I‘‘m no expert but what I see is that every updated area suffers from morphing. Pushing LODs further away will certainly improve things but it won‘t solve the issue, as Seb and Jorg said in the Q&A. I don‘t quite understand your argumentation. How exactly will improved data fix the morphing? What are your sources? I‘d really like to understand it.
My source is Seb so I’m guessing you need to rewatch the latest twitch.
I‘ve actually watched that part of the Q&A several times and I still don‘t understand your point. Seb mainly talked about the coastline issue and that makes sense. That’s where better data are relevant. According to Jorg the DEM for France and Switzerland is already as good as it gets. Regarding morphing both Seb and Jorg said that their strategy was to allow us to increase the LOD slider so that the LOD changes (i.e. morphing) occur further away and are therefore less visible. They didn‘t say that data quality will eliminate morphing (just better coastlines because there will be no need of flattening once the data is more accurate globally). Jorg‘s summary (52:50) made that very clear. I‘m not trying to argue here, I just want to understand what‘s going on and what can be done.
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Seb said it will improve with better bing data, I think he knows what he’s talking about … and that is good enough for me.
A higher resolution mesh is only going to make the problem worse, because it will only load at very close distance.
We see this happening in Switzerland right now.
Increasing the Terrain LOD setting to 400 is also no real solution, as terrain still changes shape at close distance, albeit slightly less.
What we need is full control over what LOD loads at which distance, not just a generic setting.
MSFS is a very diverse sim with a ton of different use cases.
As a glider pilot myself i fly close to mountain ridges all the time, so to me this problem is huge.
I can only hope that some day Asobo will allow us to modify the LOD’s to such degree, that we can tune it exactly to our preferences, whether that is through an advanced menu, a dev setting or even by manipulating a file.
Something like this would solve the issue:
// Level of detail; distance in meter
LOD 5; 3000
LOD 4; 2000
LOD 3; 1000
LOD 2; 500
LOD 1; -1 // don't load
This is just an example.
I know there are more LOD levels than 5 in the sim.
But being able to define these values exactly as we want (and also be able to exclude certain LOD levels, LOD 1 in this example above), would solve all our problems.
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He certainly knows what he‘s talking about. The question is what exactly it was he was talking about when he said that better data would do the job. That wasn‘t entirely clear. The way I understood it he was referring to coastlines or mountains in general. Jorg‘s answer on the other hand was very specific and clear. Anyway, we‘ll see in the weeks and months to come.
Yeah I’m not a coder but I understand MS are streaming consecutive and compressed data so it’s not just something you can pick and choose from … if say for the Swiss scenery there are 20 LOD levels on their system servers but for actual streaming purposes this would be too heavy to use. Therefore they must restrict it to something like nine (or so it would appear) and that’s then for everybody because they don’t have the capabilities to adjust it on individual servers. Furthermore I believe the lesser quality scenery probably only has three or four widely spaced LODS to start with which IMO is their biggest problem.
That’s how I believe it works and data size is probably the main reason why they’ve discounted the Orbx meshes already. The necessary compression makes it’s very possible that they would morph just as much when streamed.
As said above, Sebastian said that better data across the entire world will allow them to disable the water flattening algorithm and fix the coastline glitch (water creeping up). Nothing of that sort was said regarding the morphing, they claimed that it is something inevitable due to the LOD switching.
Also all data presented by Bing Maps is “Bing data”. They get satellite imagery and DEM from several geodata providers, they don’t make it themselves.
Some of the misinformation in this thread is getting tiring and creates unnecessary clutter. We have provided the timestamp to back our posts up, your turn.
I agree. Based on the DEM map of the USA World Update and my tests, I’d say that mesh going down to 8m resolution looks good enough at LOD 400, morphing-wise. Basically we need the old Mesh Resolution setting from FSX/P3D, since the terrain engine is based on the old engine this option should be possible.
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Funnily enough, they flattened the coastlines precisely so that the improved terrain mesh won’t be impacted by the low LOD distances. Remember all these related issues disappear when you are close.
I don’t know if they are aware and just buying time or they actually believe better DEM will be the solution.
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That’s a good point. This supposed water flattening algorithm was introduced with the USA World Update, and I don’t recall much (if any) of the older mesh being affected by overlapping water.
We can only hope that this issue impacted only some of the new USA mesh, and that the USA World Update II next year will replace all that. I could see Norway being a problem too though…
I bought Orbx‘s New Zealand mesh yesterday and boy does it look good. The resolution might not be as high as in Switzerland but what a joy it is without getting distracted by the constant morphing. I agree, this would be a good solution.
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Thanks for the insight, that’s great to hear! If only Asobo would license this compilation technique by Orbx and just eradicate the problem globally. They completely ignored this question for some reason.
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Just forget it because they are not going to. With it installed all advantages of Direct Storage will be lost.
Well I don’t know what they did!? But I’ll take it!!
The morphing has been dramatically reduced with this update! It wasn’t in any of the notes, so I had very low expectations for this update. Well, I’ve been flying around to all my spots that exhibited the worst “morphing” and can’t even believe it, but its almost non existent! In fact, I’ve been flying for a few hours now and I’m actually enjoying the sim again! Wow!
ChaoticSpendid - I would love to hear you feedback. Part of me is scared that I’ve wanted this for so long that I almost think I’m imagining it or I’m mistaken somehow!! haha!
Cheers
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Sorry for not seeing your post earlier (make sure to use the at sign next to a username to send a notification). I presume that you have set Terrain Level of Detail to 400 now with Sim Update 6, and it is great to hear it makes the morphing invisible in the areas you fly over. I too find that setting it to 400 helps a lot in areas with less-detailed mesh that have not received a World Update yet, or those with 8-16m mesh (according to the USA World Update map).
However, I also find that it does nearly nothing in areas with higher mesh resolutions. This includes many parts of the USA, the entirety of Switzerland, and more. The morphing continues to occur very close to the camera, and Norway is still suffering a lot at all distances due to its poor shape retention.
I will try to get a video up soon to show what I mean. Still, it’s great to hear that you are satisfied now, but personally I think there is still much to be done, and it’s not like my system and connection can handle LOD 400 anyway. If they tweaked the LOD rings and gave us a separate slider for mesh (which is much easier to stream and render than satellite imagery), it would be a more acceptable solution if they’re not willing to fix shape retention issues.
Can confirm the issue is still there, unfortunately. Lofoten Islands discovery flight, after start fly closer to those hills in front and the morphing is there. Pennine Alps discovery flight, you’ll see it happening right in front of you as you start the flight, on that mountain ridge. And then even as you get close to the stone peak, you’ll see it happen some more there.
That’s with LOD 400 and all the terrain related options maxed. As ChaoticSplendid says, it does happen even very close to the camera - that means it’s way inside the LOD 200 radius, let alone 400. I suppose that means this settings could have never helped this particular issue in the first place.
Still, I guess the LOD 400 setting is nice to selectively enable for a sightseeing flight. It gives about 30% FPS decrease compared to LOD 200, so my 5600X+3070 can do about 45-ish FPS which is decent for this purpose. Will have to use LOD 200 for normal flights from cities though, 20-ish FPS is unplayable for me.
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Yep, the issue is still very present in switzerland and other high res dem areas.
But we knew that already before SU6.
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Here’s an example, Terrain Level of Detail set to 400. The aircraft/camera still needs to be extremely close to the terrain for the full detail to render, which makes me wonder why 1m mesh exists in the first place, and of course it’s morphing constantly until that point.
As said above, it is correct that just brute-forcing the LOD radius is not going to do anything in these cases because the morphing is just so bad. Even at 800 it will probably still occur in such a visible way. If not for shape retention fixes, smarter management of LOD distances is required.
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They said in the Q/A yesterday that there may be a way to smooth the changes between different LODs - at least that’s how I understood it, to avoid these “snap” changes. I believe they are investigating. At least this issue has their attention now. Thanks for the new video. I haven’t had chance to personally test my “test” area - the Austrian alps, and I haven’t set my LOD to 400 yet. I will try it, see how the performance is and report back.
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Hi ChaoticSplendid
I must confess I have only flown in 2 areas since the update. Yes LOD 400. First was my usual “test area” around my hometown (not a torture test but it helps me see consistency and any changes as I know the area so well) and then it was to the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas and the large canyon area that leads south of it. (the ultimate “morphing” torture test from my own experience thus far)
In no way would I want to “muddy” the waters regarding the “morphing” issue by stating on this thread that the issue seems fixed or better. For that reason I looked really hard and went back and forth many times in the area mentioned above to be absolutely certain of what I was seeing. Honestly I couldn’t see any “morphing”. I can’t explain it and it is entirely possible that it was just improved somehow or a fluke in the area that I tested and NOT anywhere else.
For that reason I don’t want to say anymore about it being fixed or improved because I don’t want to hinder the possibility of an across the board fix which makes everyone happy. I have not been to the Alps or anywhere else yet so for that matter so maybe it was just a fluke.
Honestly, I sort of regret mentioning it, now that I here your experience and others. I was just so happy to share something positive and it was genuinely my experience after this update.
Lets hope they continue to investigate and solve this issue. I will do my part by flying to more new areas like the ones mentioned above and help to confirm the “morphing” is still present. I mean it must be!! I trust all the folks in this thread as we are all seeing the same issue… so what the heck has happened on my end?! I swear it was almost imperceptible in my test areas!! A fix definitely wasn’t mentioned in the notes so I think I need to go test some more.
Very sorry if my posts have caused any confusion. I think I need to do some more research.
Cheers
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