Austria 10m DEM Heads Up

[Nyxx 6,993]

2 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

Great!  Thanks for posting this.  The good news is the 10 and 20 don't look much different, but you can see they are both far, far better than the default.

Yes, I will definitely get both of those.  I love flying in both Norway and the Canary Islands.  This is giving the scenery a significant boost in my opinion.

Did you try the server switch? You said you would try it.

[bobcat999 8,444]

2 hours ago, Nyxx said:

Did you try the server switch? You said you would try it.

Hello David.  Not yet - I had to get a couple of urgent quotes out last night in the end.

I will try it again tonight with the 10m Austria DEM and try switching servers around, before probably going for the newer 20m DEM anyway, as it looks nearly as good if not virtually identical from the pictures.  I will then report back.

Edited May 20, 2021 by bobcat999

[Cpt_Piett 4,526]

Switching servers have had no effect on stutters for me so far. I've done it quite a bit recently, mid-flight. The only tangible effect that resolved stutters/pauses was deactivating Austria 10m mesh when flying in Austria. 

There also seems to be day-to-day variations in MSFS in general with no apparent cause or resolution. Yesterday I had a smooth experience all the way. Was doing VOR practice in the FBW A320 in Bolzano, Italy. Then a flight from Bolzano to Germany. On final approach to EDDM few microstutters, otherwise fine.Quite impressive given the aircraft with relatively complex avionics, nearby photogrammetry in Munich, payware EDDM. In addition heavy weather with several cloud layers and showers in the area. 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Cpt_Piett

[AnkH 2,233]

@Cpt_Piett So far I had no stutters using 10m DEM Austria, however I am still not using multiplayer. Although it is supposedly fixed, could you check if it is still somehow related to this? Or do you anyway fly with multiplayer off?

[Cpt_Piett 4,526]

14 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Or do you anyway fly with multiplayer off?

Turning MP off had no effect.

[bobcat999 8,444]

45 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

There also seems to be day-to-day variations in MSFS in general with no apparent cause or resolution. 

Yep.  This is what I see, even from a fresh reboot and a check for no other internet activity - really frustrating and it seems impossible to trace.

[guenseli 1,577]

Switching off Rolling Cache helped a lot in my case.

Made several similar test flights with the DEM 20 Meshes

[cianpars 1,163]

I have to admit that I had stutters around Salzburg, but that's probably related to the Google photogrammetry and add-on airport that I have installed.  The 10m mesh is not quite so smooth as the default, but the quality is worth the odd stutter for me.  I found switching v sync from 60 to 30 fps helped a bit.

 

[Shack95 2,658]

4 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

 

5 hours ago, cianpars said:

Can anyone tell me what the default MSFS DEMs are, particularly for the UK, Europe and the US.

My question also. In particular I'm curious in terms of DEM in France after the recent world update. Couldn't find specific info on this on the official website. 

The official updates have a higher resolution. Most of the US has 16m resolution, many areas 4m and 1m and some even up to 50cm.

https://msfsaddons.com/2020/11/24/world-update-ii-usa-is-now-available-for-msfs/

the UK seems to have 50cm to 2m resolution.

https://msfsaddons.com/2021/02/16/flight-simulator-uk-update-finally-released-brings-many-improved-airports-and-pois/

France has a DEM „as accurate as“ 5m. 

https://www.msfsaddon.com/2021/04/simulator-news-world-update-4-france.html?m=1

To be honest, I‘m not entirely sure what these numbers refer to. On the official forum someone said that the Austria DEM had a hight resolution of 0.1m and a horizontal resolution of 10m. I have no idea whether MS/Asoso‘s numbers refer to the horizontal or vertical resolution or both. It would be interesting to learn more about this from somebody who has some savvy in this field.

[bobcat999 8,444]

1 hour ago, cianpars said:

I have to admit that I had stutters around Salzburg, but that's probably related to the Google photogrammetry and add-on airport that I have installed.  The 10m mesh is not quite so smooth as the default, but the quality is worth the odd stutter for me.  I found switching v sync from 60 to 30 fps helped a bit.

Salzburg has been a problem area for a while, especially to the east of the airport, westwards seems better.  I get the 'manipulators' issue causing pauses (zero GPU utilisation) no matter whether I use 10m, 20m, or default DEM.  I just think something is broken around there that needs fixing, like the issues they had with 76T or whatever it was called.

[cianpars 1,163]

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

Salzburg has been a problem area for a while, especially to the east of the airport, westwards seems better.  I get the 'manipulators' issue causing pauses (zero GPU utilisation) no matter whether I use 10m, 20m, or default DEM.  I just think something is broken around there that needs fixing, like the issues they had with 76T or whatever it was called.

I think you have a point Bobcat.  I may try flying the area with an empty community folder and see how it feels.

[bobcat999 8,444]

1 hour ago, cianpars said:

I think you have a point Bobcat.  I may try flying the area with an empty community folder and see how it feels.

I did that - no difference unfortunately. 

Before the new DEM came out, the only thing I had around there was the 3rd party Zell Am See airfield, and I just found this in the official folder, which we sometimes take for granted for addons (most people just rename the community folder to test without addons). 

I don't have any pauses or other performance problems around the Zell Am See area myself, but I am wondering if this could somehow affect Salzburg, which is about 35 miles away.  A bit of a long shot, but stranger things have happed in the sim I suppose.

Edited May 20, 2021 by bobcat999

[Cpt_Piett 4,526]

7 hours ago, Shack95 said:

The official updates have a higher resolution. Most of the US has 16m resolution, many areas 4m and 1m and some even up to 50cm.

Thanks for this info. 

7 hours ago, Shack95 said:

To be honest, I‘m not entirely sure what these numbers refer to.

I'll admit I'm with you here. If someone could enlighten us that would be great 🙂

[bobcat999 8,444]

So I tried with no DEM (just Asobo Default), no multiplayer, no photogrammetry etc. and approaching Salzburg from the south, from about 5 miles away, the pausing, GPU zero utilisation was as bad as ever. 

I tried switching servers (it was automatic and on north Europe) and it didn't change anything.  Best ping was West Europe (as I would expect) at 23ms, that was just the same.  East USA, just the same also. 

For me at least, that area seems broken. It was smooth all the way before Salzburg.  As I did a touch and go at the airport and peeled off to the right, the pauses were so bad (some a few seconds long) I decided to quit out and fly elsewhere.
5% traffic by the way; AI, not live. 

Afterwards, I quit out, loaded up the new Canary Island DEM, and flew there.  Not a stutter or pause in sight, and the scenery was fantastic!

[Cpt_Piett 4,526]

17 minutes ago, bobcat999 said:

So I tried with no DEM (just Asobo Default), no multiplayer, no photogrammetry etc. and approaching Salzburg from the south, from about 5 miles away, the pausing, GPU zero utilisation was as bad as ever. 

That’s disappointing. Seems there’s something up with the Salzburg area. 

I just finished a flight in Austria with the new DEM 20m installed. I chose the Caravan, going low and slow mostly. Started in Salzburg with payware LOWS and photogrammetry. Definitely more stutters in this area than rest of flight, but not to the point of it being unflyable or hugely distracting. I didn’t have any monitoring software running, so I can’t say if stutters were related to GPU zero utilization. Although I’ve definitely seen that before recently. 

As for the rest of the flight: very enjoyable 🙂 Flew southeast to Mauterndorf, Friesach and Klagenfurt with excellent freeware scenery by Troglodytus. Then westbound to Villach to have a look at the transmitter tower on top of Dobratsch (7106ft). After putting the Caravan down on the grass strip of Flugplatz Nötsch, I took the drone to the summit of Dobratsch for a breathtaking view of the surrounding area. Weather had been quite challenging most of the trip, with low clouds, fog and rain showers. It cleared up enough however in the end so that all the nearby Austrian and Italian peaks became visible. Quite a bit of MSFS magic, with good help of some excellent freeware addons.

Performance was better than the DEM 10m. I still got pauses, although less frequent with shorter duration. At higher altitudes I got more pauses, which corresponds with information by Troglodytus:

“Please note, that this mod is a very high resolution mesh covering the whole of Austria. The elevation data is applied through terraforming rectangles, thus loaded at a certain distance from the player. When travelling fast or at high alitude (wide range of view) there might be too many new rectangles loaded simultaneously and thus stutters might occur.”

If I didn’t get the fading of distant terrain the overall experience would be a lot better. In order for this to happen I could increase terrain LOD in the user.cfg - but I doubt the 3090 would be able to render all those rectangles, with low FPS and more pauses as a result. Oh well, can’t have it all I guess.