Switzerland mesh and World Update

[Fielder]

I purchased FSDreamteam Switzerland mesh in the MSFS marketplace quite a while ago.
It worked well for a period of time.
But now I cannot fly anywhere in Switzerland due to extremely heavy stutters.
I have never seen stutters anywhere near this bad, they are extreme.
No place other than Switzerland has any stutters at all.
I removed this mesh and now there are no stutters in Switzerland, none!
It's night and day.

I would say for MSFS, the Switzerland mesh sold in the MSFS marketplace right now is broken, and unusable. At least for me.

[virtuali]

I also had very heavy stuttering making the sim unusable over Zurich and had to remove the Switzerland mesh. Yesterday my test flight in Zurich was perfect. My version was not bought from the marketplace.

We you using the 10 m or the 20 meters version ?

[HB2020]

Umberto, did you report it to Microsoft? For me even the 20m doesnt make much of difference.

[virtuali]

Umberto, did you report it to Microsoft? For me even the 20m doesnt make much of difference.

Of course we have but, we haven't heard back from them. Since the problem has affect basically all 3rd party meshes and it's by no means specific to FSDT, I'm sure somebody will eventually look at it.

[HB2020]

Great, many thanks!

[Fielder]

I can report a complete solving of my stutters in Switzerland mesh. 100% of the time since WU7 I had really bad stutters in all flights from LSPU (Munster) to LSZS (Samedan). 0% of the time this happened with Swiss mesh uninstalled.

Due to the sounds during the stuttering, I investigated changing the Sounds in MSFS Options General Options, Sounds, Main Device and Communications Device. As we know this option was changed in WU7 and quick cures were discussed day one on the offiicial MSFS forum to reset these two Device options.

However, a simple reset did not cure stuttering in the mountains using mesh. Although it did help with sounds in general.

I no longer have the problem. I boot up a flight using FLY from MSFS main page. Change from my normal sounds settings to Default in both Main and Communications selection window. Then back to my normal sounds option (in my case Realtec), then back to Default again. This may seem like a lot of switching but it takes just a few seconds.

After I do that there are 0 stutters flying over any mountains way down low anywhere in Switzerland on my lowly system using payware Swiss mountain airports (this is an extreme test). There just won't be anymore stutters at all unless I close MSFS and reboot MSFS back up. Then I have to do it all over again.

So it's 15 seconds of this routine, for hours of stutter free flying.

I have repeated this test quite a few times. It always stutters if I don't change options. It never stutters when I do the above.

[virtuali]

I no longer have the problem. I boot up a flight using FLY from MSFS main page. Change from my normal sounds settings to Default in both Main and Communications selection window. Then back to my normal sounds option (in my case Realtec), then back to Default again. This may seem like a lot of switching but it takes just a few seconds.

Thanks for the report, this is very interesting. It confirms the scenery as such doesn't have any problems, so it looks like something weird happens in the interaction between the sim and the Windows audio drivers.

[Andreasmb]

@Fielder

do I understand correct?:
so you avoid the stutters of the Mesh by accepting that the sound after yr to and fro switching in the settings is at default when flying the Mountains, which is loudspeakers only, and you give up the communication via headset for the ATC?

That is not a good solution I'd say.

Tks for clarification from yr side order to fully understand form my side.

[HB2020]

Interesting approach - unfortunately didn't do the trick for me, still have the same amount of stutters unfortunately. Did this workaround work for others?

[gates99]

Yep having the same problem when Switzerland mesh is installed sound breaks and severe stuttering occurs over a wide area in Europe.

[virtuali]

Yep having the same problem when Switzerland mesh is installed sound breaks and severe stuttering occurs over a wide area in Europe.

As reported by the other user, who said acting on the sound fixed the problem for him, it's seems to be the opposite: it's the sound that is affecting the scenery, not the scenery affecting the sound.

This clearly started with SU8, there wasn't the slightest problem before, and nothing in the SDK has changed in the way these meshes are done. And, it's not affecting just our mesh, but each and every mesh made with terraforming rectangles which, incidentally, it's the ONLY officially supported way to create mesh sceneries.

The other way (.CGL terrain), which is made entirely with undocumented information and reverse engineering, can possibly be used in other areas, but it's really not suitable for Switzerland, because:

- the MINIMUM coverage is 600x600 km, that is double the size of the whole country, so we would go deep into neighboring countries, conflicting with multiple default and add-on mesh products that already exists for those countries, and the way the .CGL method works, only ONE tile ( 600 km wide minimum ) can exists in a given place, so that's not feasible.

- the maximum resolution is 20m. this won't be a problem per-se but, there's the additional problem that, if an equal nominal resolution mesh is available in Bing ( regardless of its quality, that's why I said "nominal" ), you won't be able to see the local mesh UNLESS you turn off Online data, losing satellite images and photogrammetry.

So, the only case in which a .CGL mesh might be useful, is in case of larger countries, not surrounded by other countries, namely large islands, for which no better mesh is available on Bing maps, that's why OrbX used this method for New Zealand, but it really cannot be applied to Switzerland, or any other country in Europe, since they are way smaller and bordering to each other.

The only possible ways to solve this problem would be:

- Asobo finding the bug with Terraforming Rectangles which was introduced with SU8, which is causing many issues to each and every 3rd party mesh using this method which, again, is the only officially documented in the SDK, even if it wasn't strictly designed for large areas, is STILL the ONLY officially documented method in the SDK to do a mesh.

- Asobo documenting the .CGL methods and/or offering some official tools in a future SDK, perhaps removing some of its current limitations which makes this method unfeasible for smaller countries bordering many others.

One way of the other, if a better way comes with a future SDK, we'll sure update the scenery to support it.

[Fielder]

The problem with Swiss mesh is nowhere near as bad as it used to be as I reported above.
But now I have completely eliminated all stutters (flying with Swiss mesh from LSPU Munster to the gigantic Lake Geneva (near Geneva LSGG), this is a 40 minute flight: not one single stutter. With DEV mode FPS monitor on, there was not one black line appearing in the mainthread color bar the whole flight. Smooth as glass. Before doing the step below there were problems on that f flight.

This may not work for everyone (it may turn their sound off), but it works for me.
Fly along in Swiss mesh regions, if a stutter happens that also includes a sound oddity, then Task Manager, Background Process, Windows Audio Device Graph Isolation: right mouse click End Task. Now the problem instantly disappears completely on my flight. Until I reboot the computer which brings back that process. So, I just end that task again in task manager.