EA Clouds HF2

[BMW969 126]

I reinstalled the P3Dv5 cleanly. But the effect of squares in the clouds has not disappeared. Is it just me?

I use ActiveSky 7479

 

Edited June 24, 2020 by BMW969

[OzWhitey 3,353]

14 minutes ago, BMW969 said:

I reinstalled the P3Dv5 cleanly. But the effect of squares in the clouds has not disappeared. Is it just me?

I use ActiveSky 7479

I use the current active sky and always fly with EA.

No, it should not look like that, v5 HF2 has the best clouds I've ever seen in a sim.

• Delete your shaders.
• Make sure you're not using any addons that change the clouds, like ASCA, Envtex etc.

Try it without AS - do you still get that weird lattice effect?

Here's how beautiful your EA clouds should look, taken with HF2 just now. 

 

[Dirk98 354]

3 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

I use the current active sky and always fly with EA.

No, it should not look like that, v5 HF2 has the best clouds I've ever seen in a sim.

• Delete your shaders.
• Make sure you're not using any addons that change the clouds, like ASCA, Envtex etc.

Try it without AS - do you still get that weird lattice effect?

Here's how beautiful your EA clouds should look, taken with HF2 just now. 

 

They look great. I'd like to reset the default clouds and atmosphere back from ASCA and ENVTEX, which part of Prepar3D should I reinstall to have your clouds? Btw what is the resolution?

Thanks.

[BMW969 126]

Down below I have the same. Please show cumulus clouds at FL 310

[OzWhitey 3,353]

15 minutes ago, Dirk98 said:

They look great. I'd like to reset the default clouds and atmosphere back from ASCA and ENVTEX, which part of Prepar3D should I reinstall to have your clouds? Btw what is the resolution?

Thanks.

Resolution is high, i’ve usually been using medium but there’s still a bit of a jagged effect when cloud meets mountain with that setting, though better than HF1 which was pretty bad.

I’m not an expert on how to reset from Envtex, it’s a while since I used it, sorry. Don’t know for sure that it affects Truesky clouds, to me it just seems easier to go with default unless someone releases a genuinely Truesky-compatible mod. 
 

 

[mikeymike 360]

I also have m EA at medium 

with envtex and envshade 

but what the hell us the jaggies and flickering above buildings trees mountains etc etc

and on top of my screen 

hmmm perhaps I need to disable full screen optimization?

cheers 

mike

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Just now, mikeymike said:

I also have m EA at medium 

but what the hell us the jaggies and flickering above buildings trees mountains etc etc

and on top of my screen 

 

My main complaint is jaggies at the top of my screen.

Better than HF1, but still there.. this is without any other addons..

[evaamo 549]

33 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

I use the current active sky and always fly with EA.

Hi Rob, I have a similar system to yours. Can you please share your graphics settings? Are you using AM? Anything in the Nvidia panel?  Thanks so much! 🙂

[OzWhitey 3,353]

3 minutes ago, evaamo said:

Hi Rob, I have a similar system to yours. Can you please share your graphics settings? Are you using AM? Anything in the Nvidia panel?  Thanks so much! 🙂

Hi, will share fully later, it’s well past 5am so i really need to stop flying! 🙂

AM - just moving addons off threads 0 and 1, I don’t use an affinity mask on P3D itself.

Nvidia panel - i though about setting for high performance, but currently running all default. Have heard of people having stability problems due to non-default settings here.

Flying always with ortho whereever possible, it looks great in v5 with EA. Get a copy of Ortho4P3D if this is your thing.

CPU overclock is 5.0 GHz, I has stability problems with GPU overclock in HF1, but i’m running a mild overclock again with HF2, so far so good.

[cwburnett 1,809]

Re: The Grid: The grid typically only appears from above and typically only with a large area of overcast that extends a long distance. It is most obvious when looking down from above, and is not at all noticeable when at the same altitude as the clouds like in OzWhitey's shot. It has been discussed extensively on the prepar3d.com forum and is a known issue that will hopefully be addressed in future updates of EA, beginning with v5.1,

What I'm most puzzled about is that I still have pretty dramatic pixelation where clouds meet terrain and trees; it is particularly noticeable when on the ground on a cloudy day. The size and notability of this is directly linked to your EA settings - so it is really quite bad at Medium, less noticeable at High and mostly un-noticeable at Ultra. Unfortunately, you really need more than 8GB of VRAM to run at High or Ultra.

Re: Envtex, ASCA, etc: As for Envtex, ASCA, etc...those programs modify the non-EA cloud textures, so you should be able to seamlessly swap between the two simply by turning EA on or off in P3D. ASCA, Envtex, Rex, etc cloud textures have no bearing on EA clouds. They are totally separate cloud engines and the files live in separate places in your Prepar3d v5 folder.  Envtex/ASCA/REX modify the 2D cloud textures in the \Weather folder (I believe). Truesky lives in its own \TrueSky folder that is untouched by the aforementioned programs.

So to use Truesky clouds and atmospheric effects, all you need to do is enable it in the sim. No need to uninstall or remove the other products, though you may not want to run them because they'll just be consuming resources and not impacting your sim at all.

What I don't know is whether there are settings in ASP3D that can influence the density of clouds that might help alleviate the grid problem, or for that matter if the draw distance and density settings in P3D have any influence on EA/TrueSky.

This is how mine look on Medium when at the same level as the clouds. Look great...

From above, less so. Pixelation at the horizon and a pretty obvious grid...

But there are also circumstances with ASCA/Envtex/ASP3D and 2D clouds where you could see a grid from above in overcast situations, so while irritating, EA still provides a more immersive experience IMO.

But the pixelation from the ground is the worst part, IMO. Where the terrain meets the clouds, there are large constantly flashing pixels; hard to capture in a still, but if you open the image full size, they're pretty obvious along the mountain ridge:

Edited June 24, 2020 by cwburnett

[joepoway 241]

3 hours ago, evaamo said:

Hi Rob, I have a similar system to yours. Can you please share your graphics settings? Are you using AM? Anything in the Nvidia panel?  Thanks so much! 🙂

Hi

You may find my settings spreadsheet useful.

I have a similar system to both of you (see my signature) and this spreadsheet has every setting I use in P3D, AS, ASCA, FFTF and my config file mods.

Joe

The following is a link to the Dropbox spreadsheet:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkwf8fu59olttfx/P3Dv5.0 And Active Sky Settings Chart 6-24-2020.xlsx?dl=0

[evaamo 549]

5 minutes ago, joepoway said:

Hi

You may find my settings spreadsheet useful.

I have a similar system to both of you (see my signature) and this spreadsheet has every setting I use in P3D, AS, ASCA, FFTF and my config file mods.

Joe

The following is a link to the Dropbox spreadsheet:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vkwf8fu59olttfx/P3Dv5.0 And Active Sky Settings Chart 6-24-2020.xlsx?dl=0

Thanks Joe, very useful !!!

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

5 hours ago, BMW969 said:

But the effect of squares in the clouds has not disappeared. Is it just me?

It's not you and and it's not P3d5 either. It's trueSky doing that  and it's a performance related issue that's causing the clouds to appear that way. Try setting the clouds to either medium or low, until LM has a better feeling for the trueSky settings. At least the sun doesn't look like it does from the surface of Ceres anymore and is the correct size for the earth, unlike what was seen in HF1.😊

[OzWhitey 3,353]

11 hours ago, BMW969 said:

Down below I have the same. Please show cumulus clouds at FL 310

Activesky weather Thurday 25th June 2020 0520 UTC, over YMAV in Victoria, Australia.

I've taken the Lead Sled up to FL440 to try and show the cloud patterns.

I think this looks fine, and is pretty typical of what I see when flying.

HOWEVER:

- Yes, there's an issue at times with a lattice effect, when an overcast layer is seen from altitude. If I slew up to FL700, there's a mild effect present with these clouds. I've seen much more noticable effects on occasion during flight.

- I don't personally find it to be too problematic, as I fly exclusively from the VC - this is mainly a problem when you get high above the clouds and look down in external view.

- The issue is variable. I suspect that it occurs when the overcast is composed of certain cloud types, but I don't really understand TrueSky well enough to speculate further. I've been over to the Truesky site and tried to learn a bit more. I also wonder if various addons that impact the weather and cloud depiction may accentuate the issue. 

- TrueSky clouds are certainly at there best when you're below, level to or slightly above the cloud layers. There's definitely room for LM to improve their depiction of overcast from altitude.

- Is it a show stopper? For me, no way. Truesky clouds are great fun to fly around, I can't go back to sprite now even when I try (which I do, from time to time). Enhanced Atmospherics also makes the sim look next-gen (I suspect through light scattering, the god rays, haze etc) in a way that I don't think can be achieved with P4.5 + addons. When I go back to v4.5, I'm reminded too much of FSX and the mid-2000's!

Old-school (EA-off) clouds from the same location and altitude:

I know that people have got used to these sprite-based clouds over the past 15-20 years, but they really do look like something out of the dark ages! Despite TrueSky's imperfections, I still choose it for 100% of my flights. Having said that, if I was ever at cruise and the lattice-look was particularly annoying, it only takes a few seconds to toggle EA mode.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by OzWhitey

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Clouds from FL700, EA on:

Comment: there's a bit of a "lattice" effect present with these clouds, though the placement is not too repetitive.

Clouds from FL700, EA off:

Comment: The 1990s called, and they want their graphics back. 🙂