Terrain LOD

[Zimmerbz 168]

I am just curious, for those of you that fly airliners, what terrain LOD do you have set and visually what differences do you see by lowering it or raising it?  Thanks

[Noel 4,552]

17 minutes ago, Zimmerbz said:

I am just curious, for those of you that fly airliners, what terrain LOD do you have set and visually what differences do you see by lowering it or raising it?  Thanks

About 120 when in the PMDG 738, 200 in the AS CRJ700.  Visually?  Quite frankly the visual differences approach nil and this is a very good thing because TLOD is the only variable that needs more CPU in my configuration.  I was contemplating a CPU upgrade this spring however there is no real need as I already have fluid, stutter-free performance into the most demanding scenarios.  I've discovered the pathway to ultimate performance with my now somewhat modest hardware and that's great because I really don't care to lose perfectly good hardware for more....fps, as it's simply not necessary.

[Fiorentoni 4,306]

15 minutes ago, Zimmerbz said:

I am just curious, for those of you that fly airliners, what terrain LOD do you have set and visually what differences do you see by lowering it or raising it?  Thanks

to 200 most of the time, only when FPS get tough (New York, LA) I reduce it to 100 for approach and landing. As for the difference, terrain and objects that are further away basiclly get rendered in a higher quality if you raise LOD. With a setting of 100 you'll see where the autogen or photogrammetry is "cut off" because it's too far away, it's rather obvious at LOD 100. With LOD 200 I hardly ever notice, so that's therefore my goto setting in an airliner.
Keep in mind photogrammetry is also influenced by this but will basiclly always look melted in an airliner above 10000 feet because of the vertical distance (as said: more distance = lower quality rendering).
For airliners anyway it only ever matters on the ground or on the approach, because up high you can set LOD to 400 and will not notice any FPS hit. It's only down low when many objects are loaded that terrain LOD has a heavy impact.
Actually no idea why they called it "terrain" LOD, because it does not only influence terrain but also objects like autogen buildings, trees and photogrammetry.

[OlliePen 88]

I use either 150 or 200, depending on the plane and where I'm flying.

[regis9 4,032]

Used to to 200 for everything, recently dropped it to 100 for airliners/dense cities based on advice in another thread and it made a nice improvement in stutters.  No real noticeable visual difference for airliner flying.

[Maxis 1,886]

Was 300 now 250. Would have preferred staying at 300 but DX12 happened and i prefer flying in that mode so i will take the hit on the frames for the improved smoothness of dx12. The only AC giving me a FPS headache the moment i hit the battery button is the Inibuilds A310.. both the Fenix and the PMDG fly well with the TLOD at 250 and those are my bread and butter AC so im happy with leaving it at 250 for now until we can see how much of an uplift the 7xx3d is going to offer.

[Flic1 996]

I use 180 on my system....could afford to go higher with some aircraft but never really touch it.  Seems to be a happy medium for me...

[vrdubin6 184]

150 is completely stutter free and 200 I get quite a bit of CPU limited stutters in major cities. I started at 150 and just inched it up until I started getting stutters. 180 seems to be the sweet spot on my system and side by side screenshots are almost identical to having it at 200.

[Zimmerbz 168]

For those running 150-180, how do your system specs compare to mine? (in my sig)

[guibru 474]

Both LOD at 200 regardless of aircraft (PMDG, Fenix) and whatever the airport except the Inibuids scenes or I drop to 150.

[Cpt_Piett 4,800]

150 is a good compromise for me, and I’ve used it for a while regardless of aircraft/scenario/etc. Just can’t be bothered changing it back and forth.

[Ixoye 1,837]

100-150 with airliners depending on airports, and 200 with GA, the visual differences are barely noticeable when flying airliners.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Ixoye

[ryanbatc 13,002]

I will use 300 if rural flying but generally 200 if elsewhere and in 2D.

VR I only run 100.

[Noel 4,552]

4 hours ago, Zimmerbz said:

For those running 150-180, how do your system specs compare to mine? (in my sig)

Depending on what your criteria are for total performance considerations, 180-220 will be easily managed--only based on my own w/ a 9900K@5.0gHz and same GPU.

[Cpt_Piett 4,800]

The problem is still the bottleneck when flying into major hubs, with AI traffic and nearby PG. KBOS, KLAX, KJFK, KLGA, EGLL are just some examples of this. Further improvements to DX12 might help, but there’s still the issue of being main thread limited.