Blurry ground textures and delayed autogen loading

[FlyingEngineer 0]

Hi everyone,

I am using Prepar3D v4.3 and have several problems including blurry textures, delayed autogen loading and black (airport & autogen) textures. I was able to reduce the appearance of black textures by changing TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=160 and TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=9. Unfortunately, it did not fix my other two issues. I changed almost all P3D settings (e.g. autogen radius, autogen density, terrain lod radius, etc.), but I was not able to fix it.

My system: Intel Core i7 6700k @ 4,2 GHz, 16GB DDR4 RAM @ 2666 MHz, Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 Ti, SSD 500GB

[downscc 1,327]

There is much written here and in the AVSIM P3D Guide on those settings.  Your setting of 9 for the texture exponent is probably the default setting given your other settings and the abilities of the 1080Ti.  The TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT only applies if there is a frame rate lock.  Here is what I have pasted to my Prepar3D.cfg file as a reminder to myself on how to use that tweak:

// With limited FPS, MAX_TEXTURE_DATA = (TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD * (TextureMaxLoad * TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULTIPLIER)) / UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT 
// TextureMaxLoad = max(TextureMaxLoad, (6*TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT)/UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT)

So, for example, my current settings for these three items are:

TextureMaxLoad=45		// 6 default, mult of 3
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=180
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=24

This seems to be working very well for me (8700K 4.7 GHz 2x 1080Ti in SLI) and so far I seem to have overcome the onset of blurries that would occur after several hours of x4 simulation rate.  It is most important to understand what these settings do and that the best settings are going to vary with hardware and configuration.

Delayed autogen loading, as you described it (you just mention it), could just be a limitation of P3D.  Black textures could be due to running unlimited frame rate?  I recommend the AVSIM P3D Guide... link is in sidebar to the right.

[FlyingEngineer 0]

Thank you for your detailed answer. I will definitely have a look at the AVSIM P3D Guide.

Concerning the delayed autogen loading, I have found two videos which show exactly the same problem that I have:

 

 

[Mitch24 194]

You're like 8 years behind with the P3D 4.3 Blurries and Autogen problems 

Edited August 11, 2018 by Mitch24

[DrumsArt 270]

22 hours ago, Flugsimulatorpilot said:

Hi everyone,

I am using Prepar3D v4.3 and have several problems including blurry textures, delayed autogen loading and black (airport & autogen) textures. I was able to reduce the appearance of black textures by changing TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=160 and TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=9. Unfortunately, it did not fix my other two issues. I changed almost all P3D settings (e.g. autogen radius, autogen density, terrain lod radius, etc.), but I was not able to fix it.

My system: Intel Core i7 6700k @ 4,2 GHz, 16GB DDR4 RAM @ 2666 MHz, Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080 Ti, SSD 500GB

Are you aware of this?

 

Regards,

Edited August 12, 2018 by DrumsArt

[orbmis 9]

23 hours ago, downscc said:

There is much written here and in the AVSIM P3D Guide on those settings.  Your setting of 9 for the texture exponent is probably the default setting given your other settings and the abilities of the 1080Ti.  The TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT only applies if there is a frame rate lock.  Here is what I have pasted to my Prepar3D.cfg file as a reminder to myself on how to use that tweak:

// With limited FPS, MAX_TEXTURE_DATA = (TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD * (TextureMaxLoad * TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULTIPLIER)) / UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT 
// TextureMaxLoad = max(TextureMaxLoad, (6*TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT)/UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT)

So, for example, my current settings for these three items are:

TextureMaxLoad=45		// 6 default, mult of 3
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=180
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=24

 

Hi Dan,,

If I may, where/how did you come to the formula for calc'ing the TextureMaxLoad? Just seems rather high compared to what I've come to expect from other readings in the forum. I've been under the impression that the TextureMaxLoad would be in the 9-12 range, maybe up to 18. In your formulas, TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT has a direct impact on the TextureMaxLoad. Are you sing a formula to calculate the TBM?

Just trying to follow you on this, in order to see the potential impact on my settings.

Thx,

Mike

 

[downscc 1,327]

10 minutes ago, orbmis said:

Hi Dan,,

If I may, where/how did you come to the formula for calc'ing the TextureMaxLoad? Just seems rather high compared to what I've come to expect from other readings in the forum. I've been under the impression that the TextureMaxLoad would be in the 9-12 range, maybe up to 18. In your formulas, TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT has a direct impact on the TextureMaxLoad. Are you sing a formula to calculate the TBM?

Just trying to follow you on this, in order to see the potential impact on my settings.

Thx,

Mike

 

The formulae I posted are from LM and Rob Aincough has posted these on several occasions.  45 = (6 * 180)/24.  I have not thoroughly tested this across multiple settings, nothing scientific at all.  I increased texture max load while seeking improved photoscenery performance specifically for Orbx TE Netherlands.  The texture bandwidth multiple is a value I have found seems to work without problems with my SLI,  I have no idea how high that could be pushed.... as I said, not scientific.  Just "hey I'll try this."

[orbmis 9]

4 hours ago, downscc said:

The formulae I posted are from LM and Rob Aincough has posted these on several occasions.  45 = (6 * 180)/24.  I have not thoroughly tested this across multiple settings, nothing scientific at all.  I increased texture max load while seeking improved photoscenery performance specifically for Orbx TE Netherlands.  The texture bandwidth multiple is a value I have found seems to work without problems with my SLI,  I have no idea how high that could be pushed.... as I said, not scientific.  Just "hey I'll try this."

Hi Dan,

I’m with you now... the TBM is where the subjectivity comes into play.. from there  texturemaxload is just a calculation.

Thx.

[FlyingEngineer 0]

Thanks a lot for informing me about the other topic Ground textures gets more blurry the further I fly . I was able to fix the issue by setting the framerate to 29fps (it was set to unlimited before). However, I also noticed a loss of fps.

Scenario 1: QW 787 @ AS EDDF V2 Pro

a) FPS limited: 19-21 FPS

b) FPS unlimited: 26-28 FPS

Scenario 2: PMDG 737 NGX @ C7 EDDN

a) FPS limited: 23-24 FPS

b) FPS unlimited: 28-29 FPS

Edited August 13, 2018 by Flugsimulatorpilot

[DrumsArt 270]

7 hours ago, Flugsimulatorpilot said:

Thanks a lot for informing me about the other topic.......However, I also noticed a loss of fps.

Scenario 1: QW 787 @ AS EDDF V2 Pro

a) FPS limited: 19-21 FPS

b) FPS unlimited: 26-28 FPS

Scenario 2: PMDG 737 NGX @ C7 EDDN

a) FPS limited: 23-24 FPS

b) FPS unlimited: 28-29 FPS

You're welcome...Loss of fps? So? Don't worry about it...Shut down the fps visual (Shift "z"). Now, just fly, look around, external view, cockpit view and so...How do you feel? Is it acceptable, better? For me, yes, it is!

Regards,

[AnkH 2,233]

7 hours ago, Flugsimulatorpilot said:

Thanks a lot for informing me about the other topic Ground textures gets more blurry the further I fly . I was able to fix the issue by setting the framerate to 29fps (it was set to unlimited before). However, I also noticed a loss of fps.

Scenario 1: QW 787 @ AS EDDF V2 Pro

a) FPS limited: 19-21 FPS

b) FPS unlimited: 26-28 FPS

Scenario 2: PMDG 737 NGX @ C7 EDDN

a) FPS limited: 23-24 FPS

b) FPS unlimited: 28-29 FPS

Well, there is nothing you get without a cost, no? So, just think about it the other way around: why should using unlimited FPS or a low FFTF value provide you extra FPS? If using unlimited FPS or a low FFTF value would be the way to go, LM would have included it as default already a long time ago inside P3D.

Or: if you suffer from a big FPS loss by limiting the FPS, the only thing you can do: reduce the settings until you reach the same FPS again.

To understand, you can simplify things in a rather silly way: think about your sim being capable of knowing how much performance your hardware delivers and the sim reacts accordingly. Now, using unlimited, you basically tell your sim to run as fast as possible. While this might work in scenarios without much load on the hardware, in heavy scenarios it might lead to the situation that your sim starts to divert performance from processes the sim considers as not so important, e.g. the autogen and texture loading to provide as much FPS as possible. In contrast, when you hit the "sweet spot" and limit your FPS to a number your hardware is capable to maintain even under heavy load, your sim does not need to divert performance from processes considered less important and everything is rendered as expected.

Personally, I prefer reduced FPS over this annoying autogen loading issue...

[LH340fan 54]

Make sure you also have free space of at least 35% on your sim drive. Fixed the issue for me.

[FlyingEngineer 0]

Although I set the target frame rate to 29 Fps, I still have issues with delayed autogen loading. Ground textures are sharp now, but after takeoff or during the approach I can see the autogen just popping up in front of me. Is there anything I can do to improve that. I already tried setting the Fiber_frame_time_fraction to higher values (e.g. 0,66; 0,99), but still the same problem.

 

[Gabe777 132]

Anyone get any further with this ? 4.5 seems to be worse for me, especially using OrbX full regions.