Xp 12 Update

[Bjoern 1,157]

On 10/27/2021 at 10:26 PM, Bjoern said:

Sidney also commented on the bug tracker for the Mesa graphics library today and stated that LR will fix the Vulkan-OpenGL bridging issue plaguing AMD GPUs on Linux. Definitely for XP12, and maaaaaybe also for 11. This is huge news as it will eliminate a huge question mark that I have about 12 and its future on that GPU and OS combination.

Update: This won't be fixed for 11, but seems to be fixed for 12 now. Mesa will become Laminar's benchmark graphics library for Linux, as opposed to AMD's propriatary driver which is geared toward workstation GPUs and all around awful for games anyway.

[mSparks 2,086]

6 hours ago, fogboundturtle said:

When I see an aircraft like the IniBuild A300 barely running at 30fps on a system like mine,

when I see the vskylabs r44 never dropping below 200fps and the 744 maintaining a consistent 100fps and above.

I can only assume you are talking about specific aircraft and microsoft windows problems that XP12 can not and will not fix.

Further, XP12 is going to use more resources not less, so those numbers will go down not up.

Edited October 28, 2021 by mSparks

[RXP 2,338]

On 10/27/2021 at 10:29 AM, akita said:

 

What I like in this screenshot is not only the clouds, but the actual depiction of a weather front of some sort in the back with its massive cloud wall!

I couldn't resist trying to adjust the exposure and white balance like I did with a few previous screenshots, and again, just raising the exposure by +0.5 (and a slight adjustment to the white balance) gives stunning results in my opinion:

 

[Pastaiolo 1,688]

You are right Jean-Luc, there is an issue of filtering in there. Oh well, let's hope they get to work on that as well. 

[mjrhealth 820]

9 hours ago, mSparks said:

Further, XP12 is going to use more resources not less, so those numbers will go down not up.

Thats an assumption  who know it may stay as it is, it may go up, unless you  have tested it for yourself you are just guessing like everyone else.

[rka 916]

1 hour ago, mjrhealth said:

Thats an assumption  who know it may stay as it is, it may go up, unless you  have tested it for yourself you are just guessing like everyone else.

Best case would actually be CPU usage up, GPU usage up, Performance at least not down.

I know most people here will disagree, but 21 fps is not enough with regard to the available compute power today.

Competing software shows very well what is possible today even with an a decade old API (DX11).

Edited October 29, 2021 by rka

[mSparks 2,086]

7 hours ago, mjrhealth said:

Thats an assumption

Let's not go down that road, dealing with the psychological trauma of doubting the fabric of existence itself is no fun for anyone.

[akita 429]

On 10/28/2021 at 5:03 PM, fogboundturtle said:

Too multithreaded ? come on. You can say that with a straight face. Even LR research says that their application isn't.  I have no idea about XP12 multithreading since they haven't talked about it but Xplane 11 is one of the last multithreaded flight sim on the market. The fact that if you disable HyperThreading or SMT , Xplane 11 runs better is an indication of how the engine is not design for modern CPU. This is not rocket science. If Xplane 12 resolve this issue, good for them. It will be a welcome change. 

If you wish to get technical mentioning claims like "Xplane has a very old engine" then the whole discussion is worthless. You identify what the bottleneck is then you claim. v11.50 is highly multithreaded for many tasks I mentioned this includes the flight model, AI, scenery loading, texture streaming etc... Everything that is mostly unrelated to make more reflections or a shiny picture.

CPU bottlenecks in Xplane from my experience are coming from reflections and clouds, other than that I can't see real major problems with multithreading. You also said addon makers can't multithread in Xplane which is wrong as the discussion in the slack channel was about Xplane and plugins fighting over cores.

So if the cpu bottlenecks are a result of "old reflection tech", "old clouds" then it falls under the exact category I mentioned which is the rendering pipeline; take the FFT water in v11.50, it is actually multithreaded yet it was not the best solution so the entire simulation of water has moved to the GPU in Xplane12. Multithreading is nice and Xplane Vulkan has great access to it but the goal is better performance overall and not just multithreading everything.

17 hours ago, RXP said:

What I like in this screenshot is not only the clouds, but the actual depiction of a weather front of some sort in the back with its massive cloud wall!

I couldn't resist trying to adjust the exposure and white balance like I did with a few previous screenshots, and again, just raising the exposure by +0.5 (and a slight adjustment to the white balance) gives stunning results in my opinion:

 

2 Things:

1) I'm almost sure they will have some UI stuff so people can make some small changes like you did.

2) The current new tone mapper tones to LDR although the entire pipeline is on real photometric and HDR values, it is HDR ready in a manner that it is scalable enough so later (after they ship) they can add native HDR output but for now they are experimenting with apple's and windows HDR management and as usual the latter...sucks. HDR will obviously make colors a bit richer + will help with better whites and exposure balance without making it over exposed (like on some edge areas on your shot).

Edited October 29, 2021 by akita

[RXP 2,338]

@akita

You are right there is posterization and this is expected because it is a cheap attempt to test a theory, unfortunately with reference material which is sRGB only.

The idea behind this experiment is to illustrate that XP12 rendering engine has nothing to envy from FS2020 rendering engine in terms of lighting, but if most of the screenshot are not appearing as "shiny" or "life like", it is mostly in my opinion because the exposure is set so that it can fit a higher dynamic range.

However, like you'd sometimes do in photography, overexposing can make a difference and this is exactly what FS2020 is doing (but in this case too much). To me, it is a matter of using a proper metering system first and foremost which is better suited to rendering flight simulation views properly. This means a spot or weighted average, which will work better in-cockpit than the typical full-image average FS2020 is using.

I've summed up this here (with details about the metering system):
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/bug-feature-implement-a-metering-system-better-suited-for-vr/345705

Once exposure is measured adequately, overexposing it a bit makes a dramatic difference like I'm trying to portray in my series of screenshots. And what I find amazing here, is that most if not all the shots I've tried only needed +0.5 exposure to make them more attractive. In other words, instead of trying to fit most of the HDR range, it might be a good idea to overexpose slightly even if this clips some of the whites.

NB: This is just a continuation from this previous post:

And this post:

 

 

 

[RXP 2,338]

@akita

Other comparison shots I've posted in the past:

Spoiler

 

Most of the changes below are new XP12 art assets auto-added by WED's functions added to get large parts of the Global airports "auto-updated". So that is how most already existing airports now look like on a late summer afternoon.

And here is the last screenshot post-processed along the lines of what I've documented in my other experiments a few days ago:

• +0.75 exposure: the most important factor missing in X-Plane to me
• Slight S-Curve: for contrast
• +25 saturation: it seems the sun was low but I wanted a little more peps to highlight the beauty of it, entirely subjective here!

 

 

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/607954-x-plane-12-announcement-keynote/page/11/?tab=comments#comment-4636121

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by RXP

[RXP 2,338]

And another:

I've found a playground you can use to experiment with some of the post-processing effects and see how this impacts the overall look and feel.

Spoiler

 

NB: this is not a simulator but this gives you easy to use in-browser WebGL rendering you can play with!

Using the following BabylonJS, I've just changed from the default: MSAA and Tone Mapping, then I've tried to recreate the look and feel of what I can see on my screen with XP11 and FS2020. DefaultRenderingPipeline | Babylon.js Playground (babylonjs.com)

XP11 look and feel

using camera contrast 25% and camera exposure 30%

 

FS2020 look and feel (and +)

using camera contrast 33% and camera exposure 75%
In addition, I've added about 20% sharpen (it would be closer to FS2020 at 10-15%)

 

In both cases, this is the same PBR rendering, the same lights, the same ambient light. The only difference is exposure and contrast (S-Curve)

In short, XP11 and XP12 are perfectly capable of rendering photo realistic graphics because they are using material based rendering (PBR). Most of the visual feeling some are arguing about with FS2020 in my opinion (I'm not speaking of textures or buildings, just visual look), is mostly if not only related to proper tone mapping with correct exposure compensation.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/607954-x-plane-12-announcement-keynote/page/14/?tab=comments#comment-4637967

 

Edited October 29, 2021 by RXP

[mjrhealth 820]

5 hours ago, mSparks said:

Let's not go down that road, dealing with the psychological trauma of doubting the fabric of existence itself is no fun for anyone.

I had no intention, just remember that.

[mSparks 2,086]

44 minutes ago, RXP said:

The idea behind this experiment is to illustrate that XP12 rendering engine has nothing to envy from FS2020 rendering engine in terms of lighting

Im pretty sure Ive said it before, but I generally find XP lighting and visibility to be superior to other sims in every way.

Putting aside the comparison because its pointless, XP11 lighting is weak because:

Shadows & AO is fubar everywhere and always

Moonlit nighttime terrain is to dark

cavok colors are not "rich" enough.

A lot of that last one is actually the default ground textures in XP11, and can already be fixed with decent ortho.

In all other conditions - especially in VR - it is very very close to what you see from the cockpit, except for the sketchy 3d building textures.

They are putting an extraordinary amount of effort to get it right in all conditions.

19 hours ago, RXP said:

the white balance) gives stunning results in my opinion:

you know, my complaint for these is the same as all the similar ones we have seen now for the last few years.

What weather system is this

and

That plane cant fly anywhere near the 200kt updrafts needed to create towers that high.

Yes it looks cool, but thats the kind of weather that gets you a feature on

 

[mSparks 2,086]

44 minutes ago, mjrhealth said:

I had no intention, just remember that.

Just remember, the defining movie of my generation was The Matrix. Questioning basic assumptions for us generally has more dire consequences than blissful ignorance.

[scotchegg 4,186]

46 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Im pretty sure Ive said it before, but I generally find XP lighting and visibility to be superior to other sims in every way.

You have. Do you also know you’re in a minority, possibly of one, in thinking so?