Newbie Question About Video

S

stevefoobar

Member
Hi everyone. I just received and installed RealFlight 7 and already upgraded to version 7.5. I must say that my initial reaction to the software was good overall except that I'm disappointed in the graphics. Perhaps my expectations were too high. I just assumed that the graphics would rival modern high-end video games. That's not even close. I see only mediocre graphics and furthermore, I can't even go full screen without having video problems.

My computer is a brand new high-end gaming PC with an Intel i7 quad core CPU running at 4.0 GHz. The PC is running Windows 7 and has 16 GB of high speed RAM and an SSD drive as the C: drive. The video cards are AMD Radeon HD 7900 series and I have two of them connected together with CrossFire.

I can play even the very latest, ultra demanding high-end video games on this computer so I know it's not the computer or the video cards. I don't see any customizable video settings in the program except the video quality setting which I have set to the highest level.

Am I doing something wrong? Are there hidden video settings somewhere? Are there settings in my video card control panel that I can optimize for the simulator?

I would appreciate any help I could get.

Thanks!
 
Make SURE you installed DX9c from the disc....RF NEEDS certain dx9 files to run correctly
no need to uninstall dx10 or dx11 but the files RF needs aren't in dx10 or 11 only in 9c.....
Hope that helps
 
Last edited:
Definitely something wrong on your end. I have a mediocre gaming rig and can run full detail and still get 60+ FPS on 3D fields. I myself thing the graphics are decent, but in reality they haven't changed much since my first iteration of RF, which was G3 about 10 years ago.
 
Thanks guys. As it turns out it had nothing to do with DirectX. I didn't realize I could change the default graphics settings but just assumed it would set them at the highest levels when I installed when seeing my hardware. It did not. Once I set the graphics to the highest settings, and changed the resolution to 1920 x 1080 32 bit and turned vertical sync on in the hardware settings most of the issues went away. The only issue left is the poor quality of the plane model graphics themselves. I see clearly defined "jaggies" on the edges of the planes for lines that are diagonal. This is a typical problem with graphics that aren't quite up to current standards and it sounds like from Zelatio's comments that we will all have to live with that because they haven't really improved them in quite some time. I would certainly say the graphics are "decent" just not up to today's standards sadly. Still, this will be wonderful to practice my 3D on without trashing my real planes!
 
Actually what you are seeing is not a problem with the quality of the models.

What you see is a stairstep effect with shadow rendering... an artifact of how DX9 handles the shadow mechanism.

If you have bump mapping turned on the planes should appear with remarkable detail.

screenshot1333291552_dko_VtH.jpg
 
Last edited:
Yup, the shadow rendering can really make some bad artifacts and should be fixed in the next major release. They need to move to a new graphics engine that will give them state of the art graphics, they're flight physics are so good it simply demands the best looking graphics. I really like RealFlight but comparing it to another recently released flight simulator the graphics in RealFlight are not where they need to be, and definitely not equal to their flight physics.
 
technoid, a perfect summary of how I feel. They would blow away all other sims if they redid their graphics engine.

opjose you are right. This is what I'm seeing but I'm not sure how or where I turn on "bump mapping".

Thanks guys!
 
On a related note, I have lots of settings in my AMD Radeon HD 7900 Control Panel and I'm wondering if you guys know if any can be optimized for RealFlight. They are below. Anything in bold is the default setting:

  • Anti-Aliasing Mode (Use app settings, Enhance app settings, Override app settings)
  • Anti-Aliasing Samples (Use app settings)
  • Filter (Standard, Edge detect)
  • Anti-Aliasing Method (Multisampling, Adaptive multisampling, Supersampling)
  • Morphological Filtering (Off, On full screen Direct3D app only)
  • Anisotropic Filtering Mode (Use app settings, Override app settings)
  • Anisotropic Filtering Level (Use app settings)
  • Texture Filtering Quality (Standard, High quality, Performance)
  • Surface Format Optimization (On, Off)
  • Wait for Vertical Refresh (Off unless app specifies, Always off, On unless app specifies, Always on)
  • OpenGL Triple Buffering (Off, On)
  • Tessellation Mode (AMD optimized, Use app settings, Override app settings)
  • Maximum Tessellation Level (AMD optimized)
  • Frame Pacing (On, Off)
 
opjose said:
Actually what you are seeing is not a problem with the quality of the models.

What you see is a stairstep effect with shadow rendering... an artifact of how DX9 handles the shadow mechanism.

If you have bump mapping turned on the planes should appear with remarkable detail.

screenshot1333291552_dko_VtH.jpg
Click to expand...

Where is the "Like" button?
 
stevefoobar said:
On a related note, I have lots of settings in my AMD Radeon HD 7900 Control Panel and I'm wondering if you guys know if any can be optimized for RealFlight. They are below. Anything in bold is the default setting:

  • Anti-Aliasing Mode (Use app settings, Enhance app settings, Override app settings)
  • Anti-Aliasing Samples (Use app settings)
  • Filter (Standard, Edge detect)
  • Anti-Aliasing Method (Multisampling, Adaptive multisampling, Supersampling)
  • Morphological Filtering (Off, On full screen Direct3D app only)
  • Anisotropic Filtering Mode (Use app settings, Override app settings)
  • Anisotropic Filtering Level (Use app settings)
  • Texture Filtering Quality (Standard, High quality, Performance)
  • Surface Format Optimization (On, Off)
  • Wait for Vertical Refresh (Off unless app specifies, Always off, On unless app specifies, Always on)
  • OpenGL Triple Buffering (Off, On)
  • Tessellation Mode (AMD optimized, Use app settings, Override app settings)
  • Maximum Tessellation Level (AMD optimized)
  • Frame Pacing (On, Off)
Click to expand...

I would adjust settings as followed:
  • Anti-Aliasing Mode (Use app settings, Enhance app settings,Override app settings)
  • Anti-Aliasing Samples (Use app settings)
  • Filter (Standard, Edge detect)
  • Anti-Aliasing Method (Multisampling, Adaptive multisampling, Supersampling)
  • Morphological Filtering (Off, On full screen Direct3D app only)(This is an important setting)
  • Anisotropic Filtering Mode (Use app settings, Override app settings)
  • Anisotropic Filtering Level (Use app settings)(Highest Setting [This setting will sharpen textures viewed at sharp angles])
  • Texture Filtering Quality (Standard, High quality, Performance)
  • Surface Format Optimization (On, Off)
  • Wait for Vertical Refresh (Off unless app specifies, Always off, On unless app specifies, Always on)
  • OpenGL Triple Buffering (Off, On)
  • Tessellation Mode (AMD optimized, [/B]Use app settings[/B], Override app settings)
  • Maximum Tessellation Level (AMD optimized)
  • Frame Pacing (On, Off)
 
Last edited:
Thanks Boof69. Yes, as it turns out the edges on the plane models is all related to anti-aliasing. By default my video card leaves these settings turned off for performance reasons but I have such a high-end card (actually two of them ganged together) that I could turn on all the most CPU intensive settings I liked and it still wouldn't affect the performance of games and certainly not RealFlight. Once I started to experiment with the anti-aliasing settings, the problem went away. Now it's just a question of picking the optimal settings for this game and for the card and there are LOTS of combinations of settings so that will be very time consuming but once done, I'll have it.

I've also come to learn that I can create an application profile with my video card specifically for RealFlight so that when RealFlight starts up, the settings will automatically change and then return back to the default when I close the application. Very cool!

Lastly, there supposedly are even application profiles online on the AMD site but I haven't found them yet nor do I know if anyone has uploaded one for RealFlight 7.5 yet.

Thanks everyone. I'm really on-track now to enjoy this app and get some flying time in this weekend!
 
stevefoobar said:
technoid, a perfect summary of how I feel. They would blow away all other sims if they redid their graphics engine.

opjose you are right. This is what I'm seeing but I'm not sure how or where I turn on "bump mapping".

Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

Go to the Settings dialog box using this path.

Simulation
* Settings
** Graphics
***Quality

Here at the settings I use.

Clouds: Yes
Particles: Yes
Scenery Objects: Yes
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Soft Shadows Enabled: Yes
Terrain Detail: Yes
Trees: Yes
Wind Field Indicators: Yes
Post-processing: Bloom: No
Post-processing: Night Flying Glow: Yes
Post-processing: Depth of Field: None
Foliage Density (%): 5
Normal Maps: Yes
Water Quality: Highest
Water Particle Quality: High
Water Shadow Quality: Underwater and Water Surface
Shadow Quality: Highest
Shadow Map Quality: Highest
Particle Quality: Highest
Screenshot Quality: Low
Streamer Quality: Highest
Texture Quality: Highest
Misc. Graphics Quality: Highest

Normal Maps: Yes is what you want for bump mapping. These settings should give you the best graphics available in RealFlight, except for Bloom and Depth of Field, which I don't like either of them so I leave them at the default setting.

I have an NVIDIA Graphics Board so I can't help you with the driver settings but you want to override any application settings and set your anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering up as high as possible while keeping good frame rates. I've got mine set to 16x CSAA and 16x AF on my NVIDIA board and everything looks pretty nice. If you like 3D Airports try the new Zenjima (Island of Enlightenment) airfield available in the 7.5 Swap Pages I like it a lot and used it for all of my 3D Benchmarks I put in a recent thread.

My RealFlight 7.5 Anti-aliasing Benchmarks

https://forums.realflight.com/showthread.php?t=31190

I think RealFlight water with everything turned to max is very nice, you can actually see down in it and the underwater shadows look very cool to me.

I've got two different sims and if RealFlight would improve their graphics, quite a bit to where I'm talking about, they would blow everything else away.
 
Last edited:
Oh and BTW Boof69. Bump mapping has nothing to do with the anti-aliasing issue but I still don't know where or how to determine if bump mapping is turned on or off. I don't see anything about it in my video card settings or the RealFlight settings. Any ideas? Thanks.
 
stevefoobar, it sounds like others have helped you sort things out. We recognize that the graphics in the current version of RealFlight are no longer cutting edge. Having said that, if you turn up all the graphics quality settings in the sim, plus turn up the settings in your graphics card's driver control panel (things like antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are not controlled by RealFlight), you will get a much better experience than with the default settings. The defaults are optimized for performance over quality.
 
Thanks guys and Ryan. Yes, I've tweaked the graphics in both places as much as possible and I realize that's the best I'm going to get. Acceptable graphics (sort of) but far, far from cutting edge gaming graphics. To that end I've decided I'm only going to use the photo realistic backgrounds anyway. The 3D graphics are too poor and detract from the sim experience for me. Plus the ones I've tried are very poorly laid out. For example, there could be a bridge or tree in the background that it is IMPOSSIBLE to fly into or hit not matter how small the plane is as you fly directly toward it. Very poor. I don't understand the point of putting objects in the scene that aren't really there in terms of really needing to avoid hitting them.

At any rate, the product is good enough in the areas it really matters--the plane graphics and physics, for me to accomplish what I purchased it for, which is to train flying 3D. Now if I could only find or learn how to build the two foam 3D planes I own that would be icing on the cake.

Thanks!
 
how to turn on and off normals maps(Bump Maps)

stevefoobar said:
I still don't know where or how to determine if bump mapping is turned on or off. I don't see anything about it in my video card settings or the RealFlight settings. Any ideas? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Go To :
Simulation> Graphics> Quality> Normals Maps YES
 

Attachments

  • ScreenShots028.jpg
    ScreenShots028.jpg
    61 KB · Views: 3
Thanks. I've got bump maps turned on now. As I've said the plane graphics looks great. It's just the 3D scene graphics that are really lacking.
 
Not sure if the Airports you are speaking of are stock or user created from the KE Swap pages?...
keep in mind that they are just that...user created
People have uploaded some very well done photo fields with all of the collision objects (Depth Buffers)properly placed ,

Others didn't even bother :rolleyes::confused:

This is true about ANY Swap file
some EAs / AVs will be dead on accurate

others....well..:eek:, :p

The great news is in RF almost everything is fixable
 
Last edited:
Very interesting. I didn't know one had control over all these settings. So far though, I've only used the included 3D fields. I think my expectations of the graphics were unrealistic largely because of the marketing hype that Great Planes does for this simulator. Once again, it's quite acceptable but just not up to the current state of the art in gaming graphics the planes themselves perhaps excepted once I set my graphics card up correctly to use the highest level of anti-aliasing available.

When you said almost everything is fixable, are you implying I can edit the included 3D airfields somehow?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top