Question for the dev team about the textures

[jcupido]

FSDT developers,
      When a man writes code for an app, it is the ultimate way to obtain expertise and so I appeal to you.  I do not know exactly how to describe what I am experiencing in FS9 but I will try.  The scenery sees to twinkle when the aircraft (or user) is in motion around that scenery.  It happens at the airports (especially the custom ones) and at altititude.  It reminds me of the FS5 days when the lights and scenery always shimmered or twinkled (even the lights at night).  Well this is happening on FS9 and I have a very high end system that runs FS9 with all the levers to the right.  The mipmap seems to have the biggest effect but there is no happy medium and when I go past 5 the scenery is more defined but shimmering and grainy textures appear.  Taxiways lines and grass all twinkle like stars.  Then is I pull it back to 4 and under the shimmering reduces (not entirely) but the scenery becomes dull and smudges (no clear roadways or details).  Almost like someone drew the scenery with a pencil and then took their findger and smudged it.  What is the cause of this and how can I fix it?  I have tried all settings on my video card and then just reprogrammed the card to allow the app control the mipmap.  The oddest part of this is that there is a square directly under my aircraft (a few square miles in area) where the shimmering is almost non-existstant and the scenery is clear.  Can you give me a push to resolution?  THx

[Bruce Hamilton]

If this is specific to FSDT airports, you can always try one of the texture resizers available on the forum. If that doesn't work, just run the installer again to revert back.

[jcupido]

No it's not specific to the airports.  It happens everywhere.  The FSDT is very knowledgeable and I am reaching out to them because I have tried everything.

[virtuali]

I think your problem is probably due to shimmering because of badly filtered Mip Maps because you can't find a good compromise between the 4 and 5 positions on the slider.

Try to act on the video card control panel, to force Anisotropic filtering to 16x, don't leave it to the app, and see if it improves.

[jcupido]

I have tried this but was not able to test yet.  Wil do so tonight and let you now.  Thank you for the tip!

[Captainangus]

Jcupido wrote:  "I have tried this but was not able to test yet.  Wil do so tonight and let you now. "

So?  I was interested to read your question because I have the same issue .... any luck??

[jcupido]

Jcupido wrote:  "I have tried this but was not able to test yet.  Wil do so tonight and let you now. "

So?  I was interested to read your question because I have the same issue .... any luck??

I actually just tested for the first time last night.  Marriage and flightsim are a bad combo!  Anyway, the shimmering improved with general scenery (outside the airport).  I set my mipmap to 4 and then set Anisotropic filtering to 16x.  Of course setting mipmap to 4 causes the square effect where everything beyond a few square miles of my aircraft is blurred but no shimmering.
The airports however are not much improved.  I get bad shimmering with airport fences, taxiway lines and most other straight lines on the ground.  The lower in elevation my POV is, the worse the shimmering.  If I raise the elevation (from outside view) then the shimmering improves but this is unrealistic since taxing/takeoff/landing is done at the cockpit level where shimmering remains an issue.  I can't get the airports to stop shimmering.  I also notice that the shimmering is lower in FlyTampa airports then FSDT airports but I can't explain that enough to verify.  Could be because FSDT airports have more objects.

[Captainangus]

In the meantime I tried virtuali's suggestions myself ..... my Anisotropic filtering was already set to 16x, however my Mip Maps were set to 8.  At night (when all the buildings were lit up) the overall shimmering affect of the city surrounding an airport had been so distracting that I rarely flew after-hours because of it.

When I reset the Mip Maps to 4 the shimmering affect is all but gone now at night ..... which works for me, thanks alot!