Mike Dora 171 Posted August 16, 2009 Thanks to continued mods like PanamaRed's recent Realistic Sky package, FE just keeps getting better and better. However I am experiencing one minor frustration which does impact on the old immersion factor. When flying at medium altitudes in less-than-perfect weather, the ground-haze horizon effect as seen from the cockpit has a hard, often jagged edge. The edge looks sort of consistent with the terrain tiling. Oddly enough, this effect doesn't seem to appear in the external view - here the haze seems natural and continuous. Is there some setting I can play with to correct this anomaly? Thanks Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Panama Red 22 Posted August 16, 2009 Some details please: 1. Which weather (broken, overcast, inclement) ??? 2. What terrain (Cambrai, Flanders, Verdun or Vogesen) ??? 3. Graphics settings (from your FE Graphic set up page) ??? 4. Video card brand and settings ??? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Dora 171 Posted August 16, 2009 Some details please: 1. Which weather (broken, overcast, inclement) ??? 2. What terrain (Cambrai, Flanders, Verdun or Vogesen) ??? 3. Graphics settings (from your FE Graphic set up page) ??? 4. Video card brand and settings ??? Okeydokey PR: 1. Broken wx 2. Flanders 3. [GraphicsOptions] DisplayDeviceID=0 DisplayWidth=1024 DisplayHeight=768 DisplayDepth=32 AspectRatio=1.333333 LensFlare=2 DetailLevel=4 ObjectDetail=2 ObjectTexture=3 CockpitTexture=3 CockpitMirrors=1 CockpitReflection=1 EffectsDetail=2 TerrainDetail=1 TerrainTexture=2 HorizonDistance=3 GroundObjectDensity=2 WaterDetail=2 CloudsDetail=0 Shadow=3 AntiAliasing=0 4. Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT (but not sure what you mean by settings, which ones, there are lots but I am just using the installed defaults) I'd also post a screen capture if I could, but don't know how. Thanks Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Panama Red 22 Posted August 16, 2009 If you could state what the game graphics options are (low, normal, high, unlimited), versus numbers it would help to see if I can reproduce it. I will tell you right now that the Flanders and Vegesen terrains will sometimes show a more blocky distance (both from cockpit and exterior) than Cambrai or Verdun because they have more elevations than either Cambrai or Verdun and as the upper elevations come into the viewing distance, they start off blocky and then gradually become smoother. This is one of the down sides of slightly increasing the viewing distance in the Environmentalsystems.ini file. The normal sky distance is 27500, but I slightly increased it to 30000 so you can see further. I my game graphic options are set at Unlimted/High for everything (except for shadows on low since shadows are real FPS killer) and resolution set at 1920x1200. Your video card graphic setting also contribute to blockness too if you do not have AA or AF activated. I have ATI 3870's and I use AA 4x and AF 8x which eliminates the jags, sharpens the horizon without killing the FPS too. A good way to check if it is my mod that is causing your problem or your settings (game graphics or video card setting), is to remove my mod and fly over the same terrains with the same weather and see if you have the same problem. Let me know what happens. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+quack74 329 Posted August 17, 2009 I think I get the same jagged ground shadow or haze. My weather was set to "scattered". I use Polaks skymod V1.0 but use the stock "Environment Settings" file. I did change the sun light factor a bit in the Environment Settings file because the terrain was way too dark. But by doing this I messed up the smoke effects colors. Thats why I was and still am getting the blue smoke. Also it made the crashed aircraft smoke effect by Laton turn grey. Fixing one thing, messes up another . Oh well Anyway check the pic below. I dont know what causes this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Dora 171 Posted August 19, 2009 Thanks for your response, PanamaRed, And let me say right away that your sky mod has _not_ been the cause of this problem, it was a pre-existing condition. If anything, your mod seems to have actually reduced the problem, but it's still there. I realised that I owed you data on my video card settings, here they are: Anisotropic filtering: Application-controlled Antialiasing - Gamma correction: On Antialiasing - Mode: Application-controlled Antialiasing - Setting: Application-controlled Antialiasing - Transparency: Off Comfornant texture clamp: Use hardware Error reporting: Off Extension limit: Off Force mipmaps: None Maximum pre-rendered frames: 3 Multi-display/mixed GPU acceleration: Multiple display performance mode SLI performance mode: NVIDIA recommended Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample opti..: Off Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Allow Texture filtering - Quality: Quality Texture filtering - Trilinear optimisation: On Threaded optimisation: Auto Triple buffering: Off Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting I also owe you descriptions of the games graphics settings. These are: Object Detail=High Object Texture=Unlimited Cockpit Texture=Unlimited Effects Detail=High Shadows=High Terrain Detail=Medium Terrain Texture=High HorizonDistance=Very Far Ground Objects=High WaterDetail=High The problem I am getting is similar to Quack74's screen capture (how do I do _that_?), except that the more distant tiles are light and "hazy", not dark as in his picture. Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Panama Red 22 Posted August 19, 2009 I have ATI cards versus nVida, but there are some things that are basic to all modern video cards. 1. None of TW's games set your AntiAliasing, so you need to turn it on to at least 4x to stop the edge" jags" on the angled edges. 2. None of TW's games set your Anisotropic, so you need to turn that on to about 8x to see things in the distance clearly. 3. If you are using a LDC monitor versus a CRT monitor, you need to turn on Vsync because the LCD monitor is only going to run at about 60 FPS, so turning off Vsync does not help you on FPS on a LCD monitor. Your game settings are close to mine except for shadows (my shadows are on low since this is the Biggest FPS killer, but everything else is maxed out in my game). Your distance tiles are suppose to get lighter and lighter as it blends into the fog (to hide the edge of the world). You can get a "screen capture" by pressing the "Print Scrn/SysRq" button (just above your "Insert" button on your keyboard) in the game and this should put the shot into the game folder called (I'm at work, so I do not have the file structure in front of me) IIRC "pictures". Check there after you have taken some shots and you will see what I mean. After you tinker with all of this, you may have to do one other thing, and that is either (1) replace your "WWI.exe" with another one (I keep my original game "virgin" so if anything happens, I can take the original files there to replace anything I messed up) or (2) reinstall the game. The reason that I say this is occasionally things happen in the game that can mess up the game ".exe" (I know because it has happened to me, especially when you restart the game 20-30 times a night from Desktop testing mods). When that happens, the only thing you can do is either replace the file (WWI.exe in this case) or reinstall the game from scratch to fix any wierd behavior. Good luck and let me know what happens. Panama Red Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Dora 171 Posted August 21, 2009 I have ATI cards versus nVida, but there are some things that are basic to all modern video cards. 1. None of TW's games set your AntiAliasing, so you need to turn it on to at least 4x to stop the edge" jags" on the angled edges. 2. None of TW's games set your Anisotropic, so you need to turn that on to about 8x to see things in the distance clearly. 3. If you are using a LDC monitor versus a CRT monitor, you need to turn on Vsync because the LCD monitor is only going to run at about 60 FPS, so turning off Vsync does not help you on FPS on a LCD monitor. Your game settings are close to mine except for shadows (my shadows are on low since this is the Biggest FPS killer, but everything else is maxed out in my game). Your distance tiles are suppose to get lighter and lighter as it blends into the fog (to hide the edge of the world). You can get a "screen capture" by pressing the "Print Scrn/SysRq" button (just above your "Insert" button on your keyboard) in the game and this should put the shot into the game folder called (I'm at work, so I do not have the file structure in front of me) IIRC "pictures". Check there after you have taken some shots and you will see what I mean. After you tinker with all of this, you may have to do one other thing, and that is either (1) replace your "WWI.exe" with another one (I keep my original game "virgin" so if anything happens, I can take the original files there to replace anything I messed up) or (2) reinstall the game. The reason that I say this is occasionally things happen in the game that can mess up the game ".exe" (I know because it has happened to me, especially when you restart the game 20-30 times a night from Desktop testing mods). When that happens, the only thing you can do is either replace the file (WWI.exe in this case) or reinstall the game from scratch to fix any wierd behavior. Good luck and let me know what happens. Panama Red Well I've been trying, with Antialiasing at 4x and 8x, and Anisotropic at 8x and 16x, but no joy, please see attachments (at least I've hacked the screen capture thing). Thought - should I change the Antialiasing line in the FE Options file from "=0", and if so, to what? Ta Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Dora 171 Posted August 27, 2009 Still experimenting with ways of getting rid of the hard-edged haze, now looking at the flightengine.cfg file. What do the following settings do? I'm wondering if adjusting one or both of them may move the hard edge out to or beyond the limit of vision? [FarSceneClip] FarClipDistance=15000.0 NearClipDistance=149.9 [unlimitedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7000.0 DetailMeshSize=6 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=1 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=256 Thanks Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Panama Red 22 Posted August 27, 2009 This is what Stary said in his Green Hell 2 mod, but I could never get this to work for me, but you are welcomed to try.: IMPORTANT, TRICKS! There can be some performance hit, it's normal given the number of terrain objects this mod adds to the map.The best would be to set the horizont distance to medium. Also turning off the shadows and canopy mirrors & reflections helps in gaining additional frames. Now the IMPORTANT part: The distance at which trees render is set by variable DetailMeshSize= where defaluts are 4 for low, 5 for medium and 6 for high, values are in KM? If you have strong system you may wish to increace the DetailMeshSize= to higher number. Values like 10, 12 or 14 seems to work ok on med-high systems, but you'll have to increase NearClipDistance=3000.0 under [NormalSceneClip] to avoid scene clipping issues (values like 35000, 40000 works ok). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+sinbad 27 Posted August 27, 2009 (edited) This appears to be something I'd like to dabble with --now for those of us who sometimes forget where the keyboard is, just where are these settings found? Edited August 27, 2009 by sinbad Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+quack74 329 Posted August 28, 2009 (edited) Well I've messed a little with the "Environmentsystem Configuration Settings" file in the flight folder a bit. The overall environment seems to be way to dark for me. On a clear day it should be very bright. So I've changed the settings a bit. [Day] SunHeight=0.240 SunBrightness=1.20 <------- increased value here SunLightLevel=1.60<--------- and here SunRadiance=0.0 TwilightLensFlare=0.0 SunColor=0.595,0.600,0.578 AmbientColor=0.300,0.300,0.335 SkyColor=0.376,0.564,0.815 HorizonColor=0.811,0.815,0.937 FogColor=0.564,0.627,0.805 SunSpecularColor=0.81,0.762,0.740 It brightened the environment up a bit. But, the higher you make the values the more that jagged horizon haze appears on the terrain and the smoke effect color starts to change to a green-blue. I want to increase the values even more but I dont know how to change the smoke colors (all smoke effects get changed) and how to get rid of that jagged haze close to the horizon on the terrain. Typical, you try to fix one thing then it messes up something else. It's great fishing around here with all these cans of worms Edited August 28, 2009 by quack74 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Dora 171 Posted August 28, 2009 This is what Stary said in his Green Hell 2 mod, but I could never get this to work for me, but you are welcomed to try.: IMPORTANT, TRICKS! There can be some performance hit, it's normal given the number of terrain objects this mod adds to the map.The best would be to set the horizont distance to medium. Also turning off the shadows and canopy mirrors & reflections helps in gaining additional frames. Now the IMPORTANT part: The distance at which trees render is set by variable DetailMeshSize= where defaluts are 4 for low, 5 for medium and 6 for high, values are in KM? If you have strong system you may wish to increace the DetailMeshSize= to higher number. Values like 10, 12 or 14 seems to work ok on med-high systems, but you'll have to increase NearClipDistance=3000.0 under [NormalSceneClip] to avoid scene clipping issues (values like 35000, 40000 works ok). Tried posting this before, but I don't think it registered. I have a couple more questions about this clipping thing, what is it and how does it work? What is the relationship between [FarSceneClip], [NormalSceneClip] and [NearSceneClip], and how do these relate to the [***DetailOption] sections? BTW, for PanamaRed, I'm afraid your last line above confused me a wee bit. If you set NearClipDistance>3000.0, what do you do with FarClipDistance? Lastly, when you say values like 35000 or 40000, do you mean 3500.0 or 4000.0? Sorry for so many questions, but this excellent sim is so laden with options, it takes ages to comprehend them all. What I'm trying to do now, is optimise the horizon fade so that I can make best use of PanamaRed's new sky and Stary's new terrains.. these make it like a whole new sim! Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Panama Red 22 Posted August 28, 2009 (edited) Mike: Your best option is to ask Stary since he was the one posting this "fix" in his WoV Green Hell 2 mod. Like I said, I could not get it to work when I tried it awhile back(may have been because I had a older PC at that time too). Send him a PM and I know he should answer your questions. I will tell you that if I use the F1 cockpit view, the "off center" view has a bit of the "hard edge" to it. If I center the monitor view where the "hard edge" was, it immediately disappears. If this is the case, it could just be part of the game engine and we may not be able to completely fix the problem. The only thing is that you appear to have it far worse than I have it, because I had to really look to see the problem on my game. Edited August 28, 2009 by Panama Red Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Stary 2,427 Posted August 30, 2009 I'm affraid it not related to the detailmeshsize= setting Mike Dora, could you post here your flight engine settings? Also it may be related with the settings in terrain data.ini (example: wwiCambrai_data.ini) : it's on top of the file: [TerrainMesh] TextureThreshold=0.90 LowDetailMeshThreshold=0.80 MedDetailMeshThreshold=0.70 TileToHeightGridRatio=4 RenderMeshVertexCount=4096 RenderMeshIndexCount=6144 SolidObjectVertexCount=12288 SolidObjectIndexCount=18432 AlphaObjectVertexCount=16384 //8192 AlphaObjectIndexCount=16384 //12288 these in red limits the maximum displayed mesh size, try doubling these numbers; when you have these low, together with low numbers in flightengine.ini, engine will render the mesh such way (it's if my memory serves me well) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Dora 171 Posted August 31, 2009 I'm affraid it not related to the detailmeshsize= setting Mike Dora, could you post here your flight engine settings? Also it may be related with the settings in terrain data.ini (example: wwiCambrai_data.ini) : it's on top of the file: [TerrainMesh] TextureThreshold=0.90 LowDetailMeshThreshold=0.80 MedDetailMeshThreshold=0.70 TileToHeightGridRatio=4 RenderMeshVertexCount=4096 RenderMeshIndexCount=6144 SolidObjectVertexCount=12288 SolidObjectIndexCount=18432 AlphaObjectVertexCount=16384 //8192 AlphaObjectIndexCount=16384 //12288 these in red limits the maximum displayed mesh size, try doubling these numbers; when you have these low, together with low numbers in flightengine.ini, engine will render the mesh such way (it's if my memory serves me well) You're a good man, Stary. Here are my FlightEngine settings, I'm running the UnlimitedDetailOption. I'll try that rendermesh doubling trick tonight: [Debug] SkipFlight=FALSE [FlightEngine] HUDDLL=HUD.dll HUDDataFilename=HUDData.ini CommDLL=wwiComm.dll CommDataFilename=CommData.ini ObjectList=ObjectList.ini SoundList=SoundList.ini ViewList=ViewList.ini ParticleSystem=ParticleSystem.ini EnvironmentSystem=EnvironmentSystem.ini MessageSystem=MessageSystem.ini SpeechSystem=SpeechSystem.ini ForceFeedback=FlightEffect.ifr ForceFeedbackControl=PITCH_CONTROL DeltaT=0.016667 MaxDeltaT=0.200 RefreshTime=0.016667 ChangeTimeAmount=15 MaxTimeCompression=8.0 StartTimeCompression=1 StartPaused=FALSE ShowCockpit=TRUE TextFilename=FlightText.str EjectView=EjectView [LoadingScreen] BackgroundImage=LoadingScreen1.bmp BackgroundImageSize=1024,768 TextFontName=Arial TextSize=12 TextFontColor=250,250,250 TextFile=LoadingText.str LoadingTextStringID=TXT_FLT_LOADING PercentTextStringID=TXT_FLT_LOADING_PERCENT ProgressBarRange=100 ProgressBarRect=204,733,820,753 StreamAudio=loading.wav FadeTime=0.2 [GraphicsSettings] ZBufferDepth=24 MaxVertexCount=16384 MaxIndexCount=32768 MaxTextureCount=8192 MaxModelType=2048 MaxMeshPerScene=4096 MaxModelPerScene=4096 MaxLightPerScene=256 AspectRatio=1.333333 MinPixelSize=1.0 [FarSceneClip] FarClipDistance=36000.0 NearClipDistance=1000.0 [NormalSceneClip] FarClipDistance=15000.0 NearClipDistance=149.9 [NearSceneClip] FarClipDistance=150.0 NearClipDistance=0.4 [LowDetailOption] HorizonDistance=6000.0 DetailMeshSize=4 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=0 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=128 [MedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7000.0 DetailMeshSize=6 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=1 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=256 [HighDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7500.0 DetailMeshSize=8 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=2 NoiseTexture=1 MaxTextureRes=-1 [unlimitedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=16000.0 DetailMeshSize=10 //DetailMeshSize=16 DetailLevel=1 WaterEffect=2 NoiseTexture=1 MaxTextureRes=-1 [soundSettings] SampleFrequency=11025 BitsPerSample=16 DopplerFactor=1.0 [WorldSettings] SectorWidth=20 SectorHeight=20 SectorMaxObject=256 Border=25000.0 MinHeight=0.5 MaxHeight=25000.0 [MapSettings] MapMaxSize=200000 MapMinSize=5000 MapInitSize=10000 MapScaleRate=5.0 ZoomControl=CAMERA_ZOOM_CONTROL [screenShot] FilenameFormat=img%05d.bmp MaxScreenShot=99999 SoundEffect=shutter.wav [TextStrings] GamePaused=TXT_FLT_GAME_PAUSED GameUnpaused=TXT_FLT_GAME_UNPAUSED TimeCompress=TXT_FLT_TIME_COMPRESS NormalTime=TXT_FLT_NORMAL_TIME TimeSet=TXT_FLT_TIME_SET StartFlight=TXT_FLT_START_FLIGHT WaitJoin=TXT_FLT_WAIT_JOIN [skipToNext] Timer=3.0 FadeTimer=1.0 SkipToNextView=FlybyView AutoPilotCommand=AUTO_PILOT [startView] StartView000=ShoulderView StartView001=CockpitFront [inFlightChat] TargetText=ChatTarget.str RepeatDelay=0.5 RepeatRate=0.1 CursorFlashTime=0.4 CursorString= Thanks again. Mike Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Stary 2,427 Posted September 1, 2009 The settings we're after are: [GraphicsSettings] ZBufferDepth=24 MaxVertexCount=16384 MaxIndexCount=32768 MaxTextureCount=8192 MaxModelType=2048 MaxMeshPerScene=4096 MaxModelPerScene=4096 MaxLightPerScene=256 AspectRatio=1.333333 MinPixelSize=1.0 [FarSceneClip] FarClipDistance=36000.0 NearClipDistance=1000.0 [NormalSceneClip] FarClipDistance=15000.0 NearClipDistance=149.9 [NearSceneClip] FarClipDistance=150.0 NearClipDistance=0.4 [LowDetailOption] HorizonDistance=6000.0 DetailMeshSize=4 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=0 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=128 [MedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7000.0 DetailMeshSize=6 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=1 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=256 [HighDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7500.0 DetailMeshSize=8 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=2 NoiseTexture=1 MaxTextureRes=-1 [unlimitedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=16000.0 DetailMeshSize=10 //DetailMeshSize=16 DetailLevel=1 WaterEffect=2 NoiseTexture=1 MaxTextureRes=-1 seems most is at their default values... hm... try lowering the FarClipDistance=20000.0 not 36000.0, this may be it I have this set at 25000 (this is, 25 kilometers) and seems ok for me Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
don246 65 Posted September 1, 2009 The settings we're after are: [GraphicsSettings] ZBufferDepth=24 MaxVertexCount=16384 MaxIndexCount=32768 MaxTextureCount=8192 MaxModelType=2048 MaxMeshPerScene=4096 MaxModelPerScene=4096 MaxLightPerScene=256 AspectRatio=1.333333 MinPixelSize=1.0 [FarSceneClip] FarClipDistance=36000.0 NearClipDistance=1000.0 [NormalSceneClip] FarClipDistance=15000.0 NearClipDistance=149.9 [NearSceneClip] FarClipDistance=150.0 NearClipDistance=0.4 [LowDetailOption] HorizonDistance=6000.0 DetailMeshSize=4 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=0 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=128 [MedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7000.0 DetailMeshSize=6 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=1 NoiseTexture=0 MaxTextureRes=256 [HighDetailOption] HorizonDistance=7500.0 DetailMeshSize=8 DetailLevel=0 WaterEffect=2 NoiseTexture=1 MaxTextureRes=-1 [unlimitedDetailOption] HorizonDistance=16000.0 DetailMeshSize=10 //DetailMeshSize=16 DetailLevel=1 WaterEffect=2 NoiseTexture=1 MaxTextureRes=-1 seems most is at their default values... hm... try lowering the FarClipDistance=20000.0 not 36000.0, this may be it I have this set at 25000 (this is, 25 kilometers) and seems ok for me Hi Stary could you tell me where I find these settings. I have extracted my ENVIRONMENTSYSTEM ini in the flight folder but it is not the same as you have here. Thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Stary 2,427 Posted September 1, 2009 It's flightengine.ini Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
