Loading Terrain Data

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

P3D v4.5 HF2, flying the FSL A320 (latest update) I've been experiencing something quite annoying, which is the loading of terrain and everything every few minutes. It is quite clear to me that some addon is changing the Level of Detail Radius setting within my own Profile (so that my Profile name changes to Custom when I get there to check it).

Any ideas on how to fix this, or to prevent my Profile from being changed by God knows what?

Thank you!

[GSalden 4,655]

It looks like the pc is falling behing with scenery loading and then starts reloading the scenery.

If it didn’t happen before with the same P3D version then it might be caused by :

- AV running in the background 

- a certain Windows update

- too much PR scenery active 

- driverissue (not correctly installed)

- higher settings than before

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

8 minutes ago, GSalden said:

It looks like the pc is falling behing with scenery loading and then starts reloading the scenery.

If it didn’t happen before with the same P3D version then it might be caused by :

- AV running in the background 

- a certain Windows update

- too much PR scenery active 

- driverissue (not correctly installed)

- higher settings than before

Not applicable in this case. I've always used Level of Detail Radius at the far right setting, which will never "make it fall behind" in any condition I have flown anywhere in the world. The problem is that something (?) is in fact changing the Level of Detail Radius setting and reducing it. Once that happens I understand the simulator "falls behind" the allocated memory or something and starts to load the scenery every few minutes. So I need to find what is changing this setting against my will in the first place.

[GSalden 4,655]

LOD radius cannot be adjusted while the scenery is loaded.

Only before loading into the scenery it can be adjusted.

Did you try making a new P3D.cfg file ?

Otherwise it might be one of the things I pointed out to...

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

On 11/16/2020 at 6:30 AM, GSalden said:

LOD radius cannot be adjusted while the scenery is loaded.

Only before loading into the scenery it can be adjusted.

Did you try making a new P3D.cfg file ?

Otherwise it might be one of the things I pointed out to...

Well, in this case LOD Radius clearly IS being changed "on the fly", I mean, there is something, an addon maybe, that is changing it and whenever the slider is not on the far right I start seeing this annoying "loading scenery" thing during the flight. I tried several times re-adjusting it to the correct setting (far right/extreme) either by reselecting my saved Profile or adjusting the slider itself (which will turn to be the same thing), but then, minutes later, it starts all over again.

This is something that started a few days ago, I've been using the simulator for years with no issues in this regard, whatsoever.

[Bob Scott 7,715]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that P3D itself will dial back the LOD radius if it's bumping against the VRAM limit.  I did a cursory look but couldn't find anything definitive to point you to.  Given that LM does not expose any sort of external interface to the LOD radius, I would surmise it's happening within the sim itself.  Logic would suggest that if it's done by the software, it's to back away from a limit--and VRAM seems the most likely to me.

 

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

37 minutes ago, w6kd said:

I seem to remember reading somewhere that P3D itself will dial back the LOD radius if it's bumping against the VRAM limit.  I did a cursory look but couldn't find anything definitive to point you to.  Given that LM does not expose any sort of external interface to the LOD radius, I would surmise it's happening within the sim itself.  Logic would suggest that if it's done by the software, it's to back away from a limit--and VRAM seems the most likely to me.

 

But I'm using v4.5 (HF2), which isn't prone to VRAM issues, isn't it? I use a 1080 TI, which has 11 GB of VRAM, which isn't the worst either... Considering that I can only think of a memory leak or something alike.

[Bob Scott 7,715]

6 minutes ago, Wanthuyr Filho said:

But I'm using v4.5 (HF2), which isn't prone to VRAM issues, isn't it? I use a 1080 TI, which has 11 GB of VRAM, which isn't the worst either... Considering that I can only think of a memory leak or something alike.

Well, v4 is limited by the available VRAM, but it doesn't blow up like v5 does when it hits the VRAM limit (which occurs when a request is made to allocate a block of VRAM and there isn't a contiguous free block of at least that size).  DX11 (P3Dv4) virtualizes the VRAM space to system memory when it runs out, which just clubs performance.

What I read could have been a v5 thing...unfortunately I can't find the details.  But I know of no add-on that can make that change on the fly, as there is no simconnect interface to change the LOD radius--that means it's happening within P3D itself.

Standard troubleshooting stuff applies here...if this is a new behavior, what has changed recently?  Windows update?  New add-ons?  Any other odd or unstable behavior?

 

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

59 minutes ago, w6kd said:

Well, v4 is limited by the available VRAM, but it doesn't blow up like v5 does when it hits the VRAM limit (which occurs when a request is made to allocate a block of VRAM and there isn't a contiguous free block of at least that size).  DX11 (P3Dv4) virtualizes the VRAM space to system memory when it runs out, which just clubs performance.

What I read could have been a v5 thing...unfortunately I can't find the details.  But I know of no add-on that can make that change on the fly, as there is no simconnect interface to change the LOD radius--that means it's happening within P3D itself.

Standard troubleshooting stuff applies here...if this is a new behavior, what has changed recently?  Windows update?  New add-ons?  Any other odd or unstable behavior?

 

Apart from that everything seems really good, as usual. That I can recall only a few scenery addons were installed and some airplane addons were updated as well, such as PMDG and FSL, occasionally I update AIGAIM too. Thanks for the information!

[newtie 533]

On 11/15/2020 at 11:57 PM, Wanthuyr Filho said:

P3D v4.5 HF2, flying the FSL A320 (latest update) I've been experiencing something quite annoying, which is the loading of terrain and everything every few minutes. It is quite clear to me that some addon is changing the Level of Detail Radius setting within my own Profile (so that my Profile name changes to Custom when I get there to check it).

Any ideas on how to fix this, or to prevent my Profile from being changed by God knows what?

Thank you!

As GSalden recommends, new .cfg file and start  at the beginning, no changes.

A lotta work, yes. But, will help a lot with troubleshooting.

[Nemo 1,305]

Aren't these terrain adjustments caused by in-sim automatic LOD switching when approaching a certain point. It has also been described as "terrain hopping" and is an old issue since FSX/ESP. It does not occur at every place at every time and it seems also to be related to mesh quality and if it is a more demanding area.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Nemo

[Wanthuyr Filho 83]

19 hours ago, Nemo said:

Aren't these terrain adjustments caused by in-sim automatic LOD switching when approaching a certain point. It has also been described as "terrain hopping" and is an old issue since FSX/ESP. It does not occur at every place at every time and it seems also to be related to mesh quality and if it is a more demanding area.

No, it's a different thing. Scenery starts reloading during flight and when I go see it, the LOD Radius setting had been changed "alone".