The importance of MAX_TEXTURE_REQUEST_DISTANCE

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

I've been enjoying my new computer immensely but one issue was bugging me. Approaching several 3rd party airports it was obvious the airport and runway textures were not being drawn when a few miles out. How is this possible with a 24Gb graphics card?

I had the same problem on my previous PC with a 1080Ti and put it down to either a driver issue or something wrong with the design of the airport scenery.

But I decided there was no way this should be happening with a state-of-the-art system. A bit of googling the problem revealed the issue and solution. Adjust the value in MAX_TEXTURE_REQUEST_DISTANCE.

I looked in my prepar3d.cfg and it was set at 1000.000000. The suggestion was to set it to 320000.000000.

Having done this the problem was resolved at all the airports I'd seen the problem. But why is this not a setting that is visible in the P3D interface? Given its importance it seems it should be.

And why doesn't P3D examine your hardware and set it to a value suitable for your hardware especially the GPU?

[Flyfox 115]

Great find!

Thank you, Ray

[Afterburner 374]

Ray, does this tweak solve the problem of some distant objects by 3rd party scenery developers appearing black when you pan at them before they build up their textures?  (I wonder if you experienced this problem in the past). This is one thing that I find annoying with the ESP engine.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

@Afterburner, I haven’t seen any black buildings with this computer although I have seen them on my old one. I’ll check at those airports with the most complex airports such as FlyTampa KBOS.

It was so bad at KBOS when landing that even the runway textures only became visible when the wheels touched. Prior to that it was just a grey area.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

@Afterburner, I tested at KBOS by slewing up to 600ft and rotating through 360 degrees. Everything fine. Same at KMIA.

For the London test I started at EGLC and slewed up to 600ft and move WSW towards Heathrow at 160kts. Everything was fine until over EGLL when T5 showed black but after I stopped moving forward the building textures were drawn.

That is an extreme example and not how we fly. I'll try a flight from EGKK to EGLL and see what happens.

[newtie 533]

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Having done this the problem was resolved at all the airports I'd seen the problem. But why is this not a setting that is visible in the P3D interface? Given its importance it seems it should be.

Maybe VRAM concerns?

[vonmar 123]

"The suggestion was to set it to 320000.000000. "

Where did the suggestion come from?

 

what is 320000 ?

Is it feet or meters?

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

8 minutes ago, newtie said:

Maybe VRAM concerns?

You could apply that argument to Texture Resolution but there's a drop-down for user convenience.

Flying from Gatwick to Heathrow the buildings at the eastern end of EGLL changed from black to textured around 3nm out. T5 and the rest were fine.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

15 minutes ago, vonmar said:

"The suggestion was to set it to 320000.000000. "

Where did the suggestion come from?

what is 320000 ?

Is it feet or meters?

 

You asked the same question on the LM P3D forum. I don't know. I just tried the value recommended. I think it was by Rob Ainscough but he's stopped posting here.

[SierraDelta 1,342]

7 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

You asked the same question on the LM P3D forum. I don't know. I just tried the value recommended. I think it was by Rob Ainscough but he's stopped posting here.

It was indeed Rob A. that posted this and a few other things when P3D v5 came out.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

9 minutes ago, SierraDelta said:

It was indeed Rob A. that posted this and a few other things when P3D v5 came out.

He was an invaluable source of knowledge. I miss his presence here.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

@vonmar and others. Here's the official help for these extra settings. There's no mention of an upper limit.

https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/prepar3d/getting_help/advanced_configuration.html

[G-RFRY 1,712]

Thers is no limit but the amount of VRAM memory your GPU has. Set it to high and you will get an out of memory warning. I use 320000 with 11GB of GPU memory, have been since Rob posted it on the forum. He is still about on ORBX forums and how to get the best out your V5 Scenery in V6.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

8 minutes ago, G-RFRY said:

Thers is no limit but the amount of VRAM memory your GPU has. Set it to high and you will get an out of memory warning. I use 320000 with 11GB of GPU memory, have been since Rob posted it on the forum. He is still about on ORBX forums and how to get the best out your V5 Scenery in V6.

Out of curiosity I increase it by 50% to 480000.000000 and located to KMIA - probably the hardest airport for VRAM. It peaked at 12Gb so clearly you need a card with plenty of VRAM. I'm only using 50% of that available.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,980]

Loading FSL Concorde at Miami increased VRAM to 14.4Gb and RAM to 28774Mb.

An update is due to lower RAM usage.