Changing the view of aeroplanes through LOD in the close range makes no sense to me at all. The constant change ruins the immersion. Especially as it’s often not just small details that change, but the overall impression or outline of the aircraft. The disappearance and reappearance of the nose wheel and the towing engine during an F-tow alone is totally nonsensical. The silhouette of the aeroplane should always be maintained. A change at a great distance makes sense because of the amount of data that has to be calculated. But then I’m talking about 3-4km. Perhaps an extra LOD slider would be useful for weak computers.
I would really like to see a change in this respect.
Who else?
VG
Ralf
Turning it off isn’t the solution. The ranges and levels need adjusting properly so changes aren’t noticeable.
Not rendering landing gear when aircraft are on the ground - and not even particularly far away - is absurd.
2 Likes
Let’s assume we climb vertically upwards and look vertically downwards to the ground (Landscape). The field of view becomes larger and larger but, for example, a house does not disappear. No details will disappear and at some point it might just be a dot. We have the same effect when we see an image with 4k resolution on a FullHD monitor. The image only exists in one resolution. But the programme decides which pixels are shown. Why should you use different model levels for aeroplanes that then alternate?
With a landscape of 50 or more kilometres, I can understand that the mesh data is reduced. The FS2020 or FS in general has to other PC games, not only a limited play zone to represent.
The aircraft that takes off next to or in front of me and next to which I then fly at a distance of 10 metres does not normally affect my FPS. Maybe 50 or 100 aeroplanes do, I don’t know because I’ve never experienced it. But said aircraft or 2 or 5 could now fly as far away as they wanted. The FPS would not drop, because they didn’t do it next to me either. So why an LOD?
And if. Then at such a great distance. That I can’t recognise the datails anyway. Then 50 aircraft on the horizon can also be realised.
It may not be quite right for an air racing show. But even here you don’t see all the participants at once.
For certainly 95% of all normal flight situations in FS, only a few planes come together and then at visual range.
VG
Ralf
Please don’t take offence at my suggestion that you don’t appear to have a technical understanding of this stuff, but I can assure you that LODs are absolutely necessary. They’re a pain for developers who would be very happy to do away with them otherwise.
Done properly, the change from one LOD to the other should be imperceptible (for objects at least, I’ll admit terrain and photogrammetry is more complicated). The fact that they’re so glaringly wrong in MSFS is simply a problem with the implementation.
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Please do not misunderstand. I’m completely on your side. Nor do I want to lecture anyone here. I’ve had enough to do with LOD in my own sceneries, but I don’t see myself as an expert who wants to tell others what to do. For me, the best example of unsuccessful LOD in aeroplanes is the Harrier, which becomes a square box from 30m ;-). I just think to myself, if it doesn’t work this way, there must be another way. We’ve been struggling with it for 4 years now. And we have to live with LOD because MS/AS does the rules. But maybe there is a completely different solution. The cars that drive in FS are also, let’s say, super minimalist and look good from above.
LOD is ‘very easy’ for the FS developers because they pass the problem on to the external scenery and aircraft developers. The result of Quality then is very different. But I would rather be in favour of an automatism: one model and then automatic visual reduction.
Finally, I’m on your side, but in my opinion the last four years have shown that there are only problems with this system. It does not represent standards.
VG
Ralf
I’m confused. Are you unable to turn the object LOD up further? I can’t remember specifically for other aircraft, but I know that determines the render distance and amount of detail in things like ground vehicles. I.e. starting low and working the OLOD up, a forklift will go from invisible, to a rectangular brick, to a low poly forklift, to a high quality forklift.
You can fix this yourself for any aircraft that you can edit the model XML files. All the LOD models and their visibility settings are right there. I think Microsoft had to set some standards so performance would be adequate for all systems.
In dev mode, it forces the LOD0 for aircraft but I don’t know if that’s only for the project that you have open or all aircraft. I could test that.
I don’t think this is a setting that they would open up for everyone though. There is already so many complaints of stuttering near airports.
When it comes to LOD, it’s always about system resources. Everyone wants the best possible reality, in physics and graphics. I’ve been around since FS5.1 and the issues are always the same. My first hard disc in FS5.1 was 320MB. Today I usually can’t even fit an aeroplane on it. If you can’t afford a high-end computer with perfect FS performance, you just have to cut back. But all this has already been discussed a thousand times. We’ve also discussed the tiresome topic of reconciling PC and Xbox.
That’s why my wish is not for the past and its problems, but for the future. When it comes to reality, there is always a lack of system resources, which must be intelligently balanced from the top down. This cannot be done manually according to the motto; mods, ini files, sliders. So according to the theme, make something of it. I’m also not naive enough to think that the problems with FS2024 are all off the table. Honestly? That will always be an issue. Reality will ALWAYS only be realised in an FEM simulation. Without an intelligent limitation of the data, it won’t work today, tomorrow or any other time.
I don’t see my PC’s system resources being used properly, even though I’m so happy that I don’t think about it when I’m on the plane. Then I have my little peace. Thanks to MS/As for that.
VG
Ralf
PS Happy Flying 