Texture changing tile per tile, breaking immersion

[Youtch]

When i fly in VR over an area with forests or cities, the textures systematically change below me in a pattern which look like the graphic engine is processing texture improvements tile per tile, with a tile corresponding usually to some shape of a couple of hundred of meters by couple of hundred of meters. It is very obvious and bothering and an immersion breaker.

 

For some reason, it is less obvious in winter map than autumn map.

 

Trees also seem to turn on themselves just when i fly by, which looks very weird.

 

It does not happen in 2D.

 

Is it something normal?

 

Is there any way to mitigate this effect or ensure it is done at greater distance or make it more gradual or subtle?

 

Any setting or parameter I should be looking at?

 

I have a reverb G2 at 100% SS, with OC 3080, and Ryzen 5600x, and using FSR mod.

 

Thank you very much in advance for your advice,

Y.

[firdimigdi]

 

12 hours ago, Youtch said:

It does not happen in 2D.

 

I have always seen it in 2D as well (there are also multiple threads/posts in this forum about this bubble) - you can also see it occurring in gameplay videos posted by popular IL-2 youtubers.

In the image below (captured when playing on screen) the white arrow points to where the forest/trees end, cyan points to where the tile is about to change and have lighting/shadows applied to it:

 

It's just way more jarring/obvious in VR.

[Youtch]

Indeed, it might be the same process causing both of these effects, but then it is much more subtle and gradual or happening at a longer distance, and i never really paid attention to it or was ever bothered by it with my current 2D settings.

 

What i see in VR is tile patches with texture changes, coming one after another, as if the map was being created while i fly above it, which is quite shocking.

 

Which is/are the parameters in setting having an influence on this?

[firdimigdi]

IIRC it's a combination of the graphics preset you are on and the horizon draw distance.

 

This "effect" is a trusty old pal of flight simulators for decades now, whereas LOD optimization occurs in all games/simulators, flight sims have the necessity of a much greater view distance so it becomes all the more apparent. Agreed though, in this case it would be nice if it was a tad less abrupt.

[Youtch]

Thanks, Firdimigdi, your deep techical knowledge and good advices are always appreciated!

 

I wander if passing from high to ultra will improve this and what would be the cost in fps.

 

I don t see the impact of drawing distance because i have it set to 70km and this issue seems to happen between 2 to 5km.

[firdimigdi]

 

37 minutes ago, Youtch said:

I wander if passing from high to ultra will improve this and what would be the cost in fps.

I don t see the impact of drawing distance because i have it set to 70km and this issue seems to happen between 2 to 5km.

 

Yeah, according to the manual entry for draw distance: "This setting controls the draw distance of the landscape and clouds. " so I guess it's just the texture quality of the landscape and not the forest.

 

However, in the gpresets.cfg file found in scripts.gtp (use unGTP-IL2 to get it), on high there is a setting that reads forest_distance=3 - while on ultra it's forest_distance=5 - so very likely this would change it instead of the draw distance, no idea if it's worth the performance hit. Sadly to make any change to those files you need to run mods enabled.

 

Edited April 13, 2022 by Firdimigdi

[JG_deserteagle540]

In this thread the Gpresets are discussed.

 

 

 

 

I put the forest_distance= 7 and 9, but the forest ends abruptly at the same distance.

 

[preset=3]
//Textures settings
    Filter=3
    texmipdown=0
    land_textures=0

//Quality
    shadows_quality=2
    shadows_dynamic=2,true,true        //Quality, InGameEnable, Smooth
    reflection=3
    grass_quality=7
    forest_quality=1
    landscape_parallax=1
    clouds_quality=2

//Distance
    objects_distance=1.0
    landscape_mesh_quality=1.0
    forest_distance=9

//Post effects
    post_effects_enable=true
    post_bloom_enable=true
    post_contrast=true
    post_sharpen=false
    post_drops_enable=true
    post_hdr=4
    saturation=1.0
    post_motion_samples=24;

//Screen depth, SSAO, SSR
    depth_res=1
    ssao_res=1
    ssao_samples=16
    ssr_samples=30

    clouds_samples=128

    effects_samples=1
[end]
 

 

So I wonder which setting has to be changed to increase the forest distance.