Just now, abrams_tank said:

I think Asobo needs to allow a toggle in the graphics settings, where we can force objects that don’t have the LODs defined, to render as before SU5.  This would give a nice transition time for 3rd party developers to do the extra LODs to comply with the SDK, and not penalize the players of MSFS because a specific 3rd party didn’t update their LODs yet.

Then after 6 months, Asobo can take away this toggle, because all 3rd party devs should have completed the extra LODs to confirm with the SDK.

That is a great idea. 
How easy it is to implement I wouldn't know, but it could certainly get rid of some of the potential disappointment that might follow next week, as we all want this to be a positive thing.

I know they want to standardise the code as far as possible with the Xbox, and I really understand why, but I would hope they could just put a few toggles/sliders on the PC UI, so that we can adjust certain things.  That would solve things for most of us with a few concerns.  Unfortunately, I can't see that happening without extreme pressure from the PC crowd.

4 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

True. But I have a feeling that Asobo is discovering lots of things they did not take into account when they lauched the sim in August last year. It's probably as frustrating for them as it is for 3PD, and us.

Agreed. But I would've thought of all the programs launched in recent times this would be the most obvious one to specify LODs from the beginning. 

On 7/21/2021 at 12:02 PM, Greazer said:

Let me be clear, again. They are not planning to dumb things down to gain the fps.  They are reworking the engine to use hardware properly. In fact the tree lod is being restored (increased) to at least what it was in earlier versions.

Ignore the fake news.....

The video above is fake news. I have it on good authority!

well, honestly I'll hapilly exchange FPS for some objects LOD.

in the video at least the runway iself doesn't seem affected, or, and more importantly, nor do the clouds !  and that's where MFS is a game changer too - we simply can't find anywhere near the level of cloud rendition in other flight simulators.

also, if the non-classic instrument panels can also gain from this optimization, I couldn't care less if *some* runway signs pop up / off at times 🙂

really not at all anything that bothers me - and looking fwd for the V5 update 👍👍👍

Edited July 22, 20214 yr by jcomm

24 minutes ago, superspud said:

Agreed. But I would've thought of all the programs launched in recent times this would be the most obvious one to specify LODs from the beginning. 

Many things we have seen (or not seen)  so far tend to make me think that they had a superficial idea of what a flight sim was circa 2016 when they begun, that they were not users themselves or had users close to them to raise flags, and they started 5 years ago by deboning a sim designed in 2005 which had a poor management of the LOD. They did pretty good with such a background 🤣.

Silver lining: expectations have been significantly lowered, which is probably a good thing. 

So this is what SU5 is about? I see no problem as long as what they showed & promised us is valid. If the concern arises from 3rd party developers not correctly implementing LODs correctly from the beginning, I think it's better now to change this than later.

 

 

On the contrary, I think freeware developers may provide such changes earlier than some paidware developers

Been simming for many decades, and I guess I am happy that I don't notice all the problems that seem to plague some people. I can remember things popping up as I was flying in P3D, and I don't notice that in MSFS. If I get an improvement in FPS, which frankly I don't really need because my MSFS runs very smoothly, I will be happy. The fact that I can't make out a gnats butt at 3 miles, doesn't bother me in the slightest. 😉

1 hour ago, superspud said:

Aw. Thank you. 

I'll see what's what but I may well throw in the towel with some if it's LOD hell. Most models have already been stripped as far as they can. Another 5-10% reduction turns them full cubist.

That means I'd have to make a completely new model for the higher LODs which I'm useless at. And for some projects I'd have to do that 50 or more times in a row. I think life may be too short unless I can super streamline it somehow. 

Alternatively I might make my own sim streamed from my 10 year old laptop with the personal guarantee that it will never, ever be updated. 

As someone who has made a few addons with the SDK and used the LOD functionality, I wonder if there is an easier step in your (and everyone's) case.

In the current SDK - when LOD's are used its up to the developer to assign geometry to each level of detail step and even decide how many to use.  I'm not in the beta and havent seen the new SDK, but if its simply a matter of requiring you to set up an LOD table, you could fix it now by setting up the minimum number required and assign the same geometry to each.  If the object in question is something as simple as a taxiway sign this is probably not a show stopper performance wise.  And a simple script could be written to add the LOD table to the object ID file.  At worst this would just put performance back to the way it is now.

I would think this would be a quick workaround to restore behavior to the way it was prepatch and buy time for everyone to truly go in and make it efficient with actual geometry reduction steps.

Any developers in the beta would could hint or speak to that?  If what I'm saying is true I could go in quickly and update my mods to be ready for patch day.

 

Dominique_K nailed it, IMO !

If I can use MFS as a visuals generator for good 3rd-party addons with external Flight and Systems modelling, that's great for me.

I am a lot more worried, and following Dominique''s view, with the "light" way they approached flight dynamics, even if they "sell" their idea of the "Modern" FM like a well and carefully designed one 😕 which it is actually far from being, based on all I was able to test / feel / read...

Edited July 22, 20214 yr by jcomm

1 minute ago, VFXSimmer said:

As someone who has made a few addons with the SDK and used the LOD functionality, I wonder if there is an easier step in your (and everyone's) case.

I like the sound of that.

Not sure I understood any of it. 

I thought all of the LOD work was done in the model's xml file and there had to be a separate and specifically named model for each one. This is another rather large turn off if it's the case as upload and download sizes will balloon. 

Well, I still have faith in these developers, so long as they don't focus all on Xbox version and release a buggy SU for PC. A suitable and temporary hack would be to stop LOD popin's within close viewing distance, until a better and more permanent solution can be coded. Would still see a big jump in FPS and not the visual distractions close to aircraft.

I'm really not looking forward to this update. The sim has been constantly downgraded visually and graphically since release. It's absolutely infuriating. I have never had a single problem with performance and instead I have seen the visuals get worse and worse with every update. All to try and appease people complaining about performance, which I suspect is due to them using inappropriate settings on an inappropriate PC. I saved for a long time so I could get the best PC I could to run the sim on the highest settings and the decrease in quality in the way the same looks is so galling. The visuals really are the only reason to use this sim above others, and with them getting worse and worse this reason is shrinking. Please asobo please increase the graphics to how they wee on release when every flight I thought WOW this looks stunning, now it just doesn't look anywhere near as good, blurry textures, trees in a tight circle around the aircraft, water quality lower, clouds quality lower. Never have the WOW moments. Sad.

1 hour ago, superspud said:

Agreed. But I would've thought of all the programs launched in recent times this would be the most obvious one to specify LODs from the beginning. 

Spud,

In regards to LODs, the SDK documentation has been consistent since the beginning. I've had it bookmarked ever since I started fooling around with adding models to MSFS months ago. This is not a new thing that Asobo just added. I guess it may be Asobo's fault that they allowed us to ignore their advice until now, but they weren't hiding anything.

From the SDK documentation: 

LODs

In order to ensure optimal performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator for the models created for your add-ons (scenery, airports, aircraft, etc..) it is important to have a series of LoDs created for each model. This is because levels of detail will be loaded into memory only when necessary, ie: only the data necessary to display a model will be loaded into memory at any time. To make sure this actually functions as designed by optimising performance, it is important that lower resolution LoDs use less memory. Note though that the sum of the LoDs in memory can still be relevant if an object is instantiated multiple times all around the player. In that case, multiple (or even all) LoDs may be loaded and displayed at the same time, thus exist in memory at the same time, making optimising everything of paramount importance.

LoD files are stored as separate glTF files (one for each LoD) in the Models folder for the package. They are then referenced from the <model_filename>.xml using the <LODS> element. You can find an example of how to set this up here:

• LoD Example

The most general rules of thumb for creating LoDs - given the constraints that every LoD should reduce all Optimization Recommendations - would be:

• On each LoD, the number of vertices/faces should be around 50% of the previous LoD
• On each LoD, the number of materials used should be around 50% of the previous LoD
• On each LoD, the total texture memory (number of texels) used should be around 50% of the previous LoD

 

Edited July 22, 20214 yr by MDFlier
spleling errors

Seeing as i only have one scenery add-on (Flightbeam KDEN) i wonder if this explains why i did not have serious performance issues with my previous PC?