answered Constantly changing texture quality multiple ORBX areas/sceneries.

[Hawks1326]

Hello! 

 

I'd like to start off by saying I'm a huge fan of the products and quality of ORBX! The scenery is superb and it's hard to imagine flying without it!!!

 

With that being said, I hope that the issue I'm experiencing can be resolved and or help someone else with the same situation.

 

I've just recently purchased FTX Trees, PNW, Northern Rockies, Central Rockies, SoCal, TEX, JAC, EGE, CGX, and TVL and have noticed an issue with the texture quality while flying within 10 NM of each of the listed airports. At higher altitudes the issues are less pronounced, but still exist.

 

I hope this makes sense:

 

What I notice is a constant "tightening up"(as I call it) of texture areas while flying at lower altitudes. Essentially the surrounding textures go from somewhat blurry to HD then back to blurry etc... The textures seem to cycle in and out of high res. 

 

Things I've tried:

 

Changing P3D settings:

-All Settings within P3D from Maxed out to lowest possible output have all been tried.

-Resolution and MSAA/SGSS settings. Messed with all of this and while things look better in SGSS still have the same problems with worse frames.

- CFG changes (fiber fraction, Texture Bandwidth multi, affinity mask etc...) to no avail.

 

ORBX:

-Tried disabling and re-enabling scenery within the scenery library and flying both ways with the Global base enabled. Same issues.

-Deleted shaders and allowed sim to re-install. Same issues.

 

FTX Central:

-Deleted and re-installed migration files. Same issues.

-Deleted scenery.cfg file and selected thru FTX Central for priority placement (top and below FTX for the two options available). Same issues.

 

BIOS:

-Hyperthreading enabled. Same issues.

 

Anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

 

My system specs are:

 

Intel 3770k w/water cooling OC 4.5 GHz

16 GB DDR3 2133MHz RAM

2xEVGA GTX 980 OC SLI

Samsung 500GB SSD

Samsung 4k UHD 55" TV JS9000

 

Thank you in advance for your support!!!

 

Regards,

 

Z

 

PS: Working on putting my transaction IDs in my signature. Please bare with me!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hawks1326]

Ok, Transaction ID's should be apart of my signature now.

 

Thanks for your patience!

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

I hope these photos help.

 

This keeps happening over and over again, where the terrain will go from blurry to ("tight") hi res and back after flying by. 

 

Blurry:

 

 

"Tight"

 

 

You'll need to zoom in to the pic to see the quality difference. From the aircraft (VC) and external, the same thing happens. You see a bit of a flicker and the terrain changes from blurry to sharp.

 

Thanks again for your time.

 

Regards,

 

Z

 

[Hawks1326]

Attaching to an already long post lol:

 

Noticed yesterday that the airports will morph as well. In the case of TEX, the plateau it's on will change shape and or flicker while flying within a few miles of the field (doing turns around a point). Buildings, shrubs and trees will flicker, dissapear then re-appear.

 

Thanks!

 

Z

 

 

[uncle_adolph]

The FAQ's above includes this:

 

 

[Hawks1326]

Thanks!

 

I'll give it a shot!

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

Geoffrey,

 

Thanks for the assistance, but unfortunately replacing the terrain.cfg file with the backup/original didn't work as prescribed. 

 

I might attempt downloading a screen capture app and see if I can record a flight and show everyone what I'm experiencing. Maybe someone will see something that might indicate what's going on.

 

Regards,

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

Anyone else have any suggestions or ideas on what's causing this? Can't upload a quality enough video to show what I'm experiencing.

[Hawks1326]

Anyone from ORBX support have any ideas on how to remedy the issue?

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

Guys,

 

Not to be a pain, but I've patiently waited close to a week for support from the ORBX team.

 

While I appreciate members pitching in, I'd like acknowledgement from ORBX that the matter is (atleast) being reviewed.

 

Thank you.

 

Z

 

 

[uncle_adolph]

There was a comment from Holger in the last two or three days about the effect of detailed mesh on certain textures, particularly the sides of mountains. You might wish to do a search for his recent responses to see if that fits with your case.

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

Please see here.

 

 

[Hawks1326]

Thank you for the response guys!

 

I believe the link Nick provided is what you're talking about uncle_adolph?

 

I setup my sim for 5 Meter Mesh and I still observe the textures going from blurry to HD.

 

I am attempting a recommendation Nick made on that same thread. I deleted all of the .txt files in ORBX/User Documents/Versions in order to see what would happen. I will report back when that's complete.

 

Regards,

 

Z

[uncle_adolph]

22 minutes ago, Hawks1326 said:

I believe the link Nick provided is what you're talking about uncle_adolph?

 

It is indeed, thanks Nick.

 

I would have found the link myself....but I was anxious to get out on the bike....

[Hawks1326]

I have created a YouTube video highlighting the issue. I apologize for the quality of the video. Due to compression on the Tubes, it downgraded it a bit. The colors are off as well because I used my phone to record the video off my TV screen.

 

 

When watching the video, keep an eye on the rocks on the left side in the cleared area at center focus. They will go from blurry to sharp. This is happening everywhere I have ORBX scenery installed. 

 

I hope this helps show what I'm experiencing!

 

Regards,

 

Z

 

P.S. : Enjoy your ride uncle_adolph!!!

 

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi,

 

Have you tried without SLI and/or with a regular monitor?

 

Cheers

 

Doug

[Hawks1326]

Thanks for the recommendation Doug! I'll give it a try tonight!

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

Doug,

 

Unfortunately, after testing, I concluded that the issue remains. I tried another monitor and SLI off and both still give the same issue. I'd say with having SLI on, I had marginally better peformance in both windowed and full screen mode. Still the same problem, but it runs better lol. 

 

I did try something a co-worker recommended and that was to adjust texture res. It seemed to work better at 1 m, but the issue was noticeable still at any setting.

 

I am thinking a re-install of P3D might be in order.

 

Doug,

 

In watching the videos on V3 Central, I grew curious about install order. Is there any recommended way to install the scenery? For example, Global 1st, OLC NA 2nd, Vector 3rd, then regions and airports?(etc...)

 

Thanks again for the attempt!

 

Z

 

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

There is really no difference on what order the scenery is installed as the installers/FTXC3 will always put the entries in the proper order, but your method and logic above would also be my preference.

 

Cheers

 

Doug

[Hawks1326]

Thanks Doug!

 

I'll be attemping a re-install of P3D tomorrow and report back after all is said and done. I appreciate yours and uncle_adoph's help!

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

Hey guys!

 

It took me quite awhile to reinstall everything, but I finished it last night. I fired up the sim and am still experiencing the blurry texture issue. 

 

Any new ideas?

[Hawks1326]

Tried reformatting my PC and reinstalled P3D. I'm still experiencing blurry textures with ORBX. Not sure what else to do.

 

Regards,

 

Z

[Hawks1326]

Any assistance? Any ideas? I've been patiently waiting since the 25th of August.

[Larry_R]

Hello Hawks,

I claim no more special knowledge about the blurries than any other simmer (a long and complicated topic in general) but perhaps you will allow me to offer a few suggestions. P3D v4 can demand much more of your system than previous versions (especially when you add complicated scenery) , but on the other hand it can draw scenery out to the horizon depending on  your settings and your computing horsepower.

My suspicion is that your 3rd generation CPU is not able to keep up with the demands you are placing on it. It's not just the cpu that counts, but the MB and chipset that goes with it. If this is the case, the only option with your existing system (besides those mentioned below) is to lower your settings by trial and error. Note that the speed of your aircraft has a lot to do with how much scenery needs to be processed.

Reformatting your drive and reinstalling everything should rule out a software glitch but when faced with problems, ideally one should install one product at a time and test for modest period of time before installing the next.

Some diagnostic steps you can take:

Use Process Explorer to see what else is going on while your sim is in use. 

Check for unwanted processes and disable or eliminate the ones where you can do so safely. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

You may get some minor benefit by disabling Windows processes that you don't need according to Black Viper's recommendations.

Monitor CPU usage by core, as well as core temperature as you use the sim. Monitor the GPU also.

That's all I can offer at the moment. Although many users are having good luck with P3D v4 using a 4th gen processor, there has been a fair interest in upgrading to a 6th or 7th generation CPU with resultant performance gains for this version of P3D.

[Hawks1326]

Larry,

 

Thank you for the response!

 

I definitely understand where you are coming from and have tested extensively with different values, settings and configurations. In the end, I do believe there may be a bottleneck (probably my Processor). Rather than spending 3k on another rig, I will just deal with what I have and buy a new rig when the time comes. Since I've installed PTA and Re-Shade, I haven't noticed the texture loading problem as much. I think the HDR settings help mask some of the problem, but at the end of the day, it's still there. 

 

Regards,

 

Z