Author Topic: Noisy ground textures at night  (Read 12715 times)

virtuali

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2020, 12:41:52 pm »
We posted the alternate ground textures set in today's Live Update.

Brittanix

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2020, 01:20:07 pm »
We posted the alternate ground textures set in today's Live Update.

Thanks Umberto. Can you please tell me how i activate the alternative textures? Can't find any settings for this?

Er!k

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #17 on: January 15, 2020, 01:26:21 pm »
As far as I see it automatically installs the correct textures, based on if you have MSAA or SSAA enabled. You can also copy the files manually from the \Addon Manager\FsDreamTeam\LFSB\Texture folder. It contains both a no_SSAA_version folder and a SSAA_version folder.

virtuali

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #18 on: January 15, 2020, 02:00:43 pm »
From the Live Update release notes:

https://www.fsdreamteam.com/couatl_liveupdate_notes.html

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NEW: - LFSB Basel airport - , alternate ground texture set to be used with MSAA antialiasing mode. Installed automatically depending on the AA settings in the sim.

mikealpha

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #19 on: January 16, 2020, 10:54:33 am »
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NEW: - LFSB Basel airport - , alternate ground texture set to be used with MSAA antialiasing mode. Installed automatically depending on the AA settings in the sim.

Had to copy the files manually, so the automatic installation based on MSAA did not work for me. Anyway, ground is looking good now, thanks.  Except the taxiways, they still show that ugly Moire effect. Could you include those too ? Or anything else I could do ?

Mike

virtuali

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #20 on: January 16, 2020, 12:41:12 pm »
Had to copy the files manually, so the automatic installation based on MSAA did not work for me. Anyway, ground is looking good now, thanks.  Except the taxiways, they still show that ugly Moire effect. Could you include those too ? Or anything else I could do ?

The automatic installation works, if you set MSAA in the simulator, and I can confirm it's working fine, since I tested it in both cases. It won't work if you set the antialiasing mode externally, for example in a tweaker, or if your Prepa3d.CFG reported what shouldn't normally happen, like having both SSAA and MSAA enabled at the same time, which is not possible with the normal UI.

We haven't left out any textures, so taxiways are surely included. Please make a screenshot as an example. Of course, I assume you copied all files when the simulator was NOT running.

mikealpha

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2020, 01:06:00 pm »
Yes of course, P3Dv4 was closed and MSAA was set (MSAA=4, SSAA=0 in prepar3d.cfg).

Screenshot attached. Not sure if it's it is good to see in a static screenshot as the Moire effect is very prominent when moving. However I marked an area where the shimmering and flickering is intense.

The texture filenames in the SSAA_version and no_SSAA_version folders are identical, is that correct ?

Mike

virtuali

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2020, 01:28:38 pm »
Yes of course, P3Dv4 was closed and MSAA was set (MSAA=4, SSAA=0 in prepar3d.cfg).

Are you sure you saw the message from the updater saying that the wrong ( in your case ) SSAA textures have been installed ?

I re-checked it again and, the only possible way for the SSAA textures being used, is that you should have a value other than 0 for SSAA in the Prepar3d.cfg file. Otherwise, the MSAA version will be used. And of course, I also tried with both settings, and in both cases the correct textures are copied.

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Screenshot attached.

You said the taxiway textures were a problem, but your screenshot show the runway markings instead. Yes, of course they have been toned down too ( a lot ), but the final effect depends on your overall screen resolution. The lower your screen resolution, the HIGHER the antialiasing should be.

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The texture filenames in the SSAA_version and no_SSAA_version folders are identical, is that correct ?

Of course it is, that's the only way they could work, they have the same name, but they are NOT the same.

In the attached screenshots, what you are supposed to see. Note that, even if #2 and #3 don't look that different in a static screenshot, SSAA make a huge difference in movement, preventing shimmering.

1) MSAA textures with MSAA 4x in the sim

2) SSAA textures with MSAA 4x in the sim

3) SSAA textures with SSAA 8x in the sim

I'm not using any tweaker, shader mod or anything else. If you, all bets are off, and everything can happen.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2020, 01:30:58 pm by virtuali »

mikealpha

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #23 on: January 16, 2020, 02:16:44 pm »
When comparing the SSAA version (Screenshot attached) with the noSSAA version (screenshot further above), one can clearly notice an improvement. So maybe it is just a wrong expectation from my side: The Moire effect is just reduced with the new textures, but not eliminated.  However, I do not see this effect with other Airport Addons.
There are some rumours REX Environment force does something with shaders. Anyway, just make sure, I started P3D without REX and cleared the shader cache before, so it should not have an influence. No other shader mods are active. And I'm just using the Laptop native resolution of 1920*1080.

Mike


virtuali

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #24 on: January 16, 2020, 02:28:16 pm »
When comparing the SSAA version (Screenshot attached) with the noSSAA version (screenshot further above), one can clearly notice an improvement. So maybe it is just a wrong expectation from my side: The Moire effect is just reduced with the new textures, but not eliminated.

That's just subjective. We are seeing a borderline case here, which is at night with landing lights. I think the SSAA version looks just fine in SSAA but, obviously, nothing is preventing you to use the MSAA version even with SSAA. However, my screenshot of the MSAA texture is very different than YOUR screenshot with MSAA textures so, clearly, there must be some other issue at play, assuming you copied the correct files, which I don't have any reasons to doubt.

Reducing normal maps even more, while it might improve a bit ( it's already good to me ) at night, will make the scenery totally flat at day, like a freeware or default scenery.

And as already explained here, switching textures dynamically would have an fps cost, since we would have to attach a LUA script to all ground materials, and this has a cost (every line of every LUA script is evaluated at each frame, this has been confirmed by LM), for everybody, even those that CAN use SSAA or are not worried about the minor shimerring at night, especially if they don't tweak their shaders.

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However, I do not see this effect with other Airport Addons.

That's just because they were probably made for FSX, converted to P3D or, even if they were made for P3D, they were made for the legacy shaders and not really thought as PBR, so they never bother to create normal maps to begin with. PBR simply cannot work without normal maps, since it affects everything. True PBR *requires* the proper antialiasing modes, like SSAA or Temporal Antialiasing, otherwise you WILL see moire effects and, as explained so many times already, if can affect each and every game out there, even those using more modern gaming engines, if the correct antialiasing is not set.


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There are some rumours REX Environment force does something with shaders. Anyway, just make sure, I started P3D without REX and cleared the shader cache before, so it should not have an influence.

That's an assumption.

If you only removed the shader cache, the shaders would be only recompiled from their sources in the Prepar3d\ShaderHLSL folder. If THIS folder contains altered shaders, you won't see any difference, unless "without REX" means you ran whatever procedure REX has in place ( assuming it has one ), to RESTORE the default shader source files. Only after you restore the original shaders folder, then can be regenerated as default, when their binary cache in the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder is removed.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2020, 02:35:38 pm by virtuali »

mikealpha

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #25 on: January 16, 2020, 04:05:53 pm »
....clearly, there must be some other issue at play, assuming you copied the correct files, which I don't have any reasons to doubt.

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However, I do not see this effect with other Airport Addons.

That's just because they were probably made for FSX, converted to P3D or, even if they were made for P3D, they were made for the legacy shaders and not really thought as PBR, so ....

thanks for the info regarding shaders. Restoring them did not lead to any further conclusion though. So I'm somewhat at a loss what the issue can be.

Regarding the other Addons and the way they are creating the runways or taxiways or ground textures. Well, maybe so. I am talking about 135 Airport Addons for roughly 3000 Euros where I don't get that effect. Yours is No. 136 :-). I mean it's a Laptop with I7-4820HQ and GTX980M, so it is not sooo bad. Can run Red Dead Redemption2 visually pleasing, just as a side note. But it is simply not capable of running SSAA, because that would bring me below 20fps average. Sure it will be not able to run FS2020, no doubt. But what is the gain *NOW* of having non flat runway textures, for the price of such visual discomfort due to the Moire effect ? There is no gain, because the visual disturbance is bigger than even noticing non flat textures.
As a consequence, if new sceneries anticipate FS2020 already now, I would have to stop buying Addon sceneries. That can't be intended ?

Mike

virtuali

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #26 on: January 16, 2020, 06:47:36 pm »
Regarding the other Addons and the way they are creating the runways or taxiways or ground textures. Well, maybe so. I am talking about 135 Airport Addons for roughly 3000 Euros where I don't get that effect. Yours is No. 136

Not many developers do proper PBR sceneries, we know.

But that's besides the point. The real question is: do you see the same result as in MY screenshot with the MSAA textures ? The 1st one ? That is taken using our texture set compatible with MSAA, using MSAA.

Do you see the same results ? It looks much worse in YOUR screenshot, so this is the real issue you have. You said you copied the files manually, because the Live Updater for some reason didn't. Are you SURE you copied the correct files ?
« Last Edit: January 16, 2020, 06:50:25 pm by virtuali »

mikealpha

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #27 on: January 16, 2020, 07:23:46 pm »
But that's besides the point. The real question is: do you see the same result as in MY screenshot with the MSAA textures ? The 1st one ? That is taken using our texture set compatible with MSAA, using MSAA.

Do you see the same results ? It looks much worse in YOUR screenshot, so this is the real issue you have. You said you copied the files manually, because the Live Updater for some reason didn't. Are you SURE you copied the correct files ?

No, unfortunately I can't get your result, means I can't get any better than in my first screenshot. I doubled checked I copied the correct textures (with the incorrect textures it looks worse as in the screenshot above). I also double checked I'm using the latest NVidia driver, then reinstalled the P3D client (to get back the original shaders from the P3Droot\ShadersHLSL folder). And started from a fresh prepar3d.cfg. I also checked dxdiag, it said "No problems found".
I don't know what else to do.
Something the GTX980M Laptop GPU is not capable ?

Mike

alpha117

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #28 on: January 18, 2020, 12:23:44 pm »
Mike
Are you using Chaseplane?

BernhardS

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Re: Noisy ground textures at night
« Reply #29 on: January 18, 2020, 12:31:18 pm »
Virtuali, could it be that during the process of updating the noisy textures at night you have forgotten one file? As you can see in the pic, the apron in the background is totally noisy and it shimmers very bad. With SSAA everything is ok but not with MSAA. This is the only place on the apron which shows such behaviour.