Quick question...  Still using 4.5HF2 and extremely pleased.  The only issue is the draw distance of detailed water.  I notice right under the plane is beautifully detailed, has the reflections glimmering based on sun direction and looks great but then it very quickly transitions to this flat dull horrible looking textures.  LOD on land doesn't seem to be an issue, it's just very apparent over open water.  Is there any way to increase the LOD and draw distance "specifically" of the water details?

Thank you in advance as always! 

28 minutes ago, psolk said:

Quick question...  Still using 4.5HF2 and extremely pleased.  The only issue is the draw distance of detailed water.  I notice right under the plane is beautifully detailed, has the reflections glimmering based on sun direction and looks great but then it very quickly transitions to this flat dull horrible looking textures.  LOD on land doesn't seem to be an issue, it's just very apparent over open water.  Is there any way to increase the LOD and draw distance "specifically" of the water details?

Thank you in advance as always! 

I don't think so, as I recall. I guess that's why LM introduced NVidia waterworks into v5, as an incremental improvement, but haven't yet done a great deal to push it forward, having apparently concentrated on slowly moving EA towards acceptability?

26 minutes ago, kevinfirth said:

I don't think so, as I recall. I guess that's why LM introduced NVidia waterworks into v5, as an incremental improvement, but haven't yet done a great deal to push it forward, having apparently concentrated on slowly moving EA towards acceptability?

Thanks Kevin, that's a shame because that first layer of LOD and water detail is spectacular, if I saw that to the horizon or at least a decent range distance from the plane that would be epic.  Is the detailed water expanded in V5.  I have 5.2 installed but haven't migrated as I'm so happy with 4.5 and it's stability. 

8 minutes ago, psolk said:

Thanks Kevin, that's a shame because that first layer of LOD and water detail is spectacular, if I saw that to the horizon or at least a decent range distance from the plane that would be epic.  Is the detailed water expanded in V5.  I have 5.2 installed but haven't migrated as I'm so happy with 4.5 and it's stability. 

To be honest, investigating the water isnt something Ive spent a great deal of time on.  Would it be of benefit to do a short video showing what it look like at my end, and you can compare?  I dont have 4.5 installed now.

1 minute ago, kevinfirth said:

To be honest, investigating the water isnt something Ive spent a great deal of time on.  Would it be of benefit to do a short video showing what it look like at my end, and you can compare?  I dont have 4.5 installed now.

I don't want to put you out but if you are flying over water and grab a video I would certainly look 🙂  That would certainly be a driver for me to move, I spend a lot of time over open water in the QW787 in P3D 🙂  

Thank you again! 

2 minutes ago, psolk said:

I don't want to put you out but if you are flying over water and grab a video I would certainly look 🙂  That would certainly be a driver for me to move, I spend a lot of time over open water in the QW787 in P3D 🙂  

Thank you again! 

at what altitudes?

1 minute ago, kevinfirth said:

at what altitudes?

Usually in the FL350+ range...  It's noticeable when you are at altitude and look straight down.  It's like the water LOD is significantly reduced compared to land. 

I don't notice such a drastic difference looking down over land.  

 

let me fly a low level around the coast, then slew up to a greater altitude then.  just ultra settings or you want to see different qualities?

1 minute ago, kevinfirth said:

let me fly a low level around the coast, then slew up to a greater altitude then.  just ultra settings or you want to see different qualities?

Just Ultra would be great, thank you so much again.  Maybe it's something system specific on my end you never know...  Greatly appreciated!  

I do a lot of water flying - flying boats particularly so the water issue is not insignificant. LM have initiated NVIDIA's dynamic water engine but if you do not have an NVIDIA card then you do not see the dynamic waves etc ( I do have an NVIDIA card so I do have the waves). LM need to do a lot more work to use the math behind the NVIDIA wave generator (which is very complex) and a bit like TRUE SKY, the implimentation has a long way to go yet in P3D, what they have given us is dumbed down considerably and the capacity for either well short of what these two ingenious developments are capable of!

LM's advice on the water is that the water detail settings in the control menu will too a degree control what you see in terms of waves, spray etc they recommend ULTRA for water. 

The second part they fail to mention but do so with regards to detail is TESSALATION - again the higher the setting the better the detail (especially for terrain mountains etc) again they recommend ULTRA for the Tessalation setting. 

Now the waves you get or see will be dependant upon the wind the sim is using. As I use AS the wind I am getting is variable and dependant upon the weather where I am. All I can say is that it appears the wave motion at times is exaggerated (not all the time) low down and especially on the water for low wind speeds.  You can set the 0 altitude wind speed artificially using the weather settings and yes it will give you mountainous seas etc but then you have to set up all the weather accordingly. I just let AS do it and take what it gives me. 

As to how that all looks from FL's hard to say very rarely traverse the sim world at those altitudes. But the best you are going to get is with the two ULTRA settings I have mentioned. 

 

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by coastaldriver

uploading now - if there's anything you particularly want to see in greater detail let me know (0 to 20k ft)

 

 

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by kevinfirth

@psolk  Another 0 low level ultra, wind 20knots

 

Thanks @kevinfirth  Your water definitely looks better than mine, could be shaders or that 3090 but your draw distance looks pretty similar and I see that same flat dull water in front of the cockpit on the horizon.  So from that respect it did look very similar.

@coastaldriver thank you, I'll have to take a look at my tesselation factor as well.  It is interesting this wasn't addressed as most of the time P3D at altitude actually looks very good until you are over open water.

Thanks everyone

 

Edit:  @kevinfirth what I am describing is best seen at the ~2:20 mark in your video when you bank.  You can see how far you have to bank to be able to see the detail in the water below the plane.  Thank you so much again. 

Edited July 20, 20214 yr by psolk

3 minutes ago, psolk said:

I see that same flat dull water in front of the cockpit on the horizon.  So from that respect it did look very similar.

Not sure what they can do about that, the GPU power required to do individual waves etc at high alt makes that a poor option.  The water surfaces otherwise are made up of several semi-transparent layers which just move against each other in different directions - think that's been pretty much the same since FSX?  When you get to very high alts and far distances, its probably difficult to replicate much movement in terms of pixel detail, but I agree with you that apparently static water textures dont look magnificant!

Regarding dull water - I was troubleshooting this one for a while a few months back and found that enabling Dynamic Reflections cured it for me. I had them disabled because of some weird EA stuff going on back then - I think it was the "ghost" effect around the aircraft or something along those lines. So once I enabled Dynamic Reflections and set them to Medium, my water started to look a heck of a lot better.