I am somewhat confused about what features the enhanced atmosphere setting really offers. There is a slider for volumetric clouds so I suppose that is one thing. But it can be set to none. Then what features remains ? Also what is really meant by volumetric clouds ? I have seen postings talking about volumetric clouds and truely volumetric clouds. What should be the difference ? And which of these is it we get in P3D5.4 ? In other sims ?

Hi,

 

EA basically enhances the lighting and atmospheric conditions depicted in the sim.

If you switch EA on, depending upon where you are flying, you will typically see more haze shown at higher altitudes as compared to when EA is disabled. It also has the ability to calculate more realistic lighting conditions at different times of the day in the sim as well as render the lighting and reflections based on user position and other light sources (sun, moon, reflections within clouds, water etc) that are present. With EA on, especially at dawn and dusk, the colors will be more pronounced and the tints for the sky color will be a different color compared to EA disabled.. Fog is also better simulated in the sim via EA.

Then of course you have the clouds. Legacy clouds have typically been shown by depicting a number of cloud textures in 2D. This means you need to have a quite a large number of cloud textures stored as files (a huge library full) and displayed to represent clouds in motion and viewed from any one of a number of different directions  i.e. changing cloud shapes as both you and clouds move within the sim in different directions and speed.  The disadvantage of 2D is not just the disk space required to store all images but its more challenging to depict emerging and dissipating clouds based on atmospheric conditions.

With volumetric clouds, various algorithms can be used to calculate the shape, height and density of clouds (hence the term 3D is used), this generating a fuller cloud structure in the sim with the ability to display better, more realistic lighting for the clouds e.g silver lining on the periphery of the cloud shapes. When volumetric clouds are enabled (ie. slider set to Low or the other two  settings to the right) essentially you are telling the sim to use the 3D calculated cloud models rather than use the set of stored 2D cloud textures P3D has Storage wise it should have less impact on PC performance however computationally it requires more computing power.

Some algorithms however, can use a combination of 2D and 3D cloud models so perhaps (I am not sure on this point) whether "true volumetric clouds" only refers to 3D models being used instead of the combination of 2D and 3D. I have not come across that term being used.

The other interesting thing with using the volumetric clouds setting in P3D, is if you are wiling to "tinker", you can adjust some of the parameters to fine-tune the cloud depiction in the sim via file named Volumetricclouds.cfg. A few people in this forum have experimented with those settings and can provide more detailed info about what to change than I can.

I hope that sheds some light (excuse the pun) on EA?
 

 

2 hours ago, 787flyer said:

Then of course you have the clouds. Legacy clouds have typically been shown by depicting a number of cloud textures in 2D. This means you need to have a quite a large number of cloud textures stored as files (a huge library full) and displayed to represent clouds in motion and viewed from any one of a number of different directions  i.e. changing cloud shapes as both you and clouds move within the sim in different directions and speed.  The disadvantage of 2D is not just the disk space required to store all images but its more challenging to depict emerging and dissipating clouds based on atmospheric conditions.

With volumetric clouds, various algorithms can be used to calculate the shape, height and density of clouds (hence the term 3D is used), this generating a fuller cloud structure in the sim with the ability to display better, more realistic lighting for the clouds e.g silver lining on the periphery of the cloud shapes. When volumetric clouds are enabled (ie. slider set to Low or the other two  settings to the right) essentially you are telling the sim to use the 3D calculated cloud models rather than use the set of stored 2D cloud textures P3D has Storage wise it should have less impact on PC performance however computationally it requires more computing power.

I just made some testflights in P3D with different settings regarding EA.

EA on volumetric clouds at max. The most obvious thing was lesser performance. But the clouds did not look better.

EA on volumetric clouds at low. Performance improved.

EA off sky looked less hazy. No big obvious cange to clouds.

Overall I think clouds look to fuzzy and there are more haze in the sky then in real life.

There’s no right or wrong choice regarding EA. I’ve tried it several times but just don’t like it. It also makes cockpits darker and despite various “fixes” none worked satisfactorily for me.

If you like it on that’s fine. If you like it off that’s fine too.

For me, EA on is the only way to fly.  Of course, that's my opinion based on my system (Jetline) and my monitor (32", LG, 4K, IPS).  It really looks real compared to real flying.  I've been very judgmental of the sky when flying in a real plane as it compares to EA in P3dv5.4.  On my system, and I mean MY system, EA turned off makes the cockpit and the sky and the clouds and the terrain look too bright and "cartoonish".  I've experimented with it on and off many times.  Yes, the cockpit is brighter with EA off, but that doesn't make up for the much more realistic environment with EA turned on. The natural HAZE is the way it looks when looking out of the window of a real plane.  I also keep Volumetric Clouds off, because it doesn't make the clouds more realistic, in my opinion, and it certainly can affect performance to some degree.

To each his own, as Ray says.  I also think EA has been improved in v5.4 over the way it was in other versions of v5 or, of course, v4.5. I see a significant improvement in EA in the current version of v5.4. 

Stan

For me volumetric clouds off EA on. My only complaint about EA is for some reason it renders the HUD in the NGXu and IFly 737Max so dim as to be practically useless. It really is kind of a big deal as the HUD is a nice asset in those addons. Before someone says it yes, I do have those turned all the way up.

I digress. I just ran my sim with EA off and the HUD in the NGXu was still too dim. Not a EA thing but a V5 thing I suppose.

Edited August 15, 20232 yr by Patco Lch

I prefer EA as it adds a realistic haze to the atmosphere that is indeed frequently present in real life.  The sky colors look realistic as well.

I recently got RDshade and must say that I'm more satisfied than ever with the atmosphere, sky, and clouds(non volumetric).  I use a preset(Pilot Jeff) which makes it all very realistic IMO.

Dave

3 hours ago, spilok said:

For me, EA on is the only way to fly.  Of course, that's my opinion based on my system (Jetline) and my monitor (32", LG, 4K, IPS).  It really looks real compared to real flying.  I've been very judgmental of the sky when flying in a real plane as it compares to EA in P3dv5.4.  On my system, and I mean MY system, EA turned off makes the cockpit and the sky and the clouds and the terrain look too bright and "cartoonish".  I've experimented with it on and off many times.  Yes, the cockpit is brighter with EA off, but that doesn't make up for the much more realistic environment with EA turned on. The natural HAZE is the way it looks when looking out of the window of a real plane.  I also keep Volumetric Clouds off, because it doesn't make the clouds more realistic, in my opinion, and it certainly can affect performance to some degree.

To each his own, as Ray says.  I also think EA has been improved in v5.4 over the way it was in other versions of v5 or, of course, v4.5. I see a significant improvement in EA in the current version of v5.4. 

Stan

Is EA only about visuals ? Or does it add something else thgat makes the simulator more realistic ? I consider REX Sky Force. Could I simply disable EA with that add on ? If so how would performance be compared to EA on ?

From my observations, I have recently been trying EA with volumetric clouds enabled (set to Low) and while my sim performance was fine, I felt that sometimes i had "double vision" as the edges of the clouds where very fuzzy. It was more noticeable when the aircraft was turning. In level flight it wasn't so bad from the VC.

I do like the haze though with EA enabled.

 

So 2 weeks ago, i set the Volumetric clouds to Off, but have EA enabled, thus I am using P3D's internal cloud textures  as I no longer use Rex SF for cloud textures any more. This for me is a good compromise between "cloud fidelity" and realistic atmospherics in P3D v5.

5 hours ago, 787flyer said:

From my observations, I have recently been trying EA with volumetric clouds enabled (set to Low) and while my sim performance was fine, I felt that sometimes i had "double vision" as the edges of the clouds where very fuzzy. It was more noticeable when the aircraft was turning. In level flight it wasn't so bad from the VC.

I do like the haze though with EA enabled.

 

So 2 weeks ago, i set the Volumetric clouds to Off, but have EA enabled, thus I am using P3D's internal cloud textures  as I no longer use Rex SF for cloud textures any more. This for me is a good compromise between "cloud fidelity" and realistic atmospherics in P3D v5.

I have noticed that when turning volumetric clouds off two other sliders are enabled. cloud draw distance and cloud density. What have you set these to ? My impression is that they have big impact on performance. And what do they mean with cloud density ? Is that not set by the weather ?

I think that the clouds in P3D are to fuzzy and featureless in all settings.

Why do you not use REX Sky Force anymore. Does it not give better clouds and sky compared to default ?

Edited August 16, 20232 yr by jfri

I saw this video that explains the various EA and cloud settings.

 

Edited August 17, 20232 yr by Butch1

On 8/16/2023 at 10:04 PM, jfri said:

I have noticed that when turning volumetric clouds off two other sliders are enabled. cloud draw distance and cloud density. What have you set these to ? My impression is that they have big impact on performance. And what do they mean with cloud density ? Is that not set by the weather ?

I think that the clouds in P3D are to fuzzy and featureless in all settings.

Why do you not use REX Sky Force anymore. Does it not give better clouds and sky compared to default ?

Hi,

Cloud draw distance- basically adjusts the distance of the clouds you see from around the user aircraft. I have this set to 70nm. Sometimes though this is not enough from the VC  as you can tell where the cloud line finishes on the horizon if you are at a high altitude so you can always increase this upto approx 100nm, but this requires a little more computing power to extend the clouds out to that distance.

Cloud density is basically the cloud coverage depicted in the sim as I understand it. I have this set to Maximum which I think is the recommended setting for ASP3D and my assumption in doing this, the cloud coverage is then determined by ASP3D (i.e. not artificially limited by this P3D setting) e.g. ASP3D is able to generate cloud coverage of 8/8 (overcast, no breaks in cloud).

Re Rex SF, I use to regularly use this app when I had P3D v4.5 installed, but Rex took such a long time to provide v5 support to their user base, I no longer depend upon it/them any more. For the type of flying I do, the P3D clouds in v5 are actually quite good (improved from v4 in my opinion) .I also don't need to have that application running so that saves on PC resources a little and space is saved on my disk.

7 hours ago, 787flyer said:

Hi,

Cloud draw distance- basically adjusts the distance of the clouds you see from around the user aircraft. I have this set to 70nm. Sometimes though this is not enough from the VC  as you can tell where the cloud line finishes on the horizon if you are at a high altitude so you can always increase this upto approx 100nm, but this requires a little more computing power to extend the clouds out to that distance.

Cloud density is basically the cloud coverage depicted in the sim as I understand it. I have this set to Maximum which I think is the recommended setting for ASP3D and my assumption in doing this, the cloud coverage is then determined by ASP3D (i.e. not artificially limited by this P3D setting) e.g. ASP3D is able to generate cloud coverage of 8/8 (overcast, no breaks in cloud).

Re Rex SF, I use to regularly use this app when I had P3D v4.5 installed, but Rex took such a long time to provide v5 support to their user base, I no longer depend upon it/them any more. For the type of flying I do, the P3D clouds in v5 are actually quite good (improved from v4 in my opinion) .I also don't need to have that application running so that saves on PC resources a little and space is saved on my disk.

I am somewhat disappointed with my performance in P3D5.4 since my system is
CPU 5800X3D VIDEO 4770Ti 32 GB RAM
Should other application running be a problem here ?
Regarding cloud density it seeem rather be about cloud detail
https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv3/LearningCenter/settings/world/weather_settings.html

 

On 8/18/2023 at 4:31 PM, jfri said:

I am somewhat disappointed with my performance in P3D5.4 since my system is
CPU 5800X3D VIDEO 4770Ti 32 GB RAM

In what respect of performance are you disappointed? That's a very vague statement. Without being specific I doubt anyone here on the forum can help you. What are you observing in the sim? Is it a FPS issue, CPU utilization, GPU utilization, is it stutters, is it cloud artefacts, VRAM issues or something else?

Maybe you can explain further?

That CPU with 8 cores and 16 LPs plus the capability of reaching 4.5 GHZ should be a good enough combination along with the 4770Ti for you to have a good experience in P3Dv5 I would have thought.

 

On 8/18/2023 at 4:31 PM, jfri said:

Regarding cloud density it seeem rather be about cloud detail
https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv3/LearningCenter/settings/world/weather_settings.html

LM use those terms interchangeably.

7 hours ago, 787flyer said:

In what respect of performance are you disappointed? That's a very vague statement. Without being specific I doubt anyone here on the forum can help you. What are you observing in the sim? Is it a FPS issue, CPU utilization, GPU utilization, is it stutters, is it cloud artefacts, VRAM issues or something else?

Maybe you can explain further?

That CPU with 8 cores and 16 LPs plus the capability of reaching 4.5 GHZ should be a good enough combination along with the 4770Ti for you to have a good experience in P3Dv5 I would have thought.

Difficulty to keep 30 fps (set as target fps) and also stutters. MSFS is better for me in these regards. And I might point out that I run my sims in VR with a HP Reverb G2.