Colours problem

[Christopher Low 5,352]

I have attached a screenshot to this message to illustrate a problem that I am having with the colours in FU3. I noticed that there were one or two spots in the 747 cockpit like this, but I thought that the images were just low quality bitmaps (sorry Ansgar). However, this screenshot shows a similar problem inside the Beechjet.I am almost certain that this problem never existed with my GeForce 3 Ti 200. Can anyone suggest a possible solution ? I am using a 128Mb ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.Chris Low.

[Guest VFR_Steve]

Could it be that your Video card settings (or desktop) is set to 16 bit colour instead of 32??Just a though,Steve

[Guest glidernut]

Thats how it looks for me too.It looks a bit beter on a bright suny day than it dus at night or as you hav iton a overcast day, but asentualy we both see the same thing, inclooding the 2right angaled lines.Im useingNVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440Desk top resalotion 16 bit.I hav just tryed 23 bit, and my desk top and FU3 is exactly the same, so I havgon back to 16 bit bicous I remember having problems with ResViewer when useing23 bit.glidernut.

[Guest effyouthree]

It's the old 'bleedy, bleedies' again!!Try turning your FSAA off first - I know it looks BAD but see if the problem goes away. If so, try a different FSAA algorithm. I generally use 'Quincunx' (I shiver every time I say that word...) but your performance may vary. Always use the LOWEST acceptable setting, only switching up to 8X when doing external screenshots (darn... secret's out now...).For internal views, use 800x600 with minimal FSAA.FU3 is 16-bit only, so there's no point in switching to 32-bit as, when you boot into FU3, it switches back to 16-bit.In your DirectX colour depth setting, either use '16bpp' or 'desktop' with of course, your desktop setting at 16-bit. Also, if you have it available, don't use 'texture sharpening' in FU3 - it just adds the jaggies to the 'anisotropy mush' and makes you wonder why you bothered upgrading from a TNT32 :-lolBTW, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that some newer cards, whilst having great performance on some games, are actually pretty trashy when it comes to simply displaying good video. Sure, you get lots of switches and big words but the rest is crap. For example, my Daughter's PC, using a 'lowly' (no offence, Chris) 8MB SIS card, running DX7 gives faultless DVD display on the monitor. I mean 'crystal clear'. With my FX5200, the results are no better and I suspect that the accuracy of colour is less! In their efforts to get sheer speed, they've let the quality down somewhat. This is one reason why we standardised on Matrox cards for the simulator project, so many years ago. They weren't the fastest or cheapest (by a long shot) but they were accurate. Wish I had one now...:-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Christopher Low 5,352]

My desktop is set to 32bit colour.My FSAA is currently set at 6x, and anisotropic filtering at 16x.As far as I am aware, ATI cards do not use "Quincunx".Texture sharpening.....is this something that is set in the graphics card settings section of Windows XP ?As for Matrox cards, the best picture quality that I have ever had with a graphics card was using a Matrox G400 MAX with my 400Mhz Pentium II.Chris Low.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Nothing I have done has made it look any better :-(Maybe it was like that with the GeForce 3, but it sure looks horrible. Fortunately, I rarely use that view. You can be sure that I will NEVER be using it from now on ;-)I would be interested to know if Tom Wunder sees the same effect with his Radeon 9700 Pro.Chris Low.

[Guest effyouthree]

Well, I'm intrigued!I checked last night and saw no such problem. I even wound-up the FSAA to 8X and, apart from a SLOW framerate and some texture frigglies, I didn't see the lines.I then reduced FSAA to 0 and checked again. No lines BUT the textures were much clearer :-rollJohn (Lewis), what settings are you using? I will try to duplicate the problem as I have another PC with an MX440 in it.:-waveRegards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Guest effyouthree]

Whooooops!Of course, I forgot that I'd edited the rectangles in all my aircraft! Just checked it here and sure enough, with ANY FSAA, you get the lines. Blame LGS for developing the game using the Voodoo card and not testing it with anything else (it's not as though TNT cards weren't available tch, tch...).Like this (with 2xFSAA):http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/69519.jpgSwitching it off gives this:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/69520.jpgSo, either don't use FSAA (shudder...) or edit your rectangles! I did the latter some time ago. It is really simple. You COULD adjust the 3D vs other rectangles (i.e. one pixel overlap) but an easier way is to simply set all the 3D rectangles to 800x600! PS Sorry for (almost) leading you all astray. It's so long since I edited the rectangles, I'd forgotten I did it ;)Regards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Lars Peter 0]

Hello.I have also those lines inside the beechjet, but only at this angle.This is also the only aicraft affected on my computer.Some adjustments of the rectangles is neededThe sim runs very well as long as you use 800X600 resolution.Other settings with this card looks bad in FU3.Radeon 9600 series.Cat.driver 6.14.10.6387FSAA=4XAnisotrop filtering=4XSee screenshot.Lars Peter.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Jon,No, I am not referring to the lines. They have always been there. I am referring to the ugly colour splotches on the cabin walls. You will notice that these are much less severe in your screenshot than mine. I want the "good" ones back :-fumeChris Low.

[adams 1]

Chris,You used rainy weather. Try good weather. Mayby this will change.B.Adamski

[Guest effyouthree]

Bogdan,You are correct (of course!), this is the exact effect that was killing my DHC-6 panels and why I almost gave up on the photo-realism :-(A rainy day at Bremerton. Midday:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/69621.jpg15:30http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/69623.jpg18:30http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/69624.jpgIt's caused by dithering within FU3. Although the cockpit textures are 16-bit, FU3 reduces this substantially. I was looking for a palette and found none but it relates somewhat to the 'mixing' effect used for transition between the day and night textures. In the DHC-6's case, I had to reduce the 'red' content of the night textures a lot, whilst reducing the 'blue' content of the day textures.Alas, Chris! It's unavoidable :-(Regards,**************Jonathan Point**************"I'd rather be down here wishing I was up there than up there wishing I was down here"

[Guest R_Driscoll]

I suspect that the patchy colours is due to a high colour original having to be converted to a low res palette (256 colours), so regions of similar colour are mapped to one palette index causing patchy areas. The same thing can be seen in all of the FU3 ground scenery. It may mean that the palettes have not been optimised too - or that so many of the available colour indices are needed for the cockpit that its impossible to get smooth graduation.This is a major problem with scenery models too. As you know I try to match the colours as exactly as possible to the real thing, but one palette must surfice for the whole region. That is the main reason why photo-textured objects can look patchy (like the 747 back view) and why colours may be different (reds are very underrepresented (Hans Petter will like that word) in the San Fran models palette).So to get accurate colours, I used a mixing method in the last version of FixMip, where I keep track of the colour distance between the best available colour and the true colour at that point. The result is excellent from a distance, but looks speckledy (I think I invented that one too Hans) up close. The best compromise seems to be in most cases to combine the two methods - a little bit of colour distance tracking with a lot of closest colour, giving the best compromise over the largest distance.Of course its worse for night models. Your night colour palette consists of 32 different shades of yellow, plus solid blue, red and white. Ughhh. Night views IMHO are best seen with plenty of planes in the foreground, distant city lights and a wee touch of sunset.How to solve your patchy colour problem? Dead easy. Very soon LGS will release FU4 with 32 bit colour graphics and optimised code that runs at 120 fps on an Intel 8086i, in 2048 by 1512 graphics, and with scenery for UK, Europe, USA, and ...Darn, I just woke up.RobD.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Jon,I still think that the "splotches" look worse in my screenshot than they do in yours, but it seems that I will not be able to correct this :-(Maybe I should just stick to good weather, since the inside of the Beechjet does look substantially better in these conditions. However, I am still convinced that the interior cockpit graphics in FU3 are not rendered quite as well by my Radeon 9800 Pro as they were with the GeForce 3 Ti 200.Chris Low.

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Lars,Can you post a screenshot of the same cockpit view with a rainy, overcast sky ?Chris Low.