TRUESKY (weather engine?)

[Rocky_53 1,566]

33 minutes ago, kand said:

Correct- only use a VC with no model attached except a landing light array

So you have 3x 1920x1080? If so, what size and make are they? What is your viewing distance? Sorry for all the questions but I am considering a similar setup but concerned about the resolution.

[ppo 67]

POO. I believe Truesky is in Alpha really. They have stretched on the definition of Beta...🧐

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

It's the TrueSky implementation that is beta. TrueSky is a proven technology. LM is experiencing the same issues with it that DTG did with FSW. TrueSky is quite powerful, but P3d5 is designed to run on a range of hardware, so the implementation needs adjustment based on open beta testing on a wider scale.

[kand 205]

57 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

So you have 3x 1920x1080? If so, what size and make are they? What is your viewing distance? Sorry for all the questions but I am considering a similar setup but concerned about the resolution.

They are just basic 42"  LED supermarket generic 1080 smart TVs, had them for around 5 years now. Purchased all 3 at the same time when they were £300 per box but can be had cheaper these days.

Vieiwing distance is around 1.2m with the 3 screens arced around the jetmax setup. 

[kand 205]

One interesting observation I have just made, advanced atmospherics off= 7.1gb/9.2gb used, on=8.2g/9.2gb

This with 3 cloud layers, 2 comprised of thick cumulus , 1 high level stratus over ORBX London with Simwings LHR so pretty maxed out in terms of scenery addon

But when I clear all weather, so no clouds...... still 8.2gb/9.2gb ! this with texture resolution at 4096

So truesky costs around 1gb of VRAM on top on a 5760x1080 resolution , but looks so much better than default P3d atmosphere 

Dropping the texture to 1024 results in 6.7/9.2gb

Edited April 16, 2020 by kand

[Rocky_53 1,566]

15 minutes ago, kand said:

They are just basic 42"  LED supermarket generic 1080 smart TVs, had them for around 5 years now. Purchased all 3 at the same time when they were £300 per box but can be had cheaper these days.

Vieiwing distance is around 1.2m with the 3 screens arced around the jetmax setup. 

How do you find the pixilation and resolution at that distance?

[Biggles2010 342]

1 hour ago, JRBarrett said:

but I’m not really impressed by the clouds. Using the default “fair weather” theme, the scattered cumulus clouds have very little structure - they look like individual clumps of fog. Actual cumulus clouds have flat bases but are “bumpy” on the upper side. 

Agree. And every v5 screenshot and video shows this same fuzzy cotton wool effect which is hardly ever seen in real life. When in cloud the effect may be an improvement, but I think in general the cloud effects need some work to make them flight sim standard rather than arcade game. There are several posters who think the clouds are wonderful, so it works for them, but I prefer clouds that look realistic.

[kand 205]

7 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

How do you find the pixilation and resolution at that distance?

Sometimes the clouds can look blocky, but its all about compromise ultimately, here are 2 shots I have just taken whilst still experimenting, on and off, clouds at ultra again 3 layers 

off https://ibb.co/WPyrzD6

on https://ibb.co/YRcHZF7

[Tuskin38 6,435]

So far TrueSky really only seems useful for taking pretty screenshots, not for normal flying.

[kand 205]

4 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

So far TrueSky really only seems useful for taking pretty screenshots, not for normal flying.

yes perhaps thats true at the moment, but once a 3rd party wx engine is updated to interface to v5 I dont think that statement will stand, or at least I hope!

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by kand

[Quasimodo 505]

Don't worry about VRAM. The Nvidia 3080ti will have at least 24gb and only cost $3500.

Alternatively, when that comes out, I at a second used 2080ti to the one I already have for a total of 22gb

I read a post by Beau Hollis that the new tech that allows DX12 to utilize all VRAM on 2 cards and alternate

frame rendering will be implemented in a point release and supposedly it far better than SLI with far better scaling.😁

[Rocky_53 1,566]

25 minutes ago, kand said:

Sometimes the clouds can look blocky, but its all about compromise ultimately, here are 2 shots I have just taken whilst still experimenting, on and off, clouds at ultra again 3 layers 

off https://ibb.co/WPyrzD6

on https://ibb.co/YRcHZF7

Thanks

[JRBarrett 3,034]

27 minutes ago, kand said:

But when I clear all weather, so no clouds...... still 8.2gb/9.2gb ! this with texture resolution at 4096

I noticed this as well. Sitting on the ground at a default airport, with the “fair weather” True Sky theme, it consumes about 3.5 GB of VRAM. When changing to the  clouds and rain theme, (which brings in an almost solid overcast), VRAM used rises to 4.5 GB. But, if I then go back to the fair skies theme, VRAM does not reduce. It stays at 4.5.

This may be due to problems in how LM is using the Direct X 12 API, and an area where improvements could be made.

 As I understand it, in DX11, graphics memory is managed automatically, and even if memory requirements rise above actual installed hardware VRAM, DX11 will start offloading textures to much slower system RAM. That causes an extreme slowdown in graphics performance, but the system will not crash.

In DX12, VRAM management is up to the developer - if VRAM requirements exceed installed hardware VRAM on the GPU, the system will crash.

Even though DX12 is a newer API, with capabilities not available in DX11, in terms of memory management it is more like writing software in the C programming language, where the developer is responsible for allocating memory for dynamic structures and arrays using malloc(), and most importantly, releasing memory when it is no longer needed using free(). This is in contrast to newer languages like C#, where memory allocation is managed by the .NET system.

The fact that “used” VRAM does not appear to decrease when going from a simple to complex True Sky theme and then back, seems to indicate LM has work to do in how they are using memory allocation in DX12 - at least where True Sky is concerned.