On 7/30/2021 at 11:33 AM, devgrp said:

all you guys complaining about down graded visuals and worrying about where the game is going, sound like chicken little. Go compare your visuals to the best p3d and xp has to offer and then ask yourself if could get the same visuals and performance on the other sims

We were right to complain about down graded visuals as MS & Asobo agreed. Hotfix 2 addresses some of those complaints.  

You answer your own suggestion about people worrying where MSFS is going, by stating no other sim has the visuals or performance to match MSFS - a good reason to discuss where the sim may be going.

 

Oh how I wish I had flown more during the SU4 days. Has the latest hotfix fixed the bleached out look of the game world? Cant wait to get it and see how it is when I get a chance. 

I did a full uninstall, left the cache by default (previously I had another 30GB folder) and I set Ultra settings and it's ok.

EGNX

Someone posted this on youtube, there having a lol, I wonder where they found this out?

 

It's pretty good already, BUT...

I see no solid theoretical or even business reasons Asobo won't cater to those w/ the hardware that can manage better visuals.  Right now it's plain to see total RAM in use always stays around the 16Gb that Xbox SX employs.   There are 100's of thousands of PC users w/ far more capacity than that flight sim or will once they're witnessed MSFS, so to me it seems like the best move for MSFS is to notice what platform its running on, and behave accordingly.  If you can use realtime modulators, which may in part be what's already now happening in order to stay in the 16Gb budget, then you can set the bar higher according to how much SysRAM and VRAM the PC has, and deliver accordingly.  This only makes PC users w/ that capacity enjoy it even more, and lets Xbox users enjoy what they can as well.  I don't see Xbox users whining that their experience isn't quite as sterling as mine might be--if anything it may tip a few over to updating their hardware.   And since the Xbox route is easy to manager for end users many will go there anyway and avoid the fuss of maintaining a gaming rig.  And MS still sells Windows OS.  Right now, I'm using roughly 2/3 less RAM than previously.  I'd like to have the peripheral view sharper again, and clouds become more complex.

Just tried with the new hot fix, overall it was smooth with high FPS.

The only downsides were that central London looked like it was the middle of the blitz with grey misshaped buildings and the pop up was quite significant (near the coast at Ramsgate).

17 minutes ago, Noel said:

It's pretty good already, BUT...

I see no solid theoretical or even business reasons Asobo won't cater to those w/ the hardware that can manage better visuals.  Right now it's plain to see total RAM in use always stays around the 16Gb that Xbox SX employs.   There are 100's of thousands of PC users w/ far more capacity than that flight sim or will once they're witnessed MSFS, so to me it seems like the best move for MSFS is to notice what platform its running on, and behave accordingly.  If you can use realtime modulators, which may in part be what's already now happening in order to stay in the 16Gb budget, then you can set the bar higher according to how much SysRAM and VRAM the PC has, and deliver accordingly.  This only makes PC users w/ that capacity enjoy it even more, and lets Xbox users enjoy what they can as well.  I don't see Xbox users whining that their experience isn't quite as sterling as mine might be--if anything it may tip a few over to updating their hardware.   And since the Xbox route is easy to manager for end users many will go there anyway and avoid the fuss of maintaining a gaming rig.  And MS still sells Windows OS.  Right now, I'm using roughly 2/3 less RAM than previously.  I'd like to have the peripheral view sharper again, and clouds become more complex.

I did a flight last night before HF2 around NY and had set LOD to 400/400 it was stunning, Try 400/400 Noel.

5 hours ago, Nyxx said:

I did a flight last night before HF2 around NY and had set LOD to 400/400 it was stunning, Try 400/400 Noel.

So you didn't need to do the Low-End>Apply>Ultra>Apply to get all of the sliders to stick?

I guess as long as you don't open General Graphics settings you'r good to go.  I tried 400/400 and voila, my RTX 2070 Super got nailed!  Panning was a nightmare and I was up to 8Gb and 99% at Roman Designs CYOW!  I had to abort and even at the much easier KBJC it was too much, so back to 300/300. I think I'll keep the 3080 Ti!

Well, maybe there's a work around but it there appears to be a realtime optimizer calibrated for lower LOD.  When I go to even LOD 300 panning is choppy and frame rate during panning goes down to the low 20's from 30.  Or, it's possible the VRAM cache for panning is too small to accommodate higher LOD.  200 is good in terms of panning.  But there is some promise for sure.  In fact, those RTX 3090's may come into play yet 

Edited August 7, 20214 yr by Noel

On 7/30/2021 at 6:46 AM, bobcat999 said:

I wonder, for those that want to change things, can LOD be forced from the Nvidia control panel? 
I used a setting called LOD bias for FSX.  There is also a 'clamp' setting - not sure what that does. 

I'm not sure if these settings have ever worked for anything since FSX

This issue as far as I can tell definitely isn't tied only to the default EGNX. I have tested this at one other default airport and it shows the same exact symptoms. I forgot which one it was but I did mention it in a post in this same thread earlier. So far I think the problem seems to affect the default Asobo airports. It's hard to notice if this problem also shows up on other autogen buildings and objects as well. But whatever it is, I really hope Asobo will fix this issue.

I fixed by full uninstall, and default cache folder (set at 0)

After fresh install I set Ultra settings in Main Menu, and I have windows on the EGNX buildings. 

8 hours ago, Chock said:

 

If it was a consumer requirement to spend three and a half grand on a computer in order to run MSFS, then we can be fairly certain MS would not have made the sim in the first place, because there is no way they were going to rely on finding a consumer base where people have to stump up that kind of cash to be a customer for the DLC in their in-sim marketplace. Although MSFS leverages technology which has other applications, which makes it feasible for MS to spend time investing in it, they doubtless would like to make money off the sim too, and they're not going to do that selling three copies of a sim to people with super-computers who only buy a PMDG airliner and then fly that exclusively. This was their beef with FSX and is why they sold off ESP rights to Lockheed Martin. Yes you can benefit from the sim's existence and do that 'serious simmer (TM)' thing if want to, but if anyone is under the impression they are the main target when doing that, then they are mistaken, and that's fine because you still win anyway and get what you want by virtue of the existence of the main target consumers.

This is not a difficult concept to understand, and nor has it ever been a secret either: Before the product was on sale, MS/Asobo released the system requirements for it, which made it apparent that you would not need a three and a half grand PC to run it. So if anyone bought that super-computer, that's on that on them, but even so, of course they do still have a three and a half grand computer, so are no worse off in that regard if they use it for other stuff as well as playing MSFS, and if not then why not, when they could have simply bought an XBox? 

I tarted-up my PC a bit too with some more RAM and an SSD, in order to speculatively help MSFS out prior to getting it, but not quite so much in terms of cost, however, it was with a view to other things I use my PC for as well, since right from the off I was confident MSFS would run okay on low end computers for two very sound reasons which I've already touched on: A) the published system requirements and B) the fact that it was known it was going to a console, and I readily accepted that this raison d'etre would mean some compromises, but it would also probably mean that some add-ons down the line would probably push around it and also have published specs which made that clear to those with an XBox, even if it became available for that platform.

Everyone knows consoles have a hardware limit because they are built to a specific cost which takes advantage of the economy of scale, but in spite of the hardware bang for buck, there is a defined limit nonetheless, so software performance is adhered to by constraining the present level of detail and data at any point in the run, most commonly with 'levels' on games but also with a reduced LOD radius on those levels. This has been well-known since the very first computer games with a 3D environment came out in the 1980s. 

As a result, a lot of people who did not think about this too much, were surprised by the FPS MSFS can achieve. It's true some of it is down to better hardware usage than FSX and P3D architecture can manage, but it's not magic, some of that frame rate comes at the cost of LOD radius. So long as one was aware of this, everything remains a plus point in terms of money spent, because others sims such as DCS benefit from that, and in my case, things like Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition and Photoshop fire up a bit quicker, latency is improved when recording music and so on, so I was happy to spend a bit of cash on tarting-up my PC.

Reality intermission:

August 2020: the new sim comes out, it's visually stunning, and very demanding on hardware at high settings. Devs say that they will continually improve it, both visually and technically, and that they hold hardcore simmers in great consideration. Simmers see that the sim is using a lot of RAM and VRAM. For this reason, and given the above, simmers proceed to update their PC's: more RAM, better CPUs, better GPUs with more VRAM.

About 9 months later, after SU4 many problems are solved with stutters, low FPS, and visual artifacts, and the sim starts to really shine, especially on performing PCs. Well done.

Two months later, the sim is graphically downgraded to fit the specs, especially memory-wise, of the XBox. 

After ten days, a couple of hotfixes try to improve things; they partially succeed, but the sinister memory threshold is still there with shimmering, reduces lod, reduced buffering among the other things.

THESE are not difficult concepts to understand, nor they have ever been a secret. They are FACTS.

Expected evolution: some sliders in the PC version allowing users to choose what they prefer. Nobody (with the exception of a few A$OBO/M$ fans) is going to accept that the sim is nerfed to fit in an XBox. I believe both devs and producers understand this.

According to your post, we should have known since the beginning that this was an XBox game. I know where this leads: preparing to the fact that those cursors may never appear and an XBox game is all we are left with. Again: I strongly believe that both devs and producers understand that this cannot be. 

BTW, may I remind you that those who suspected this might be the case ten months ago were promptly silenced by the A$OBO fans to the tune of "the devs themselves said it will continually improve, that they have hardcore simmers as a priority, and it is already beyond what an XBox can do"?

I see we are entering the "reality twisting" phase. Interestingly, all these complex elaborations have the same endpoint: proving that M$/A$OBO are doing great, that we should not expect too much, and that this is also perfectly right. Someone else would call foul play, suspect collusions and whatnot. I won't. I only say that I don't buy it.

The $'s are there to remind that we PAID for the sim: reading some messages (not specifically yours) one may believe it's freeware.

A.

4 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

According to your post, we should have known since the beginning that this was an XBox game.

Nope, not according to my post, according to the fact that they said it would be on XBox from the outset, and even if they had not have done so, the UI being suited to the controls of a dual joypad controller was a more than enough of a clue to support this.

43 minutes ago, Chock said:

Nope, not according to my post, according to the fact that they said it would be on XBox from the outset, and even if they had not have done so, the UI being suited to the controls of a dual joypad controller was a more than enough of a clue to support this.

Thank you for your confirmation. So you are saying that the words of the devs count nothing.

Fair enough. 

A.

15 minutes ago, ADamiani said:

Thank you for your confirmation. So you are saying that the words of the devs count nothing.

Fair enough. 

A.

Erm, nope. Did you even read what I wrote?