Some questions: Scenery

[Daube]

Hi all,

I am still discovering all the new stuff in FSX and so far I must admit I am very impressed.
Of course I have been reading on this forum almost everything that was related to FSX, but you know, some things just have to be seen to understand.

However, I still have some questions regarding some tweaking.

Just like almost everybody here, I have installed most of the replacement autogen textures to improve frame rates. Now, the only thing left to install are those files (or is it just one file ? Can't remember) that decreased the variety of the autogen to same video memory space. If I understood well, taking the trees as example, FSX has many different kind of trees for one type of vegetation (jungle, pines, "normal" trees etc...) and this tweak will reduce the number to 2 or 3 different trees, but not the density.

The questions:
- has anybody tried it yet ?
- are the frames really improved ?
- is it only the trees, or is it something similar for the city buildings ?
- is the visual impact as minor as described in the readme ?

Thanks in advance for your infos

[justpassingthrough]

The questions:
- has anybody tried it yet ?

[Daube]

Wow this was very detailled and usefull.
I have finally given a try to those tweaks for autogen.
You said not to expect a huge jump ? I tested on Seattle with autogen density set to the max.
Without those files: single digit FPS
With those files: 20 FPS locked.

I am using a 6800 GT.
I also installed the reduced autogen textures for clouds, trees and buildings.
I made all the FSX.cfg tweaks that canbe found on the FAQ.
Despite all that, it was still not possible to push the autogen past "normal" without suffering a big impact on the frames.
And now thanks to your advises, I have installed those "limited autogen" files, and the result is just GREAT !

The only remaining problem is the loading of the scenery while panning around or flying forward. My computer has just 1 Gb of RAM, this is clearly not enough, there are too much hard drive accesses that slow down everything. Also, the "specific autogen", that is the buildings (skycrappers etc...) that are part of the scenery still have their beautifull-but-FPS-killers textures, so I must keep my Scenery complexity on "normal". But I'm talking about really big cities like Seattle. Small cities are no problems. And even in Seattle, if I fly over the suburbs, I get my 20 FPS. It's just when those skycrappers are on the screen that I get single digit FPS again... oh well  ::)

[justpassingthrough]

For pan I was given this:

[BufferPools]
PoolSize=2500000


It fixed my cockpit and spot pan stutters

Also, before I had help I was running this:

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400

Which I was told is way to high for FSX and is different than in FS9 because of the rendering engine changes. I reduced it to this:

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80

And many scenery stutters went away.

I was told the slower video cards will probably allow better flight with the texture fixes. The sim will naturally blur them a bit because of the slower system and things like reduced cloud textures will look better than if one is running a faster card. The reduced cloud textures made my clouds look 'blocky' and not very realistic looking.  What I did not like about the reduced ground textures was the quality of them when I looked down. Instead of being sharp and being able to see very clearly the streets, sidewalks and house lots, everything had a 'muddy' look.  

I do not understand completely why but I was getting scenery stutters with them too.

I guess with a slower system it is a trade-off. With the reduced textures you get the flight dynamics back in all their glory. I have seen people post they notice no difference between FS9 and FSX for flight dynamics. I found before I had help setting things up FSX was no where near as responsive for correct flight dynamics. I uninstalled FS9 completely because it does not fly anything like FSX when it is set up right. For me the flight dynamics are a bit more important than scenery.

[Daube]

Yep, I uninstalled my FS9 as well. The flight dynamics in FSX may be improved but I could not really notice it yet. What really striked me is the beauty of the default scenery, the efficiency of the default autogen (even tweaked like hell), and this moving head in the VC like in IL-2.

Let's be honnest, after installing FSX, I tried to run FS9 again to enjoy some smooth performance... I did fly... 3 minutes or so. Then I uninstalled. At that time, my FS9 looked more beautifull than my incorrectly-tweaked FSX, but the flight feeling in the VC was missing too much.

Concerning the new values you provided, I'm a little bit surprised:
- For the bufferpools, mine is set much Higher, like 8 millions. I thought the higher the better, was I wrong ? The "default" value given on the tweak webpage was 5 millions if I remember well... Maybe 8 is too much...

- for the texture_bandwith_mult, I will have a try. I was playing with 600 (saw Mango on FS2004.com forums using that value), but nobosy's really sure of how those tweaks really work

[justpassingthrough]

The maximum value is 5000000. I read up on it and the person from the FSX development team that originally posted bufferpools also stated very clearly 2500000 would provide the best balance between the resources and the tweak. He said any higher and you stand to significantly loose elsewhere but that 5000000 was the maximum value it would accept.

Texture bandwidth multiplier is max at 400. 400 is the max in both FS9 and FSX. That has been posted by both FS9 and FSX developers. If the value (or any value) of a line in the config file is not present or is not within the specified program range set by the developers when the sim is booted, the value will default. The default values when such things occur are unknown for many of the settings.

According to the information I read some time ago on these forums posted by NickN about tweaking the FS9.cfg file for texture bandwidth, it would be quite impossible for a value of 600 to work unless the person is running a 1gig video card.

The number multiplies a hidden value called the TextureMaxLoad. By default that is 3. The TextureMaxLoad is the number of 256x256 (in FS9) textures to be loading in KB to the system. The TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT does exactly that, it multiplies that number. So that would mean Mango is loading 600x3 (1024x1024 in KB) assuming he has not installed a texture reduction tweak and even if he has and is running 256x256 textures, it is mathematically impossible for a video card memory of less than 1gb to work a value of 600 for the multiplier

The value has simply defaulted to a number that his system likes and he thinks 600 is working.

NickN told me the TextureMaxLoad= value can be edited into the FS9.cfg file however he said that setting is not available in FSX because the rendering engine is different. I used NickN's FS9.cfg file tweaks and that sim never looked or flew better. The values he posted for FS9 in the area we are discussing were:

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=160 (and reduce to 100-120 if stutters occur)
TextureMaxLoad=8 (reduce to 6 on slower cards)

It was stated that 128mb cards may not be able to handle that setting and that 256mb cards were recommended for its use. If a 128 card is used, a value of 6 / 80 may work.

160x8=1280
400x3=1200 (default TextureMaxLoad)

That produces almost the same total value, however the difference is the fiber engine is directed to load the amount in KB of 8 256x256 textures (instead of 3 256x256 textures) and reserve the resources for the the bandwidth. That forces the ground textures to take priority and the fiber engine will then sharpen them before it does anything else. When correctly tuned with the other settings in the config file the difference in FS9 is night and day when it comes to stutters and scenery loads.

FSX uses FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION and the TextureMaxLoad is no longer a variable.


It was explained to me that slower video cards may like a higher multiplier in FSX simply because the user is forced to reduce the sliders in order to get the sim to fly smooth. In doing so, the multiplier can be raised and a higher value can have a positive affect. However, on a system that has the sliders tweaked up and is running under stresses, that value is best reduced. The amount is based on the system and what is being rendered. Considering the textures are 1024x1024, a multiplier of 400 on a system that is trying to render autogen and other models, is quite ridiculous unless the user has a superior video adapter. A setting of 60-120 would be more reasonable, 80 being the middle ground and is what works best on my setup.

[Daube]

Thanks a lot for all those details, now I understand.
So taking your examples, I should set myself the Texture_max_load to 8, and the texture_bandwith_mult to 300, since my video card has 256 Mb of RAM ?
Hmm.... I guess I will try first with 80, then 160, then 300.

[Daube]

Ok I have a problem with your explanations.
You were talking about TextureMaxLoad.
I don't have that yet in my FSX.cfg. The only thing I have is Texture_Max_Load that is set to 1024, and which seems to determine the maximum resolution of the loaded texture. I set it to 8 and the texture of the aircraft preview was just a big blur I guess it loaded the texture in 8x8 pixels format  ;D

So, is your parameter name correct ? And if yes, in which section of the FSX.cfg should I insert it ?

[justpassingthrough]

[quote]Ok I have a problem with your explanations.
You were talking about TextureMaxLoad.
I don't have that yet in my FSX.cfg. The only thing I have is Texture_Max_Load that is set to 1024, and which seems to determine the maximum resolution of the loaded texture. I set it to 8 and the texture of the aircraft preview was just a big blur I guess it loaded the texture in 8x8 pixels format

[Daube]

Your explanations are clear and I could understand them well, thanks again for that  :D
I have tried with the settings you recommended before your last reply, since I could figure out were to place that hidden parameter.

The results are just great ! Now, flying the Jenny over Innsbruck, I get a stable FPS average (most of the times locked at 20, then when panning slows down temporary to 15), and the disk accesses are greatly reduced, involving less stutters while panning around.  :)

That's cool, this sim is performing better and better. Still too heavy on the ressources to fully enjoy the liners over big cities are any other fast jets (my scenery loading is too slow for that, I would quickly get blurries), but for any propeeler aircrafts, the experience is great. And for the gliding, the sim has just become perfect !  8-)

Too bad I cannot spot those birds

[justpassingthrough]

[quote]Your explanations are clear and I could understand them well, thanks again for that

[Daube]

Interesting...
My settings regarding the scenery are almost all maxed out when I fly out of big cities, but my GA traffic is set quite low... I will try to modify that. Once again, thanks for the info !

[kilotango]

OHH brother.
This is what i call information.
Thank you very much MILTESTPILOT