View Full Version : Terrain Detail
BiggerBoat
Oct 4 2011, 18:28
I gave the preorder beta a try this morning. I hate to focus on the graphics, but for a sim that is focused on low-level flight, I am pretty disappointed.
Simply put, the terrain is a mess. Ground detail is very low resolution, even with all settings cranked to their max. Roads have absolutely no detail. Buildings pop in the distance rather than using some sort of alpha fade. You get bubbles of blurry terrain that sharpen very obviously as you fly (but only sharpen a bit, unfortunately).
The colors seem all wrong for the area (I live here, and know what it looks like from the air). It sort of looks like black-and-white satellite imagery that has been recolored (like what I remember from Flight Unlimited 3 from 1999). The scale of the houses and trees seems off.
Frame rates with everything cranked up (i7 2600k overclocked to 4.5 with two GTX570 in SLI) are OK but not great .. around 20 in demanding situations. 30 or so for most flying.
Downtown Seattle buildings look great. The sky is beautiful. Water is great. Lighting is nice. The detail and animations of the helicopters themselves are great. But the muddy, blurry, oddly colored terrain just ruins it all.
I can only compare to FSX, which came out more than 5 years ago and wasn't exactly cutting edge at the time. The terrain textures have much more detail. With addons such as Orbx/FTX, the gap is widened even further.
I love the ARMA games, and I didn't expect the same level of detail at ground level, but I sure didn't expect anything this bad. I really want a solid flight sim with a fun, underlying game. But, I just can't find any immersion in the actual flight when looking at this scenery.
I'll leave open the possibility that this is a Beta issue or something specific to my machine. I'll certainly revisit things with the full release, but at this point I'm deeply regretting the purchase and disappointed that this may not be the sim for me.
I have to agree, although I find the simulation great and really enjoyable the graphics just don't cut it, the models seem nice, but the textures are terrible, and even if the reflexion on the skyscrapers kind of look nice, the filling texture between the windows and on other buildings seem equally as blurry.
I have the same processor and the exact same video card so it might be driver related to the GTX570 series.
Knowing that other people might not have the same issues would reassure me that it's driver related (I'm on the beta 285.38 nvidia drivers) I tend towards that explanation because the ingame graphics (cranked to max) don't mesure up to the videos or screenshots on the website and I trust Bohemia didn't alter them (not their style from what I've seen from them on all their other excellent games)
Remember this is a photextures - so never it looks like modeled 3d objects. In FTX scenery (for FSX) in most of them - 3D models + sometimes phototextures. But if You take for example Real Germany of Aerosoft, VFR France ect here is better with bigger resolutions. Try to put HIGH level or VERY HIGH of textures + Default memory.
I wrote about all settings here (after many hours of testing of settings) and influance for FPS : http://92.60.132.84/~apacz/smf/index.php/topic,13924.msg260878.html#new (but its in Polish so try to use Internet translator). Im very happy with FPS. 40 or more in missions from virtual cocpit. On external 60+.
BiggerBoat
Oct 4 2011, 18:53
Remember this is a photextures - so never it looks like modeled 3d objects.
Yeah, it would appear to be a big photo texture laid on top of the terrain, and then overlaid with 3d buildings and a few other 3d elements.
However, I've seen high resolution photo textures work just fine in FSX and other sims. There are plenty of scenery products for FSX which cover huge areas with very high resolution photo textures (take a look at the Horizon stuff for England/Scotland/Ireland for example). They take up lots of hard drive space, of course, but performance and quality is great.
If high resolution satellite scenery wasn't an option, then I'd argue that TOH shouldn't be using them .. perhaps something more like repeated textures (as in FSX default), with some photo scenery for specific areas (i.e. downtown, key mission areas).
I'm generally hoping I'm having some system-specific issues here, and I don't want to completely discourage people until all of the facts are in. I understand that everyone may have different levels of tolerance for this as well. For me, a low-level helicopter sim focused on a specific geographic area absolutely must have crisp, immersive scenery. I'll post a couple of screenshots later today.
I hope FTX will get their hands on it and crank this stuff to a decent level.
@<hidden>
Sure but this HD max superb ect resolutions textures always looks... to same blurry from human eyes level and many of this addons looks like a desert and only good looking from 100Flight level + no autogen. The helicopter actually lower altitude than aircraft so here it looks more blurry but... (still again "but") You have very complex something like autogen + objects and buildings (never see this level of downtown city like here in simulator). Perhaps phototextures + objects is an compromise here. You wrote about 20fps, so try to imagine this level of quality of scenery + more 3d objects? FPS Killer for sure. I prefer more detailed textures for sure too but maybe this is an compromise?
I spend many hours to fly in FS9/FSX from many years so Im accustomed for this quality of photextures or worse.
@<hidden>
If BiS gives consent to why not :) ! I hope so.
Just a tip in general: make sure you set 3D resolution to 100% (same as screen resolution). For me it was set at 75% by default.
Here my examples of textures from TKOH from low flying. Id like to have to same quality sametimes in FSX.
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/7811/takeonh2011100422215664.th.jpg (http://img202.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100422215664.jpg/) http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/5214/takeonh2011100422221824.th.jpg (http://img684.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100422221824.jpg/) http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/4779/takeonh2011100422265580.th.jpg (http://img594.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100422265580.jpg/) http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/5980/takeonh2011100422294238.th.jpg (http://img839.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100422294238.jpg/) http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1967/takeonh2011100422311779.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100422311779.jpg/)
BiggerBoat
Oct 4 2011, 21:40
The rurual textures don't look quite as bad, because there's less detail involved. It's the urban textures that just look terrible to me.
Case in point:
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/722/takeonh2011100414123058.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/198/takeonh2011100414123058.jpg/)
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/5139/takeonh2011100414121280.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/209/takeonh2011100414121280.jpg/)
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/8730/takeonh2011100414152190.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/takeonh2011100414152190.jpg/)
http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/1672/takeonh2011100414201733.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/851/takeonh2011100414201733.jpg/)
Take a look specifically at the last two images. Seattle-Tacoma airport is the center of Puget Sound aviation, but it's just a blob here.
The last image shows the I-5 corridor through the center of downtown Seattle, which is just a gray blob.
Note: these images are all a bit dark. I guess that's a factor of the cloudy skies, though I think it's a bit overdone.
Are you guys seeing better quality than this? Sea-Tac would be easy to compare, since the runways and markings can be used as a reference. I've played with the detail settings quite a bit, but can't find anything that looks reasonable.
The downtown buildings look wonderful, and most of the other buildings look good (though I'd argue the house colors and roof colors are wrong for the area) but the detail of the 3d objects is in stark contrast to the lack of detail in the underlying terrain.
agree o this topic. terrain texture look very very poor
Liquidpinky
Oct 4 2011, 22:13
Looks like they need to work on the sat map a bit, looks like an addon makers early beta map like that at the moment.
BiggerBoat
Oct 4 2011, 22:25
YoYo - Your pictures show a bunch of rural areas, which don't look too bad because of the relative lack of detail. Fields and rivers tend to look nice at low resolution and reveal some of the advantages of satellite terrain.
However, the urban areas just don't hold up. THere's too much of a contrast between the detail of the buildings and the muddiness of the terrain. It was actually a couple of your videos which made me first go "uh, oh."
Here's a couple of screenshots. Notice the general gray blob that represents the I-5 corridor through downtown Seattle. If you go a bit south, have a look at the Sea-Tac airport as well.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8130/takeonh2011100414542288.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/takeonh2011100414542288.jpg/)
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/8434/takeonh2011100414540675.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/64/takeonh2011100414540675.jpg/)
Also note the sort of sandy green underlying color of the terrain. This seems really off to me. This area is defined by deep browns, deep greens, blues, and (through the I-5 corridor) the gray of concrete. None of the colors in the sim seem right.
Trying not to be a downer. I love Bohemia games. But this is just a deal breaker for me. Other people will probably think it's fine.
I'm hoping what I am seeing is system-specific and/or indicative of the beta.
I installed to a SSD and the textures seem not too bad from ~2000 feet in the light helicopter (maybe it gets more blurry in the faster ones) but what I noticed once I got out of Seattle into far North Seattle (Richmond Highlands) and went low altitude is that there is no autogen 3D objects down low besides cars that far out of town.
It kind of reminds me of FS9 back when I used to run Megascenery 2005 PNW photo scenery with no autogen.
So I am assuming the autogen was only mapped so far for the beta, I am hoping the final version will have autogen buildings mapped farther outside the downtown or that they can be added later as a mod.
Still the helicopter handling is pretty fun and the mission possibilities should be great, enjoying this especially as someone who lives in Seattle and was not a fan of the FSX helicopter modeling.
.kju [PvPscene]
Oct 5 2011, 05:05
Here is a developer statement on the subject:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=2026915#post2026915
Some things to keep in mind:
PC performance directly affects the detail of any texture and also the ground texture. While playing, the game simply needs to handle the massive amount of data being streamed in and out, and it will not show the most detailed level all the time. We are doing our best to optimize the engine to handle this the best it can, but not all imagery you see published on the Internet will be showing the game at the best available detail of course :)
There are data size limits we run into and had to make decisions about. The amount of pixel data necessary for a 60 by 60 km (let alone 120 by 120 km) texture quickly becomes unmanageable for: development (editing tools), distribution (amount of DVDs) and the streaming engine (internal memory).
Maybe the pre-release beta does not have the highest level texture to cut down the download size?
Obviously trade-offs must be made to balance looks and feel (performance). I have to say that the beta is VERY DEMANDING on my system already - almost ridiculously so. AVG fps is way down, low 20's max if vis distance is set to ~12,000 and obj dist. to about 5000. Even with all settings set to normal (which is utterly unacceptable in terms of visual quality), fps never exceeds 35. In the training sessions I almost never get above 20 fps, flying over water. Gonna have to tweak my settings big time.
If they increase ground detail without tweaking something else, performance will decrease further, which will be disastrous. I'd hate to be playing this game on an average system. The guy above is running at 4.7 GHz with two GTX 570's in SLI and gets only 20-30 fps with settings maxed? THAT SUCKS! Something must be done to increase performance, and that cannot include reducing detail, which is already quite bad on the ground as it is. A conundrum indeed.
.kju [PvPscene]
Oct 5 2011, 05:44
Did you try to disable picture in picture?
Obviously trade-offs must be made to balance looks and feel (performance). I have to say that the beta is VERY DEMANDING on my system already - almost ridiculously so. AVG fps is way down, low 20's max if vis distance is set to ~12,000 and obj dist. to about 5000. Even with all settings set to normal (which is utterly unacceptable in terms of visual quality), fps never exceeds 35. In the training sessions I almost never get above 20 fps, flying over water. Gonna have to tweak my settings big time.
If they increase ground detail without tweaking something else, performance will decrease further, which will be disastrous. I'd hate to be playing this game on an average system. The guy above is running at 4.7 GHz with two GTX 570's in SLI and gets only 20-30 fps with settings maxed? THAT SUCKS! Something must be done to increase performance, and that cannot include reducing detail, which is already quite bad on the ground as it is. A conundrum indeed.
I'm getting the same fps using a 2500k @<hidden> 4.8Ghz and two GTX470. The problem is that the graphic cards are not being used by the game. It's usage, according to MSI Afterburner is always around 50% each, and it doesn't seem like the cpu is being stressed a lot (less than 60% if I remember well).
BiggerBoat
Oct 5 2011, 06:36
Did you try to disable picture in picture?
PIP makes a big difference in performance (I assume this is the mirrors)? Turning it off adds about 10 fps for me. This keeps me at 30+ fps when setting all of the dials pretty high. Making some other adjustments easily gets me to 50-60 fps.
The textures do get a bit sharper as you make sure your system has some headroom. You can start to see a bit of the detail in roads and railways.
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/2600/takeonh2011100423095049.jpg
However, the quality of the textures still tops out pretty low for me, no matter what I do with settings. Seattle-Tacoma airport looks like it's been ravaged in some sort of war.
http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/5187/takeonh2011100423194129.jpg
And since all of us are going to be buzzing between buildings in downtown seattle, I'm not sure why we're not seeing a bit of 3d detail to the freeway interchanges (maybe coming in the final release?)
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/1151/takeonh2011100423125059.jpg
More worrisome is that, even at 60+ fps on a pretty robust system, I am getting constant shifting of textures from kinda' blurry to very blurry and back again. If any of you are familiar with FSX and the constant battles to avoid "the blurries", this is that situation compounded 100x. It's pretty distracting.
I'd love for this to be unique to my system. If anyone is seeing something dramatically different, please post screenshots.
... and went low altitude is that there is no autogen 3D objects down low besides cars that far out of town.
The Pre-Order Beta only has Seattle (Lite). That mostly means that about 25% of the environment has objects and the rest was removed. Of course in the full version the entire environment is covered by objects.
this sounds good DnA :)
so i like the Beta and im looking hopfully to the final :)
NeoJD[NY]
Oct 5 2011, 10:57
Yeah its like when you use BAF in ArmA2 but dont have the DLC I guess. ;)
Terrain detail behave really strange. When looking away from helicopter, grass pops up and trees are much nicer. But if i look AT the helicopter, grass disappears and trees become less detailed.
Is that some scaling at work i'm not aware of? Even if one pixel of a helicopter is visible on screen, LOD (grass, trees) drops.
Did you try to disable picture in picture?
I refuse to turn PiP off (so far). Although there is very little time to look (and enjoy) the rear-view mirror, it is such a cool feature that there's no way I'm gonna compromise on it. My performance will have to suffer accordingly, and I'll tweak other settings to optimize.
I noticed the poor FPS performance in the preview, but the Seattle environment is much more demanding (and spectacular) than Takistan.
I may start a new thread pertaining to optimal video settings, where people can post their game settings that they have developed through experimentation. Settings I use in A2 CO/RNF and the comm prev are simply not optimal for the beta. I will eventually put my optimal settings in my signature.
---------- Post added at 08:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 AM ----------
I'm getting the same fps using a 2500k @<hidden> 4.8Ghz and two GTX470. The problem is that the graphic cards are not being used by the game. It's usage, according to MSI Afterburner is always around 50% each, and it doesn't seem like the cpu is being stressed a lot (less than 60% if I remember well).
I have noticed the same. My gpu usages are commonly around 50%. Does anyone recommend going to the more recent NVIDIA beta drivers? I'm using 280.26 (see signature).
---------- Post added at 08:21 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:19 AM ----------
PIP makes a big difference in performance (I assume this is the mirrors)? Turning it off adds about 10 fps for me. This keeps me at 30+ fps when setting all of the dials pretty high. Making some other adjustments easily gets me to 50-60 fps.
Could you please post your in-game video settings?
The best performance boost I had was with changing view distance and object distance. Still I can get only about 15fps max with decent settings (with Quad PhenomII 3.2ghz, 4890HD 1GB, 4GB memory and installed on SSD with recently reinstalled windows 7 64 bit)
I updated my signature with settings that look pretty good and have ok fps.
After more flying, I don't really have a problem with the terrain detail. Working with satellite and airborne imagery has been my career since 1988, and the detail in the beta seems to be a nice compromise. Sure it could be better at close range, but when flying it looks pretty good from low altitude. You could have higher-res IKONOS or Quickbird imagery interpolate in when standing on the ground or from very low altitudes, but that would degrade performance.
I'm almost done with the first challenge involving the PMC guys, and it is a HIT!!!!!!!!!!!! Love the dialog, difficulty (playing on expert), and the various BIS touches. Top notch.
Had a few soft, flushable CTDs with nothing shown in RPT file. Possibly AToC?
Here my settings: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/takeonh2011100223275846.jpg/
For me 40+ fps from vc over Seattle, near 50-60 over rest of map. Outside of copter 60+.
metalcraze
Oct 5 2011, 18:57
Can anyone make a comparison screenshot of this?
http://www.exmixer.com/ScreenShots/SeattleCityDay.jpg
It's from FSX, just curious about the difference in what BIS did
Here you go:
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/192/takeonh2011100521003229.th.jpg (http://img254.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100521003229.jpg/)
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7453/takeonh2011100521004791.th.jpg (http://img18.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011100521004791.jpg/)
http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/5197/takeonh2011100521053070.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/856/takeonh2011100521053070.jpg/)
I've just realized: isn't the terrain in the beta still lacking the "normal mapping" feature BIS talked about recently?
BiggerBoat
Oct 5 2011, 19:46
I have continued to fiddle with settings, and things are getting a bit better. I have some issues/suggestions:
* There is a green tint to the terrain textures. Even building shadows (I'm talking shadows hard stamped into the photo textures) are green. Were the satellite textures artificially recolored or run through some sort of filter? All-in-all, the landscape colors just feel a bit off and cartoonish. It's pretty easy to see the difference when comparing google earth to a piece of the map. Everything has a yellowish-green tinge in the TakeOn map.
* Turning down object distance really helps frame rates, but the pop-in is very noticeable. Is there any possibility of an alpha fade, perhaps combined with a bit of haze in the distance?
* There are a few 3d freeway interchanges, and these really help. I'd love to see a bit of this detail through downtown Seattle.
* The airports are a bit of a mess. I would have imagined that at least a few of the airports would have got artificial runways, taxiways, etc. overlaid on top of the photos in order to make them look less like a bad photo.
Looking across the water at the downtown skyline is sublime. I wish things looked as good from a few thousand feet, but I think there is hope here.
metalcraze
Oct 5 2011, 19:49
@<hidden>: thanks
Seems like Seattle for FSX got the terrain mask completely wrong and overall Take On certainly has more detail (obviously)
Bullet Purveyor
Oct 5 2011, 20:21
If I fly higher then 250-300 meters I get a blurry square under the helicopter when viewing with default FOV.
It moves along as i fly, so it is always blurry textures under the helicopter and clear (as clear as those bad textures get) further away.:confused:
Should it not be the other way around. Clearer near the player and lower quality further away?
Default FOV:
http://community.bistudio.com/wikidata/images/6/60/TakeOnH_beta_texture_blur_1.jpg
When I "zoom" in the blurry part get moved out to the sides:
http://community.bistudio.com/wikidata/images/e/e7/TakeOnH_beta_texture_blur_.jpg
Take textures: Very High and Memory: Default.
BiggerBoat
Oct 5 2011, 20:39
Agree with memory "Default". Any other setting plays havoc with texture blurriness on my system.
LeftSkidLow
Oct 5 2011, 20:47
Agree with memory "Default". Any other setting plays havoc with texture blurriness on my system.
Hmm this could explain why I'm getting very blurry buildings from not that far away. I'll have to try default.
BiggerBoat
Oct 5 2011, 20:49
Hmm this could explain why I'm getting very blurry buildings from not that far away. I'll have to try default.
Also don't forget post-processing. Anything beyond low, I believe, adds depth of field effects which makes the background blurry. It can be a nice effect, but I usually prefer sharper textures.
eyetumor
Oct 5 2011, 21:06
Disappointed and bohemia interactive are words that are rarely present in the same sentence for me. However, I have to agree here with everyone else that these textures look like my anus after finishing a diarrhea run to the crapper and not wiping. I mean I wasn’t expecting the ground textures to look as good as the arma II textures, but so far from what I’ve been able to see the texture work is extremely disappointing. Disappointing to the point where is a major distraction when playing the game. You can’t help but notice on a constant basis how low resolution and muddy the textures look. Is a huge immersion killer at least for me. I really do hope they can improve the textures before launch. If not, I must regrettably admit this will not be a purchase for me.
By the way...I'm refering to the ground textures primarily.
The Pre-Order Beta only has Seattle (Lite). That mostly means that about 25% of the environment has objects and the rest was removed. Of course in the full version the entire environment is covered by objects.
Excellent that is good to hear, looking forward to the final version.
Disappointed and bohemia interactive are words that are rarely present in the same sentence for me. However, I have to agree here with everyone else that these textures look like my anus after finishing a diarrhea run to the crapper and not wiping. I mean I wasn’t expecting the ground textures to look as good as the arma II textures, but so far from what I’ve been able to see the texture work is extremely disappointing. Disappointing to the point where is a major distraction when playing the game. You can’t help but notice on a constant basis how low resolution and muddy the textures look. Is a huge immersion killer at least for me. I really do hope they can improve the textures before launch. If not, I must regrettably admit this will not be a purchase for me.
Sure You have right for sentences like this. Not all people like ArmA, not all people will love the TKOH. Its a market. Dont like dont buy, simply. For sims and sims-game isnt first priority to have the best Graphics on the world. Dont forget. Still this is a beta too, dont forget about this too so dont wrote "Im disappinting" and empty words as those. Beta means = just give feadback for developers and show him possibility to grow the product. Textures of ground (urban textures) arent very well (acceptable level) but rurals are VERY ok. Perhaps some people who write here about bad resolutions never see phototextures in the simulator?
What do You think about this (my old shot)
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/3268/podejscienisko6jv.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/podejscienisko6jv.jpg/) http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/961/vfrpoland72go.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/169/vfrpoland72go.jpg/) http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/2971/vfrpolandwinter9ds.th.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/4/vfrpolandwinter9ds.jpg/)
or Aerosoft Germany:
http://www.aerosoft.de/shop-rd/bilder/screenshots/fs2004/realgermany2/realgermany2_4.jpg
And campare to TKOH textures. Sorry but perhaps You havent experiance with working on phototextures. TKOH represents nice level of this kind textures but photo never will look like 3d modeling objects. I wrote in one threat, perhaps its compromise for FPS too and try to become accustomed with different approach to phototextures. Take too Google earth as a human eyes (3d) and compare resolutions.
http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/196/googleearth201110052342.th.jpg (http://img641.imageshack.us/i/googleearth201110052342.jpg/) http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7849/googleearth201110052345.th.jpg (http://img10.imageshack.us/i/googleearth201110052345.jpg/)
The best things of TKOH isnt here, they are in different place like missions, flight models, clickable virtual cocpit, open the world and many, many more.
I bought a few phototexure addons for FSX and never liked any of em. Looks cheap imo. Drop a pic on the ground and scatter some 3d objects. Being a heli sim I would not have minded if the highest altitude you could go would be 3 grand agl. Ive seen some other games that do this and it allows them to really pile on the textures and detail and concentrate on the 99% of the view you are going to be in. Low and slow. So far this sim visually reminds me of a cross betreen x plane and fs9.
BTW-How the he** do you get a external view? I can get out but I want to see other views. Somebody wanna remind me how?
got TKOH working last night. 1st impression of the Seattle map is that damn hell this is big. 75% of buildings. etc had been removed for the beta, but it is a large map.
very ambitious. if you BIS guys can finish the map off to a similar quality and style as OA terrain, with all the final buildings and stuff it's going to be an adventure discovering all the place.
reaching near OA level is key as quality of terrain and immersion is a big differentiation in this genre where low quality map phototextures are the norm. OA wasn't about phototextures making up the map - it was so much more than that as you used actual objects and textures to made up the map. hope TKOH can get close.
Bullet Purveyor
Oct 6 2011, 02:37
BTW-How the he** do you get a external view? I can get out but I want to see other views. Somebody wanna remind me how?
Just push Num lock enter key, then dubbel tap/hold left-alt to use freelook.
I think the beta actually looks pretty damn good. BIS have done a great job and picked good compromises. I dont have the greatest system and I can run with decent settings and no stutters. I keep my resolution low at 1280 but it still looks very convincing.
Most smart pilots don't fly much below 1000 ft anyway. That would be an uncomfortable amount of time in the dead man's curve.
Q8200(quad core) @<hidden> 2.33GHz, 6GB ram, ATI 4650 1GB DDR3
I haven't run fraps to check my FPS yet and I don't really care what they are, I just know it flies smooth. Besides, I care more about how it flies than how it looks.
I can see the lines on tennis courts, and the lines and numbers on football fields; obviously very high-res imagery was used for the ground, either air photos or <1m/pixel satellite imagery (like IKONOS/Quickbird). The imagery was most likely degraded a bit (smoothed and resampled) before inclusion as a texture. I fail to see how BIS could have done better with this. And how did they model and place all those buildings, bridges, and highway overpasses? Awesome.
.kju [PvPscene]
Oct 6 2011, 04:51
Make sure to put AF on max. It helps at least up to a certain distance to get best quality for textures.
Ok, I'll try that, but I'm having to compromise on such things to get my fps a little higher. Isn't texture quality the most important? Thanks for the suggestion!
Just my thought about terrain details. First I set up object detail, shadows, texture to Normal and was very conservative with view distance. And I wasn't quite satisfied with ground texture. But later I encouraged and set up object detail and shadows to very high, texture to High and now these object nicely cover far texture and looks quite fantastic. I recommend to anyone with strong processor to set up object details to very high, it looks better when far object are not slowly vanishing.
TKOH is beast for processor, but I'm satisfied with I5 2500K (recommend this CPU) and its very easy overclockable (my @<hidden>,5GHz).
I've just realized: isn't the terrain in the beta still lacking the "normal mapping" feature BIS talked about recently?
I wonder if setting postprocess effect to High or Very High do this normal mapping, but this setting quite kill my frame rate so I don't test it yet. Maybe my graphic card is weak for this setting I have Nvidia 560TI. Anyone is able to use postprocess set to High/Very High?
To problem with blurry texture. Quote from Betseda about present Rage's problem with texture. They also use huge textures.
The higher the resolution at which the game renders and the higher the anti-aliasing setting, the more texture data is needed to texture the environment. If you do not have a high end CPU you may momentarily see blurrier textures and texture popping when the view changes quickly.
Probably it can be problem with "weak" CPU, just my 2 cents.
Remember this is a photextures - so never it looks like modeled 3d objects. In FTX scenery (for FSX) in most of them - 3D models + sometimes phototextures. But if You take for example Real Germany of Aerosoft, VFR France ect here is better with bigger resolutions. Try to put HIGH level or VERY HIGH of textures + Default memory.
I wrote about all settings here (after many hours of testing of settings) and influance for FPS : http://92.60.132.84/~apacz/smf/index.php/topic,13924.msg260878.html#new (but its in Polish so try to use Internet translator). Im very happy with FPS. 40 or more in missions from virtual cocpit. On external 60+.
Thanks for providing those settings YoYo.
Turning PIP and PostProcessing off and turning up the Texture to High and Object Detail to High has fixed up my blurries, now I am getting 30-40 fps.
I still want to tweak the detail/popup distance but very playable now, pretty happy with the video now on my i7-920@<hidden> ATI5870, I fraps'ed a sample here with settings shown at the end:
kkyDx8zYD7g
Looking forward to the final release version and the full autogen 3d objects for the whole map.
BiggerBoat
Oct 6 2011, 06:15
I have posted some screenshots that I think represent what TakeOn can offer when "it all comes together" over here on AVSIM (http://forum.avsim.net/topic/350447-takeon-helicopter-new-sim-in-beta/).
I'm still trying to find a happy medium with settings. Free flight performance is good, but the missions have moments of jittery frame rate that make it hard to maneuver (as if it wasn't enough of a challenge already!).
I wish I could go in and run some color filters on the terrain to try to reduce that yellow-green tint. I've harped on it about 10 times in this thread, but it just hurts my eyeballs (especially with the distance terrain).
.kju [PvPscene]
Oct 6 2011, 07:00
In OA you can apply color corrections via modules or scripting. Maybe ToH has also a few modules for it?
I guess it's a matter of where you're coming from: if you're used to FPS ground detail like ArmA, of course the TKOH textures will seem very lacking. But when comparing to other flight sims, the ground textures are actually not bad at all. And if you look at the file size of the game (7.5 GB for "Seattle light" alone, yikes!), a lot of which would be ground textures, you'll see they can't reasonably increase the resolution much without making the game unfeasible for digital distribution.
I think the biggest immersion-killer are the blurry roads. As part of the ground texture, they just don't provide the detail which would be necessary. A road system like in Crysis, where the roads are separate textures that get layered on the ground (and hence, can have much higher resolution and detail) would work wonders for TKOH. The necessary meta-data for laying out the roads is probably even already in, seeing how the ambient traffic follows the (blurry) roads.
Of course, the game being not even a month from release, this is unfeasible by now. A pity!
tommytoad2
Oct 6 2011, 12:03
Well, looking at the game "Rage" on steam says it's 25gb so that argument is not really vailid. Perhaps i'm spoiled with my 100mbit connection but still, you only download the game one time and with a new 2 TB disk costing something like 80 USD space isen't really an issue any more.
It's not just about file size. Quote from Dev:
There are data size limits we run into and had to make decisions about. The amount of pixel data necessary for a 60 by 60 km (let alone 120 by 120 km) texture quickly becomes unmanageable for: development (editing tools), distribution (amount of DVDs) and the streaming engine (internal memory).
http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=2026915&postcount=21
capt_morpheme
Oct 6 2011, 13:18
How do I check my frame rate?
Derbysieger
Oct 6 2011, 13:29
FRAPS for example
[DirTyDeeDs]-Ziggy-
Oct 6 2011, 20:55
a quick video featuring the city terrain lighting at night :D
Csi0Fwjz3zI
.kju [PvPscene]
Oct 11 2011, 08:53
Nice mission. I have to try this new waypoints yet, there are so many things to do in TKOH and time is limited :(.
I made texture test video. Bevare, It's really boring ;).
UXOayv93vhU
Watch it in full HD.
Source: http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=2036016&postcount=92
---------- Post added at 10:51 ---------- Previous post was at 10:50 ----------
My response:
I can only see a difference between low and normal in terms of ground texture quality.
A few buildings get better ones with high/very high.
I still didn't get if the final release has better ground textures and these are due
to the pre release beta being ToH "lite", or if higher ground textures would be
just too big for the whole Seattle terrain in terms of RAM/VRAM usage.
If the later, it may be possible to have higher quality ground textures for smaller terrains.
The huge view distance most people are to use might play into this too.
---------- Post added at 10:52 ---------- Previous post was at 10:51 ----------
His response:
That's why I made this test, video. I want to figure out why somebody have so blurry textures. Maybe this is not good test, because it's static, altitude is not change rapidly. But I get "ugly" texture only when I set texture detail to very low.
---------- Post added at 10:53 ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 ----------
Follow up by BadWeather:
I haven't read the whole thread and I'm sorry if my conclusions from that comparison video and the fact that its "lite" terrain we got with the beta, are already discussed and pointed out to be wrong.
To me it is blatantly clear that higher resolution textures have not been included in the beta. Thats what "lite" terrain means to me. Lower quality version of the real thing. Not just a smaller area with buildings, but lower quality textures as well.
Oh and just a quickie about BoboCZ's comment on the pictures I posted. These were taken from a mission with some randomization made by BI not me. Its called pursuitBoat and apparently is one of the procedural missions included in the campaign. I posted info on how to get to try some of them in another thread. Not all are included and propapbly not all are finished. I dont know. Names of the ones included can be found in config viewer in the mission editor. cfgBase IIRC. They're there anyway and you can fly them. Just add procedural missions module or heliport module, a player character and if using the heliport module sync an empty chopper to the heliport module and save the mission as whatever mission it is you wish to try.
Thanks PvPscene, definitely better place to discuss about terrain ;).
I haven't read the whole thread and I'm sorry if my conclusions from that comparison video and the fact that its "lite" terrain we got with the beta, are already discussed and pointed out to be wrong.
To me it is blatantly clear that higher resolution textures have not been included in the beta. Thats what "lite" terrain means to me. Lower quality version of the real thing. Not just a smaller area with buildings, but lower quality textures as well.
I thought that term "lite terrain" mean we got about 1/3 of final terrain, but I will be happy if I'm wrong and we get better land texture.
Hellfire257
Oct 11 2011, 13:16
I'm inclined to agree that it does downgrade the otherwise excellent simulation. Although I'm thoroughly enjoying it (with 3000VD :D) anyhow.
Actually I *think* the ground textures of the light terrain are the actual ground textures we will get. I mean, DnA (project lead) confirmed that only 25% of the buildings are placed on the lite version. But at the same time there has been complete silence about the terrain textures afaik. And that's probably the most raised issue graphics wise. So why confirm the smaller issue (less buildings) while keeping silenced about the biggest issue (ground texture quality)?
There can be other reasons why it has not been addressed, but I suspect it's because this is what it's gonna be (or that they are still trying to tweak it and don't want to promise things they can't deliver). I don't think they keep quiet just to keep us in the dark and suddenly have much better textures on release.
I'm sure any company want's to state clearly to the public what the specific limitations are of a preview build (smaller landmass, less buildings etc). And at this moment there hasn't been any confirmation that the textures are 'light' version so I'll assume the opposite is true.
Liquidpinky
Oct 11 2011, 13:22
Looks great on a munually edited 28000 draw distance, if you can stomach the low FPS. ;)
Can you put same screens Liquidpinky? There is no way my rig can handle such settings... and i'd really love to see how it looks. Tnx!
Hellfire257
Oct 11 2011, 14:23
I'd much prefer a smaller area with high res textures, but each to their own.
Liquidpinky
Oct 11 2011, 15:08
I'd much prefer a smaller area with high res textures, but each to their own.
You can manualy force it, causes some nice out of memory crashes after a brief stint in game though.
I properly play on 6500 View distance and 6200 object render distance though anyway to keep the FPS up a bit.
You can fine tune settings in the cfg and your profile in notepad to try and trickle some more frames your way with minimal perceived differences.
Armored_Sheep
Oct 11 2011, 15:30
I'd much prefer a smaller area with high res textures, but each to their own.
You can enjoy any Arma map addon that you run with Take On ;) if you like to have much more detailed ground.
Ground detail is allways compromise with size of the map - total amount of ground shape points/vertices is fixed. Also painting the satelite map takes some time. The base satelite textures size on each Take On map is 61440x61440 pixels.
Take On is about flying most of the time. We started with same technology as Arma for ground textures mix. We have much larger map and we choose to use 4 types of "generic" ground surfaces everywhere, based on satelite images (mask). On top of this we added new shiny material to draw water (rivers) and we have brand new technology for night scenery ("emmisive" texture).
Hellfire257
Oct 11 2011, 16:10
You can enjoy any Arma map addon that you run with Take On ;) if you like to have much more detailed ground..
I'd actually forgotten about that... :D
Will all the OA and A2 objects be in TOH then?
The base satelite textures size on each Take On map is 61440x61440 pixels
Mmm interesting, the terrain is 61440x61440 metres so the effective pixel size is 1m / pixel always good to know... :o
Liquidpinky
Oct 11 2011, 18:28
Can you put same screens Liquidpinky? There is no way my rig can handle such settings... and i'd really love to see how it looks. Tnx!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0620-02-08-19.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0620-02-08-19.jpg) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0620-29-33-78.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0620-29-33-78.jpg) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0621-07-04-18.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0621-07-04-18.jpg) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0621-13-33-81.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0621-13-33-81.jpg)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0621-58-58-76.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0621-58-58-76.jpg) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0622-09-53-38.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0622-09-53-38.jpg) http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/th_TakeOnH2011-10-0622-42-46-88.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v690/pinkypics/Take%20On%20Helicopters/?action=view¤t=TakeOnH2011-10-0622-42-46-88.jpg)
Here you go, some of these are at different distances and you can see the low detail on some before I have manually edited my player profile to up the details a bit.
They range from 40 to 25k, maybe even one of my hundred k trials in there too.
There will be no bullshit FPS figures either, you can quite clearly see them in the bottom right corner.
Mr. Charles
Oct 11 2011, 18:59
...
Why'd you use Bubblegum Pink? :butbut:
I dont know why some doesnt like this textures from TKOH. Here example phototextures from Take on and FSX (with good resolution on low flying).
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/5098/fsx2011101122500845.th.jpg (http://img6.imageshack.us/i/fsx2011101122500845.jpg/) http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/7172/takeonh2011101122115393.th.jpg (http://img832.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011101122115393.jpg/) http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/851/takeonh2011101122141170.th.jpg (http://img195.imageshack.us/i/takeonh2011101122141170.jpg/)
Liquidpinky
Oct 11 2011, 21:26
Why'd you use Bubblegum Pink? :butbut:
Pretty much contrasts on every background, until someone makes a My Little Pony map.
twisted
Oct 11 2011, 23:49
You can enjoy any Arma map addon that you run with Take On ;) if you like to have much more detailed ground.
.
i do like a bit more detailed - arma2 OA set the benchmark for that.
really enjoy this game beta, but things like the train tracks not being visible in their textures is a bit to low res really. also i find it strange that there's sat map images for house, but then a 3d house that looks different are placed on top? wouldn't it be simpler to just have a generic grass texture with house and perhaps driveway on top? it'd certainly look a lot better and more cohesive.
some industrial parts of the city do look good (for example when playing the swat mission, on your way from start to briefing you overfly some pretty damn nice looking areas).
anyway - i look forward to the full release, going to be good to see how the over 75% does.
Scratch what I said that the base sat image is 1m x 1m I have been playing with the sliders and that provably is around 0.5m x 0.5m.
wildone_106
Oct 12 2011, 17:07
Its definitely impressive so far, I have landed my chopper on vista’s I have visited often and the view is almost matching reality 100% in terms of where things should be roughly, the views match its quite incredible! I would like to see it go the next level though like most people are saying, less blurry textures and clearer roads. I’d rather have a smaller area done than half of WA State. The preview Beta area is just fine for me if that was focused on and brought up, almost make a study sim of Seattle/Bellevue! Im sure maybe mods will do this too with even more specific buildings. FSX did a good enough job considering all that it does..but this is so specifically Seattle it BEGS for that higher attention to detail IMHO. Can’t wait to see/fly more!
ocramweb
Oct 13 2011, 03:59
Comon' who want to download a 3 Tera game or get 40 DVD's for it :confused:, that's what it will take to have a better ground texture, and the cray computer to open the sat map... :o
fsim in photo realistic sceneries does not look better, the limitation is the size it will take (textures).
What makes it look nicer and better than other flight sim is the details and the number of objects, one thing its lacking for me it is real roads, and flatten ones,
add a moving train onto the rails, and an ambient pedestrian module too, and I'll go :yay: !
now if you add power lines heli best friend and street lights, I'll eat the banana :don 13:
and don't forget it is only a :whip: in progress
MadDogX
Oct 13 2011, 04:33
Perhaps the next technological step - instead of creating even more gigantic ground textures - would be to store an additional layer of sharper ground map detail in a vector graphics format, which is layered over the blurry world texture whenever you get close enough to the ground (multitexturing). I guess this would mean that the engine would have to transform chunks of vector data into a standard texture on the fly before sending them to the GPU, so it would come with some performance overhead.
On the plus side, vector graphics data is generally much, much smaller than pixel raster data, so storage shouldn't be much of a problem.
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