I assume that they will hotfix the installation process as well but did not say so.  I'm sitting on the bench ready to make a fresh install when all this dust clears.

3 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

"We have temporarily reverted the LOD selection mechanism to its previous state on PC"

Anyone know what this means ?

That means say goodbye to performance gains 

Regarding the new LOD issues, Jayne said that the team can talk about them in the next Q&A, but since it won't happen very soon, she will try to get some information to post in the forums as soon as possible.

Quote

I’m sure the team would be able to talk about this at the next Q&A as I know it’s a big topic right now. I’ll see if I could get something to pass on here in the forums before that though since the next Q&A isn’t for a little bit.

And yes, the altitude fix is intended to fix the issue on VATSIM with altitude.

1 minute ago, Baber20 said:

"We have temporarily reverted the LOD selection mechanism to its previous state on PC"

According to a couple of developers, the Sim Update 5 beta had implemented the new Xbox LOD system (which caused several custom objects with no LODs to pop-in very close to the aircraft), and they swapped to the legacy LOD system for the live PC build. So what you're seeing now is the LOD system as it used to be, but they're doing this to give developers time to add back LODs to their objects before swapping to the new one.

1 minute ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

Regarding the new LOD issues, Jayne said that the team can talk about them in the next Q&A, but since it won't happen very soon, she will try to get some information to post in the forums as soon as possible.

According to a couple of developers, the Sim Update 5 beta had implemented the new Xbox LOD system (which caused several custom objects with no LODs to pop-in very close to the aircraft), and they swapped to the legacy LOD system for the live PC build. So what you're seeing now is the LOD system as it used to be, but they're doing this to give developers time to add back LODs to their objects before swapping to the new one.

Wow...so that's basically every add-on we have that's going to have to be updated?

5 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

"We have temporarily reverted the LOD selection mechanism to its previous state on PC"

Anyone know what this means ?

During beta testing, they reduced object LOD from 2 miles to 20 feet. We complained as loud as we could as this was unacceptable. They reverted it at the last minute.

Now I see it says it is temporary, which scares me.

10 minutes ago, Baber20 said:

"We have temporarily reverted the LOD selection mechanism to its previous state on PC"

Anyone know what this means ?

 

16 minutes ago, edpatino said:

That means say goodbye to performance gains 

Actually what we have now is the version they have reverted those changes. Apparently we would have even better performance if they didn't, based on what the beta testers said.

5 minutes ago, Jeff Nielsen said:

Wow...so that's basically every add-on we have that's going to have to be updated?

No it actually means they DONT have to be updated because they backed out the change.

HOWEVER (and this is important), the performance improvement the beta testers (and PMDG) were seeing before they reverted means there is a lot of performance gains to be had if developers improve the way they implement level of detail models in their addons.  
 

Think of it this way - with the NEW LOD method objects that didn’t have LOD tables (which are a set of versions of an object which vary from very low to full detail) would not be drawn at all if their screen size is smaller than 5%.  Thus a lot of objects were simlply not drawn by the engine - obviously a lot of performance gain - but also a lot of pop-ins as a result. (The OLD Method that they reverted to does this at 0.5% - much less noticeable).

So what happens if devs DO Implement proper LOD behavior.  Now the objects will be drawn again - so the FPS improvement isn’t quite as large.  But the lower detailed models will draw faster.  End result is that we should see an improvement somewhere inbetween the gains we have in SU5 and the max the beta testers saw.

Encourage devs to do this - esp freeware makers cuz we all use tons of that… and we will see improvements without Asobo having to do a thing.

Just now, VFXSimmer said:

No it actually means they DONT have to be updated because they backed out the change.

Except that now it says they are temporarily reverting to the legacy LOD system, presumably so that they don't immediately break tons of airports and scenery add-ons, giving the developers enough time to add LODs to their custom objects if they have not done so yet. Maybe Sim Update 6 or 7 will switch back to the Xbox LOD system again.

It is rather unfortunate, but it has to be done for better performance. They should have enforced this from the start though.

1 minute ago, VFXSimmer said:

No it actually means they DONT have to be updated because they backed out the change.

HOWEVER (and this is important), the performance improvement the beta testers (and PMDG) were seeing before they reverted means there is a lot of performance gains to be had if developers improve the way they implement level of detail models in their addons.  
 

Think of it this way - with the NEW LOD method objects that didn’t have LOD tables (which are a set of versions of an object which vary from very low to full detail) would not be drawn at all if their screen size is smaller than 5%.  Thus a lot of objects were simlply not drawn by the engine - obviously a lot of performance gain - but also a lot of pop-ins as a result. (The OLD Method that they reverted to does this at 0.5% - much less noticeable).

So what happens if devs DO Implement proper LOD behavior.  Now the objects will be drawn again - so the FPS improvement isn’t quite as large.  But the lower detailed models will draw faster.  End result is that we should see an improvement somewhere inbetween the gains we have in SU5 and the max the beta testers saw.

Encourage devs to do this - esp freeware makers cuz we all use tons of that… and we will see improvements without Asobo having to do a thing.

Well, Asobo needs to implement the changes eventually, so they should give the 3rd party devs some sort of a deadline. 

1 minute ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

They should have enforced this from the start though.

Agreed.

Breaking 1000's mods all the sudden is not the solution. 

47 minutes ago, EGLD said:

"We have temporarily reverted the LOD selection mechanism to its previous state on PC"

i'm not sure what this means, but is this perhaps what made Randazzo/PMDG say they were surprised the performance increase was less than he saw in testing?

This was confirmed by Virtuali who (as a developer) was involved in the beta test. Apparently the PC version culling routine diverged from the X-Box version I’m the last beta that became the SU5 release. 

39 minutes ago, edpatino said:

That means say goodbye to performance gains 

This was already done before SU5 released. 

Good to see a quick response and fix, and puts to bed those that still try to claim there was no issue with mine brigade!

Excellent glad to see some CTDs and the cruise altitude temps getting dealt with.  

Now I can spend my Friday night doing a nice long airline flight (20 year old me is shaking his head in partial distain at that Friday night plan lol)

Edited July 29, 20214 yr by regis9