The Blurries - An Experimental Technique...

[EMatheson]

...for Eradication or Mitigation.

[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=200
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.5
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=5

Here's a thought - you might try it.
MAX_DEM_AREA might be tied with TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=, TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=, and TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=. The formula for finding areas of circles, of course, is piR^2... so with the numbers you have posted there, you're requesting the sim to load textures out to an area of 3117 units - but you're limiting your area of max DEM resolution to 200 units. Perhaps, if you bump up your max DEM area to, say, 3200, that would cover all the sharp textures you're requesting.
With default values, DEM_MAX_AREA is set to 100 - which allows only a radius of about 5 units to be at max sharpness beneath the aircraft.... and to tell the truth, no matter how I've messed with TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=, TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=, and TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=, I've never seen a difference in where the blurriness begins. I have seen its severity reduced by playing with TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=, but never entirely removed. I'm seeing it definitely moved using an increased MAX_DEM_AREA=... but it does seem to massively increase system work loads. With MAX_DEM_AREA=1000, I'm seeing a loss of maybe 10 FPS in general. Increasing that level to 8000 took a huge bite out my frame rates, but it also meant that there wasn't a blurry anywhere in sight...

Mileage might vary - but I'm fairly confident that I'm not making this up. I've got a saved flight in Hawaii where I routinely get 110 or so FPS on average with a MAX_DEM_AREA of 100. With a MAX_DEM_AREA of 1000, that number dips to 90, but the slopes of Oahu aren't as blurry. With a MAX_DEM_AREA of 8000 (the max value I've tested as it is sufficient for even the highest radius values I've seen published), my FPS at that location is down in the high 70s and the mountains are even more clear than before - but not magically much more clear. There may be an upper limit to how far that radius can be extended? I'm going to speculate that the upper level may be 2000 or so - but that number isn't particularly beautiful. Perhaps an upper limit of 1024 is more probable - it's a power of two that seems to pop up a lot in FS9. That corresponds to a max radius of 18. I'm going to set and forget my sim with a max radius of 16 - four radii (1 default of 4 and 3 extended radii also of 4) for a max_dem_area of 805.

[dhazelgrove]

That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing this.

Dave

[stuartcox]

At last an explanation that makes sense... :isadizzy:

Stuart

[dhazelgrove]

Tried setting MAX_DEM_AREA to 1024, and got this:

Attachment 93034

Dave

[EMatheson]

Tried setting MAX_DEM_AREA to 1024, and got this:

Attachment 93034

Dave

Hmmm. I don't know what to make of that - that's what I saw BEFORE I started making tweaks...?

[dhazelgrove]

Hmmm. I don't know what to make of that - that's what I saw BEFORE I started making tweaks...?

Perhaps, as you said, the settings are all related? Will try a couple of the others, too.
My defaults, apart from the one mentioned, are:

[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=70.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=1024.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=2
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=0


The bottom 3 obviously need attention.

Dave

[EMatheson]

Perhaps, as you said, the settings are all related? Will try a couple of the others, too.
My defaults, apart from the one mentioned, are:

[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=70.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=1024.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=2
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=0.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=0


The bottom 3 obviously need attention.

Dave

Right - this is what is in my cfg file...

[DISPLAY]
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=0.9
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=1.1
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=1.2
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=1.3
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=0.9
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=1.1
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=1.2
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=1.3
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80
[TERRAIN]
TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=70.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=805
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=4
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=3

[dhazelgrove]

Changing the bottom three items to match gives me this:

Attachment 93042

Looks a bit better to me.

Dave

[KellyB]

This is an interesting thread. I'm going to muck about and see what I come up with.

Slightly different question: What controls when airport buildings pop into view? Is that apt to be coded into addon scenery, or is it an FS9 setting of some sort that can be adjusted?

Thanks.

[dhazelgrove]

Further to my last post, the following makes a difference:

"TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=100.000000"

Dave