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

[Ch4rly9725786]

@Jummivana

This could come with some FPS drops when turning the head, but would result in higher FPS and lower memory usage when looking forward and not turning your head quickly.

So even in Ultra, we will still have the fps drop while turning quickly. That partially solves the problem.

Thanks Jummivana !

[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

[Ffowcs]

Hello, Jummivana,
Still, it would be great if such information appeared either in the developers’ diaries or in the News section, so that it would not be necessary to search for such useful messages on the forum. And I also have this question: I am sure that there is an average data on the amount of memory that is recommended for the new High \ Ultra settings. Can you find out what these values ​​are?

[Kuang129693]

@Jummivana

I’ve spent some time the past few weeks gathering some details to share on this new feature and how it works. As you know there is a new setting coming on Tuesday with World Update 6 called “Offscreen terrain pre-caching” and will be available on PC

Will there also some more Options and ooptimization for Xbox Simmer ?

[MarcG888]

So was Pre-SU5 HIGH or ULTRA? If SU5 is MEDIUM as stated, I’m leaning towards it being ULTRA as I (for one) never had that pop-in prior to SU5.

[greazr]

No offence but this was a completely confusing and contradictory post.

[Dark2385]

Interesting. I had found that the current “Medium” setting I guess has even worse FPS drops than before when turning the camera. I would imagine UItra should has less of an FPS drop since the objects are already loaded into memory.

[TidalPopcorn618]

This sounds fantastic, thanks you so much!

[DeferredGull247]

I would wager a guess there was only one setting and it was probably a total mix of every setting the new setting will have. After the optimization, which probably only got budgeted for because of Xbox, there was probably a much more straight forward way to manage how much stuff is being loaded on different hardware.

[LevelCandle6739]

What could go wrong??? I want to
Believe

[ChaoticSplendid]

I’m still not getting the update and it will probably take a long while, so I would love to hear some opinions on the new graphics setting from those who have tried it.

Warning: The setting not appearing in the VR menu is a known issue. Please do not vote yet if you’re using VR. Vote for “VR/TrackIR user” if you’re using TrackIR for now. The poll cannot be edited sadly.

Are you satisfied with the functionality of the “Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching” setting?

• Yes (2D user)
• Yes (VR/TrackIR user)
• No (2D user)
• No (VR/TrackIR user)

[Jummivana]

Currently investigating the new option not showing up in VR.

[sthackrey]

Thanks Jayne!

[ChaoticSplendid]

From the testing I’ve done, at different Terrain LOD settings and both over photogrammetry and mountains, the setting seems to work perfectly. The pop-in and stutters when panning or switching camera views is totally gone, and performance is still great!

Quite unfortunate that VR still doesn’t have the option, hopefully it can arrive with a quick hotfix. Thank you Jayne for immediately looking into this.

For now, please do not vote in the poll if you’re a VR user as I’m looking to see whether the slider itself is effective for everyone. But you should do so if you’re using TrackIR.

[MSFSRonS]

1. I never had a problem with Culling while panning the camera.
   I don’t know if \it was fixed or not.

2. I had previously changed the UserCfg.opt file as follows:
   Preset Custom
   ObjectsLoD = 9
   TerrainLoD = 9
   File set to read Only

3. Still need to set this after this update.
   This was not affected by this update.

[RebuffedBee9595]

Very pleased to have the building+tree pop in on head fixed, I am loving my VR flying again I would say I can still see some very rapid (near instantaneous pop in) on rapid head move, but none in more normal operation. Thank you !

Also I still have sometimes ground texture checkerboarding/frustrum culling on head move mainly at airports, so it seems not all ground textures are cached (lots of RAM+VRAM available):

[Bruvva]

What a charmer you are.

[sthackrey]

Is there going to be a hotfix @Jummivana? I’m still really surprised at the amount of basic issues flagged that would have been picked up during beta testing… Any comment from asobo? Bear in mind the uproar during the last update and lack of communication…

[ChaoticSplendid]

That’s interesting, I had no idea this happened in VR. Did this occur before Sim Update 5?

[RebuffedBee9595]

I’ve only noticed it since SU5 but I’m honestly not sure if it was made worse by SU5 or not. I posted about it previously and found others had somewhat similar issues from before SU5. From reading one of the below threads it looks like it has always been a problem with wide FOV headsets (note Q2 is not a wide FOV headset) and some other users report seeing similar even in 2d mode with no VR headset, when panning rapidly.

Black checkerboard effect on ground when turning head quickly

Hi, One other issue I have since SU5 that I have not seen mentioned is terrain being rapidly drawn in against a black checkerboard when turning head quickly. It happens most commonly when my system is under heavy load at an airport, but weirdly ocean textures also seem very susceptible to it even when under low-medium load. Is this a bug or expected behaviour of the new SU5 culling which simply signals that I need to reduce my graphics settings (or slow down my head )? Thank y…

Support for Wide FOV VR headsets (removing Frustum Culling issue)-

Hi VR enthusiasts and MS/Asobo team! I think its important to point out that MSFS at this point is not natively supporting VR headsets with wide FOV (such as Pimax). Which is quite concerning. The current workaround to run MSFS properly with Pimax VR headsets is to enable Parallel Projection (in PiTool settings) which does make the sim render correctly with wide FOV. But using Parallel Projection reduces the performance by up to 20-30%, because of the higher resolution that needs to be rendere…

Low elevation airports black squares on tarmac SU5 v18.15

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