Cloud Shimmering

[=SqSq=switch201]

I have been getting a lot of shimmering when looking at objects against the clouds. this includes my own wings and other parts my plane (iron sights on p40 for example) I play with AA turned off but it looks like it used to before 3.0 with AA turned on. one thing I have found is that this effect appears to only happen under a range of about 2k if the object is greater than 2K out then the shimmering stops. I am going to do some more testing, but I was wondering if anyone else knows any solutions.

Edited March 15, 2018 by =SqSq=switch201

[=SqSq=switch201]

I set cloud detail to its highest setting and it appears that this has helped for anyone with the same problem

[Wolf8312]

Verify integrity of gaming cache. Defiantly a bug seems to happen whenever I alter cloud settings as well. Nothing to do with high or low I dont think as I have now been able to put mine on low for better performance.  

[ironk79]

3 hours ago, Wolf8312 said:

Verify integrity of gaming cache. Defiantly a bug seems to happen whenever I alter cloud settings as well. Nothing to do with high or low I dont think as I have now been able to put mine on low for better performance.  

how do i do this? i seem to have more frequent fps dips in VR than before, even in non damanding scenarios. doesnt matter much if i change settings from low to high.

[Archie]

5 minutes ago, ironk79 said:

how do i do this? i seem to have more frequent fps dips in VR than before, even in non damanding scenarios. doesnt matter much if i change settings from low to high.

I assume you can only do that if you have it on Steam.

[Wolf8312]

To be honest not even sure if it has anything to do with gaming cache sometimes clouds are messed up and sometimes they are not, but the problem is frequent. 

[Wolf8312]

Verifying gaming cache no longer works if indeed it ever did work, the cloud's now seem to be a constant shimmering mess!

 

I know it's a long shot but is there any way to go back to the old game to wait while all these things get fixed?

[HunDread]

7 hours ago, =SqSq=switch201 said:

I have been getting a lot of shimmering when looking at objects against the clouds. this includes my own wings and other parts my plane (iron sights on p40 for example) I play with AA turned off but it looks like it used to before 3.0 with AA turned on. one thing I have found is that this effect appears to only happen under a range of about 2k if the object is greater than 2K out then the shimmering stops. I am going to do some more testing, but I was wondering if anyone else knows any solutions.

 

For me the clouds themselves are shimmering badly after the update. This was the first thing I noticed when trying after the update. This was in light cloud scenario. I havent checked how other types of clouds look.

[Wolf8312]

1 hour ago, ironk79 said:

how do i do this? i seem to have more frequent fps dips in VR than before, even in non damanding scenarios. doesnt matter much if i change settings from low to high.

 

Yeah performance seems much more erratic for me too.

[ironk79]

did a clean install, performance seems to just like before 3.0 , buttery smooth again, no (barely any) stuttering anymore.

i think cloud performance impact is also better/less. Can anyone confirm?

just did a quick dogfight with average clouds at 800m, dove in and out of them, 90fps most of the time. (ok, given that DRF was lowering most of the time) but this was much worse before, making some PWCG missions near the clouds a real stutter fest (therefore only generated clear/light cloud missions).

 

[Wolf8312]

It's a shame! I dont know why at times it seemed to be okay, but now I hardley ever see it not being a total shimmer fest. Sadly it's not something that I think impacts people playing in 2D so I don't know how much of a priority it's going to be for the devs. I really hope they will work on a bit of bug fixing and optimization for VR, but it's hard to imagine they didnt spot the cloud problem when they were testing the beta. I kinda get the feeling they dont have any intention of working on the VR side of things any more.

 

Kinda makes me think it's just a problem we VR users will have to live with. It's a shame though cause my Dad will visit me in a few months and I really wanted to show him VR/BOS in all it's glory, but those clouds are rather distracting and on the whole I prefered it how it looked before the update!     

Edited March 15, 2018 by Wolf8312

[HunDread]

It has never been okay for me since the update. I just did a clean install of the game but didn't help a bit.

 

Though based on the number of posts in this thread I have a feeling that not all VR users are affected.

 

Can anyone confirm you don't see the cloud shimmering and share the settings pls?  

Edited March 15, 2018 by -[HRAF]Black_Sab

[Wolf8312]

I think maybe some people just aint as bothered by the clouds. I've seen alot of posts about them here and other places online I think most people are affected.

 

I think only the devs can help us now and I'd love to know if they are working on this. I think (only think mind u because many variables) that it looks a bit better if you turn clouds to high and turn MSSA off. This will also give you better performance. I'm now running everything on basically the lowest settings, and if it was not for the shimmering clouds it still looks pretty good and would be a small price to pay for the new campaign and ulta immersive rain effects.

 

 

[dburne]

I think the cloud shimmering is worse in 3.001.

 

Flying through the clouds is neat getting the moisture droplets on the windscreen, just don't do an exterior view of the plane as it is flying through the clouds, looks pretty rough.

 

They are also fairly tough on fps.

Edited March 15, 2018 by dburne

[Wolf8312]

Try putting everything on low (no MSSA) and using 4 k textures and see what you think! Seems to be much better for me but I gotta load up a load of different missions first to be sure, as it's been a day of many false dawns! Was right not to get too excited about the update, as being a VR user I have come to assosiate updates with initial frustration and dissapointment followed by endless tinkering and very little actual flying!  

[dburne]

Well I hate to lower it to low on graphics settings, might try the 4k textures thing and see if that makes any difference...

[Wolf8312]

I can live with low or balanced to be honest. Some of those missions in the campaign are going to need alot of horse power, though you're probably right I don't need to go that far with my rig. When I put all graphics down to low I was thinking God its going to look awful but when I saw it I thought huh, it's really not that bad!

 

Like I said I've got it on low and with no MSSA, but to be honest funky clouds aside it really doesnt look that bad, and as long as my game is not a horrible shimmer-fest I'll always choose performance over graphics because I think better FPS/performance just feels more immersive in VR.

 

My only pet peeve are too many jagged lines.  

 

4x textures seemed to be an improvement but it's not a cure and there is also the possibility that I might just be insane!

Edited March 15, 2018 by Wolf8312

[JG4_Sputnik]

I have gone so far to only fly missions with no clouds. It is just too damn blurry with low clouds on. And high quality clouds are wasting my fps. I really would like to have an option for turning clouds off altogether.

Not sure if I will/can stick with the game in VR when it stays like this 

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

I have the same issue, flying missions on BoM career with thick clouds makes aircraft randomly appear and disappear (in front of clouds), get blurry (but not in a good way, more like pixelated way) when flying through clouds or shimmer in certain situations. Previously it wasnt a big deal due to limited clouds, but now it is a bigger problem. Im certain though they are fully aware of the problem and will do something about it. 

[Leon_Portier]

I´m having artefacts on objects in front of clouds as well.

[dburne]

Jason has already stated not much can be done about the clouds for a long time:

 

 

[Leon_Portier]

Just figured out it is fixable by turning on FXAA in the graphics card panel and offing the Anti Aliasing in the game to 0. Text does not look as good as before but the clouds are very nice now.

(Edit: At least on a regular screen it does)

Edited March 15, 2018 by Leon_Portier

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Only a full fresh reinstall of the game fixed the issues. Stutter gone, and especially the clouds are nice and smooth again. 

 

Make sure to keep your input folder, and manually delete all remains of the game after deinstalling. 

 

Again, verifying game cache in steam is not enough. 

 

S! 

 

P. S. The devs won't fix it, afaik, as the cause were injectors like 3dmigoto /reshade. Uninstalling/deleting them didn't seem enough, something remained in there somewhere in the files. 

P. S. S. Jason isn't using VR, we can deduce that you were talking about two different issues. 

[Rangerjoe03]

I’ve been messing around with this for a couple of hours today and it looks to me like the cloud shimmering is affected the most by the draw distance.

 

I found that at least in VR the clouds look best when draw distance is set to the lowest level of 40. With every step up towards 150 the shimmering seems to get worse. 

 

So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the draw distance at 40 and cloud quality high. Has anyone else found this to be the case?

[Wolf8312]

Yeah pretty much the same settings. Clouds need to be on high and DD of 40. Looks pretty much how it used to now though to be honest clouds were never that good.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

The clouds are amazing since the patch, much better than before, and there is no shimmering. There was shimmering right after the patch for me as well.

 

You guys really ought to reinstall freshly. 

 

Well, it's your choice.

[wheeliemonsta]

Have to agree with Fenris - had bad shimmering when I first updated.

Just cleaned out and re-installed and shimmering gone, even with settings at Ultra, with 150km draw distance.

 

As an aside - where is the setting which prevents the mouse from going outside the game window? Since the reinstall, with the Graphics set to 1024x768 windowed, my mouse goes outside the window and is very annoying!! I can get round it by running at 1920x1080 (monitor resolution) but I'm sure I'm just being stupid and not finding the setting! Thanks.

[dburne]

1 hour ago, wheeliemonsta said:

Have to agree with Fenris - had bad shimmering when I first updated.

Just cleaned out and re-installed and shimmering gone, even with settings at Ultra, with 150km draw distance.

 

As an aside - where is the setting which prevents the mouse from going outside the game window? Since the reinstall, with the Graphics set to 1024x768 windowed, my mouse goes outside the window and is very annoying!! I can get round it by running at 1920x1080 (monitor resolution) but I'm sure I'm just being stupid and not finding the setting! Thanks.

 

Full Screen I believe is what you would want to check to prevent that.

Edited March 16, 2018 by dburne

[Wolf8312]

5 hours ago, SCG_Fenris_Wolf said:

The clouds are amazing since the patch, much better than before, and there is no shimmering. There was shimmering right after the patch for me as well.

 

You guys really ought to reinstall freshly. 

 

Well, it's your choice.

 

I've done fresh install and a system reset. Clouds look good from close range but shimmer and flicker from distance, this tends to be worse at some times and some missions. Do your clouds really not behave in the same way Fenris? At this point I cant think its a reinstall is needed though that did help both cloud and performance wise. Really no shimmering on your clouds? How about everyone else?

Edited March 16, 2018 by Wolf8312

[Rangerjoe03]

I just reinstalled too. I’ve only had a few minutes to test it so far, but it does seem better to me. Thank you! No more shimmering clouds at 150km draw distance.

[Wolf8312]

Well I think -and I am not sure about this- but I think whenever I change any settings, the next time I load the game up the clouds will be back to a God awful shimmering mess. I just loaded up a 'cloudy' mission and its so much better. It might also have been changing DD to 40 km but I dont think so. Will have to load up a few times careful not to touch anything to confirm. If you have this problem try choosing your settings, load up and, then load up again, but dont touch any of the settings.

[dburne]

I think there may be two or more  different things being discussed here.

 

The "pixilation" when the plane is in the clouds, appearing a very low resolution plane on the outside, is a side effect of their cloud implementation and that is what Jason was referring to when he stated that will not be addressed for a long time if ever.

 

This shimmering and other things being discussed, I am not sure about as apparently I am not having that - only the pixelation of the plane.

As far as the clouds stuttering a little as they move, afaik they have always been that way.

 

[Nic727]

I don’t know what happened. Changed my clouds from high to medium and medium to high (was trying to see performance hit) and now I have a lot of problems with the clouds.

 

- Now they look like medium settings cloud even at high.

- Shimmering and my plane kind of disappear when looking at it with a cloud behind with lot of aliasing.

 

 

help!

[Wolf8312]

Well I feel stupid but it was actually because I was playing on low graphics. Changed it to high and seems to be fine now. I guess what with there being a separate graphic option specifically for clouds I didn't really consider that the graphic options themselves would have any impact on cloud rendering. Well in order to compensate for using high graphics and MSSA I will have to put steam VR pixel density from 1.5 to 1.0.

 

Edit- Yep can confirm, high clouds and high graphics if you dont want clouds to look horribly distracting. 

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Wolf8312

[Wolf8312]

I think thats maybe why people think the fresh install is fixing the clouds but actually it's just returning the graphic settings back to high again?

 

Holy crap will have to make a thread about how good this game looks and plays now!

[Nic727]

First of all, why this thread is in VR section and not in bug section?

 

I don't have VR, but I have this cloud problem.

 

[Wolf8312]

6 hours ago, Nic727 said:

First of all, why this thread is in VR section and not in bug section?

 

I don't have VR, but I have this cloud problem.

 

 

Well it's not really a bug per say if we are being ungenerous, more like a limitation of the graphic engine. I think as dburne pointed out it's something the devs themselves cannot fix as they do not use AA on the clouds which would tank performance.

 

[Wolf8312]

46 minutes ago, Agathos_Deimon said:

Complete fresh install solved the issue for me.

 

Shimmering or the pixelation? You mean to say for you planes now dont have an alliasing flicking effect when contrasted against the white  background of the clouds?

 

Maybe share your settings then because it might not be a fresh install but the settings having been reset.

[dburne]

Well I just tried reducing my settings to Balanced on Preset, and Clouds to Medium.

It was awful, now I see what all the talk of shimmering is about. I can't handle that.

 

So back to High on Preset and High on Clouds, shimmering gone. ( clouds still stutter and have the pixilation issue though).

I can live with this, but not Balanced and Medium.

[JG4_Sputnik]

On 3/17/2018 at 3:08 PM, dburne said:

Well I just tried reducing my settings to Balanced on Preset, and Clouds to Medium.

 

Since my GPU can't handle high too well, this did the trick for me. It is very balanced and I have good fps and the clouds look pretty ok to me. (not in the far distance though).