Skyline and visibility issue

[Arnaud_S]

Hey All,

I'm a FSUIPC registered user, and have to fight with an issue in fs9.

I have posted a thread at Avsim Forum too, but I'm trying here to because

maybe someone know the solution.

Maybe also it's a known bug of fs9, I dunno, but it's very anoying.

Here are two screenshots, took exactly at the same place, same settings, the first one around noon, the second one one hour before dusk:

On the first one, thanks to FSUIPC visibility settings, the haze on the skyline gives a realistic aspect, but why at night the visiblity settings

go away, and suddenly the unlimited visility appear, and you can

see the moutian in the remote jumping and dancing, which is awfull

and spoil the sim.

If it could give any idea, the unlimited visi starts at 12000 feets.

I do hope someone knows about it, because flying at dusk becomes not

so pleasant.

Here is, sorry for the long post, a copy of my FSUIPC log:

[General]

History=4KKC66KH1BR2HG7AH1UEB

TCASid=Flight

TCASrange=40

TrafficScanPerFrame=10

AxisCalibration=No

CentredDialogue=No

ClearWeatherDynamics=Yes

OwnWeatherChanges=No

WeatherReadInterval=4

MoveBGLvariables=Yes

MainMenu=&Modules

SubMenu=&FSUIPC ...

WindSmoothing=Yes

AutoTaxiWind=No

WhiteMessages=No

ThrottleSyncAll=No

GraduatedVisibility=Yes

LowerVisAltitude=6000

UpperVisAltitude=30000

UpperVisibility=6000

GenerateCirrus=No

WindShearSharp=No

UpperWindGusts=No

ExtendMetarMaxVis=No

PatchSimApAlt=Yes

DisconnTrimForAP=No

AutoClearWeather=Yes

ExtendTopWind=Yes

WindSmoothness=5

SmoothPressure=No

PressureSmoothness=5

SmoothVisibility=Yes

VisibilitySmoothness=2

MaxSurfaceWind=0

WindLimitLevel=200

WindDiscardLevel=400

WindAjustAltitude=No

WindAjustAltitudeBy=2000

MinimumVisibility=8000

MaximumVisibilityFewClouds=6000

MaximumVisibility=2000

MaximumVisibilityOvercast=2000

MaximumVisibilityRainy=1000

OneCloudLayer=No

ThinClouds=No

ThinThunderClouds=No

CloudThinness=1000

ThunderCloudThinness=10000

CloudTurbulence=Yes

CloudIcing=Yes

WindTurbulence=No

SuppressAllGusts=No

ExternalOptionControl=Yes

AutoTuneADF=No

KeepFS98CloudCover=No

ShowPMcontrols=No

MagicBattery=No

RudderSpikeRemoval=No

ElevatorSpikeRemoval=No

AileronSpikeRemoval=No

ReversedElevatorTrim=No

TrapUserInterrupt=Yes

NavFreq50KHz=Yes

ClockSync=No

SmoothIAS=No

SetVisUpperAlt=No

VisUpperAltLimit=6000

MaxIce=3

WindSmoothingDelay=0

WindSmoothAirborneOnly=No

VisSmoothingDelay=0

VisSmoothAirborneOnly=Yes

SuppressCloudTurbulence=No

SuppressWindTurbulence=No

SpoilerIncrement=512

ShortAircraftNameOk=No

FixWindows=No

FixControlAccel=No

[JoystickCalibration]

FlapsSetControl=0

ReverserControl=66292

MaxThrottleForReverser=0

AileronTrimControl=0

RudderTrimControl=0

CowlFlaps1Control=0

CowlFlaps2Control=0

CowlFlaps3Control=0

CowlFlaps4Control=0

SlopeAileron=0

SlopeElevator=0

SlopeRudder=0

Regards,

Arnaud

[Pete Dowson]

Maybe also it's a known bug of fs9, I dunno, but it's very anoying.

Here are two screenshots, took exactly at the same place, same settings, the first one around noon, the second one one hour before dusk:

I've not seen any differences like that. Is this anywhere or just in certain locations? With default scenery? What is your weather source.

If you can reproduce it with default FS scenery (and aircraft), save two Flights, at the two times with the same view, then Zip up the pair of FLT + WX files and send them to me at petedowson@btconnect.com. I will see if they look wrong on my systems, so we can perhaps deduce whether it is a video effect or something else.

you can see the moutian in the remote jumping and dancing

Mot sure what you mean by that. do you mean there is some "mist" but it is somehow flickering, or is it some part of the scenery sometimes re-drawing? The latter is often due to video card or driver problems I think.

Regards,

Pete

[Arnaud_S]

Thanks a lot for replying Pete, I do really appreciate.

Everything used for the screenshot was default: aircraft, weather, scenery,

simply: everything.

It happens, yes, everywhere.

About the mountains, sorry, I meant indeed 'flickering' in the remote.

I'm using an Asus ATI Radeon 9800XT with Asus Drivers.

In fact, I'm quite worried as you write that you dont encounter this kind

of issue in your FS.

I was about to conclude that it was some sort of known FS bug,

but if you dont see this, maybe it means it's only an issue for me.

Could you please do the same test as I did: at noon, FL330 for instance,

and then switch time 30' before dusk.

If the visiblity apsect remain the same for you, then it has to do with me.

Thanks again Pete.

[Pete Dowson]

Everything used for the screenshot was default: aircraft, weather, scenery,

simply: everything.

It happens, yes, everywhere.

But surely it depends on the weatherdifferent surface visibilities, cloud cover, etc? That's why I suggested using your FLT + WX files, to make sure I am looking at the same thing. There are too many variables otherwise.

I just looked at the FSUIPC.INI file paramters you are using. These are the Visibility settings:

GraduatedVisibility=Yes

LowerVisAltitude=6000

UpperVisAltitude=30000

UpperVisibility=6000

SmoothVisibility=Yes

VisibilitySmoothness=2

MinimumVisibility=8000

MaximumVisibilityFewClouds=6000

MaximumVisibility=2000

MaximumVisibilityOvercast=2000

MaximumVisibilityRainy=1000

You have something wrong there, which will probably make things not work right in any case. Your "Minimum Visibility" is set to 80 miles (8000), which is actually more than all your upper limits!!! Why tell FSUIPC to never let your visibility get below 80 miles? Strange. The default is 0, allowing thick fog when the weather says there should be.

Without checking the code in FSUIPC, I'm not sure what this odd setting will do in practice, but it is certainly quite likely to ruin any attempts by FSUIPC to give you what you want!

I'd also recommend setting the lower graduation altitude to 0 (in the Visibility Options) so that there's no gap between FS's visibility layer and the start of graduation. This is mentioned in the documentation.

Could you please do the same test as I did: at noon, FL330 for instance, and then switch time 30' before dusk. If the visiblity apsect remain the same for you, then it has to do with me.

33,000 feet is above the graduated visibility range in any case. Did you really mean that?

From 20,000 feet, using an nVidia card, I get no flickering horizon, and in fact I only get a sharp horizon if the visibility value allows that. (There aren't any mountains in the UK which give a markedly bumpy horizon from high altitude in any case -- this is partly why I think the specifdic scenery is important if you want to compare things).

As visibility is reduced, the horizon "fuzzes" -- the surface is still dark compared to the sky, of course. It looks quite good.

I do have a Radeon 9800 in another PC, but it isn't switched on at present, it's in another room. I can try it later, but first please sort out your FSUIPC visibility options and see what you get.

I still maintain that using the same FLT+WX files is still the only proper way to compare things.

Regards,

Pete

[Arnaud_S]

Right,

Thank you Pete, I have sent you the zipped files this morning.

As for the wrong 80000 miles, that is of course one of the silly setting I had tried after I found out about the issue.

The defaut '0' value gave the same result.

I have corrected it and joined the fsuipc.ini file too.

Regards,

[Pete Dowson]

Thank you Pete, I have sent you the zipped files this morning.

The Flights you sent were almost identical, one being 4,000 feet higher than the other, but both at the same time of day (within 10 seconds).

So I advanced one on to dusk/sunset.

I notice you have 20 miles visibility set all the way from ground to nearly 50,000 feet. Rather unrealistic of course, which is perhaps why I've never noticed your 'problem'. Also, of course, this stopped FSUIPC from having any affect whatsoever. FSUIPC isn't a factor here.

I've tried it on three different cards:

nVidia Geforce 4 Ti 4400

Matrox Parhelia 256Mb

ATI 9800 XT

with slightly different results on each. Maybe some of my anti-aliassing settings or anisotropic whatnots are also different on each. I've really not time to experiment nor do I want to mess my normal settings up, as I quite like them! :wink:

I get no flickering on the horizon on any of them. I really don't know why you are getting that.

All three do give a sharpening of the horizon line as the contrast between a lightish sky and darkening ground increases.

This is most noticeable on the ATI card, where is seems to occur all the way around the horizon, though more noticeable towards the brighter part of the sky (with the setting sun, especially). I also get some odd artefacts in the sky on the ATI -- these look like different shading areas not smoothed out correctly, so maybe I will try changing its settings a bit.

On the Parhelia the effect was less, though again more so towards the brighter part of the sky. It certainly seems to be the increasing contrast between ground and sky which I assume is defeating the card's "fogging" effect.

The nVidia was certainly the "best" (depending on what you like to see). On that a fuzzy area remained along the horizon line all the way around, just excepting where the sun was setting which breaks though quite nicely.

Overall, I would find any of the results acceptable, especially at that sort of altitude. You evidently don't like the effect, and maybe you can lessen it by increasing whatever smoothing facilities the card possesses, because I think that is the only answer.

I would guess that the difference here between FS2002 and FS2004 is because of the way the misting/fogging is now handled in DirectX and the video cards --- the more contrast it seems the less effective the fogging.

I've not really noticed this before because (a) I don't normally like settings which try to give such reduced visibility at high altitudes and (b) I would have probably regarded the effect as quite attractive and not noticed it was "bending" the visibility constraints at all.

Regards,

Pete

[Arnaud_S]

Thank you for taking the time to look at my problem Pete.

As i said before, I dont think either it's a problem linked with FSUIPC.

What I was asking was: could FSUIPC fix that, and also which settings

would be best to correct the one I have set wrongly.

Anyway,

I will stick with the one I have now: all default with v 3.40,

except the 'add cirrus layer occasionnaly'.

I will look further with the ATI drivers, maybe get some newer,

sometime it helps too.

Regards,