answered Runway textures on non-asphalt runways are very diffcult to see

[fbailey]

I currently have OrbX Global Base, PNW and Northern Rockies installed. I've noticed that since adding these packs, that non-asphalt/concrete runways have very difficult/impossible to see textures now. I'm not sure if this is a setting I'm missing or if it's normal, but it seems off to me. I have attached some screenshots as examples.

 

This is a set of images of CYHE (Hope, British Columbia)

 

 

My settings:

 

 

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

I see what you mean, this is how it actually is though.

 

[fbailey]

Hi Nick,

 

Thanks for the prompt reply. You are indeed correct! Perhaps that is the case for many of these airports. I have another example of a dirt strip called Scar Creek in British Columbia. Again it's quite difficult to make out where the strip is within the cleared area.

 

 

It's just something I've noticed on a lot of dirt strips, the delineation between the cleared area and the actual run way is quite hard to make out.

[Jethro VH-JET]

Hi,

 

I know Nick has already answered the Question for CYHE - Hope Airfield, it looks right to me as well. Although some adjustment to Anisotropic settings might help crisp things up in the  near to mid distance.

Something not right there in your graphics settings, there seems to be some blurry texturing in the near to mid distance, what is your Texture filtering is it (Trilinear or Anisotropic) best set to Anisotropic in sim & set to x16 in your graphics card Control panel or NVIP if you use NVIP. Also seems to be something odd happening on the center strut on your trike (first pictures) there's a line down the middle where the pole and textures aren't lining up to create the rounded surface of the pole.  Maybe set check the box in Settings Display > Aircraft tab, for (High-Resolution 3-D Virtual Cockpit).

 

There also seems to be something odd about your trees and the runway at Scar Creek, the trees aren't right are you using a different tree set there seems to be a lot of trunk below the first level of branches. (I am using FTX trees HD) you can see in my pics that the foliage on the (Spruce trees) goes nearly to the ground with only a little trunk showing, yours are quite bare by comparison.

The runway at Scar Creek also seems to be a little narrow if you compare a similar shot and aircraft wingspan in my pics, I'm also not sure about the encroachment of trees in the runway exclusion area, maybe too close if you look at my pics.

 

I have PNW  and use "Extremely Dense" Autogen, I use the FTX Aero Coarse detail1 bumpmap for global overlay, this gives a nice effect (definition) on grass runways and in general other runway taxiway surfaces, incidentally your Scar Creek runway seems to be gravel by comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

[fbailey]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thank you very much for the tip! Changing my settings to use anisotropic anti-aliasing made a huge difference!

 

Something I noticed afterwards however:

 

There seems to be some strange texture issue going on? I honestly can't recall if that was occurring before or not. I have no baseline. Are you observing that as well?

 

As for you inquiry about trees. I'm using "Natural Tree Environment X" instead. I also checked and I do have High-Resolution 3-D Virtual Cockpit enabled. I have observed on some planes that the textures are always low quality. It could be an issue with FSX Steam, I'm not certain.

[Jethro VH-JET]

Hi fbailey,

 

I had another look at the location - Scar Creek, I seem to have those same zippered textures as well, there are also some mismatches in the PR textures where a sharp line exists between two texture sheets. I use 2048 TML so I doubt there will be any improvement using default 1024 TML, 4096 TML will not improve this either and will most likely not be used in this situation but only put unnecessary pressure on hardware resources. Best stick with 1024 default or 2048 TML for slightly better texture quality (Higher end CPU/GPU hardware dependant).
Since I have the same as you see this is (normal) puzzled together PR texture sheets, so it would seem to be normal for this backwoods airfield. Most of the time these inconsistencies are covered up with autogen trees at higher AGen slider settings, however this depends on the area covered by the airfield autogen exclude polygon.

 

I am glad you are seeing some improvement in the overall scenery quality, and I see it has fixed the trike center strut. Much improved I would say from your recent pictures. Did you try FTX Aero "Coarse" Bumbmap.

If you like those trees that's ok, each to their own, if you can afford the Autogen overhead with your hardware, maybe try "Very Dense" to bulk out the wooded areas. As a rule, exposed tree trunks don't work so well when they are so bright (but this depends on the tree variety and foliage cover).
FTX Trees HD are working well for me.  

 

Most of the FSX default fleet are lower resolution textures, most probably because of the FS hardware era that MS/ACES developed the sim (FSX:SE uses the same default Aircraft repaints), and that they are used to populate the skies with AI aircraft so as to keep the resource overhead low, which can be available for scenery / texture, weather loading and such. There are HD replacements for these default aircraft textures around the FS libraries, you may need to search for them as I don't have a link to quote you right now.

 

Here's a pic from my (FSX Gold Deluxe AccPack) of those PR ground textures at Scar Creek, looks much the same effect as yours.

 

[fbailey]

Hi John,

 

Thank you for verifying, while not ideal, I have to be fair in that this is a very random and remote air strip! I did not try the Aero Bump map changes as the program is not loading. However, I'm pleased with the changes over all. I really appreciate the guidance you and Nick have provided.

 

Thanks again!