Flickering Clouds in Mountainous Areas

[Guest kd001]

I've noticed that clouds in mountain valleys are flickering. The clouds over the mountain tops have no problems. Has anyone else encountered this? Would changing the graphics card driver solve this? I am usually reluctant to change drivers unless I am having major problems but if people have solved this problem by changing the driver I would try it. I have no other graphical problems. My card is Nvidia 8800GTX.Thanks

[ccaughie 0]

Yep, that's always been one of the (relatively few) things that bug me about FSX. I'm hoping it's fixed in FS11, for the time being I just try to ignore it.Colin

[Guest Nick_N]

Fixes Fixes FixesPlease follow these directions and your problem will be solved thanks to a member here named Mike (haldir):http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=24830

[Ramasurinen 0]

Nick, I think in this case he's referring to the Z-buffer weighting bias towards the aircraft, which causes distant overlapping objects to z-fight (flicker) against each other, ie: clouds that intersect mountains. Unfortunately there's not much that can be done about that I think. The Z-buffer must be weighted towards the near plane to keep gauges and overlapping polys on the aircraft from flickering in the VC or spot view.To the OP, you'll probably notice that the clouds flicker against the mountains a lot less as you fly closer to them. This is because the Z-buffer in your videocard (which makes sure everything gets drawn on screen in the correct order) has more resolution the closer an object is to you, and far less in the extreme distance. I know some ATI cards used to be able to alter their Z precision (at the expense of some performance), but not sure if there's anything that would help really. I see it from time to time but it doesn't really bother me.Hope that convoluted explanation helps hehe. :)-mike

[Guest Nick_N]

Ahhhhh!!!OK.. I was doing my typical forum rounds this morning and did a fast drive-by on this oneThanks Mike!

[Guest kd001]

Thanks for the info guys. They don't bother me that much either but I thought I'd ask in case there is a solution.

[Guest jshyluk]

Maybe the easiest work-around is to play with custom weather so that the clouds don't intersect the mountains. When I take screenshots, if a cloud is not precisely how or where I want it, I don't hesitate to move it out of the way. Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[Guest PPSFA]

I dont know if it will help you, but I run FEX and although the effect is still there, it's 1000% better than the default FSX.XP Pro SP2-FSX SP2AMD FX60-8800GTS-2 Gigs RAMFEX-GEX-UTUSA-FSGenesis-and a bunch of other stuffComputer optomized by www.fs-gs.com

[Guest pwheeler]

Hi,I was under the impression that the Hifi sim people had managed to find a way around this in ASX. I was also under the impression that the upcoming FEX weather engine would do something about it. I assume the REX weather engine will do something similar.This only seems to affect the haze layer.Paul