Nightly Windows testing WS3

[Volador]

Just for information, I'm testing the nightly full 2020.4 2021-05-29 09:17 (windows) and currently getting this with WS3 enabled, all is fine when not enabled. Airports boundaries appear but no ground textures (have tried with and without photoscenery too) this is summer by the way, not winter



I do have a question, (as a non programmer) WS3 checkbox says OSG 3.6 required, is that OSG included in the nightly? (If not, how does Flightgear see the folder on your system were OSG is located (from an osg download) as it doesn't seem to be an installer.

I appreciate it's a nightly so hoping this helps point to a bug

Chris

[vnts]

Enabling OSG 3.6 on nightlies is WiP. Can check back in a day or few days (should follow progress and report in the mailinglist). It should be possible to download the ~30 MB nightly package that just contains the binary files in the /bin folder, and replace the existing /bin with it - if there are no significant changes to FGData (can click "History" in the sourceforge FGData page to check: link).

Archives of the mailing list are available on sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/ma ... ?limit=250 (so far I mostly just check sourceforge like a forum, and use mail when posting).

Airports render fine because they use WS2 format, and StuartB found a way to make the WS3 terrain dip under them.

Kind regards

[Volador]

Thanks Vnts, I'll check back in due course, thanks for the tip about just downloading the part in the /bin (binaries?) folder. I do see the mailing list but thought I'd seen someone report a working version of WS3. I'm happy to wait, I think it's brilliant what the developers are all doing - I'm not certain but without WS3 disabled (ie WS2) I seemed to be getting quite a respectable 30-40 fps on my 10 y/o system, (EDDH everything on max), so I wonder if there has been some optimisation going on under the hood too? - granted, I did get a fairly decent 1070 8bg GPU about 2 years ago (before the gpu crisis!)

[vnts]

I'm not certain but without WS3 disabled (ie WS2) I seemed to be getting quite a respectable 30-40 fps on my 10 y/o system, (EDDH everything on max), so I wonder if there has been some optimisation going on under the hood too? - granted, I did get a fairly decent 1070 8bg GPU about 2 years ago (before the gpu crisis!)

Your nightly branch settings might be different from the LTS branch ones. There was a settings rearrangement in the nightly as well. Are you getting better FPS with the exact same settings, in the same conditions and LoD ranges - e.g. one way to reproducibility check is starting at runway with ufo or another craft and not changing view? Try custom settings in the nightly, and check if the settings haven't changed a bit.

I think there was some optimisation/fixes just recently reducing VRAM usage with some craft, but not sure if they were compositor specific or apply without compositor.

As you're CPU bound with a 1070, may as well give the GPU something to do: you should be able to really turn up GPU heavy settings like AA/transparency AA, overlays, tree density etc. If you have a 10-year old i5 (ivy bridge?) those should still work pretty well. LoD: rough helps with being CPU bound

Kind regards

[Volador]

Yes, I turn everything up to max usually on the 1070 Ti 8gb - the cpu is i7 950 8 thread, overclocked to 3.4(ish) and I usually get good FPS, rarely less than 25 (acceptable video frame rate) - except perhaps for New York. I can't recall the settings and LOD ranges I used as there is usually some tweaking to do depending on the area, it's also a little confusing as sometimes dense buildings and trees are fine and on other occasions even over the sea produces low FPS, I've yet to make a link between aircraft. I did notice a massive drop in FPS to around 7-12 at LEMD in the 747 8i with a nightly from last Saturday (I've not been back to test it again yet)