FSDreamTeam forum
Products Support => GSX Support MSFS => Topic started by: kwensi on August 22, 2022, 09:03:16 pm
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Is it me or that is how everyone is experiencing the loading carts showing no luggage when they arrive for loading. I feel this is not simulated well. You see the loading guy picking bags from and empty cart. :)
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It's LOD optimization. Displaying up to 66 bags ( 11 per cart, 3 carts per train, 2 wagons visible at the same time ) attached in motion without affecting fps is not trivial, so they only show when you get a bit closer.
You can change this with the Objects LOD Slider.
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I've asked the same thing before. Where you also told me it's a LOD thing.
In my case, I'm doing all my flying in VR. When you go into external view in VR, you end up at a predetermined zoom level. From this distance from your aircraft, the loading carts are always empty. Which takes away most of the fun with the loading carts as I'm sure you can imagine.
You mention how you took this decision to avoid affecting the FPS but how big of an FPS hit would it actually be to allow users to see the bags a bit further out? I really like to think the FPS hit can't be that big compared to many other things in the simulator both when it comes to aircraft and scenery.
If you're not willing to increase the default distance bags can be seen, is there any way you could at least add a slider where users can choose themselves from what distance the bags can be seen? That way, the users can pick between seeing bags and possibly a few FPS less or the other way around.
The way it is right now where I will never be able to see the bags on the carts in VR, that makes the whole baggage loading procedure quite useless IMO. I'd rather not see the carts at all vs seeing guys loading bags from empty carts which looks nothing but crazy.
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In my case, I'm doing all my flying in VR. When you go into external view in VR, you end up at a predetermined zoom level. From this distance from your aircraft, the loading carts are always empty. Which takes away most of the fun with the loading carts as I'm sure you can imagine.
LOD in VR change quite a bit, we don't know if it's a bug or it's intentional but, an object properly optimized for normal usage (according to the sim own LOD diagnostic tool) will result in in shorter LODs in VR so, ideally, we would require two completely different set of objects but, even that won't help that much, because you can exit in/out of VR at any time, and LODs can't change dynamically.
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Ah, I see and I'm sorry to hear that. Since that means we won't be able to see a solution for this any time soon.
Have you already reached out to Asobo about this? Asking them if it's a bug or if it's supposed to be like what you describe.
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You can change the VR object lod setting in the user.cfg file. I have it set to 600.. in the sim its max 200. No noticable fps loss.
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You can change the VR object lod setting in the user.cfg file. I have it set to 600.. in the sim its max 200. No noticable fps loss.
Wow, that's very useful! Will definitely give it a try. Not fully sure though what parameter it is I want to modify, is it this one marked below?
(https://i.imgur.com/YiDBdpx.jpg)
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Yes put in value of 6.000000 or 7.000000
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Just tried this and was happy to see using 3 was good enough too see all the bags in VR.
Absolutely brilliant, many thanks again for this great tip!!
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You can change the VR object lod setting in the user.cfg file. I have it set to 600.. in the sim its max 200. No noticable fps loss.
Very good suggestion.
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You can change the VR object lod setting in the user.cfg file. I have it set to 600.. in the sim its max 200. No noticable fps loss.
Very good suggestion.
Indeed!
Maybe something worth adding to the documentation. Especially for VR players such as myself.
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A follow-up question on this one Umberto, what is the reason you can for instance see passengers at a very long distance without them disappearing? While the bags on the carts seem to disappear very easily depending on the distance and viewing angle?
Is it because you're using different LOD for passengers vs bags?
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It's LOD optimization. Displaying up to 66 bags ( 11 per cart, 3 carts per train, 2 wagons visible at the same time ) attached in motion without affecting fps is not trivial, so they only show when you get a bit closer.
You can change this with the Objects LOD Slider.
Another more elegant solution to my view, would be to exclude the "open" version of these little carts and only include the cart version which is fully closed, so you cannot see these carts are empty, when they come.
Personally, I vote for an option which let me chose "closed cart only".
Umberto, maybe you have a ".INI" tweak to give to us, similar to the one you gave to us, to solve the Fenix break too hot problem on pushback ? This would be really nice ! Thanks in forward if you can give this to us !
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Umberto, maybe you have a ".INI" tweak to give to us, similar to the one you gave to us, to solve the Fenix break too hot problem on pushback ? This would be really nice ! Thanks in forward if you can give this to us !
Not sure what you mean with that. No .INI or GSX code or settings could possibly prevent that.
Only Fenix could possibly prevent their own Hot brakes simulation to kick in, by checking if GSX is pushing and stop detecting for the condition to create an Hot brakes situation to happen. Which I understand is exactly what they have in the current version of the airplane.
As far as I know, it sometimes still happens, but only if FSRealistic is used and the "Ambient wind" function is enabled.
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Did-you forget this ?
https://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,27994.msg183337.html#msg183337
Here you gave the trick to avoid the hot brake problem with the Fenix I still use today, because ONLY the tug with the yellow bar cause the problem.
But in fact, this wasn't my main question. It was just a reminder of this nice trick you gave to us and I was wonder if they would be a similar kind of trick, to force, as I said, "Closed cart type only", so you don't even need to add an optional setup for that, as I proposed too !
Hope all is clear now !
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I still fully don't understand this LOD optimization for bags. And how it's there to preserve a good FPS. Again based on how you for instance can see more than 100 passengers walking from a terminal to the aircraft without any issues. At least over here.
Would be nice being able to see all bags without having to edit cfg files manually.
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Here you gave the trick to avoid the hot brake problem with the Fenix I still use today, because ONLY the tug with the yellow bar cause the problem.
That's not required anymore, because Fenix have extra code in the meantime to prevent the message, and as far as I know, following users reports, it only happens now when FSRealistic "Ambient Wind" function is enabled, which causes the wheels to spin, because when the front gear is raised, the front wheel is free to move.
Disabling the Towbarless truck was just a temporary workaround while waiting for Fenix to add code to recognize GSX pushing.
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Sorry Uberto, but the last tests I made with the Fenix, using the tug with the yellow bar, still had the hot brake problem and I made these tests just after having installed the last Fenix version. Moreover, my ascertainments with these tests, are in contradiction with what you say about FSRealistic. As far as I know, with the tug with the bar, the wheel is always on the ground, if FSRealistic ambient wind would make the wheel to turn, it should happen with the other tug, which raise the wheel ! But, in my case, it never happen with this tug and I use FSRealistic !
And again, you do not comment my idea of using only closed cart, which was what I was expecting from you, in fact !
OK, forget it, I am fed up of this !
Have a nice day !
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I still fully don't understand this LOD optimization for bags. And how it's there to preserve a good FPS. Again based on how you for instance can see more than 100 passengers walking from a terminal to the aircraft without any issues. At least over here.
Would be nice being able to see all bags without having to edit cfg files manually.
Speaking of options, would it be possible to add an option to GSX Pro where users can choose for themselves what level of LOD optimization they want for the bags?
I've been trying to use the tip suggested before to adjust the LOD value in UserCfg.opt but it's still not 100% perfect. Haven't went as high as 600% though, maybe need to try that. So far I've been using 400% if I recall correctly. However, it would be a much more clean and nice solution to have an option for this directly in GSX Pro. Rather than messing around manually with cfg files. Changing values which doesn't affect just GSX Pro but also all other objects in MSFS.
If not possible to add this kind of option on the settings page, what would happen if the same LOD level was used for bags which are already used for passengers?
As I mentioned before, I don't really see how that could cause any severe performance degradation. Given how the passengers are already seen far further out than the bags with no issues. At least not over here. I do have a powerful rig though which maybe explains why I don't see a performance dip. Which again takes us back to how nice it would be to have an option for this. The normal way to handle these kind of things for most products where people can pick the level of details that allows them to have a good balance between visual quality and performance.
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Speaking of options, would it be possible to add an option to GSX Pro where users can choose for themselves what level of LOD optimization they want for the bags?
It's not, since those can't be changed dynamically, they would require changing every model XML definition, and as I've said, these has been finely tuned to be correct, according to official LOD diagnostic tool in the SDK.
And no, it's not as simply as just changing values randomly or with a certain amount, since they are different for each object, and we spent lots of time making sure they are correct for every object.
As I've said, multiple times, there are some that might be improved, but considering the current issue of disappearing objects when there are too many objects around, we need to be sure this is fixed, because the objects that were supposed to disappear were exactly the ones NOT complying with the LOD rules, so intentionally breaking them might not be the best course of action, right now.
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OK, I still fail to understand why we can see all passengers (which also to me seem to be far more complicated objects than bags) while we can't see the bags depending on viewing angle and distance. It just looks very odd when you see the baggage guys picking up bags out of thin air or dropping a bag on a cart that a split second later has disappeared from the cart.
IMO, this takes away quite a bit of the visual immersion of a product such as GSX. Where seeing all this extra activity is the main purpose of your product, to add a more realistic environment around the aircraft. Where I personally don't find invisible bags very realistic.
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OK, I still fail to understand why we can see all passengers (which also to me seem to be far more complicated objects than bags) while we can't see the bags depending on viewing angle and distance. It just looks very odd when you see the baggage guys picking up bags out of thin air or dropping a bag on a cart that a split second later has disappeared from the cart.
The explanation would be very long, and it's due to the way the bags are a coordination of 3 different objects working together, each when different ref points and using skinned mesh over a moving area, which doesn't play entirely well with the off-screen optimization made by the sim.
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Ok, it's a sim issue.
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Ok, it's a sim issue.
Not entirely, it's a combination how the sim works, and how LOD in that particular animation is different than normal LOD on single-objects ( passengers ).
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Ah, got it.
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After having some really nasty CTD issues for a long time, I'm now using a totally clean and fresh installation of both Windows and MSFS. Due to the issues I had, this time around I've decided to not perform any manual "hacks" like changing cfg file values outside of what is possible via in in-game menus.
With this said, have you given it any thought Umberto if there could be some way from your side to work around this issue with invisible bags?
As I said many times, I really like the extra immersion GSX Pro adds. However, seeing these invisible bags on every flight does take away quite a lot from the feeling of immersion and realism. I also noticed how the pushback truck when driving back to the gate after the pushback has been completed also becomes invisible on its way back. Where you only see the part connecting to the nose wheel. While the actual truck vanishes. Again, something that looks very strange and unrealistic of course. I assume this is a LOD issue as well.
Would be really nice if you could come up with some form of solution for this.
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Would be really nice if you could come up with some form of solution for this.
Would be nice I agree too. But I personally think the solution has to come from Asobo. In VR, I bet (besides the disappearing bags and tugs) you also see the AI planes taxiïng about without landing gears :)
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Would be nice I agree too. But I personally think the solution has to come from Asobo. In VR, I bet (besides the disappearing bags and tugs) you also see the AI planes taxiïng about without landing gears :)
Seen both aircraft without gear, aircraft with the tail halfway buried into the ground when being pushed back and the list goes on... I suppose invisible bags and trucks disappearing into the thin air goes well hand in hand with all that 🤣
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Seen both aircraft without gear, aircraft with the tail halfway buried into the ground when being pushed back and the list goes on... I suppose invisible bags and trucks disappearing into the thin air goes well hand in hand with all that
Finally somebody noticed it's the way LODs that are otherwise perfectly fine for normal use, will not work very well in VR, to objects totally unrelated to GSX so yes, it's something that must be addressed by Asobo/MS because, we don't have any way to fix this because:
- just raising all LODs so objects will display better in VR, will hamper fps and memory usage in normal use as well, so it's wrong.
- VR can be switched on/off at any time, but preprogrammed LOD levels in objects can't, they are decided when the sim start and cannot be changed dynamically, except with the Objects LOD slider.
I think your only option is to manually tweak the ObjectsLoD parameter in your UserCfg.opt for VR only, like this:
{GraphicsVR
Version 1.1.0
Preset Custom
{Texture
MaxAnisotropy 4
Quality 1
}
{SuperSampling
SuperSampling 1
}
{Terrain
LoDFactor 1.000000
}
{OffscreenTerrainPreCaching
Enabled 1
Quality 1
}
{ObjectsLoD
LoDFactor 2.000000
}
Try rasing it to 4.000 or 8.000 and see if it improves, and be sure you are editing the GraphicsVR section. Of course, once you made this change, don't touch the Objects Lod slider in the sim anymore, because that can only go up to 200, so it will set the file to 2.0 ( 2.00 = 200 )
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To be fair, I'm not so sure issues with online aircraft models when flying on Vatsim such as missing gear, aircraft in very unnatural positions etc are related to the LOD issue. When I've for instance have seen an aircraft such as the one below, that has been the same regardless of distance I am from the aircraft.
For this issue though, I'll once again try to increase the values as suggested. Been a bit reluctant doing this after all the CTD issues I experienced for a long time. Now after a complete reinstall of both Windows and MSFS where it seems I finally got rid of the CTD issues, I'm very carful what I add back to MSFS or what configuration changes I do. Will give it a go though since it's very easy to change the value back should I see any issues.
Speaking of application errors, I've seen lots of these in the Windows Event Viewer Application log. Any ideas what could be causing this?
Faulting application name: couatl64_MSFS.exe, version: 4.8.0.5105, time stamp: 0x639b573b
Faulting module name: couatl64_MSFS.exe, version: 4.8.0.5105, time stamp: 0x639b573b
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0000000000195ae9
Faulting process id: 0x0x7C8
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1D93AF1C8982D74
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Addon Manager\couatl64\couatl64_MSFS.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Addon Manager\couatl64\couatl64_MSFS.exe
Report Id: f2f78feb-d02e-48e0-a104-c8135f8fcfb8
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
Here's an example of what it sometimes looks like when flying on Vatsim. Again, not a LOD nor VR issue I think but regardless, it does look quite funny 🙂
https://i.imgur.com/EA1QtO2.jpg (https://i.imgur.com/EA1QtO2.jpg)