Random Loss of Ground Textures - Mega Blurries!

Usually, my ground textures look decent; however, I get temporary, mega blurriness at various locations. This is often seen when I’m approaching an airport, but it can also happen at higher altitudes. Usually it clears up after a few seconds, but as you can see, it looks horrible and is very annoying. If anyone can offer suggestions about what might cause this – addon scenery? cfg setting? Aircraft? I can try to fix it, but don’t know why it happens or where to start. I have Ground Environment Pro and Ultimate Terrain installed. Thanks for looking!

 

Steve

 

[TERRAIN]

TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000

TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000

TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000

TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21

TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8

TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5

TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.0

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

 

Do you experience these problems from within the cockpit when flying at normal speeds, or only when you're slewing around in an external view?

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.0

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

 

And there's your problem!

 

For a detailed explanation why these three setting values should be considered bogus see: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/261948-blurry-in-the-distance/, particularly Kosta's posts (but most especially #11 which offers Kosta's partial translation of Joachim Buhre's findings in detail).

 

Regards,

Dorian

Edited October 28, 2022 by caphavoc

I'll throw in my penn'orth here.

 

I don't think it's your config settings or slow texture load times. Does it persist if you force a texture reload? There's a keyboard assignment available called Reload Scenery Textures or something similar.

 

I notice that your autogen building textures are also blurred.

 

Mega blurry ground textures happen to me too and I don't believe it's entirely random; I suspect it's triggerd by a bad texture on some object but it happens so infrequently I haven't bothered to investigate any further.

 

Though it could be an airport building, or rather more likely some AI, my prime suspect at present is one or other of my user aircraft.

 

If you can get a mega blurry to occur consistently at one place and under a specific set of circumstances, save the flight then return to it with AI switched off... then scenery objects all off... then user aircraft changed for another one.

 

(On a tangent, when changing the user a/c, choose a different aircraft and not just a different repaint. I recall some badly sized/mapped aircraft textures -- often just one piece -- appear blurry until you zoom right out & back in so if the mapping is bad then changing the repaint won't eliminate it.)

 

If nothing else, you'll clear something up for me!

 

D

Edited October 28, 2022 by defaid

Hello - yes, I've seen this happen both in spot view and looking out with internal cockpit views. Sometimes it will clear up in a few seconds, sometimes not in certain locations.

Hi Dorian - thank you for your comments. I've read the forums here there and everywhere about these particular settings and have tried lots of different variations. I'm inclined to agree with you that perhaps there's something wrong here and I thank you for your suggestion. I will check out the link you provided, make some changes and see if that helps.

Yes, I have a keyboard assignment for the 'texture reload'. It doesn't help. These photos are outside of Chicago, but I've also had this happen in other locations as well. Your comments are helpful as I didn't think about an aircraft possibly interfering with ground textures - if that's what you're suggesting. The next time it occurs, I will remember the location, save the flight and perhaps deactivate an add on airport and/or use a different aircraft to see if anything changes. If I manage to sort it out eventually, I'll let you know! Thank you for your reply!

Have you added any scenery / airports just before doing this? Strangely, it’s often a airport that’s missing some texture or an incorrect one that will affect the ground scenery.

I’ve had it several times.

Your comments are helpful as I didn't think about an aircraft possibly interfering with ground textures - if that's what you're suggesting.

 

It was, because it's always happend to me at or near an airport, but not every time I'm there.

 

JSMR's suggestion is also a distinct possibility:

 

Have you added any scenery / airports just before doing this? Strangely, it’s often a airport that’s missing some texture or an incorrect one that will affect the ground scenery.

I’ve had it several times.

 

D

If it happens only at certain airports, it may be that you have airport textures that are in DXT format that are smaller than 32 x 32 pixels in any direction. To be sure, I change all textures smaller than 64 x 64 pixels to 256 colors instead. Fixes it for me.

 

BTW, this doesn't happen to everyone, only on certain computers.

Another issue, again said to only affect certain computers, is caused by Landclass files for add-on airports being contained in a scenery file structure that has a texture folder. Again, though, this will only happen in the vicinity of the offending airports.

 

John

Another issue, again said to only affect certain computers, is caused by Landclass files for add-on airports being contained in a scenery file structure that has a texture folder. Again, though, this will only happen in the vicinity of the offending airports.

 

John

 

 

Yes another one that will cause it. Good call.

Good point, but I don't recall just when this started for me or if I would have added any airports at that time. I've seen this in Illinois, California and Switzerland recently, so if it was an airport, perhaps more than one may be causing this? On the plus side, I guess at least I'm not alone with this particular aggravation. :)

John, thank you. That's what I'm looking for.... things to look for. Next time I see this, I will check add-on airports in the area. Perhaps with the kind and generous help of friends on this forum and all of the good suggestions, I'll be able to get it rectified.

Thank you very much, Tom.... I should start keeping a log and note where this happens and what I'm flying at the time. I'm afraid that I'm not clever enough to know who to change textures, but there's probably a tutorial here somewhere. Perhaps with a few tweaks that you and others have suggested, I can fix it. If not, I'll deal with it.

If it happens only at certain airports, it may be that you have airport textures that are in DXT format that are smaller than 32 x 32 pixels in any direction. To be sure, I change all textures smaller than 64 x 64 pixels to 256 colors instead. Fixes it for me.

 

BTW, this doesn't happen to everyone, only on certain computers.

 

Could that apply to aircraft textures as well? For me at least, the mega blurry doesn't always happen at a given location so I guessed it's not caused by any fixed objects.

 

 

 

Another issue, again said to only affect certain computers, is caused by Landclass files for add-on airports being contained in a scenery file structure that has a texture folder. Again, though, this will only happen in the vicinity of the offending airports.

 

John

 

Unless I'm unaware (extremely likely) of another LC effect, problems only crop up if a local /Texture folder exists but the required texture file is stored elsewhere. LC, texture files and memory leaks have been covered here:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?333995-Out-oF-Memory-surprise&highlight=memory+surprise

 

 

 

Thank you very much, Tom.... I should start keeping a log and note where this happens and what I'm flying at the time. I'm afraid that I'm not clever enough to know who to change textures, but there's probably a tutorial here somewhere. Perhaps with a few tweaks that you and others have suggested, I can fix it. If not, I'll deal with it.

 

A little application called DXTbmp is probably what you need. That and an adequate image editing application; at a push MS Paint will serve. Download link is at the bottom of the developer's page here:

 

http://www.mwgfx.co.uk/programs/dxtbmp.htm

 

***

 

In danger of hijacking, I'm going to shut up now.

 

D

Today, I replicated the same flight (KMLI to KORD) with the following changes: Selected a different aircraft, and just for fun reset frame rate from locked at 40 to unlimited. I also changed this

TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5 to 4

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.0 to 4

TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

It was looking good until I got within a few miles of KORD and the blurry ground returned. As this does not happen everywhere and only near certain airports, I deactivated my add-on airport (Johnny Alford’s KORD) restarted the sim and tried again. This time there were no blurry ground textures on approach. I have a low end computer and as was suggested, perhaps it’s not able to process some sceneries or textures properly. If I see this again, I’ll check nearby airports as some may be causing this problem for me. Thank you again to everyone who took the time to respond and offer valuable information about things I don’t quite understand – even after all these years.

So there must be an issue with the KORD scenery. Does happen from time to time. A texture as mentioned must be in the wrong format or something like that.

I concur with JSMR. I had a look at the scenery concerned, and there are a heck of a lot of textures there and just one could be the culprit.

 

This is how I would go about it, I think it should work but will take a little patience:

1. Pause and save a position on approach where things look blurry.

2. Remove all textures to a safe place

3. Reload saved position and check that blurrys are gone. (If they haven't, don't bother further and write my idea off as worthless).

4. Replace about half of the textures, and test.

5. Continue adding or removing smaller amounts to achieve a good result.

6. Eventually, by elimination, the culprit will reveal itself.

 

Hope this isn't a white elephant.

 

John

Hello John,

 

Thank you. Hopefully this thread will help others who may be experiencing this issue somewhere. I'm inclined to agree with you and JSMR that after a variety of tweaks and changes on the same flight, the blurriness when approaching the airport only occurs when this particular add-on is installed - so... there must be something there that's somehow interfering with my ground textures. It's a pretty nice freeware airport and I'd like to use it, so following your suggestions, I'll play around a bit and see what happens. I have learned a lot here and thank you all again for your valuable input!

 

Steve

Hi Guys,

 

I've been having this blurry problem at one of my tropical airports for years as well and have lately been doing much testing with the textures, more or less like John suggests.

It now seems and I repeat "it seems" that a texture named "Trees.bmp" is my personal culprit. When opening this rather low quality DXT1 texture it shows some tropical (cocont type) palm trees, part of a fence and a seemingly bad quality alpha channel black area.

E.g. The wire mesh fance

Oops !! I must have touched a wrong button somewhere on my laptop because my post above was not yet completed before it was actually posted. Sorry for that.

 

Anyway, the wire mesh of the fence in this DXT1 BMP file was barely visible and quality-wise very bad, while the black (alpha channel) areas displayed white blotches here and there, making it possible, at least in my mind, that rendering such a texture would almost certainly cause problems of some sort somewhere along the line.

 

I did a file name search through my whole system and found quite a few with the "Trees.bmp" name, some of which even had different contents.

I then simply (test-)deleted this texture file from the airport's texture folder, while now expecting some non textured objects to appear in the scenery concerned but this was not the case .... and .... no blurries either !!

 

It therefore seems that the BGL concerned had found the same texture file but of a better quality somewhere in my main FS9 texture folder.

 

Problem seemingly solved but I'm testing further.

 

Regards

 

Hans

Interesting. And ties in to my last post on this site months ago. I have scarcely used MSFS the past four years because I was tired, disgusted even, of the constant, never-ending, tweaking and adjusting and stroking required just to keep some semblance of decent graphics in this sim. Why should a "bad" texture on an aircraft affect anything other than that aircraft? Why should an add-on in India affect something in Oregon? None of this is logical. Eventually it seemed I was spending more time tweaking than flying, so walked away, with the logical assumption that the common element to all these issues was ...the devs. They were imbeciles.

 

I once added a payware scenery - German Landmarks - to FS. It was a great addition to "low and slow" VFR flights. Until I discovered an area of SE France and SW Germany from which taking off from any airport, in any direction, in any aircraft, would cause a CTD upon passing 1500ft altitude. Disable that scenery and all was well again. The devs had no clue (and wouldn't give a refund).

A freeware Schipol that caused CTDs when within 5 miles on IFR approach from the south; the creator had no clue. But I'm not surprised the creators of these files couldn't help, because of what I mentioned above - there is too much unnecessary and illogical interaction of files in FS; the Schipol issue could be from something I added to Hong Kong years earlier, the Landmark problem could relate to something added to South Africa ...who knows.

 

There is a rare but known issue of certain aircraft flying over certain scenery (sometimes in a certain direction) causing a CTD. No known cure because no one knows what causes it. (In my case it was an Italian seaplane flying north to south over Tokyo Bay with the Photo Tokyo scenery.)

 

Years ago I posted several screenshots of the checkerboard oceans in my FS. Anywhere in the world, any aircraft, any season, any time of day or night, flying below about 10k ft the ocean was a checkerboard of large rectangles, whose pattern shifted as you flew along or even as you changed view. Different textures, scenery settings, etc. had no appreciable effect; apparently a complete reinstall is the only solution.

 

I have areas of mountainous terrain with large flat squares, as if a gigantic block were pressed into the land then removed. I have lakes with two completely different textures and a sharp line of demarcation. I have aircraft carriers floating 50ft above the water (you can actually fly under them). I have airports with railroads crossing the runways. Then add "more accurate mesh" and find coastal cities half submerged, rivers running vertically up mountains, dams in the middle of a field miles from any river. What I don't have is the patience to fix all these issues. Nor any longer the inclination to fly around looking at them.

 

(Of course you can always download a ton of editing software, learn to use it, and spend 10 hours a week editing scenery, and two hours a week flying ...with half of that flying over what you just edited to see if it now looks better.)

 

And on top of that Active Sky, which I paid for, no longer works. And the solution? "Buy the new version." The same FS9, the same Active Sky, why did it stop working? No answer. Not another penny from me.

 

End of rant.

... so walked away, with the logical assumption that the common element to all these issues was ...the devs. They were imbeciles.

 

Best laugh I've had today!

 

Seriously though, the incompatibility of addons with each other is beyond frustrating. Like so many others, I'd nearly stopped flying for a long while: debugging mods is a full-time passtime.

 

All the same, I've kept some. Mostly strange mesh artifacts and lurid textures but also one airport with runways the dev had 'disabled' by dragging them into a different country and onto terrain with a different elevation. That took some time to identify...

Hi Guys,

 

Well, I really thought that a dicey looking "Trees.bmp" file was the cause of my blurries at one of my addon airports but unfortunatly the blurries are back again, although it now takes longer for them to appear, especially when slewing around on the ground.

 

A second bad texture somewhere, maybe ? Could also be a bad texture somewhere outside the direct airport texture folder itself or simply that my graphics card is somehow being overwhelmed. Anyway, I'm testing further.

 

Regards

 

Hans