Prepar3d V4 Blurry Textures

[fAntani01 0]

I've recently upgraded to Prepar3d v4, and i've also installed, as usual, some ORBX products (FTX Global, Vectors, OpenLC), but i noticed a problem with the terrain textures loading: they keep being blurry also if i pause the game. After trying many settings a many prepar3d.cfg tweaks, I totally uninstalled the simulator and the graphics drivers and reinstallled back again, keeping Prepar3d with no addons and first launch settings. Nothing changes, also if i slide all scenery settings to the right and i check "high terrain textures". I have hyperthreading disabled and default nvidia settings. Specs: i7 4790k @ 4.5gHz, MSI gtx 970 g1 gaming 4gb, 2k monitor, 16 gb of RAM.

here are some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

[LRBS 947]

Hi,

I'm afraid that your video card memory might be the problem.  

Please try this, when flying and notice your problem, put the sim in PAUSE and watch outside how the terrain and autogen is loading. If when paused you

notice that scenery loading and getting a bit better, that's an indication of video card being overloaded by high scenery setting. You can also watch  on task manager 

the CPU and GPU loading situation and act accordingly. Unfortunately, even with a strong CPU and GPU you will notice problems with P3D V... regarding scenery and lighting, forget

about ORBX (that's another issue).

Most of these beautiful scenery pictures you see are "doctored", when you ask the majority of these people to share their settings they will go silent, or their settings are so high that the sim is a slide show, 

lots of stutters  totally unflyable. 

P3D still have a long way to get it right, if you can compromise on certain items you can get it somehow acceptable and hope that one day they will be able to fix it.

I know that is not what you wanna hear but that's the unfortunate situation.

Sorry

[pmb 5,137]

While the GTX970 has known issues (I had it myself for some time) I doubt this is the main cause. Blurry textures are most often not caused by a GPU bottleneck but by some CPU bottleneck or inappropriate CPU tweaks. That's what I keep reading and can confirm myself.

You probably started already with a new/clean Prepar3d.cfg. Reinstalling the simulator may not help as long as you keep the prepar3d.cfg in place or reuse it. Starting with a clean prepar3d.cfg often removes blurries. The more difficult task is to find the sweet spot afterwards.

One more thing I would try is enabling HT. I had been flying with HT off throughout all Prepar3d versions before 4.0, but found Prepar3d4 runs better with HT on (and acutally no AM). That's on my system and yours may be different but it might be worth trying. You can check this using the Task Manager/Performance Monitor (or some equivalent tool). Aside what I observe in the simulator, I see better CPU usage  (CPU gross usage percentage) as well as texture loading, which is essentially done by cores 2, 3  etc.,when I run with HT on.

I have all ORBX sceneries (yes) and I don't see blurries (with a few very rare localized exceptions) and certainly not over the type of terrain shown in your shots.

Kind regards, Michael

[hs118 707]

2 minutes ago, pmb said:

One more thing I would try is enabling HT. I had been flying with HT off throughout all Prepar3d versions before 4.0, but found Prepar3d4 runs better with HT on (and acutally no AM). 

Thanks for this tip. Will try it.

[dmarques69 316]

I have the same CPU, and i also had the same problem, 2 thing you can do, first OC your CPU as high as you can, as long as it stays at safe temps, i noticed a lot of difference in auto gen loading and blurry textures with the CPU OC and non OC, second try to lock your frames and check if the blurrys go away, dont mind about the FPS's first just check if the blurrys goes away.

[pmb 5,137]

Just to convince you I am not lying, here is a screenshot, straight "v", no doctoring.

I hope you agree these textures are sharp. (Better download and load into an image viewer to judge). You may consider:

- This is ORBX Northern California.

- This is close to KSFO and certainly "difficult" terrain.

- No tweaks applied, except an "officially approved" one, i.e. "TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10" and high-resolution textures checked, which can make textures a touch more crisp, but only if the machine can handle it, otherwise it might be even detrimental. It will definitively not cure the blurries from the OP.

- Hyperthreading on. No Affinity Mask. Process Priority for prepar3d.exe set to high which I found does help fight blurries on several machines over the years. (I forgot to mention it as it's done via SimStarter in the background.)

- Machine not overclocked, I never overclocked any of my machines over nearly 30 years of flightsimming.

- I outsourced as many programs as possible to a networked machine. Controls/Saitek panels/FIPs via SPAD.neXt, FS-FlightControl as Moving Map, ActiveSky and/or Skyforce (if in use), PSXSeeconTraffic/Real Traffic all running on a networked laptop. 

Kind regards, Michael

[Slayer 190]

Running unlimited FPS can also cause blurries as you are placing more emphasis on framerates over texture loading. Slowing things down a bit can help as long as your system can maintain it.  V4 I believe defaults to unlimited FPS where on older versions it was set for 20.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Slayer

[LRBS 947]

Michael,

That's a beautiful picture, undisputable. The issue I can see with P3D is that a lower altitudes (I guess you are close to 1,000 ft or so) everything is clear, as soon as you go to a higher altitude, like the  pictures at top of the page (somewhere close to 6,000 or 8,000 ft) it gets blurry. As you mentioned, different tweeks on different PCs behave differently. 

Obviously there is a problem with P3D as it was with FSX and people are not happy, that's the reason why many of us are complaining and keep on tweaking trying to find a solution.  

[pmb 5,137]

I re-read your original posting. The "Use high-resolution terrain textures" checkbox is definitely incomatible with your hardware. Usage of this option requires at least 6 GB of VRAM on your graphics board. (The option "TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=10" I use requires at least 10 GB). On the other hand, you are using a GTX 970 card with 4-x GB performant VRAM (not even all the 4 GB are running performant on the 970). As a result, Prepar3d will run despite, but take the rest of the required VRAM  from your main RAM which is considerably slower.

There may be more issues beyond, but this does for sure apply. BTW, if you delete the prepar3d.cfg file, I am sure the one made by the simulator upon the next start will have the checkbox unchecked in view of your hardware.

Kind regards, Michael

[Rocky_53 1,579]

What has been mentioned is all good stuff, especially about the locking frames. I have suffered with exactly the same problems and I'm running an i7 at 4.6ghz and and a GTX1080ti. Locking the frames will allow more resources for texture loading rather than trying to keep up with a high framerate. However, my issue has always been slow loading photosceneries, as has been reported by many others here, on the P3d forum and other forums. I notice, unless I'm mistaken, the scenery that the OP has posted is Orbx Dubrovnik, where the base tiles and the mountains are photoscenery. The sample pic that Michael posted looks more like landclass scenery and not photoscenery. LM are reportedly aware of the issue which is specific to photoscenery. However, I was extremely disappointed that this anomoly was not addressed in the recent 4.2 release. I can only assume that the problem is bigger than what was originally thought and it cannot be fixed, or there is an intrinsic coding problem in P3D V4. We can only hope.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Rockliffe

[pmb 5,137]

Spot on, Howard. In the shot, I just took off from KSFO (FlightBeam KSFO HD). The airport textures (in my back) are indeed far from being that crisp like the ORBX textures in front of me (although not as terrible as in the shots by the OP). This isn't the fault of FlightBeam, though. It's indeed the result of the fact that Lockheed Martin either can't or don't want to cure that phototextures issue over several versions now.

And, yes, it concerns more or less all photo areas, including those ORBX created around some of its airports.

Kind regards, Michael

[Nyxx 6,993]

All good comment above.

Howard is right photo sceneries don't load as fast as landclass. Also like he says it looks like Dubrovnik. Over the years the I found Orbx large airports and regions always need more time/resources to load than almost any other large airports.

Imo the best thing you can do is give your PC time to breath. Running at unlimited is asking your PC to run it as fast as it can. Like having your foot to the floor in your car to go as fast as you can.

Limited your FPS to the lowest amount you can and get it to run as smooth as possible. Now thats not an easy thing to do, it takes time to get the sweet spot. 

I have FPS set to 24(25) and can run the most demanding A320 at anyairport and keep 24 fps. Smooth, I even flew into aerosofts EGLL from the north and flow over the very center of London and all was sweet with perfect texture loading. It can be done but you need to set setting and FPS so you give your PC the best chance it has to deliver. 

Also the only tweak I use is FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.01 as this makes P3D run just the same as if you have FPS set to unlimited but with all the benefits of locked FPS.

Dubrovnik is not a good test area. Fly out of a none Orbx airport and see how your landclass loads. Try setting at the half way points start by locking FPS at 20, you might not like 20 fps but use it to see what your texture loading is like. One step at a time.

 

[DylanM 1,069]

4 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

What has been mentioned is all good stuff, especially about the locking frames. I have suffered with exactly the same problems and I'm running an i7 at 4.6ghz and and a GTX1080ti. Locking the frames will allow more resources for texture loading rather than trying to keep up with a high framerate. However, my issue has always been slow loading photosceneries, as has been reported by many others here, on the P3d forum and other forums. I notice, unless I'm mistaken, the scenery that the OP has posted is Orbx Dubrovnik, where the base tiles and the mountains are photoscenery. The sample pic that Michael posted looks more like landclass scenery and not photoscenery. LM are reportedly aware of the issue which is specific to photoscenery. However, I was extremely disappointed that this anomoly was not addressed in the recent 4.2 release. I can only assume that the problem is bigger than what was originally thought and it cannot be fixed, or there is an intrinsic coding problem in P3D V4. We can only hope.

Also agree Howard. The new terrain tech that is being rolled out by ORBX (cityscape Gold Coast being the first) also heavily relies on photoscenery, and is now one of the only places I see slow texture loading.

Edited March 10, 2018 by DylanM

[Nyxx 6,993]

I saw it at Innsbrook, I can fly into EGLL EDDF KBOS KIAD etc etc I flow into Innsbrook the first time and thought "what the hell?"...."O yer its Orbx photoreal....sigh"

There new totally new photoreal scenery.....well GL Hope am wrong. The thought of flying into EHAM with "the" A320 with that new addon....och! but hope am wrong.

Aerosofts LEBL has a big area of photoreal with it. I wish it did not, its nice but it just loads a bit to slow. Its not bad just could be alot better. BTW its an amazing airport and FPS are first class.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Nyxx

[Mikelab6 89]

7 hours ago, pmb said:

 The "Use high-resolution terrain textures" checkbox is definitely incomatible with your hardware. Usage of this option requires at least 6 GB of VRAM on your graphics board..

Hi Michael !  Good to know. I am running it enabled on my GTX980 4 GB and all looks good.  Where did you find about that ? I will try it disabled to see the difference...

Mike