2 minutes ago, Dominique_K said:

Oddly enough, the 6 cockpit textures which were a little degraded just after SU5, are this afternoon back to normal ... 

What six cockpit textures?

7 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

What six cockpit textures?

The DC-6

I will take some screenshots tonight and you can be happy that i see the same as you or not. Why do you take it as an attack on you when people want to share and help to see if we are all seeing the same. No one is saying your wrong but from memory the flight I did last night I did not see a blurry VC but I want to check and share with you the result, its not an attack...../sigh......./big sigh

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by Nyxx

7 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

What six cockpit textures?

gauges, labels under switches, buttons etc., instructions, speed tables

15 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Thanks Simbol this is very useful info.  It sounds like this is a good stopgap for pay ware developers on the PC side in that it maintains the status quo (just talking LODs here).

As far as popping is concerned, that is totally up to the skill set of the developer.  We’ll designed and tested LOD steps can look close to seamless - they are used all the time in AAA titles now.  A developer really SHOULD use them no matter how well their addon works without them.  Their product is not an island and users should have as much headroom as possible to combine multiple addons together if there is a design path that will allow it.  Unless you are making an addon for yourself only, its something every responsible dev should strive for (esp for payware).

Much criticism can be leveled towards MS/Asobo for not giving people a clearer heads up about what was coming (and thus more time to prep) - that could have made this a much smoother and less controversial update.  But I think I’m the long run this will prove to be a welcome “ripping off of the bandaid” on inefficient developer practices that will ultimately help all with a better experience.

A lot of it is really not the graphics developer but the renderer, most people did create LODs in all the larger projects. The reason people didn't create all the LODs in the smaller areas is because it didn't make enough difference to justify the extra labor, there is basically no difference between a small airport in the middle of Idaho with LODs and without. Well, at least there wasn't before this patch. You can just scale the buildings larger before importing to render farther away (which was pretty flakey IMO).

I am not worried about them giving us a heads up or time to prep, just that they broke too many of the main features of the SDK, rendering it unuseable. Hence, not sure that a warning of "hey, we're going to break the SDK" would have helped that much. There are people that live in LA LA land and are going to keep going like nothing is wrong (we see those people in real life too), but their canoes will eventually take on water, or they'll just waste 3-4 weeks of dog paddling until the next update where progress can be made.

 

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by Alpine Scenery

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

My guess, over 100 FPS....

Well, if I remove the limiter I get 90-95 fps at cruise altitude with the A32NX (1440p/Ultra settings with glass cockpit refresh rate on medium, real time weather and traffic).

Before I had 45-50 fps in the same conditions.

They needed 30 fps on console and this is the result... the lack of scalability is a shame.

Just now, Dominique_K said:

gauges, labels under switches, buttons etc., instructions, speed tables

On what, the DC6?  If so, I am flying it right now and nothing has changed. 

4 minutes ago, VFXSimmer said:

Thanks Simbol this is very useful info.  It sounds like this is a good stopgap for pay ware developers on the PC side in that it maintains the status quo (just talking LODs here).

It SHOULD, however, serve as a wake up call that developer’s best practices going forward should be to give much more serious consideration for implementing and tuning a level of detail set for every object.  Robert’s (and others) statements about the beta build performance proves that there is more headroom to be gained if LODs are implemented well.  To be sure, the 70% gains are a bit fictional because a probable large subset of geo simply wasn’t drawn at all, but if efficient geo is used in the difference we would AT LEAST see a improvement somewhere in the middle of this build and that of the beta.

As far as popping is concerned, that is totally up to the skill set of the developer.  We’ll designed and tested LOD steps can look close to seamless - they are used all the time in AAA titles now.  A developer really SHOULD use them no matter how well their addon works without them.  Their product is not an island and users should have as much headroom as possible to combine multiple addons together if there is a design path that will allow it.  Unless you are making an addon for yourself only, its something every responsible dev should strive for (esp for payware).

Much criticism can be leveled towards MS/Asobo for not giving people a clearer heads up about what was coming (and thus more time to prep) - that could have made this a much smoother and less controversial update.  But I think I’m the long run this will prove to be a welcome “ripping off of the bandaid” on inefficient developer practices that will ultimately help all with a better experience.

No, popping is not related to LODs. Different LODs (Level of Detail) will be displayed depending of the distance or the size on your screen taking in consideration the object in relation to your field of view. For this to work correctly we developers require to make 4 LODs per object.. on a very large airport this can be very difficult and long to implement, basically every single object (taxi signs, billboard, fences, glass, etc.) would need 4 versions of the object (if you follow the guidelines).. imagine a very large airport like Chicago O-hare, imagine having to build 4 LODs for each object.. and each animation having to be re-codded for each LOD. at least 2 times (LOD0 / LOD1)..

So many developers were implementing just 1 LOD for a long time.. my guess, because the workload requirements is quiet considerable...

Now LODs behaviours are on the PC version same as previous to SU5 update, this was a wise decision in my opinion because thounsands of 3rd party airports would not be able to be ready with 4 LODs per object by the time the update was about to be released, more over it is important to understand not all 3rd party developers had access to the BETA build in order to understand this change. Therefore if ASOBO went ahead and implemented the LOD culling, the end result experience for most PC users would have been very detrimental. Any product available via the X-box market place, has been veted by MS and I imagine they have the required LOD implementation.

However since PC version never enforced this, neither by the market place veto process or by rendering tecniques, well, we are were we are, with lots of 3rd party products that only have 1 LOD.

Lets now put that aside, texture popping is related to a different issue. It is an object being cut out of the scene because it is not in your field of view, so for example the terminal building 10 miles away.. behind your back, is removed from memory.. then you change to external view or turn very sharply back, it needs to be re-rendered.. this is new to SU5 and has been implemented to both PC / Xbox.

Hopes this helps to understand Asobo decision, and the behaviour "expected" from the platforms.

Best,
simbol

The above is only true when it works correctly though, which it's not always doing so. Anyhow, I didn't notice much difference with LODs on custom buildings in this update (and I don't think any of us were saying custom buildings looked bad), just the blurriness of autogen was more of the issue, but these are besides the point of the other issues in the SDK that exist right now (which are numerous).

The grass looks weird, the autogen is blurred looking, and the gamma looks HOT, but these are all the very basic issues not actually related to the SDK issues which are a bigger problem. Asobo almost always hits their release dates, and they usually do it at a cost.

LOD is a very loose term and does not just apply to the custom buildings, but every renderer makes use of various LODs in multiple situations that are pretty variable dependent upon multiple other settings. So it really depends if you are talking about LOD as a general concept, or LOD only that 3rd party-developers created for their specific models (which isn't the same as the general concept of a LOD that many people in here were referring to).

UE 5 is trying to move away from LODs and from my understanding has pretty much dumped normal maps in some cases as well (still can use them). Asobo needs to think like UE 5, not like FSX.

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by Alpine Scenery

50 minutes ago, Alpine Scenery said:

They may not have changed LOD culling specifically, or their definition of LOD culling, but they did change the renderer. Above post not fully accurate, it is a response to a specific issue and is using wordplay.

They also didn't "change the broken terrain files" in that update, that's not the first time I've seen wordology used. 

As far as not the right place to voice concerns, who made you moderator?

I think as many people voice concerns, I can too, thank you for your offer, but I will wait until the next patch, not a sadomasochist.

 

You would do well to learn some restraint and humility, AS. Simbol has been here a long, very long time. You?  Not so much. 

Better to keep your mouth shut and let everyone believe you to be a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt. 

Peace,

-btacon

5 minutes ago, btacon said:

You would do well to learn some restraint and humility, AS. Simbol has been here a long, very long time. You?  Not so much. Better to keep your mouth shut and let everyone believe you to be a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt. 

I would throw that right back at you bud, I'm not the one throwing insults around or telling people how to act. Though shall look into the mirror first. Do not care for your opinion, if you want to buy into the rose-cake go ahead. Didn't insult anyone, replied to a comment of people explaining LOD's, but he is referring to it in the purist definition that rendering people understand, not the general Level of Detail applied to graphics as a whole. I agree with his premises in the purity of the word from a rendering perspective, but not with the generalized way people were referring to it. I don't actually correct anyone or try to over-explain it as he seems to want to go into too much detail and is missing the point

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by Alpine Scenery

7 minutes ago, simbol said:

No, popping is not related to LODs. Different LODs (Level of Detail) will be displayed depending of the distance or the size on your screen taking in consideration the object in relation to your field of view. For this to work correctly we developers require to make 4 LODs per object.. on a very large airport this can be very difficult and long to implement, basically every single object (taxi signs, billboard, fences, glass, etc.) would need 4 versions of the object (if you follow the guidelines).. imagine a very large airport like Chicago O-hare, imagine having to build 4 LODs for each object.. and each animation having to be re-codded for each LOD. at least 2 times (LOD0 / LOD1)..

So many developers were implementing just 1 LOD for a long time.. my guess, because the workload requirements is quiet considerable...

Now LODs behaviours are on the PC version same as previous to SU5 update, this was a wise decision in my opinion because thounsands of 3rd party airports would not be able to be ready with 4 LODs per object by the time the update was about to be released, more over it is important to understand not all 3rd party developers had access to the BETA build in order to understand this change. Therefore if ASOBO went ahead and implemented the LOD culling, the end result experience for most PC users would have been very detrimental. Any product available via the X-box market place, has been veted by MS and I imagine they have the required LOD implementation.

However since PC version never enforced this, neither by the market place veto process or by rendering tecniques, well, we are were we are, with lots of 3rd party products that only have 1 LOD.

Lets now put that aside, texture popping is related to a different issue. It is an object being cut out of the scene because it is not in your field of view, so for example the terminal building 10 miles away.. behind your back, is removed from memory.. then you change to external view or turn very sharply back, it needs to be re-rendered.. this is new to SU5 and has been implemented to both PC / Xbox.

Hopes this helps to understand Asobo decision, and the behaviour "expected" from the platforms.

Best,
simbol

True to a point, but there is a form of popping when there is too much change between two LOD steps.  That’s 100% the responsibility of the developer.

The spec includes a screen percentage for each LOD level - this is allowed to be set by dev (although in my tests I’m not sure if these are being overridden by the sim?). You can also use the same geo for each level if you are really convinced the performance impact is negligible.  That is your choice to weigh the pros and cons.

Just keep in mind that we will continue to keep asking for more and more out of the sim.  Better AI traffic, improved weather and effects, more complex aircraft systems.  All of those take processor time so even if a developer feels their addon is running fine without the extra work of setting up the LODs when you run that concurrently with other tasks the extra processing time might have an impact in the final tally.

As for the rest - I don’t see a reason why they couldn’t put back in sliders/options to restore behavior of loading out of view geometry, loading bigger texture maps etc.  The graphics options page is already one of the few areas of the UI that are different between PC and Xbox.  Adding these options wouldn’t break their grand plan of a single code base.  This outcome is consistent with everything Jorg has said in multiple streams and interviews.

I understand peoples current frustrations but I don’t have any worry about the long term potential of the sim.  It’s still the “best sim in town” by a country mile from where I’m looking.

The above is mostly accurate, LODs can cause popping if the rendered engine does not prevent the popping in the correct manner. It depends on the renderer engine. In UE 4 or UE 5 it's very hard to mess up the LOD's, one reason is because there are scripts you can run ahead of time to make sure everything is right, there is no such script for MSFS.

As far as every condition in MSFS that may or may not cause popping, I have no idea as I'm not an expert in this engine as others are pretending to be. People are getting way too general here and over-stating things as facts and there is a lot of misinformation now.

The fact is they removed detail in the rendering engine that is affecting clouds, autogen, grass, and various other things. Whether they did it with LOD tricks or not as far as how the pre-renderer and the delayed renderer are working together between GPU VRAM and memory is NOT known unless you worked on the game engine, sorry folks it's all a bunch of I know this you know that baloney.

 

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by Alpine Scenery

3 hours ago, superspud said:

It's an interesting one that.

I don't see how any other developer can possibly compete, but if an alternate operation did come out with something broadly similar with a pledge for careful development and competent set up for things like updates I'd chuck MSFS away in a microsecond. 

MSFS has expanded the market hugely, but also frustrated it too. Perhaps someone else will capitalise on that. 

 

I have a love/hate relationship with MSFS, as many others do.  I'll be in MSFS for a bit, get frustrated at some new bug/degradation of some kind, and find myself back in X-Plane for a bit because I don't have any problems with it.

I'll never stop using MSFS because of the advances made, but it will be interesting to see how X-Plane developes, especially after the release of the preview of a new lighting model.

It will be very interesting to see how MSFS developes now it has been released on XBox - will we see specific PC development for example?

2 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Some people make their living doing it (not me), but it's upsetting to me because I took a 3 month break and my timing in coming back was just really bad (the worst). So it's more like the reaction someone might get if Amazon just announced third-party sales are not allowed anymore on Amazon, it's their bank accounts.

LOL, people are so much more upset in the other forums than here. They don't express their discourse HERE because they know their will be too many naysayers saying the opposite, but in the dev forums no one is EVEN questioning the disaster this update was.

Luckily, I'm not in that position, but many are. If you think I'm being a bit off the hook, ok maybe, but so be it...

To be honest, I was more referring to the flight simmers than the developers, although let's face it, there were plenty of developers whining about having to learn a new SDK and new software for MSFS, and reluctant to do so, and I wasn't about to get my tiny violin out for any of that nonsense. Of course I realise some people make their living off making flight sim stuff, but the simple fact is that the world does not owe anyone a living, and where business is concerned, any business, that's the chance you take if you put all your eggs in one basket. I've had my own training business in the past which relied on another company to feed clients to me (and ironically enough, that often involved me learning new software packages and skill sets in order to do the job, so again I've not got much sympathy for people who can't be arsed to do that), but that feed dried up, so I had to fold the business. Yes I was peed off about that because it was something largely beyond my control, but it's the same deal; it's not about if you get knocked down, it's about if you get back up and keep swinging.

There are very few of us who've not experienced something similar in the past year or so courtesy of the C-19 zombie apocalypse; my plans for moving to training in aviation were curtailed by that, although they are now back on track, but in the interim I worked delivering cars and driving trucks to get me by. It's not what I wanted to do, and believe me, I came across airline pilots and other aviation industry workers I'd crossed paths with on the aeroplanes at Manchester doing the same kinds of job to get them by and they were not thrilled about it either, but they were getting their head tucked and swinging away. So whilst I can empathise with being in that kind of situation, I'm not about to start sobbing into my sleeve for anyone who thinks the world is against them personally because of being in that boat, because lots of people have been and many still are. Them's the breaks as they say.

I'm on record here on Avsim on more than one occasion expressing my dislike of the 'here comes a massive mandatory patch' approach to things, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is what we saw for years with XPlane development, or rather the lack of it, courtesy of a goalpost which continually moved around, in comparison to the relatively static base platform that is ESP. But it is what it is from time to time and goes with the territory, however, we also know that one of the reasons MS decided to make MSFS in the first place, was to get in on some of that sweet DLC action via their own store, as opposed to what had gone before where everyone and his uncle spent over a decade making money off a bit of software which MS had sold fifteen years previously and which as a consequence, was not much of a revenue stream for them. So if anyone who is developing thinks difficulties in developing TPD stuff which might be sold on a store where MS gets a cut for not much effort on their part, is a scenario which MS would allow to continue for even a second longer than was practicable, then common sense should tell them otherwise, because they too are in the position of relying on others for a revenue stream, but unlike many others, they are in a position to do something about it to keep that feed flowing, and you can be sure that they will. Despite appearances to the contrary on occasion, and the odd hiccup over the years, you don't get to be the biggest software company in the world in 2021, by not having a plan.

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by Chock

For whatever its worth, i make a living out of MSFS, and i am very pleased with this update and the fact we got into xbox. But who cares right? 

 

Trying to judge the quality of an update, by looking at reactions in various forums is a flawed workflow anyway