It would be great is FSX was rid of the 'popping' effect of scenery objects and autogen. Nothing more annoying on a short final than to see airport objects suddenly appearing out of nowhere or whole airports suddenly disappearing when outbound.

FSX max everything plus Core2 :)

The popping effect has been reduced and reduced over each ver of FS over the years, so I expect the trend to continue as we go forward...Rhett

I hope it gets eliminated. It is visually annoying and I would have thought should not be noticeable on higher-end systems. It is also inconsistent - more noticeable at some airports, in particular add-on airports where objects appear and disappear at pretty close range. A gradual, more diffuse appearance/disappearance at a distance would be a great change.Jonathan

D/L and read thru the SDKs and you get an understanding of what this is and why it happens. Basically more power/less polys that have to be rendered on the screen = less popping. It takes far more resources to display a dynamic world than a static world, which is why you don't see this in many other games.I agree, it can get annoying at times.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/tfbeta.jpg

Thanks Michael. I can appreciate why it happens (resource wise), but I would have thought that higher end machines with capacity to spare would display objects at a greater distance. Objects suddenly appearing on short final, yes, very annoying.I'll look up the SDK's. Thanks.

I suspect the popping is due to using SCASM-style scenery, which allows for a view distance and radius. Once outside that distance the object is not drawn. In FS9, the intent is to create .mdl file scenery from GMax or the like. This scenery provides for LOD models, much like exist for aircraft. It doesn't seem like implementing these is too easy, at least using GMax and the FS9 gamepak. It could be that these LOD models provide a better visual experience at increased distance. Maybe FSX will provide some improvement in this area. See scenerydesign.org for more info on Gmax scenery design.scott s..

Thanks Scott

>systems. It is also inconsistent - more noticeable at some>airports, in particular add-on airports where objects appear>and disappear at pretty close range. That used to be a function of the scenery design. The "pop" distance could be controlled in the older languages like SCASM and BGLCOMP. Nowadays I don't know what controls it. I've seen textures popping in late lots of times, but it's more for lack of hardware than anything else.Really, even in FS2004, the popping of autogen trees, for example, is much much reduced if you use a realistic visibility setting.Rhett

Autogen and trees don't seem to be too much of a problem. It is particularly (some) airports. I love Fly Tampa's airports, but one which is particularly bad for the appearing/disappearing act is the Dubai scenery. I know the scenery is old(er) now, but so far it's the worst offender. Some scenery objects disappear before the aircraft has even left the airport perimeter! About 2-3 miles out, the entire airport has disappeared. This doesn't happen with the Austria title at all.Jonathan

I haven't noticed, but then again I don't have any third-party airports installed.Maybe there's some odd bottleneck in your system?James

Most of the addon airports use a combination of variable view distance and scenery density slider to control how many objects are created and rendered to minimize the frame hit.scott s..