REX Skyforce OR Environment Force?

[Rasterfahnder 75]

8 hours ago, spilok said:

So I'll try just Active Sky and EV.  Right?  

Stan

That is what I do. Make sure to have the texture size in EF and SF both set to the same values. I prefer the weather smoothing from EF's automation mode. Therefore I set the max visibility in AS4 to 200 nm (just one generated layer instead of 3 by AS4). EF mini UI fog mode should be "Auto", if it is set to "Manual" or "Off" flick the EF weather smoothing function off and on again.

If you want to use AS4 for visibility control and EF weather smoothing. Please make sure that in the EF mini UI the visibility control is set to "Off".

Hope that my explanation makes sense. EF is fantastic but takes some time to get used to.

 

 

[spilok 1,132]

7 hours ago, Nyxx said:

Have you set your textures in SF and EF to DTX5 512? And then seen how P3D runs?

EF textures are set to 4K by default.

Yes.  I'm not a big fan of 512 textures.  I do believe there is a difference that's discernible.  I tried it and you're right....very little effect on FPS.  Not sure I want to give up that resolution though.  I'll keep experimenting.

Stan

[Samaritano 304]

6 hours ago, Rasterfahnder said:

 

If you want to use AS4 for visibility control and EF weather smoothing. Please make sure that in the EF mini UI the visibility control is set to "Off".

 

 

I couldn’t find in the EF mini UI “Visibility Control”.

All I see under Bind Menu is:

• Light Multipliers Off   - Checked

• Fog Mode is Auto     - Checked

• HDR Menu is Visible - Checked

• Reset Mfg. Settings  - Checked

 

Can you please elaborate? Thanks.

 

[kand 205]

4 minutes ago, spilok said:

Yes.  I'm not a big fan of 512 textures.  I do believe there is a difference that's discernible.  I tried it and you're right....very little effect on FPS.  Not sure I want to give up that resolution though.  I'll keep experimenting.

Stan

Ive been saying same for a while, skyforce textures <1024 kill FPS. Recently Reed chimed in and said it wasn't the textures but the models, either way why would the product provide hi-res textures when the recommendation even from REX was to run at 1024 and below!

512 textures have horrible square edges when up close,I find 1024 a good compromise. The 4096 textures are far too pin sharp when up close.

I think the real issue is that the sim applies AA to the whole scene when we really dont want it applying AA to the cloud textures 

[dal330200 216]

I wouldn't bother with EF.  Skyforce is great.  EF is buggy and limited, so unless you like the stock automatic look, you're better off waiting for PTA to release their next-gen tool that will pretty much allow shader tweaks on-the-fly without all of the headaches associated with this botched product.

Edited July 10, 2019 by dal330200

[spilok 1,132]

3 hours ago, kand said:

Ive been saying same for a while, skyforce textures <1024 kill FPS. Recently Reed chimed in and said it wasn't the textures but the models, either way why would the product provide hi-res textures when the recommendation even from REX was to run at 1024 and below!

512 textures have horrible square edges when up close,I find 1024 a good compromise. The 4096 textures are far too pin sharp when up close.

I think the real issue is that the sim applies AA to the whole scene when we really dont want it applying AA to the cloud textures 

Yes.  I tried 512 and really didn't like the resolution.  Then I tried 2048 in both programs (SF and EF) and that was much better, and very little FPS loss.  I will try 1024 this afternoon in the programs and see if the resolution and performance are acceptable.

Good discussion, and I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

Stan

[Rasterfahnder 75]

3 hours ago, Samaritano said:

Can you please elaborate? Thanks

Sorry my bad. You are right, there is no visibility setting, it is caled fog mode in the mini UI. That should be set to "Off" if you want to have AS4 to take full control over the visibility. When left to "Auto" EF cause trouble on my system with cloud visibility reduction function from AS4.

[CFIJose 5,485]

I asked for this 3 weeks ago and again today:

"Can someone please post some pics of some Caribbean Island coastlines? I want to see how the tropical water looks with SKyforce 3D & EF."

Thanks!

[TurboKen 221]

On 7/9/2019 at 11:34 AM, spilok said:

I DO have both.  I've experimented on FPS by installing and uninstalling Environment Force.  Big difference on my system.

 

Stan

My apologies Stan. I did a quick reply and only read the title which simply says one or the other.. After reading your actual post I will give a better answer. So YES, unfortunately I also noticed a drop in FPS, But I have not changed anything from default settings. So as you have pointed out I may need to change the resolution size down from 4k. Then hopefully my FPS will go up.

Edited July 10, 2019 by turboken

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, spilok said:

Yes.  I tried 512 and really didn't like the resolution.  Then I tried 2048 in both programs (SF and EF) and that was much better, and very little FPS loss.  I will try 1024 this afternoon in the programs and see if the resolution and performance are acceptable.

Good discussion, and I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

Stan

Glad you sorted out your settings.

[Samaritano 304]

2 hours ago, Rasterfahnder said:

Sorry my bad. You are right, there is no visibility setting, it is caled fog mode in the mini UI. That should be set to "Off" if you want to have AS4 to take full control over the visibility. When left to "Auto" EF cause trouble on my system with cloud visibility reduction function from AS4.

Great. Thanks for the info. 

[spilok 1,132]

Cloud textures at 1024 in both programs is now my "sweet spot".   I'm using both SF and EF with excellent FPS now.  Very enjoyable after the cloud texture setting.  Thanks for all the input fellow simmers.  That was the correct approach to being able to use both REX programs efficiently.

 

Stan

[JasonPC 173]

One thing environment force does that can badly impact performance is it changes the cloud size (not texture size, but the actual physical size of the clouds in the sim).

If you see performance chugging (GPU maxed out at 100%) odds are it increased the cloud size. Hit default in the menu and they will shrink slightly and GPU usage should decrease and FPS should increase (mine GPU usage went to 70% and FPS back locked at 30 fps). Only workaround at the moment is to disable EF's ability to manipulate cloud size. This goes for both cirrus and cumulus (cirrus cloud size changing is really buggy so I disabled it anyway).

Edited July 13, 2019 by JasonPC

[jmrtlara 15]

Another thing you might want to disable to improve the performance is in the main EF program window. Something about 'Enable Dense Cirrus Overcast Layer'...this is a real performance hog. 

Edited July 13, 2019 by jmrtlara

[Michael Moe 494]

3 hours ago, jmrtlara said:

Another thing you might want to disable to improve the performance is in the main EF program window. Something about 'Enable Dense Cirrus Overcast Layer'...this is a real performance hog. 

Yeah that was reenabled on my system. Thanks. 

Fog mode to off and hitting save last state does not work here. I have to manully set it to off every time. 

Anyone who finds HDR values way to bright and washed out? I am back with HDR Off. 

Michael Moe