From The official forums :-

 

Hi all,

I’ve spent some time the past few weeks gathering some details to share on this new feature and how it works. As you know there is a new setting coming on Tuesday with World Update 6 called “Offscreen terrain pre-caching” and will be available on PC. This option defines what level of detail your offscreen terrain will stream into memory.

The definition of “Off screen terrain” is anything not currently visible behind the user.

First question I saw was, “If set to Ultra, all the offscreen terrain will be cached at full quality - does this include buildings and trees in addition to ground terrain?” Yes, this includes not only terrain but buildings, trees, photogrammetry, textures, and everything else in the world.

It will have four settings:

• Low - This setting will improve performance but a lot of terrain data is streamed at a lower quality behind the user, while FPS drops may increase when turning your head.
• Medium - This is what you currently have right now in the current build. The terrain behind the user is streamed at a lower quality and reduces the impact on memory and FPS, but when turning your head will need to stream the terrain.
• High - High will be an intermediate state between Medium and Ultra
• Ultra - This is will have no offscreen caching at all, and everything will be maxed out based on your graphics setting. The quality in front of the user is the same as from behind the user, so nothing needs to be loaded. This could come with some FPS drops when turning the head, but would result in higher FPS and lower memory usage when looking forward and not turning your head quickly.

Hope this answered some questions, and I am working on gathering information like this to help out with new features in future updates as well

Thank you for sharing this.

Dave.

41 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Hope this answered some questions, and I am working on gathering information like this to help out with new features in future updates as well

Thank you, that all makes sense, except for the last bit..

"This could come with some FPS drops when turning the head, but would result in higher FPS and lower memory usage when looking forward and not turning your head quickly."

Higher than what?  Higher than when not turning your head..?

"First question I saw was, “If set to Ultra, all the offscreen terrain will be cached at full quality - does this include buildings and trees in addition to ground terrain?” Yes, this includes not only terrain but buildings, trees, photogrammetry, textures, and everything else in the world. "

"Ultra - This is will have no offscreen caching at all, and everything will be maxed out based on your graphics setting. The quality in front of the user is the same as from behind the user, so nothing needs to be loaded. This could come with some FPS drops when turning the head, but would result in higher FPS and lower memory usage when looking forward and not turning your head quickly."

Well Bert I have to disagree...none of this makes any sense to me at all. Take the above statements in bold-ital-underline - first statement: offscreen cached at full quality; second statement: no offscreen caching. I know I don't fully understand 2021 english and speech, but to me those two statements make exactly opposite claims.

1 hour ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Ultra - This is will have no offscreen caching at all, and everything will be maxed out based on your graphics setting. The quality in front of the user is the same as from behind the user, so nothing needs to be loaded. This could come with some FPS drops when turning the head, but would result in higher FPS and lower memory usage when looking forward and not turning your head quickly.

Surely the opposite would be true…when set to Ultra, the sim is caching all the scenery around the aircraft- thus memory usage would be at it highest on this setting when looking forward, not it’s lowest.

Otherwise this is going to be a VERY confusing setting for 99% of users.

Edited September 4, 20214 yr by RaptyrOne

To complicate matters, I'm pretty sure it won't work, except after two hotfixes at least 😅

 

21 minutes ago, somiller said:

none of this makes any sense to me at all.

I think it is just poorly worded... lets see if someone comes along with a better command of the English language.. 😉

I'm assuming the ULTRA setting would and should take up the most amount of system RAM and GPU RAM. Which I'm hoping it does. Since I have extra leg room, I want it to take advantage of every ounce of memory that I have.

It looks like the OP is just a copy and paste.

I have understood this:
There will be four settings which will vary the amount of scenery loaded.

Low: only scenery within the view will fully load. Scenery elsewhere will only load in reduced quality when viewed.

Medium: only scenery within the view will fully load. Scenery elsewhere will only load in a less reduced quality when viewed.

High: only scenery within the view will fully load. Some scenery elsewhere will load.

Ultra: all scenery will fully load whether within the user view or not.

 

By the way, this is a perfect example of tautology.

Quote

Medium - This is what you currently have  right now in the current build.

The meaning is the same if written "This is what you have now."

Edited September 4, 20214 yr by Reader

 I =V/R. So the current build will be inverse to the new resistor chosen.

7 hours ago, somiller said:

I know I don't fully understand 2021 english and speech, but to me those two statements make exact opposite claims.

Not a native English speaker either, but I find this description rather confusing, too. Reminds me of "Welcome, please set your experience".

But I'm sure, our pioneers will soon chase it through all sorts of tests to reveal its nature.

Kind regards, Michael

Ultra will give me higher fps? Confusing 

Got a link to the official forum thread on this? Thanks

It seems overall pretty clear to me even if there are some awkward turns in some sentences. A point which is not clear is the autogen though. I thought it was not streamed but came with the core stored in our computer.

42 minutes ago, DaWu said:

Ultra will give me higher fps? Confusing 

That's because - providing your computer has enough hardware to accommodate it and speed to push the data around - it won't be making any calls to bring data in, it will all already be there, so barring any throughput delays or bottlenecks between your GPU and other components as it pushes data around, it will be faster at processing stuff, hence a higher FPS.

Think of it like having all the stuff you need for work already on your desk within reach, as opposed to having some of it in a desk drawer, which would take a second or two to get hold of, and you'll get why it will be faster, but as with needing a big enough desk to be able to do that, you'd need a capable set of hardware to accommodate it, i.e. a GPU with plenty of memory etc.

Edited September 4, 20214 yr by Chock