Cloud distance, textures and performance...

**Alexraptor** · March 29th, 2009, 09:44

Right, so i have two major performance killers on my system in FSX.
Most of the time its the cloud draw distance, i really want to keep it on maximum but it does put a hurt on frames/stuttering ect.
The other is texture resolution, because im using real environment extreme i want to have a texture resolution of 4096, however this again causes stutters in certain situations.

My question would be, on what part of the hardware does the cloud draw distance and textures depend the most on?
Processor or Graphics card?
Right now i have a E6700 overclocked to 3ghz and a GeForce 9800gtx+ 512mb.

harleyman · March 29th, 2009, 09:58

That all pulls from your CPU...The graphics card just displays, and it not so stressed ...

For overall gain you can set you visibality distance to 30-40 miles..This creates the haze and stops all that loading ahead that you can't see anyway...

I run mine at 40 on nice days and 30 in heavy weather ...

You might also want to reduce the textures to 2046 in the user interface and FSX..That will give help too and is not very noticable IMO...

**Alexraptor** · March 29th, 2009, 10:37

how do i set visibility?
I can only find the clouds draw distance in the options.

harleyman · March 29th, 2009, 12:03

Thats it...The less they draw in the distance, the less visibality you have... I think thats what happens with mine....

**michael davies** · March 29th, 2009, 13:31

You can change the cloud draw distance in the settings, but you can also change the visibility distance, you need to change that in the weather roll out, select advanced weather and it will give you an option to set visibility, 30 miles is pretty good, if you then click the weather detail tab you can also select the visibility tab in there and determine the height you want that visibility to top out at, I set mine to about 8-10K AGL.

Best

Michael

Originally Posted by harleyman

Thats it...The less they draw in the distance, the less visibality you have... I think thats what happens with mine....

**Alexraptor** · March 29th, 2009, 13:32

Bummer, i was hoping for something more like FS9 had where you could set a standard world visibility and cloud visibility independantly.

harleyman · March 29th, 2009, 14:16

Thanks Michael ...I forgot about that..

And its how I do it too....I use 40...

**michael davies** · March 29th, 2009, 14:22

You can, in the weather section tab out you can set overall global visibility, ie how misty it looks, sort of like a hot hazy summers day, then, in the display settings tab you can control the distance clouds are drawn out to, I think thats 60-110 miles ?.

Hope that helps

Michael

Originally Posted by Alexraptor

Bummer, i was hoping for something more like FS9 had where you could set a standard world visibility and cloud visibility independantly.

**Alexraptor** · March 29th, 2009, 15:20

Only problem is its tied directly to the weather system, so i would have to set it every time i want to fly or load a new weather theme.
FS9 had a pure graphics feature that was set as the maximum regardless of the weather :/

**Alexraptor** · March 29th, 2009, 15:40

Edit: thought i had found a solution but i haden't

Btw i tried settin it with the weather but the haze effect wears off at around 15-20000ft or so. >.<

**Alexraptor** · March 30th, 2009, 10:40

By the way, are the bloom effects also for some crazy reason tied to the CPU? or does it depend on strictly the graphics card as it should?

harleyman · March 30th, 2009, 11:10

Just a guess here...But I would say it might be 50/50 or more CPU dependent...

Most Vid cards from my experience even down to the 6 series are up to the FSX task.. (some here run 6 Series cards and have good results, they are not slider crazy but have good game play and graphics).. That being said I'm sure somewhere the Cards vid mem comes into play too..

My answer...Not real sure...:faint: