FSDreamTeam forum

Products Support => Houston KIAH Support FSX/P3D => Topic started by: PDNoel on June 21, 2022, 01:15:32 am

Title: Runways and Taxiway blurred at destination
Post by: PDNoel on June 21, 2022, 01:15:32 am
I have three scenery areas DFW, IAH and LAX.  All three show good runway texture at origin but if I fly into any one of them at destination the runways and taxiways are blurred especially in daylight.  Runway and taxiway lights show quite nicely from dusk through the night but ground textures are off. Anyone having this issue?
Title: Re: Runways and Taxiway blurred at destination
Post by: virtuali on June 21, 2022, 10:07:51 am
You don't say anything about which sim you use and other addons and your settings, which might be important.

If the scenery has good textures on departure, it clearly means the textures are correct and of the right resolution and, since the scenery has no concept of "arrival" or "departure", we couldn't change the resolution of the texture even if we wanted so, it cannot be a problem of the scenery but, most likely, a problem caused by being short on memory after a flight, usually caused by too high settings, too many add-ons used at the same time, or a combination of it.
Title: Re: Runways and Taxiway blurred at destination
Post by: PDNoel on June 21, 2022, 02:27:41 pm
I am running FSX Steam edition.  Plenty of memory (24 GB).. The add-ons are FUIPC, REX HD AIRPORTS and Active Sky 2016. Not having this problem with any other scenery generators.
Title: Re: Runways and Taxiway blurred at destination
Post by: virtuali on June 21, 2022, 05:27:33 pm
I am running FSX Steam edition.  Plenty of memory (24 GB)

If you are referring to your system RAM then no, you don't have "plenty of memory", because FSX, as a 32 bit application, will NEVER use more than 4GB in the best theoretical case, that is with nothing loaded.

In practice, the real usable memory is far less, because in addition to being an obsolete 32 bit product, FSX also use an obsolete DirectX ( 9 or 10 ) and, specifically with DirectX 9, the way it works, is that texture memory is SUBTRACTED from the 4GB, and the more VRAM your video card have, the worse it gets so, in practice, the real usable memory in FSX is more like 2.6 GB, the whole rest of your RAM is completely wasted in FSX.

That's why most users switched away from it to a 64 bit simulator, that is P3D 4, 5 or MSFS 2020, which can all use all your available memory.

Quote
The add-ons are FUIPC, REX HD AIRPORTS and Active Sky 2016.

As I've guessed, lots of memory consuming things running at the same time.

Quote
Not having this problem with any other scenery generators.

I was quite sure you would say that but, before knowing anything about your sim and system, it was no use.

Now after knowing you use FSX and several other add-ons ( you don't say which airplane you use, which is likely the most memory consuming item ), which confirms the problem doesn't have anything to do with the scenery, I can explain why you *think* it's a scenery problem ( it isn't ) just because you haven't seen it on other sceneries YOU tried.

Blurred runways ONLY AT THE END OF A FLIGHT, which are caused by memory exhaustion, wouldn't affect all airports in the same way, only the better sceneries that use fully custom runway/ground textures will be affected, because the sim behavior in low memory situations is NOT the same if the scenery uses default textures or not.

In addition to that, our sceneries are more optimized, in a way that instead of using many small textures, they use few larger textures at the SAME overall resolution. This is a SPEED optimization, because it's faster to draw 4 4K textures compared to 16 1K textures, with visual quality and memory being the same.

However, while this results in better performances, when the sim is in panic mode because you are low on memory, because you filled the obsolete FSX with lots of other things that should be better used in a 64 bit simulator, the sim tries to lower the resolution of the bigger textures first, without being able to know there a few of them, so properly optimized sceneries like our own would normally perform better in normal situations when you really have enough memory, while sloppily optimized sceneries made with many smaller textures will normally perform worse, but might be sharper in such low memory situations.

Obviously, we gave preference to have the scenery performing better on the newer 64 bit sims, in the normal situations, hoping users would have realized they shouldn't use FSX in 2022, because the alternatives are so much better, ESPECIALLY in your case, since you have "plenty of" UNUSED "memory.

If you insist using FSX, one thing you can try is:

- Enable DirectX 10.While DX10 support was quite buggy in FSX, and DX10 is obsolete anyway, AT LEAST it doesn't have the extra limitation of stealing your already limited system memory. You can usually save about 500 MB of RAM with DirectX 10, so they might be just enough to save you from going under.

- Be sure you have Anisotropic filtering at 16x enabled in the Video card Control Panel, set to Override the game settings, this will improve texture quality in FSX.
Title: Re: Runways and Taxiway blurred at destination
Post by: PDNoel on June 23, 2022, 02:09:23 pm
Direct X 10 does not work well on my PC but I did discover one thing... The runway just blends in to the ground scenery at any altitude except directly on the ground. This happens only on the three scenery areas I have on FSDT and none of the other scenery areas I have. So I guess I will have to live with this issue. I will adjust my display to see what happens. Thanks for your attention.