Author Topic: p3dv4 airport loading distance  (Read 3291 times)

kdfw

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 44
p3dv4 airport loading distance
« on: February 24, 2018, 02:58:48 am »
now that x64 fs is here, would it make sense to increase the airport loading distance from 10nm to something more?  10 is quite close, we can see the airport literally pop up in front of us, but if it can start to load the polygons gradually at distance, it could improve the visual transition? 

or at least make a distance slider for each airport so depending on the # of airports in a given locale (nyc area vs. phnl), this can be optimized?

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50700
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: p3dv4 airport loading distance
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2018, 02:25:39 pm »
First, the airport loading distance was never always 10 NM, but it changed depending on the airport. The largest ones, like KMEM or KDFW or KLAX, had it at 16.0, for example.

The software is already doing it at the object level so, all object ranges are automatically doubled when running under P3D V4, and the anti pop-up setting default to its maximum, so you already seeing a big difference and far less popups.

Thanks to our custom management in our software, this can be done very easily, without having to update all the sceneries.

However, we are a bit cautious with arbitrary enlarge the overall airport loading range, because in some cases it was chosen for a precise reason.

Case in point: KJFK, which is so close to KLGA and the dense area of N.Y.C. We set a loading range carefully tuned to prevent the loading of KJFK when you were at KLGA, and in FSX this was absolutely necessary to prevent OOMs but, while in P3D V4 OOMs might not be an issue, frame rate will still be a problem.

Quote
or at least make a distance slider for each airport so depending on the # of airports in a given locale (nyc area vs. phnl), this can be optimized?

No, that's just too confusing and, history has proven that, whenever there's a slider, users will always set it to the (usually wrong) highest value. We'll probably increase the preset loading range for the less critical airports.

kdfw

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 44
Re: p3dv4 airport loading distance
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2018, 02:55:30 pm »
that's odd, i just approached kdfw from north and the airport loaded around 10nm from the airplane.  antipop was already set to max.

i'd agree that places around nyc need to keep the load distance smaller.


virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50700
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: p3dv4 airport loading distance
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2018, 10:20:45 am »
that's odd, i just approached kdfw from north and the airport loaded around 10nm from the airplane. 

I'm sorry, it's just KLAX and KMEM that are set at 16.0 NM, KDFW is still 10.0 NM.

kdfw

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 44
Re: p3dv4 airport loading distance
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2018, 11:08:34 pm »
would it be possible to increase the load distance for p3dv4 airports like kdfw, phnl, (and maybe kord) in a future update?  i know klax will not be good since orbx socal is such a dog around klax.  thanks!

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50700
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: p3dv4 airport loading distance
« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2018, 11:53:10 am »
would it be possible to increase the load distance for p3dv4 airports like kdfw, phnl, (and maybe kord) in a future update? 

Of course, it's extremely easy to do without having to change a bit in the scenery, it's just a different setting in both the Addon Manager and the Couatl script that controls the scenery.