I did a search in Bugs & Issues and didn’t see many “votes” on this issue, so if there is a previous bug submitted that people are voting on, please move my message (mods).
I feel Photogrammetry has gotten worse since Patch 2. I am not a developer, don’t pretend to be, but I am a consumer who loves this sim and wants it to be the best it can be… and right now, photogrammetry and LOD have caused me to lose faith. The sim isn’t as beautiful as it was marketed, nor has it gotten better as patches have come out.
I understand Asobo has to find the right balance… not everyone has an i-9 9900k, RTX 2080 Ti, 32gb RAM and fiber internet, as I do… but for those of us with high end systems, with new RTX 3090s, we should absolutely have the ability to have this maxed out (while allowing others less of a graphical hit if they choose for it).
Just providing a few examples of where photogrammetry has made this look so much worse…
*All settings on ULTRA with resolution slider at 150 to 180 and terrain sliders at 200
I think even on ultra drawing distance things don’t look ideal, which i can’t afford to use anyway. They look like a giant forests made of concrete and permanently change size and shape as we get closer. Since these objects don’t move (ships in Southampton f.e.) they should have their wireframe model drawn long before we get there and only add photogrammetry textures as we get even closer. Without photogrammetry active the ships aren’t even there, that’s the problem. Ships in harbors need to be part of the city scenery with basic textures for cruiseships, freighters, ferries and so like the ones in FSX.
Not only photogrametry but the trees are being drawed just a few hundreds meters most of the time, while there was a time they were rendered up to the horizon. What a shame!, They are improving performance by downgrading the graphics! , not a good move imho.
It definitely looks worse. In fact I lost the interest. Updated a while ago and did not made one flight.
My cockpit has granulated textures all over inside the cockpit and things seems blurred / opaque from the outside. I did a clean install and the problem persists. I do have videos pre-patch showing no granulation. I’ll report at Zendesk.
EDIT: and I do have to make a flight to vote. Have not seen how the landscape is. Right now the problem is inside the cockpit and nearby objects at the airport.
To me there seems to be no slider or setting that affects the issue I think I am seeing: trees and buildings were drawn farther away pre-patch, that’s what i would describe as LOD radius and what seems to be set in the useropt.cfg file.
What I think the sliders in the sim do (I’m not on an english version so maybe the caption differs):
Render Scaling: overall quality of objects/textures
Terrain LOD: Mesh quality
Object LOD: Distance in which a certain LOD version of an object is drawn, but NOT the distance in which the object is drawn at all.
So to me there seems to be no possibility to change the general LOD radius - meaning the distance in which an object is “appearing” in the sim - without tweaking system files.
“Render Scaling” is a percentage at which your GPU will render images before displaying them on your monitor at your set/native resolution.
For example, if you set Render Scaling to 150, your GPU is rendering at 50% above your set resolution, but downscales back down to your monitors resolution when displaying the final image.
This results in sharper textures and reduced need for AA, though it obviously hits your FPS hard, so only raise it above 100 if you have the headroom/GPU is under-utilised. If you run a 1080p monitor, and have Render Scaling set to 200, your GPU is effectively rendering at 4K, but downscales back down to 1080p for your monitor.
Same applies if you select a lower Render Scaling. Setting at 80 for instance will mean your GPU is rendering at 20% under your resolution, but still upscales to your monitor resolution. Improves FPS, but results in blurry textures.
Photogrammetry is on. The problem is LOD. In areas like around ORD in chicago, I get terrible LOD. I pretty much don’t get things popping in until i’m right over it. I can see the empty “grid” of unloaded scenery ahead of me while flying. It was bad prepatch but seems worse now. And definitely no where near what we saw in pre release videos. If their servers are taking a beating and they have been slowly dialing back, then just say so, but don’t try to just take it away from us and expect us to not notice/be ok with it.
Wow we have over 120 votes just this weekend. Spread the word if you see other forum issues re: photogrammetry or LOD, send them here! Thanks everyone.
Not to mention that just the lighting looks like no nighttime view from any plane ever witnessed by man. That’s another topic in need of a vote if you haven’t already. I saw the same pixelated mess flying around Seattle in the daytime. It wasn’t until I was practically amidst the buildings that some popped into actual rectangular shapes, and that was while playing in the middle of the night when net traffic should be lower.
, not a good move imho.
