hurt P3D performance.

I would also like to hear about how to set addon affinities to avoid cores 0 and 1.
Please could you give a brief description of how this is done?

For affinity masks for P3D itself, this is very useful:
http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitymask.aspx?SubMenuItem=hardware

 

[somiller 694]

8 hours ago, F737NG said:

I would also like to hear about how to set addon affinities to avoid cores 0 and 1.
Please could you give a brief description of how this is done?

For affinity masks for P3D itself, this is very useful:
http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitymask.aspx?SubMenuItem=hardware

 

I use the free version of Process Lasso, with which you can select each addon (they must be running) and set affinity for each. Affinity can also be set using Windows Task Manager by selecting an addon with right mouse button, select "Go to details" then right mouse the same addon and select "Set affinity."

And I agree with Bert, not necessary, and possibly detrimental to set affinity for addons AND P3D. My preference has been to move all addons to cores 5 and 7, and just let P3D use all cores (no manual affinity setting for P3D).