Slider to adjust/disable the scenery culling (reduce panning pop-in and stutters)

[CptLucky8]

@Jummivana

The definition of “Off screen terrain” is anything not currently visible behind the user.

First question I saw was, “If set to Ultra, all the offscreen terrain will be cached at full quality - does this include buildings and trees in addition to ground terrain?” Yes, this includes not only terrain but buildings, trees, photogrammetry, textures, and everything else in the world.

Thank you for coming forward with these great details, this is much appreciated.

I’m certain this will help reducing a lot of the annoyances with terrain “reloading” but this raises other questions: what is the definition of “not currently visible behind the user”?

I know this sounds like a silly question but I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t a little bit more complex than what it looks like:

@CptLucky8

→ Does it mean it is always 360 degrees pre-cached, but the settings defines only the “quality”? the “distance”?
→ or will WU6 also provide the requested setting (not this one) which increases or decrease the lateral angle culling instead?
→ which will therefore also kill 2 birds with one stone for Pimax users for example?

This question probably concerns VR users more than 3D users because the former are using all sorts of headsets with all sorts of FOV and the current game code is not working well with these differences in FOV.

There are topics about the Pimax headsets where you can read this:

@Huggies89

Unfortunately Pimax just posted on their forums they reached out to Asobo and were informed they have no interest in a collaboration with them so it sounds like Asobo has absolutely zero intent in supporting wide fov headsets…

@GentlestCurve98

the LOD has nothing to do with this. FS VR had false viewports for wide FOV.
I have postet a little video.
look on the left outer side. the big buildings comes and go outside of 115 degree

@sweinhart

I don’t have this problem in xplane or DCS, but in FS2020, when I fly VR with my Pimax 8kx, all the visuals in peripheral area are extremely distorted and disappear/re-appear as I look around.

I’m also reporting bugs with discrepancies between both eyes because of what seems to be the viewdir vector Maths (from the look of it - no pun intended):

@CptLucky8

TL;DR: there seems to be a bug involving the viewdir (directly or indirectly at least) in the Shader code, which impacts the rendering of lights and shadows in VR. I suspect the same bug, or something related to this bug, is influential to the other 2D and VR visual bugs which I’ve reported (see refs below).

NB: This bug is observable in VR easily because it shows a discrepancy between both eyes and makes the comparison easier. Even tough I’ll be using VR screenshots to highlight the problem, it also manifests itself in 2D.

NB: the “viewdir” bug is not directly related to the question of “pre-loading what’s out of view” but there remains problems in VR with discrepancies between both eyes rendering and I hope this new WU6 option won’t add one more in VR.

So to the question

• What defines “what is behind or what is not visible” when in VR, is supposed to be what is outside the FOV. Does it mean the addition of this setting is also telling all the reported VR bugs related to FOV have been corrected as well?

• Since at some point in the code logic there must be some Maths telling it is in front (within FOV) and it is behind (outside FOV), why not also adding at least for VR users a setting to set the value of the FOV determining what is within and inside, so that it kills 2 birds with one stone: supporting the new feature (late-load/early-load of assets) AND supporting wide/.narrow FOV headsets properly?*

---

*of course, offering an “angle culling setting” instead, would mean user’s could get the equivalent of the upcoming setting too:

• Setting the culling to the headset FOV would effectively mean “like SU5 i.e. Medium with the new setting”
• Setting the culling angle to 180deg would effectively be equivalent to “the new Ultra setting”

In addition, an “angle culling setting” is high in demand already:
Support for Wide FOV VR headsets (removing Frustum Culling issue)- - Virtual Reality (VR) / VR Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums