Dynamic Terrain Level of Detail (LOD)

User Support Hub Virtual Reality (VR)
1

So this topic has been brought up multiple times and I’ve voted on all of those topics.
Unfortunately there seems to be zero response from the developers on this topic.

I’m on a relatively old PC
i7-4790K
Geforce 2080Ti
32 Ram
Win 10.

I’m flying in VR but should apply to the flat screen as well.

The problem is of course the performance in VR. Extremely bad stuttering at the airports and then smooths out when in the air. This applies for the most part to the photogrammetry regions, otherwise my computer can handle AI generated scenery without too much drama.

Terrain Level of Detail option is the single main component to the framerates.

There is a decent work-around, but its pure immersion killer and quite annoying.

Essentially here is my process for a small, slow GA aircraft. I don’t fly airliners so no idea how it would work there.

  1. Load into the airport.
  2. Open options, drop Terrain Level of Detail to 20%.
  3. Start-up, taxi, take-off. Smooth FPS. 20% does not affect immediate terrain around you, so no visual degradation at the airport itself.
  4. Get up in the air at around 1000-1500 feet above ground
  5. Pause, open options, bring Terrain Level of Detail back to 100% in Photogrammetry cities or 150% anywhere else. FPS judder for a few seconds as terrain loads, but then stabilizes for the rest of the flight.
  6. Resume flight.
  7. Get to the Arriving airport, within a few miles
  8. Pause, open options, drop Terrain Level of Detail to 20%
  9. Join the pattern, land, taxi, Smooth FPS throughout the entire experience. Terrain does drop in quality the further you look, but I usually drop to 20% as I’m already in the pattern and all my focus is on the airport. At 20% airport is close enough to me to not suffer much in quality.

So at the end, the experience in VR is pretty smooth, but is broken up by the options menu a couple of times.

Again, I’m not the first to bring this up and there are other posts out there, but I’m hoping to continue to highlight this issue and maybe someone can figure out some kind of a mod for this.

6 Likes
2

I have the feeling you will enjoy SU10 :smiley:

3

I’m on the Beta branch for the SU10. The performance has improved, but not enough on the ground at the airports so I’m still toggling between the different LOD settings.

4

They’ve improved a lot for me on the apron at KLAX, from 19-20 to 34fps. Dropping clouds down to high probably has much to do with it but as they have much improved the overall quality of them I will take the extra fps all day long.

5

I love this approach - has really helped with FBW performance. I go for TLOD 10 when on the ground, which is great for setting up my flight and taxiing.
As per you, I set back to 100 at around 1000-1500ft.
Down to 50 on final when fps begins to drop
Then finally down to 10 for taxi to parking.

Would be great if they exposed API for TLOD settings to allow for a mod to do this - similar to the ones we had for XPlane (can’t remember the name, but there were a couple).

1 Like
6

Absolutely. I loved how in XP11 there were freeware addons that could adjust settings on the fly to keep the fps in a target range. It worked beautifully and meant I never had to worry about changing the settings prior to flying different aircraft. It would be a dream to have this approach in MSFS, but it looks like we are far from it at this stage without having the same level of access for mods

1 Like
7

Hi, just to add for those that are not aware.
The XBOX already implements dynamic LOD Terrain.

So, it is possible but I (sadly) don’t think this will be implemented in the near future

8

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.