SU5, before....and after

See the videos below for an example of what I gained (note the 1.18.13 and 1.18.14 versions do NOT have Orbx London Landmarks installed as that seems to hang my sim at the moment and hence I can’t get an exact like for like - but 1.17.3 does). In this scenario, I’m more than doubling FPS from 30 to more than 60 for a lot of it - way more than an extra 10. Plus I now have a lot more flexibility - and this is the key. So when (and I strongly believe it is “when”) Asobo extend the sliders/add more sliders for PC, we will have a much greater range of choice. I mean effectively we can do it now for terrain LOD and object LOD anyway. It’s got to be straightforward to add those to the UI for PC.

I think they’ve (understandably) concentrated on nailing the performance for xbox. Fine. But in doing so, they’ve created a lod of headroom in performance terms for PC users who want to choose to up the visual fidelity - potentially way beyond where they were before and/or with greater choice. So they could add sliders for amount of “culling” to determine the redraw when you move the camera, they could add sliders allowing more vram or ram to be used etc. Lots of possibilities. With SU4, the thing was gobbling 25Gb of RAM quite frequently - it just doesn’t give you anywhere to go.

For me, the future is bright.

And here’s a 1.18.14.0 comparison too - where I actually got even more FPS

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Thanks Gordon. That looks very convincing. I actually haven’t played the sim yet since the update (I’m on an overseas trip), but I’m trying to understand the polarized opinions that I read here on the forums. Looking at the screenshots and movies posted in the various threads, I don’t see a downgrade, but I’m looking at a laptop screen and not a gaming monitor. Can’t wait to try out the update next week…

I don’t think there is much wrong with it from my perspective. Issues I see are:

  • pop in of scenery loading in front (can be fixed for the moment by editing the config files)
  • pop in when you quickly move the camera aorund (results from scenery being dropped from memory to improve performance) - personally I don;t find this a big issue at all, but others do
  • in certain conditions it can look a bit overbright, but in the videos, there doesn’t look a lot of difference
  • blurry textures from 35,000 feet - fixed by extending the LOD
  • Others report poor stability - I’ve had a few more CTDs than pre SU5, but nothing too game breaking for me
  • Performance boost is massive, as you can see

You need to judge for yourself of course!

From what I understand the blurry texture issue creeps in during a flight. Your initial load in area is fine and then some kind of streaming issue degrades the quality as you fly further away from where you loaded in.

This is from what I have read around on the forums and not personal experience as I haven’t had much time to to fly.

This could be blamed on people’s connections but they would have noticed it sooner I guess. Definitely seems to be streaming issues for autogen and textures.

Sounds feasible. I’m thinking they are still fine tuning the servers with the extra xbox load. I think we had a fair bit of this at the orighinal launch if I recall

It’s about time to give @gordongreig a big, big shout out for all the time that he puts in all these fantastic and informative posts!

So if you haven’t done already, heart the post I’m reacting to to show him your respect!

:facepunch:t2:

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Very easy to test and validate, or not: cache a local area and fly over it above 20,000 ft then 30,000 ft. I doubt you’ll see crisp texture still… This is just the way the game engine is designed to work: displaying lower res textures farther away, except in this case, the “farther away” is not far enough for most people.


I wonder what Asobo would do




Before SU5. I dont have words for this.

Agreed - @Camargo24 had an issue at 7,000 feet though - which even terrain LOD 100 should be close enough to draw sharp terrain you’d have thought

EDIT - also just had a server data warning - feels like there are server issues at play here - whether that’s what’s causing this, I don’t know

It would help to share your settings and make sure that data is turned on etc. What LOD settings, render scaling, screen resolution etc?

All max out.

Where did you take this and I will see what I get

and what resolution?

1440p/Ultra/200 Lod

Where did you take the screenshot (the TBM one looks easier to match)

EDIT - if you don’t tell me where it is I can’t see if I can replicate it. But here’s what I’m seeing right now

I think it is the market place Orbx Products that are causing the issue I just wondered if there was a fix? If you have direct Orbx products they work OK.

Thank you so much. I just got off work. I will be testing this in a bit and post a screen shot. Why do you have bing data off?

Do you have the LOD modified in the cfg file as well?

I’ve heard that yes. I have marketplace versions of Orbx EGLC (works no problem) and Orbx London Landmarks (hangs the flight at the loading screen if spawning near London). Orbx Syndney (marketplace too) seems to be OK as well.

Bing data is on?

I don’t use a rolling cache - tried it but found it didn’t seem to make any difference

I’ve upped the LOD in the config file to 4 and 4 for the moment - just experimenting with that a little. Hits performance about 10 FPS (bit more over London) but the draw distance definitely further. Doesn’t help the pop in on camera movement, but personally I don’t find that too distracting.

Thanks for posting your settings and system. Some impressive pics that you were showing earlier, but what about your FPS? Can you actually fly smoothly or do you use these settings just for photography?