Blurries & contention

[Guest steve43]

Yea, it would be great if Aces did sort this one. I have a feeling though that not much is going to happen but here is a proposition for Aces team.It has been discussed on this topic by Phil himself that what we should do is try and fix this one in the avsim community by having a standardized flight and settings. What we need is probably someone to create a template file or set up some reliable testing pattern. Now, if it is the case that the Aces team doesn't have the time or resources to work on this issue at the moment, would it be feasible for the Aces team to at least provide a simple worksheet or config util for us to test with? This at least would give steer and direction to, in effect, a public testing ground which Aces could use to help find the problem. Does this sound feasible Phil?RegardsSteve

[Guest]

>Reverting to RTM is the only way to fix it, as of now. I also>hope Aces get a fix for it soon.Yes, you've got to choose between low fps and no blurries or higher fps and blurries... I chose the latter. BTW not only does SP1 give a better fps, it's also smoother with my Track IR Pro. I can look around quickly and it looks smooth. Without SP1 looking around is VERY choppy. Too choppy to be fun. Still, it's not only the blurries that I mind, it's also the very obvious popup of autogen and the fact that I can't set autorun higher than Normal (I was used to Very dense and sometimes even Extremely dense before SP1). The ONLY thing that keeps me from going back to RTM is the better and smoother fps...

[Guest hobbes99]

Hi,hmm I was wondering if anyone else also experiences this. As described above I have a new XPS 710 and only FSX & SP1 installed so far. (As well as latest Nvidia drivers). When I start in the VC and cycle through all the views and back to VC I get what you can see on the screenshot. I do not cycle very fast but it somehow seems that FSX looses its memory = all the textures that have been loaded get lost again. It starts to load them again rather quickly, after 10secs it is fine again...Funny thing is that on the Dell website they say that FSX is the first game that is "XPS" certified...oh well :-)Christian

[Augie 2]

>Hi,>>hmm I was wondering if anyone else also experiences this. >>As described above I have a new XPS 710 and only FSX & SP1>installed so far. (As well as latest Nvidia drivers). >>When I start in the VC and cycle through all the views and>back to VC I get what you can see on the screenshot. I do not>cycle very fast but it somehow seems that FSX looses its>memory = all the textures that have been loaded get lost>again. It starts to load them again rather quickly, after>10secs it is fine again...>>Funny thing is that on the Dell website they say that FSX is>the first game that is "XPS" certified...oh well :-)>>ChristianYup! Same thing here. Some times are worse than others.

[Guest jcmckeown]

Phil, so I have run the test you mentioned in the KSEA area and have some good news: Don't get any blurries with the stock textures regardless of the settings. Even if I start with sliders on "low" and gradually ramp up to ultra high I don't get the dreaded blurries (although frame rate tails off to below 20 with high settings).Config:Core 2 Duo 6600 @ 3 GHZ2 GB RAM2 x 74 GB Raptor RAID08800 GTS 640VIsta UltimateNvidia drivers 158.24DX April updateAfter trying that I reinstalled my photo scenery of South East France, retried in the KSFO area and no blurries. Went to south east france (photo region) and the blurries were there again.One thing I noticed was the following:In KSEA area with stock textures Core2 was peaking to 100% from time to time but then going down to a more conservative value. With the photo scenery, core 2 quickly reaches 100% utilization and gets stuck there. It never goes back down to anthing lower. I think that there is not enough time left over on core 2 to keep the textures close to the aircraft nice & crisp. BTW a simple revert to RTM solves all the issues with the photo scenery.So let me speculate one step further knowing that Phil will correct me if I'm wrong. It seems that with RTM as there was little spare CPU bandwidth available for texture loading, the algorithms were more targetted to prioritizing textures loading close up and that more distant textures were loaded on a best effort basis. With SP1 because more CPU bandwith is available, more is happening trying to load textures far away from the aircraft and the priority factor for close up textures seems to have somewhat decreased. Now here's my issue: I have photo scenery textures for 100s of kilometers round me. That means that whenever the second core trys to load even lower MIPS of far away textures it still has lots of data to load and process. It then gets bogged down. I actually verified this by running a "Process Monitor" and seeing that textures up to 200 kms away were being loaded!!! IN RTM the sim did 2 times less file access for exactly the same flight!I verified this further by doing the following: My photo scenery is broken down into about 5 packs I can activate separately in the library. I activated only 1 of these packs in SP1 and few over the region. Very few blurries and core 2 utilisation is mostly at 100% but then comes down from time to time. I did the same filght with all 5 packs activated and guess what: loads of blurries. So in my opinion, when the sim has too many far away photo scenery textures to load when core 2 gets bogged down to 100% and is no longer prioritising close texture loading any more. Before things get too bad with the blurries textures behind the aircraft are good and gradually this good area gets left behind me.SO question: is it not possible to give close up texture processing a higher priority and make sure this does not get bogged down by threads loading textures far away???Rgds,JCMK

[Guest jcmckeown]

See above, I did some interesting tests this week end and posted back to the forum. Post is above in response to Phil's original request for testing.JCMK

[PhilTaylor 45]

Good to hear stock FSX SP1 does just fine. This is why we suggested installing with no add-ons.Given didnt state that SP1 would enable max sliders, just that it would improve FPS at the same settings or let you tick the sliders up 1 or 2 levels - its not unexpected that at max settings things slow down. Especially with bloom, shadows, and water. Does other photo-scenery show the same issue? TileProxy, for instance?Or just this specific photo-scenery add-on?

[PhilTaylor 45]

Let me also ask, if you dial down Level of Detail Radius to minimum, does this help and does this reduce the file accesses?If so, thats interesting data.

[1st fltsimguy 466]

While I keep throwing in the towel, I pick it up again and again trying desperately to get my FSX to run like I think it should.Here are some screenshots of a flight over KSEA, I think that these are blurries, is this what others are experiencing, I am wondering if i am expecting too much here and there is supposed to be some lack of clarity in the distance.I haven't yet seen a screenshot that doesn't have some blurryness. Please someone who claims to have NO BLURRIES, provide me with some similar shots to show me what is possible.ALSO, another twist on the story. Please take a look at the overhead shot of the trike, I notice that I have clear sharp textures in front and behind the trike but around the wings its blurry, so as the textures pass under the plane wing they go blurry and then get sharp again. Anyone else notice this?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I believe this is the way FSX is supposed to look. Detailed close in and progressively less detailed as you look into the distance. See my attached picture - this is with 20 mi visibility, so a bit more hazy than yours.The problem many of us have, is that when we fly (maybe a bit faster than the trike :-) ), the detail does not keep up and we fly into blurry scenery with no detail right in front of the aircraft. When we hit the Pause button, the detail catches up and, in some cases after 10-20 seconds, the view as you show it, is restored. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/173283.jpg

[1st fltsimguy 466]

Bert, your blurries are pretty bad, I say the obvious. I forgot to mention that my system was in pause mode while I moved around to take the screen shots so they came out sharp around the plane. I do not get blurry as bad as your shot but if I were to fly the cessna or other I remain clear under the plane and as I fly into the scenery it "pops" into focus.My scenery is blurry only a short distance from the front of the plane, I think i should be clearer further away.I really would like it for someone who says the have no blurries to post some shots though, so I can see for myself what these lucky folks are talking about. Come on folks I double dare you, make me envious.I have only seen shots close to the ground and they are sharp of course but give me some shots about 2500' or 3500' please.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Actually, this is when it looks good. Granted, I only use 2m textures and this is from 3000 ft AGL... this is not, I repeat: not "the Blurries".

[1st fltsimguy 466]

:-lol :-lol :-lol OMG, I should think my self lucky.

[Guest jcmckeown]

Phil,Yes, perfectly normal that things should slow down with all sliders at max. Wasn't expecting otherwise.I don't have TileProxy installed but many people using it have been recommending to revert to RTM because of the blurries. Christian will be able to testify and you will see this in the TileProxy forum.The FranceVFR package photo scenery are the only packages I own so I can't comment on others. However they are scenery only installed in the addon scenery folder (no DLLs or other funky stuff). A characteristic of these packages is that they are made of many very small texture files appox 50 KB each.I can't see how this scenery package would be "broken" as it works well in RTM.Regarding the LOD radius I'll need to give this a try. I thought it affected only the very close up textures. Is that not the case? With RTM, max LOD at 4.5 was mandatory to get satisfactory close up textures. Haven't tried to see what happens in SP1.Are you able to say in layman's words how the texture loading algorithms were changed in SP1?One thing common between my setup and those using tileproxy is that the photo scenery is loaded for 100s of kms/miles around the zone of flight. If the SP1 texture engine is also processing all those far away textures this may be what messes things up. I think RTM wasn't processing all those textures very far away from the aircraft.I also own the francevfr package for an island in the carribean (La Martinique). This works very well with SP1 because the photo scenery is concentrated in one small zone and everyting for 100s of kms around is stock textures. So the engine never gets bogged down (core 2 is never 100% busy).Food for thought...

[Guest Robin R.]

Phil,Saying don't install add-ons to FSX is like saying don't buy FSX.You know and I know and everyone who has used FS over the many years knows that third party is what keeps FSX alive.I realize you're trying to eliminate variables, but lets be realistic about this, enough people have posted bone stock, fresh install, nothing other than FSX (which is NOT what your average Microsoft OS user has setup) still causes blurries.The definition of blurries varies -- but regardless, everyone seems to acknowledge the texture map swapping process you use just doesn't look nor feel realistic.Please please please accept this before telling everyone they can't "test" without providing an extensive list of details -- customers aren't supposed to test, YOU ARE!?It's time to rethink Phil, it really is -- the sooner you do it the better.Robin.