NZFF

VLC shots.

The first couple of shots are at autogen setting 'normal'. The other two are Very Dense. (one less than full.)

Now that looks like bush to me!!!

BTW - is there anything that can be done about the default ground textures in FS? You know - the stuff that shows through the autogen - that awful "porridge"?

Looks great!
Looking forward to being able to load it up on my PC

Adamski wrote:

QUOTE (Adamski @ May 4 2010, 07:30 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

BTW - is there anything that can be done about the default ground textures in FS? You know - the stuff that shows through the autogen - that awful "porridge"?

Currently, almost all default -- and addon -- ground textures which are landclass-based are at a resolution of 1.2 metres per pixel. You can go higher, but this is one of the most intensive uses of textures -- each square metre of land is textures, after all -- then most would find the default a reasonable compromise.

Because these textures are always there while you can see the ground, they rely greatly on mipmaps to keep performance up, so what you are probably seeing is lower mipmaps. So you might be seeing 2.4 metres per pixel, or 4.8, which was the default resolution of FS2004.

Lots of settings affect this, including the Texture Resolution, which MUST be set to at least 1 metre to see the default textures fully, and Global Texture Resolution, which should be set to at least High.

Flying fast can mean that your view outstrips the ability to load textures underneath you, which is why something slow is recommended for sight-seeing:)

By the way, VLC includes customised NZ bush ground textures, based on actual photos of, well, NZ bush. This is still 1.2 metres resolution though.

And on the 7th day Robin rested, had a look around , and said.......pretty darn good.

Can almost hear the birds....awesome Robin.

I didnt even backup my original texture , I just through them in and yes the change is so dramatic , didnt get a chance to post screen or describe what i was seeing , got tied down with other agn , but that really looks , I have a couple books , author 'Richard Waugh' which shows this area so well .

I see your framerate is 16.8 with normal autogen, I daren't imagine what it is like at extremely dense settings. Will the VLC be an FPS killer?

s0cks wrote:

QUOTE (s0cks @ May 10 2010, 08:30 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see your framerate is 16.8 with normal autogen, I daren't imagine what it is like at extremely dense settings. Will the VLC be an FPS killer?

I guess that would depend what sort of system Robins has..and a question I was going to ask - what is your system specs Robin if don't mind me asking?

Ive been beta testing VLC on a old 3.0ghz single core and 8800gts 320mb ,3 gig ram ,with agn up top range , its still sweet on my system as without VLC ,really depends again on the users settings and if they are thinking along the same performance of there PC .
i push my settings where the agn mite load sweet but the imagery under with be loading slow and blurry ,lower the agn and the cpu has time to load both ,fly fast then the sim slows the load underneath me again ,pick a high end payware aircraft everything craps out again flps drop ,fly a good aircraft have the right traffic and agn settings i get 55-70 flps , many users will find something to blame on there flp drop ,i doubt it will be VLC

Yes, I've mentioned this before. I've never ever understand the preoccupation with frame rates, as I can get frame rates of 120 - 150 with one choice of settings, and 7 with another. I get to choose what I want to see, and how I want FSX to perform. That's the way its meant to work. I like to have it looking great, after all that's my job, but I am very happy to turn down most of the settings when I race, for instance.

I would think that 95% of users would be able to leave there settings as they are -- it can not remotely be considered a 'frame-rate killer' by any means.

VLC adds a huge amount of vector polys to FSX, so I'd be surprised if it didn't affect frame rates, but I don't notice anything switching to and from VLC. Also, part of it's strength is the extra detail and realism it adds, so a lot of people would want to take advantage of this by turning the settings up a bit. In the default, it helps to turn down the autogen, for example, when flying in areas where it isn't realistic -- the West Coast is one such area, where the default 'bush' landclass gives highly un-NZ-like trees whch add nothing to the experience. However when the autogen has been redesigned to represent NZ better, it adds to the immersion rather than detracts.

I do have a low-end system:
Athlon 4600+ dual core processor;
Radeon HD3450 video -- 256MB, which is what I'd consider the minimum for FSX.

I think I've posted this graph before -- it shows a short flight with and without VLC. The glass-half-empty way to see it is that there is a definite drop in frame-rates. The glass-half-full folk will notice that the VLC framerates probably average 120 on my lousy system!



This is a very unscientific test, though. For instance, you have no idea what my settings are, and even if you did it wouldn't mean anything to you, unless you have the same system as me, and have the same performance expectations and requirements.

Your quote regarding a choice of framerates could also be requoted as a choice between poor scenery or good scenery. Funnily enough I'd enjoy nice scenery when racing low, or flying high. You're graph shows a drop of 30fps in some places. Assuming your settings are low, then it may mean that where it used to run 30fps at high settings, it now runs at an unplayable speed.

But as you said, its not a scientific graph, and your specs are low, so we'll have to wait and see for ourselves

Here's another Milford Sound shot, which I'll put here rather than hijack 617sticks' thread. It is well worth comparing his default Milford shot, though:)
I'll post a shot looking towards the airport later.

Wow!!!!!!!!

I dipped my toe in the water ... MAN THATS COLD! ... hang om ... silly me thats Flight Sim

Here's the airport shot at last:

Awsome Pics, I waould say to anyone thats worried about performance - start saving your pennys now and keep them hidden from your wife/partner /girfriend or whatever. Iv,e changed the internals of my pc on a few occasions without my wife even knowing.
High performance pc's have never being more affordable and you dont need the latest i7 to make FSX boogie.

What are you're water setting in REX rob?