[BUG LOGGED] Mountains/coastlines constantly morphing since the USA/UK/Nordics World Updates

Clearly then, they don’t think it’s a problem if they are “showcasing” it in their trailers! I suppose they have bigger problems to sort out right now! Let’s try and keep this thread alive and bringing it to their attention.

a bug tsunami :joy:

I think this is an issue that (also) comes from the Bing side of things and also has to do with the way the data is being streamed into the simulator (the pipeline).

In the last Q&A Seb tried to show that the game engine is capable of drawing very detailed wireframes far into the distance but the data has to be streamed into the pipeline the correct way for this to work.

At least as far as I understand it, the way the world gets modeled is based on techniques made by Bing.
Bing uses some techniques to better display cliff’s, steep hills and coastlines for example. I think the first results are promising.

I’m pretty sure they are aware of the terrain issues and trying to improve upon it. More information on how this works exactly and what the exact causes are would be appreciated though.

It does not seem to have anything to do with streaming, but rather the way the LOD system tries to reduce detail at a distance. The issues happen even in areas that have already been flown over (so saved in the rolling cache), or already manually cached.

Instead of just reducing detail, it also manages to split some terrain features in distinct pyramid/sawtooth-shaped objects, completely change their shape, or shift them up or down. It appears that they kind of broke this with the USA World Update, as the coastline glitch (which only had a mere workaround applied) seems related.

The video they showed doesn’t seem to be that of the live build. The morphing is almost non-existent and it happens a lot more smoothly. Perhaps it’s an older one, or they are reworking the LOD system.

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I still can’t believe this doesn’t have more votes. I’m really not a fan of the vote system for bug fixes, but hey watcha gonna do?.. With today’s feedback update, I was hoping to see this show up on the list …even at the bottom. Nope, not even last, even though this “morphing” thing is a game breaker for me personally. I haven’t used the sim since the USA update other than to test for fixes of this issue & to see what else is nuked/fixed after an update ( I’m lookin at you tree lods ) Guess its back to DCS till the summertime. Asobo, if you see this, I’ll be checking in on the forum periodically as always! C’mon guys, I still believe in you! I swear!

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The terrain morphing becomes less visible if the Terrain Level of Detail slider is turned all the way up, because it happens really far away from the aircraft or camera position. Unfortunately this has lots of people denying the issue even exists.

It starts 1nm away, even with terrain LOD at 200. The Grand Canyon is a great example.

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I have my terrain LOD slider all the way up - I think it’s 200 - I always have from day 1, and unfortunately I have always had pretty severe morphing of mountains - hence my original posting.

EDIT: Always had - I mean since the USA update the mountain morphing became far more severe and noticeable.

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I know it’s still an issue when the slider is set to 200, but it does happen further away, and as a result most people do not see it. I keep it at lower settings and the morphing happens around the aircraft.

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Yep - I understand. Unfortunately it’s not even on their list of things to fix by the looks of it, so it seems as if we are stuck with it. :frowning:

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At this rate, it won’t ever make their list it seems. It’s not gaining votes fast enough, and it does not help that some people deny the issue and even mock those who report it. Only thing we can do to make Asobo aware is send Zendesk reports. I usually send one about this issue after every patch, showing new examples each time.

We can only hope that the coastline glitch is related (since the sawtooth pattern is visible on mountain peaks as well) and that when they fix that one, it will take care of the morphing as well.

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check out my vids on this thread, I run it on ultra everything maxed out and still happens just under my plane. Yeah, it was good, when once I tried with LOD 500-600, but mid 20 fps is not what I fancy of :roll_eyes:

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Your videos were posted on another forum, and the responses were like this.

  1. “I see the problem but I don’t mind it.”
  2. “I see the problem but all flight simulators are like that.”
  3. “I don’t see any problem at all.”
  4. “Stop being drama queens and complaining about blades of grass.”

With such responses, it’s really no wonder that Asobo have not done anything about this yet. The video they showed in the last Q&A showed no morphing like this, which could mean that they’ve improved the LOD in their newest branch, but then it could be an older video from before the USA World Update.

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Its good to hear you guys talking about this. I get bummed when this topic goes silent for a while. ChaoticSplendid, thanks for the advice, but to be honest the “morphing” still occurs at 200 (which is my normal setting) and even with the “hack” up to 600 it is still present and not as good as prior to the USA update. Prior to that update it was imperceptible to me, and apparently I’m very sensitive to it so I would have noticed it for sure. In fact, prior to that update, I was happy with everything scenery related. Visuals, performance, smoothness, everything. That’s what makes this so frustrating.

I definitely agree about the responses on the “other” forum. I don’t even bother posting there anymore because of it. I just get called a crazy complainer and to just go fly. I find it ironic that those same few people that say that are in the forums searching topics that are clearly referencing a problem and making rude comments instead of flying in their faultless sim themselves.

Lastly regarding Asobo and their awareness of this issue. I am not so sure. During the Q&A, the video they presented didn’t seem to show the “morphing” which had me thinking they are on a different build than we have. That gave me hope that something good is coming eventually. BUT then I saw the release video for the CRJ and the “morphing” is clearly present in the background at 37 second (if I remember correctly) …so my hope is dashed again!

Anyway, lets keep up the good fight guys. We can keep this thread alive and keep our fingers crossed. I have submitted Zendesks till I was blue in the face, so unfortunately, I think that’s all we can do at the moment.

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Yeah, I do remember the #2 to seeing it…

and exactly this what came to my mind that time! *or complaining in different threads about the sim
I filled a ticket anyway, sent my two videos and linked this thread.

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The area they chose for the Q&A (Courchevel) has minimal morphing even in the current version, for whatever reason. It’s still noticeable in the far away mountains.

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I completely agree that turning up the Terrain LOD does not make the problem go away, and we shouldn’t have to brute force it to reduce the morphing that was introduced with the USA World Update, I’m just saying that it makes it happen further away (same for the coastline glitch) which is why some people might not really acknowledge it. I have to set the slider to a lower setting and the morphing has become unbearable since then.

Thanks for identifying the area as Courchevel, I shall check that out again sometime (only flew there for the landing challenge at launch). What’s for sure is that whatever morphing exists in that video does not cause the mountains to completely change shape or shift up and down as the camera is approaching.

An explanation for the CRJ trailer could be that, for compatibility reasons, they chose to capture the footage in the live build, which would be 1.14.5.0. For all we know, the video they showed in the Q&A could be taken from the latest DirectX 12 build. They’ve said they have 30 concurrent branches, which means there is a lot of stuff they have done in many parts of the simulator that we are not seeing yet. Yesterday’s Feedback Snapshot has addressed again some of the LOD issues like the trees, water and coastlines, and they will be improving those over several patches.

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If you take off from Saint Barthélémy Airport with a small plane, you’ll go straight to a coastline, and even with all the settings on max, the coastline changes shape like crazy.

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Yep, the UK World Update pushed all the coastlines globally further inside to avoid the water from creeping up in most cases. As a result this makes them steeper, and the morphing is a lot more exaggerated. I would say even more than the mountains.

I’ve sent them a few videos, including the one I posted above, to demonstrate the problem. If anyone else can take videos of the problem, please don’t neglect sending a Zendesk report as well. They don’t start investigating a problem until it is mass-reported.

I fly low and slow. I was no more than 500 ft. altitude parallel to the Dover coast and I saw the cliffs all rounded and black. The White Cliffs of Dover indeed! Then at about 1/4 mile from them, the Cliffs just Popped. The shapes, colors and textures came on so suddenly that I was stunned.

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