3 minutes ago, Cyrex1984 said:

This topic is not about the vatsim issue, its just they started to discuss it in the thread. The topic is all about the gear culling Lod issues.

Yep, well I've voted.  

Isn't it possible to exclude a set of common objects from the sim's LOD setting?  I know that was one of the benefits of the add-on addressing popping taxiway signs and whatever they did to mask those objects was very effective.

Edited December 10, 2025Dec 10 by Noel

23 minutes ago, Noel said:

Isn't it possible to exclude a set of common objects from the sim's LOD setting?

No idea, would be nice if such a setting existed.

41 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

No idea, would be nice if such a setting existed.

As I said the cheap taxiway sign addon eliminates default sign pop-in, so apparently it's doable.  Maybe aircraft landing gear/wheels are not a category that can be masked.

16 minutes ago, Noel said:

1 hour ago, SayAgain said:

No idea, would be nice if such a setting existed.

As I said the cheap taxiway sign addon eliminates default sign pop-in, so apparently it's doable.  Maybe aircraft landing gear/wheels are not a category that can be masked.

One common workaround to achieve this is to add a large invisible box to the object (i.e. using an entirely transparent material). This makes it look to the sim as if the object is larger than it actually is -- and so it can be further away before the sim stops displaying it. I've used this technique for grass runway markings, where it's important that they're visible from a comparatively long distance. This isn't something a user can change though -- it has to be done when creating the 3D model.

Edited December 10, 2025Dec 10 by martinboehme

55 minutes ago, Noel said:

Isn't it possible to exclude a set of common objects from the sim's LOD setting?  I know that was one of the benefits of the add-on addressing popping taxiway signs and whatever they did to mask those objects was very effective.

The best way for this would be to set the screen size % on the LODs to show the further out. It’s totally possible and it’s just a balance of performance VS detail. 
 

Basically all the developer needs to do is push the distance further out at which the taxi sign draws in from. 
 

As for the landing gear issue, the dev of the models needs to increase the distance at which the LODs containing the gear switch to the LOD without the gear. If it was me modelling it, I would use a landing gear model on all LOds just gradually decreasing the quality of the gear and gradually using vertex paint on the further out models. 

 

 

 

 

Would be great to hear from @Kaiii3 on this.... 

10 hours ago, rick celik said:

The best way for this would be to set the screen size % on the LODs to show the further out. It’s totally possible and it’s just a balance of performance VS detail.

The problem is that, no matter how the developer sets up their LODs, the minSize for the last (least detailed) LOD is forced to be at least 0.5%.

This means that, even if the developer has set the LODs up perfectly, nothing will be displayed if the object is smaller than 0.5% of the vertical screen size. At a 4k resolution, that's still 10 pixels high, and there are objects that you'd want to display below that size. This is why developers use the workaround I described earlier.

I've seen talk of changing the 0.5% limit to 0.1% percent. This seems more reasonable (it would be two pixels high on a 4k resolution). I don't know if this change has been implemented in SU4 though or if it's still up in the air.

10 hours ago, rick celik said:

As for the landing gear issue, the dev of the models needs to increase the distance at which the LODs containing the gear switch to the LOD without the gear. If it was me modelling it, I would use a landing gear model on all LOds just gradually decreasing the quality of the gear and gradually using vertex paint on the further out models. 

The problem here, AIUI, is that the landing gear is a separate component. In other words, for all intents and purposes, it's an independent object that has the LOD logic applied to it based on the size of just the landing gear on screen, not that of the entire aircraft.

3 minutes ago, martinboehme said:

The problem here, AIUI, is that the landing gear is a separate component. In other words, for all intents and purposes, it's an independent object that has the LOD logic applied to it based on the size of just the landing gear on screen, not that of the entire aircraft.

Yes which is why developers need to take advantage of the simprop containers and attach the gear to the model and adjust the LOD minsize accordingly. 

As for your first comment, maybe I'm understanding your comment incorrectly, but the aircarft gear are appearing on what seems to be LOD0 OR LOD1 (very detailed to detailed LODs), LOD0 and LOD1 shouldnt be at 0.5% anyway. However if they are seperate objects like you mentioned then yes the only options for this are to, A. attach the gear model to the aircraft B. Make in invsibile larger bounding box around the gear (from what I recall this worked in 2020 in some instances) 3. Use sim prop containers (attach the gear to the aircraft container. However not sure what the effects are with this, havent read the SDK in a while, but it was either a.the bounding box of the container does affect the attachements or b.it does not). 

 

1 hour ago, martinboehme said:

The problem is that, no matter how the developer sets up their LODs, the minSize for the last (least detailed) LOD is forced to be at least 0.5%.

This means that, even if the developer has set the LODs up perfectly, nothing will be displayed if the object is smaller than 0.5% of the vertical screen size. At a 4k resolution, that's still 10 pixels high, and there are objects that you'd want to display below that size. This is why developers use the workaround I described earlier.

I've seen talk of changing the 0.5% limit to 0.1% percent. This seems more reasonable (it would be two pixels high on a 4k resolution). I don't know if this change has been implemented in SU4 though or if it's still up in the air.

That explains why the problem is so much worse for me all of a sudden.  Even taxiing around I'm seeing floating aircraft parked up.  I've just switched from 1080p to 4K.  

8 hours ago, martinboehme said:

I've seen talk of changing the 0.5% limit to 0.1% percent. This seems more reasonable (it would be two pixels high on a 4k resolution).

Modeling aside.  I agree, I believe in P3D the default was 2px (maybe 4px) but it was adjustable via the p3d.config file.  As I mentioned to several (Matt and a few others), it would be nice to have this option available via Graphics settings where end users can adjust as needed to meet their frame rate desires.  I had misunderstood the new LOD curve adjustments in SU4 … I thought this WAS going to be a graphics settings we could adjust, but apparently not.

Edited December 11, 2025Dec 11 by SayAgain

On 12/11/2025 at 5:30 AM, KL Oo said:

Would be great to hear from @Kaiii3 on this.... 

The Sim still ignores "valid" LODs on our models. We have checked with SU4Beta and are preparing a test-case for ASOBO at the moment to replicate the issues.

Ah, so it is an Asobo issue. A few PMDG haters need to take note of this 

32 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Ah, so it is an Asobo issue. A few PMDG haters need to take note of this 

? Wrong thread? This isn’t about PMDG in any way.