Please, oh wise ones, help me understand these display

[Guest]

Could someone describe exactly what "terrain quality" is vs what is "terrain texture size" and whether mesh complexity effects the elevation data displayed or simply when it is displayed, and in order, what has the most effect of fps -- terrain quality, texture size, or mesh complexity?Or...just tell me I'm lazy and go load it up and change it around and compare the FPS for myself!michael

[Guest allblack]

Good question, as far as I'm concerned.My feeble 128RAM needs all the help it can get, so I'm looking forward to reading some answers!!Kiwi

[Guest]

About the mesh...because I don't quite understand it, perhaps my question is confusing. Does the mesh slider effect the "number" of elevation points displayed? Or does it simply effect how far in the distance mesh complexity if viewable?? thanks VERY much to those who already know these answers and thus save me and others much time!!michael

[Guest]

Terrain texture size is the size of the .bmp used for ground texture -- large = 1024x1024, medium = 512x512, small = 128x128.Terrain quality -- I don't know.Mesh complexity -- I think it's the number of elevation points, not the distance detail is shown. If the slider is set higher, it takes longer to display detailed mesh, so I assume it's adding extra detail.

[Guest]

thanks...still trying to figure this out for myself :)michael

[Guest jabberthecat]

Mesh - I think it is the amount of detail point shown in the distance.Check out fsgenesis.com - somewhere on the at site is a good expanation of mesh.I have some of the 38m and even the 10m monument valley and have no FPS reduction from default mesh at equal slider settings. Turning my mesh from 80 to say 50 doesn't change the number of elevation point of the terrain immediately around, it effects what is in the distance. Of course the "range" is dictated by the mesh slider so 100 will increase the range where more points are usedand 0 will give a pretty small radius.Myles

[Guest CapnCol]

Generally speaking, (and I am speaking generally as far as MY system is concerned) if these 3 sliders are to the left then the scenery you will see is blurry, indistinct and mountainous areas merge. By moving the slider to the right, the image quality is much better at the expense of frame rates. The higher system you have, then the less the frame rates will be affected.For example:Last year I had a P3 450; 256 ram, 32mb video card and all the above sliders were at 50% (this was acceptable as far as frame rates go).Now I have P4 1.8: 512 ram, 32mb video card and all sliders are max.The performance is probably about the same as previously but the views outside are so much better. I still do get stutters!The best advice is to experiment with each setting and see how it affects the sim.PS; with the P3 I was using win98, now I am using win XP. So many different factors affect performance.Hope you find your best setting. Colin