Why does my Xplane 12 look so dreadful?

[mSparks 2,086]

this may be a complete red herring, but I think it is worth mentioning just in case. 

Those having AA related issues try renaming the shadercache folder. (in Output)

and see if it makes a difference.

I am very reliably informed it doesn't, but the last time I did, the folder immediarely doubled in size, and both my performance and visuals (specifically in VR) improved noticeably afterwards.

Edited May 13, 2023 by mSparks

[rondon9898 84]

So if someone like Q8Pilot is actually seeing what I’m seeing in the sim, and the massive improvement in image quality is actually imposed in post? This is all very disappointing. Thank you for your help anyway, folks.

[Jude Bradley 659]

20 hours ago, mSparks said:

this may be a complete red herring, but I think it is worth mentioning just in case. 

Those having AA related issues try renaming the shadercache folder. (in Output)

and see if it makes a difference.

I am very reliably informed it doesn't, but the last time I did, the folder immediarely doubled in size, and both my performance and visuals (specifically in VR) improved noticeably afterwards.

No harm in trying....

[Sethos 4,335]

15 hours ago, rondon9898 said:

So if someone like Q8Pilot is actually seeing what I’m seeing in the sim, and the massive improvement in image quality is actually imposed in post? This is all very disappointing. Thank you for your help anyway, folks.

If by imposed in post you mean done in in video edit, I highly doubt so. Nothing in his videos or any others for that matter, is unachievable. It's all thanks for mods, especially third party planes make a massive difference and possibly downsampling or YouTube hiding blemishes.

[mSparks 2,086]

4 hours ago, Jude Bradley said:

No harm in trying....

There isnt (it just gets regenerated, takes a few seconds longer to start next time)

But it would be really useful if someone can actually catch it and prove it isn't "placebo" (switching repeatedly between old and new).

because without that they don't believe there is anything wrong there (and the contents is machine /gpu/driver version specific)......

[blingthinger 649]

On 5/13/2023 at 1:03 AM, rondon9898 said:

For some reason, the screenshots look quite a lot better than the actual image, which is much more jagged.

I'm curious: how did you capture the screenshots? Like you say, they look perfectly fine. Did you use the built in screenshot capture? I wonder if it looks the same using the printscreen key.

 

On 5/13/2023 at 7:18 AM, Bob Scott said:

The OP has a 4090 with 24 GB of VRAM, so I think VRAM optimization is something of a red herring in this discussion.

Not necessarily. True there haven't been many claims about blurry textures with that much vram, but the quantity doesn't preclude the existence of a yet-fully-optimized compression algorithm. 

What's more, texture compression also done wrong could also produce the illusion of jagged edges. They just wouldn't dance around during camera motion.

[bogdansrb 230]

That's how x-plane looks on my machine too. It's not your hardware, it's something that Laminar either doesn't know how to fix or doesn't want to.

How youtubers make it look better is probably by either recording in 4K or have nvidia's drivers do the processing of AA, which I guess you could try.

[mSparks 2,086]

On 5/16/2023 at 5:56 AM, blingthinger said:

What's more, texture compression also done wrong could also produce the illusion of jagged edges

yes, issues like

may very well be vram related. We'll know more when the fix is out.

On 5/16/2023 at 6:43 AM, bogdansrb said:

it's something that Laminar either doesn't know how to fix or doesn't want to.

Laminar can't fix issues that are the fault of AMD, Nvidia or windows, the best they can do is work around them.

AMD and Nvidia related issues have been falling like flies, windows issues will probably never be fixed, they've been around for 20 or 30 years already, and not even microsoft really cares much about windows any more, they are 99% focused on azure, xbox and CBL Marina. 

[bogdansrb 230]

3 hours ago, mSparks said:

yes, issues like

may very well be vram related. We'll know more when the fix is out.

Laminar can't fix issues that are the fault of AMD, Nvidia or windows, the best they can do is work around them.

AMD and Nvidia related issues have been falling like flies, windows issues will probably never be fixed, they've been around for 20 or 30 years already, and not even microsoft really cares much about windows any more, they are 99% focused on azure, xbox and CBL Marina. 

They're not AMD and Nvidia issues, they're x-plane issues.

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

On 5/13/2023 at 9:03 AM, rondon9898 said:

https://pasteboard.co/zsLm80lH3H3E.png

https://pasteboard.co/C0KR4id5lgXz.png

https://pasteboard.co/a0bDGHALz8ZJ.png

https://pasteboard.co/PIbBjsaTacS7.png

Here are some screenshots. For some reason, the screenshots look quite a lot better than the actual image, which is much more jagged.

When you say VRAM problems - what could they be?

I'm afraid I don't know - where is that file? I'm familiar with the file structure in P3D and MSFS but not XPL

It's in <drive>:\X-Plane 12\Resources\plugins The order of various bits of scenery is of vital importance.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q54661uj98sr2pn/Screenshot 2023-05-11 071051.jpg?dl=0

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by The_Flying_Potato

[coastaldriver 919]

Rondon 9898 - not sure if this of any help but I can see what your saying about the images. They are definitely slightly fuzzy or more precisely lacking clear definition. That said they did not seem that bad but yes! I do not have these issues on my system with XP12 and an NVIDIA Super 2070. I honestly do not think it is an XPlane issue or anti aliasing either but my suspsicions is firmly that it is your monitor plus and possibly the driver your are using.

I would suggest you check and recalibrate your monitor from scratch without running XPlane, colour balance, hues, contrast etc. Don;t completely use the MS graphics tuner (its rubbish) but find yourself a really good colour picture on the net and use it to sort it out first. I would also check that there is not a monitor override or additional settings related to the motherboard that is also modifying the image qualtiy (I discovered my MSI motherboard had this and was doing that) Then I would look at the NVIDIA set up your using. I do not use the NVIDIA Game Drivers but the Studio drivers for my NVIDIA (I find it gives better colour balance and definition [personal taste]. It is also worth checking that you do not have NVIDIA overriding what you want in your display as well - check all your 3D, display and colour setting. NVIDIA has an automated preference control system that can override your monitor - I just go for quality. There are a quite a few YouTube videos providing advice and guidance on how to do this if your unsure. 

If none of that works then I hate to say it but your monitor is probably on the way out!

[flyingpauls 66]

On 5/13/2023 at 9:20 AM, rondon9898 said:

Does anyone know what is going on? Is it Windows 11 causing the issue? Q8Pilot, for example, seems to have a computer set-up that is pretty similar to mine. What could I be doing wrong? Any little insight I can glean would be very helpful. Laminar support just says adjust the settings or reinstall. Well I’ve done that, and no joy. Any ideas at all much appreciated.

It is the graphics engine of X-Plane 12. Your screenshots are like mine.

You can set FXAA as advised by LR, but that will yield blurriness in the cockpit. I had problems reading the instruments, and cannot use that. You can also set AA higher. This will yield all sorts of flicker at airports, especially in those dreadful water puddles. The only solution seems to be a beefy computer and 4K monitor. I heard that things improve there.

[coastaldriver 919]

rondon9898

I took a screenshot on my system - I think it is the same place, approximate time and weather and same model this is what I see on my system:  This is an unenhanced screenshot from my system (10 minutes ago) converted into a JPG to post here thats all!

I can zoom in or out and pick up the detail on the stone walls perfectly. No blurriness in the cockpit either. My only scenery enhancement is SIMHEAVEN's Europe. 

This is with WIN10, a Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10500 CPU @ 3.10GHz   3.10 GHz with an NVIDIA 2070 Super Card. Nothing super about this PC 16GB RAM and 8GB on the video card runs perfectly for me. Monitor is an LG.  A decent rig but not a super PC and it runs XPlane at 45-80 FPS scenery density dependant. 

I have all my graphics setting basically all at maximum except Anti Aliasing set at 4XMSAA, i have shadow quality at HIGH, Rendering distance HIGH and World Object Density at HIGH (No reason to max these as your asking your PC to draw stuff and detail at a distance the eye is not going to see anyway) 

Straight away I can see a colour difference, the light is brighter and more defined on my system and there is no overall darkness or grey look. As I said I have calibrated and finely tuned or balanced my monitor settings so there is a difference in hue and overall contrast between your system and mine.  The difference to me is that you have your colours set to get more blue hue, less yellow and your contrast is darker than mine so the contrast is not similar here, Contrast control is one of the most misunderstood features of video graphics, you turn it down it darkens the image and makes it less clear or fuzzy, you turn it up it sharpens the image and makes it more clear but it is a fine line and all depends on the quality and capacity of your monitor.

 That is it otherwise it is whatever LM decided was a good mix when it installed and setup Vulcan etc on my system. Anti aliasing seems fine to me no blurries or jagged lines either!

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by coastaldriver

[Sethos 4,335]

52 minutes ago, coastaldriver said:

Straight away I can see a colour difference, the light is brighter and more defined on my system and there is no overall darkness or grey look. As I said I have calibrated and finely tuned or balanced my monitor settings so there is a difference in hue and overall contrast between your system and mine. 

 

Monitor color calibrations and ICC profiles wouldn't show up in screenshots.

[mSparks 2,086]

On 5/18/2023 at 7:00 AM, bogdansrb said:

They're not AMD and Nvidia issues, they're x-plane issues.

AMD had a ton of performance issues and flickering displays, most of which have been resolved over the last 3 or 4 months afaik

10 series Nvidia had several hard lockup issues

9 series Nvidia would often turn the sun black.

To name a few

All fixed/worked around.

windows has networking, CPU utilisation and file system bugs dating back decades, which will likely never be fixed.

X-Plane of course has it's own issues, a significant portion of which have been traced back to the system that shuffles stuff around between disk, ram and vram aiui, particularly bad when combined with the CPU utilisation and file system bugs in windows (e.g. when windows just starts sending garbage when XP tries to read the disk instead of the actual file contents. )

"most games" will just keep you waiting in the elevator longer while they try and retry to load the next level

X-Plane doesn't have that luxury, the best they can do is to try and avoid triggering them.

 

Edited May 21, 2023 by mSparks