Microsoft/Asobo proved they're pandering to console users

[Krakin 5,760]

1 hour ago, styckx said:

In case others don't read another thread. 

I finally installed this update. Self recorded over Philadelphia. Specs in sig, 1GB internet. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. The pop-in every time you pan the camera is completely and utterly atrociously embarrassing. We are right back to FSX days "Hi any tips to avoid pop-in"????

Except this time "It's not a bug, it's a feature"..   Goodbye MSFS till whenever this garbage is fixed.. Way to take the immersion out of a simulator Asobo. Beside everything else. AN ENTIRE BRIDGE SPANNING A RIVER POPPED IN.  Garbage.. Garbage Garage.. PC users were robbed 

 

Seriously...calm down

[Kilo60 660]

Xbox sales is where the money is...

 

Happens to every good PC game and this one is no different!

[RustyFlyer 182]

14 minutes ago, Kilo60 said:

Xbox sales is where the money is...

 

Happens to every good PC game and this one is no different!

Oh I don't know. Even though I may already have a twenty dollar bill in my wallet while out walking past an empty parking lot, that does not prevent me from bending over and picking up a single dollar bill that I see blowing on the asphalt pavement. Though what you state is true, I suspect that MS would like to have a bit of both.... to have their cake, and eat it too 😉

Tons of people (including myself) enjoy Assetto Corsa, F1, PGA Tour 2K21, Forza Horizon, Super Mega Baseball and many others with great popularity on PC; and these games exist on console also. I think MS can simultaneously walk & chew gum, the question is can Asobo?

Edited July 28, 2021 by RustyFlyer

[virtuali 4,421]

29 minutes ago, RXP said:

- there is an arbitrary size rule (5%) which is not calibrated to be visually pleasing.

That's not the case with the PC version. This is the XBOX LOD culling strategy, but PC version strategy has been reverted back to the original in the very last Beta, which is now the current public release.

In fact, there's a new option in the Dev Mode named "Xbox Lod Selection Mode", that developers can Enable to SIMULATE how the Xbox culling strategy would look like, and adapt their objects accordingly.

And, for the utmost precision, I must say the 5% cutoff ( which, again, is used only on Xbox ), applies only to objects with NO LODs. Objects with 2 LODs will be cut off if they are smaller than 2% of the screen and objects with 3 or more LODs will be cut off if they are smaller than 0.5% percent of the screen.

The MSFS SDK has been preaching to use LOD since its first release, so the worse case will ONLY apply to objects with 0 LODs and ONLY on the Xbox!

Edited July 28, 2021 by virtuali

[EGLD 438]

56 minutes ago, simbol said:

It is impossible to please everyone.

However if it was me, I would have made this setting "optional", set as default but capable of being changed, this way people could decide what they wanted on the PC version..

Maybe people can just go to MSFS and suggest this idea, if enough voices are raises, who know they might implement it..

S.

i think that's the way they'll go, but this is based on nothing other than my wild speculation

[edpatino 1,964]

Terrible download speeds here. This will take long

Edited July 28, 2021 by edpatino

[RXP 2,338]

@virtuali

You are right I've missed to add this precision in my post.

However this doesn't change the fact X% of screen is 4x the number of pixels difference between 1K and 4K, and this shows. In my opinion # of rendered pixels would be better albeit more demanding, and this wouldn't be even a problem if the user would be able to adjusting the threshold levels instead of being dependant to fixed values.

The question remains: either # pixels or % screen, is it diagonally, vertically, horizontally? This alone is also culling objects or different shapes ratios even if they are at the same view distance. The entire culling logic in my opinion would need to be revisited at some point*

 

PS: and I understand 5% now 0.5% is only for objects with 1 LOD only, but it would be great offering the option to the user to also decide what to do with these: display LOD0 only objects still, or cull them off, and at which render size on screen.

PPS: the 0.5% doesn't seem to be working for me though, I can still notice objects like ground clutter or runway/taxiway signs discarded too soon for their size in VR. I just hope they didn't mess this up in VR in taking both eyes as a total screen size they are testing objects size against, instead of using 1 eye view as a reference as it would be expected.

 

---
* and there are a lot of other culling problems, like the ones I've documented which for example is culling out objects or lights when viewed straight but is culling them back in when viewed at 45 deg and the same distance (especially visible in VR).

Edited July 28, 2021 by RXP

[virtuali 4,421]

3 minutes ago, RXP said:

The question remains: either # pixels or % screen, is it diagonally, vertically, horizontally?

My tests seems to indicate it's a percentage of the object bounding Sphere ( that's why you can turn Sphere LODs in the Dev mode ), compared to the screen height, so it's vertical.

[ckyliu 1,749]

13 minutes ago, RXP said:

However this doesn't change the fact X% of screen is 4x the number of pixels difference between 1K and 4K, and this shows. In my opinion # of rendered pixels would be better albeit more demanding, and this wouldn't be even a problem if the user would be able to adjusting the threshold levels instead of being dependant to fixed values.

I think this may explain why quarter/half the userbase is ranting about horrific popup and everyone else says it's beautiful. I bet those with issues are running 4K (or perhaps ultrawide), as it seems to be all the beefy hardware chaps.

The VR crowd seems rather displeased too, I think your supposition they're taking both eyes as total screen size might be accurate.

Edited July 28, 2021 by ckyliu

[RXP 2,338]

6 minutes ago, virtuali said:

object bounding Sphere ( that's why you can turn Sphere LODs in the Dev mode ), compared to the screen height, so it's vertical.

It is not vertical though: it you have a very elongated object horizontally, its bounding sphere will be much larger vertically than the object height, and therefore will be culled later than another object of the same height as the elongated one, but with a smaller bounding sphere thereof. 

I can't test this handily, but is there a chance you could compare the culling of an object:

- 10m wide x 1m height

- 1m wide x 1m height

- 1m wide x 10m height

- in 1K and 4K

All at the same viewing distance (only a small slanted distance error if you put them side by side of course)

Edited July 28, 2021 by RXP

[Republic3D 1,232]

7 hours ago, FAZZ3 said:

I honestly fail to understand why the LOD popping seems to be such a big issue for people. It's literally 0.5 - 1 second of scenery loading. Seems to me as extreme nitpicking.

Would you rather have absolute perfect visuals at 19fps? Or sacrifice some micro-LOD popping for 40+ fps?

For most people, the choice is very easy.

Again. 

It's about 1 sec of loading. It happens every time you turn your head. Which is all the time when flying with TrackIR. That's the point of it. 
I had near perfect visuals at 30-45 fps (urban areas) and 45-95 fps (rural areas) before this update. Everything on Ultra, both LODs at 200.

Now I have a blast wave of scenery loading every time I look around, and an a slight but noticeable improvement in performance in dense areas. Zero improvement outside dense areas.

For me, the choice is very easy. I would rather have it the way it was, honestly. And hopefully that's a valid opinion.

(Except for the tree fix).

.. and no I'm not going back to P3D. I love MSFS.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Republic3D

[RXP 2,338]

4 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

I think this may explain why quarter/half the userbase is ranting about horrific popup

And this is certainly explaining to me what I've been reporting for quite some times already: trees disappearing then reappearing when you move toward them.

If this is the underlying reason, it would be because depending on the distance the game would be using different set of similar looking trees but with different bounding sphere radius and/or different W/H ratio, therefore culling the same looking yet different tree objects at different distances.

[Bobsk8 12,713]

1 minute ago, Republic3D said:

Again. 

It's about 1 sec of loading. It happens every time you turn your head. Which is all the time when flying with TrackIR. That's the point of it. 
I had near perfect visuals at 30-45 fps (urban areas) and 45-95 fps (rural areas) before this update. Everything on Ultra, both LODs at 200.

Now I have a blast wave of scenery loading every time I look around, and an a slight but noticeable improvement in performance in dense areas. Zero improvement outside dense areas.

For me, the choice is very easy. I would rather have it the way it was, honestly. And hopefully that's a valid opinion.

.. and no I'm not going back to P3D. I love MSFS.

Yeah, the choices are between a rock and a hard place. Moving to P3D or XP is a major  step backwards, so we are stuck with whatever Asobo gives us, and they probably know that. 

[virtuali 4,421]

9 minutes ago, RXP said:

PPS: the 0.5% doesn't seem to be working for me though, I can still notice objects like ground clutter or runway/taxiway signs discarded too soon for their size in VR.

Sorry, but that's another issue.

The 0.5% threshold only controls the automatic culling of objects, regardless of the LOD settings in their behavior XML. They will be culled no matter what, if their size is smaller than those percentages.

However, developers ( both Asobo and 3rd party ) can specify their own custom LOD levels, and these can be even stricter than the overall culling strategy.

This applies to lots of DEFAULT library objects and, not all of them are made as good as they could, for example the default taxi_light_02 object, which is very ubiquitous ( it's the blue taxi light fixture used in all default airports ), has *very* strict LOD values, probably by mistake, since the default taxi_light_white_red, instead, has way better LODs levels. I've reported this to Asobo during the Beta so, maybe they'll fix those default library objects that don't behave very well.

[RXP 2,338]

7 hours ago, FAZZ3 said:

I honestly fail to understand why the LOD popping seems to be such a big issue for people. It's literally 0.5 - 1 second of scenery loading. Seems to me as extreme nitpicking.

It is not just objects popping, it is also ground shadows, and bing texture LOD: if you fly at a certain altitude in VR, and you turn the head back and forth, you can see the bing texture swapping.

The problem is that it is not just a problem of bing ground texture resolution, it is also a problem of bing ground textures not representing the same image! Try flying in VR at 20,0000ft around this region near Danemark: 54.82752436157989, 11.270260825455413

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by RXP