Is there any way to further improve the texture quality in FS2004? I've set the Terrain Texture Size to 100 and the Global Max Texture Size to massive. Extend textures is on. I've set anisotropic filtering to 8x, which makes a huge difference (I highly recommend it if your video card's control panel allows it) but only really on textures where there is a low viewing angle (such as flying low over plains).I think the problem I have is with how FS reduces the texture quality over distance. It seems to reduce it too close, which produces an ugly world. Especially so in mountainous areas, where the angle is high (ie. your flying almost stright into the ground texture on a hillside - if it's at a low resolution, it looks awful). Can I tweak fs9.cfg and move the level at which these changes occur? I'm guessing this is what "Extend Terrain Textures" does, but evidently doesn't do enough.

Under Terraine:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

What do those actually do, if it's not too complicated?

Just remember, before you try to make the textures sharp to the horizon, this shot is most typical of vis. seen in flight, especially since it was taken along the SFO-DEN route, which offers outstanding visibilities most of the way.http://www.airliners.net/open.file/652769/L/Look under "Johnci" as author in the screenshots section. My last couple of sets are pretty typical of what you should be seeing out thw window (although my photoreal shots were taken too low for the textures to look good given the limitations of photo scenery in MSFS. Those were done with the lowest level of aniso combined with the default (MSFS) AA. But even those are sharper than most "real" flights.If your sim doesn't look as sharp as those, then there's a deeper issue (especially given my "yawn" of a system)...

It's sharp enough at a distance, I think. It's the 0.5 mile to 15 mile range I want to improve. The < 0.5 isn't great either, but to improve this requires higher res source art which may not be practical.What screenshots section are you referring to?

>What screenshots section are you referring to?Not section - screenshot forum. Avsim has many different forums. Michael J.WinXP-Home,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8, Radeon X800 Pro,WD 36GB Raptor,1 GB PC3200 http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

"What do those actually do, if it's not too complicated?"More info here: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...d=230&page=#240Cheers,Greg

Those values I posted should increase the range of your sharpest textures.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Here's links to my last five screenshot posts---some are low level, others high level. I'd say just about all exceed 99 pct. of the real flights I've been on in vis., except for those rare days when rain has cleaned things out and ya get a brisk wind... :)http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=165371http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=165001http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=164125http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=164094http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=163860

High, :-)You can also improve things if you have an Nvidia card by using a driver tweaking program like RvTuner...and adjust the LOD (level of detail) of the mipmaps in the DX tab of the textures to slightly more than the best default driver setting, It should be noted that this has to be done if one wants to enjoy the benefits of using the higher extended/levels settings (there is a slight performance hit however)A LOD level of "0.0" for example is default best LOD quality setting.1.0= poor quality/good performance 1.5=really poor quality/even better performance etc.-0.3 is very good quality at its max, beyond this...say -0.5 or worse -1.0 and pixels will be fighting each other for screen space and you will get object shimmering and "boiling horizon" effects.LOD at driver level should not be confused with FS display settings of LOD as those settings do not effect terrain textures >.

Hey Jim or anyone else who might know... I have a question for you regarding the FS9.cfg Terrain settings if you don't mind.I was wondering why my settings are as follows:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=0.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=0.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1307992These aren't the default settings are they? My sim looks reasonably good with the above settings. I'm going to try your suggestions and report back.Thanks,Adam

-The FS9.cfg tweak really does make a difference in the mid-far distance and I highly recommend that. It can also reduce dynamic blurries since FS loads textures farther into the distance so if you still suffer from those it's worth a try.-The argument that you should not make the textures super-sharp because terrain is blurry in real life is valid. However, this blurring should be created using Haze, not mip-mapping. In real life, the terrain is blurry because of hazy and "dirty" air as well as the limitations of the optics of our gyro-stabilized, auto focusing cameras (our eyes), not because we "resize" the textures of the landscape. Also, with Anisotropic at anything lower than 8x, sloping surfaces (including the whole earth when you bank *and* when you fly at low altitudes since the whole terrain is essentially tilted or angled toward you) suffers from excessive blurring (the whole point of Anisotropic filtering is to keep textures sharp at all angles).The most common problems I see with FS9 shots posted at various forums is that they are using a visiblity setting of Unlimited or extremely high (like 60 miles). Use 20-30 miles instead.So, make the textures as sharp as possible; 8x Anisotropic or more, mipmap bias settings set to highest quality (but leave the slider in FS9 at 4-5 to prevent "shimmering"). THEN, use the VISIBLITY settings, low stratus layers etc. to adjust optical "sharpness" of the scenery, like this:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/93582.jpg

Then why limit to real life? I have no issue with fantasy being more beautiful than in real life :)If you use FS 2004 for fun more then for real training I see no reason why not go for optimum sharpness :). Well except for low performance though :)I tried blue sphere and everything and it made everything so grey and dull. Kind of like default FS 2004 before I loaded the colorized textures from AVSIM.

Those were my default settings but people have reported other numbers for TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS and it is always a large number.The other two defaults have always been listed as being 0 by other people.

>The most common problems I see with FS9 shots posted at>various forums is that they are using a visiblity setting of>Unlimited or extremely high (like 60 miles). Use 20-30 miles>instead.>I absolutely agree with everything you said.Michael J.WinXP-Home,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8, Radeon X800 Pro,WD 36GB Raptor,1 GB PC3200 http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg