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Ground texture question (Read 930 times)
Jun 29th, 2009 at 11:12am

patchz   Offline
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I am reasonably satisfied with my world scenery, considering my crappy computer, setup, and only 512 mb ram (hope to get more ram soon). But most of my flights are low level and the ground texture and number/types of trees leaves something to be desired. Can anyone suggest a method to improve this without payware or excessive fps hits? Thanks.


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If God intended aircraft engines to have horizontally opposed engines, Pratt and Whitney would have made them that way.
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Reply #1 - Jun 29th, 2009 at 12:10pm

Travis   Offline
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Sorry, the FPS is always going to suffer if you want better quality.

Try just turning the Global Texture Setting up as high as it will go.  That might not hit your FPS very badly, and it should improve the ground textures drastically.
 
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Reply #2 - Jun 29th, 2009 at 11:45pm

patchz   Offline
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Travis wrote on Jun 29th, 2009 at 12:10pm:
Sorry, the FPS is always going to suffer if you want better quality.

Try just turning the Global Texture Setting up as high as it will go.  That might not hit your FPS very badly, and it should improve the ground textures drastically.


Ok, thanks Travis.
 
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If God intended aircraft engines to have horizontally opposed engines, Pratt and Whitney would have made them that way.
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Reply #3 - Jun 30th, 2009 at 11:57am

Rocket_Bird   Offline
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I use Real Environment Pro (freeware) and it seems to improve the ground terrain and autogen considerably without a noticeable performance hit on my not too spectacular laptop.  But yeah, setting the Global Texture Setting higher does help....  What are your specs btw?
 
Cheers,
RB

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Reply #4 - Jun 30th, 2009 at 12:51pm

patchz   Offline
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Rocket_Bird wrote on Jun 30th, 2009 at 11:57am:
I use Real Environment Pro (freeware) and it seems to improve the ground terrain and autogen considerably without a noticeable performance hit on my not too spectacular laptop.  But yeah, setting the Global Texture Setting higher does help....  What are your specs btw?


I have REP. To which specs are you referring, computer or FS9 settings?
 
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Reply #5 - Jun 30th, 2009 at 5:24pm

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PC Smiley
 
Cheers,
RB

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Reply #6 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 1:04am

patchz   Offline
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2.6 Ghz P4, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro, 80 gig drive with 20 gigs of free space..
It was already worn out when I got it and I have worked it to death. Roll EyesI am going to try to increase the RAM as much as I can, depending on price. Hopefully, that will make a noticible difference.
 
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Reply #7 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 2:16am

Travis   Offline
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patchz wrote on Jul 1st, 2009 at 1:04am:
2.6 Ghz P4, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro, 80 gig drive with 20 gigs of free space..
It was already worn out when I got it and I have worked it to death. Roll EyesI am going to try to increase the RAM as much as I can, depending on price. Hopefully, that will make a noticible difference.


It isn't your RAM that will make a difference, but the processor speed.  At 2.6 Ghz, you're running a system better suited to FS8.  If I were you, I'd look into overclocking your system.  Instead of more RAM, get yourself a cooling system or some really heavy-duty fans.
 
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Reply #8 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 3:27am

Fozzer   Offline
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patchz wrote on Jul 1st, 2009 at 1:04am:
2.6 Ghz P4, 512 MB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro, 80 gig drive with 20 gigs of free space..
It was already worn out when I got it and I have worked it to death. Roll EyesI am going to try to increase the RAM as much as I can, depending on price. Hopefully, that will make a noticible difference.


Hello Larry...

In some respects your system is better than mine, but ALL my sliders are at Max, ALL the Boxes ticked, etc, giving me fantastic Scenery all around me, (with Freeware add-on scenery and various effects), SMOOTH flights with max AI Traffic and fancy Clouds, and I have no need to upgrade my System for FS 2004*...
...it runs a treat!
...and no problems in Multiplayer!
---------------------------------------
Home built.
Case: Horizontal Office Desktop...(easy to get at!).
Processor: (ancient!) Socket A Athlon XP Thoroughbred 2600+ (2.1 GHz). (Old faithful, runs HOT!)
Graphics: AGP. nVidia Ge-Force 78000 GS 265 MB. (The last, and fastest of the AGP series).
Memory: 2 GB. (Essential!)
Hard Drives: 256 GB + 80 GB. (Plenty of spare/free space for page swapping!).
CD.
DVD.
Floppy Drive. (Little darling!)
Sound: Creative Labs 1024 Sound Card, with Surround Speakers.
Power Supply: 700 Watt Storm. (Needed!)

External Zoom Broadband USB Modem. (NO ROUTER!).
-----------------------------------
There you go!
Not fantastic, but it runs FS 2004 absolutely flat out...with NO overclocking or tweaking!.... Smiley...!

I am a happy Bunny!.. Smiley...!

Paul...G-BPLF..FS 2004...and a real smoothy!... Cool...!

*....you can see from my Specs, why I don't use my copy of FSX...Wink... Wink... Grin... Grin...!
 
Dell Dimension 5000 BTX Tower. Win7 Home Edition, 32 Bit. Intel Pentium 4, dual 2.8 GHz. 2.5GB RAM, nVidia GF 9500GT 1GB. SATA 500GB + 80GB. Philips 17" LCD Monitor. Micronet ADSL Modem only. Saitek Cyborg Evo Force. FS 2004 + FSX. Briggs and Stratton Petrol Lawn Mower...Motor Bikes. Gas Cooker... and lots of musical instruments!.... ...!
Yamaha MO6,MM6,DX7,DX11,DX21,DX100,MK100,EMT10,PSR400,PSS780,Roland GW-8L v2,TR505,Casio MT-205,Korg CX3v2 dual manual,+ Leslie 760,M-Audio Prokeys88,KeyRig,Cubase,Keyfax4,Guitars,Orchestral,Baroque,Renaissance,Medieval Instruments.
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Reply #9 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 10:42am

Travis   Offline
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Dangit!  Having another "D'oh!" moment.

After taking another look at what your specs were, I realized that when you said you needed more RAM, you were RIGHT!  I didn't connect that you only had 512.  Having 2 GBs, as Paul said, really is a good idea with FS9.  Any more than that is useless, since you wouldn't be able to use it anyway, but less than that will suffice, as long as it's over 1 Gig.  I used to have just over 1.5 GBs on my other laptop, and it seemed to be okay.  But I still couldn't raise all of the sliders to max, because my card speed was low.  I guess hold off on the overclocking and get more RAM instead.  But keep the OCing in mind in case you don't get the desired results.

Thanks for the correction, Paul! Wink
 
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Reply #10 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 11:45am

Groundbound1   Offline
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More ram is important, but I personally would spend my first useable money on a video card upgrade. With a Radeon 9800 Pro (which isn't a bad card), we're still talking about AGP right?

If so, something like this is rather reasonably priced now, and would make  HUGE improvements in your sim. (I actually still have this exact model card, and when I was using it, it kept me quite happy while I was waiting to do a full system upgrade.)
 
Specs: Asus Crosshair nForce 590 SLI,
AMD Athlon X2 6400+ w/ZeroTherm BTF90, 
4GB G.Skill PI Series DDR2-800,
Sapphire HD4870 512MB,
PC P&C 750 Quad, in a CoolerMaster HAF932

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Reply #11 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 11:59am

Daube   Offline
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Patchz, try to find a little addon nammed "Treegen".
It's a set of replacement textures for the trees. The texture of a tree is replaced by another texture showing two or three smaller trees. The effect is quite convincing, and it also changes the impression of distance (the FS9 default trees are too big and make everything look smaller/closer).

For the ground, you can test the addon nammed "US rural textures"  (u.s._midwest_rural_textures_*.) or something like that, it replaces the textures and autogen position of the cultivated fields, that makes quite a change.

Also, see if you can find "Alaska terrain textures" (asktrn.zip on Flightsim.com), it will radically change the look of the ground in Alaska (I used it for the whole world).

Finally, together with the above sets, I recommend you the Lennart's textures (lennarts_textures.zip on flightsim.com) that replace some of the ground textures.

In the end, with all those addons, my FS9 terrain was looking like this:

Alaska terrain texture and lennart's together, and treegen I believe.
...

And on this one, you can see those new cultivated fields:
...
 
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Reply #12 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 12:05pm

Fozzer   Offline
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An elderly FS 2004 addict!
Hereford. England. EGBS.

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Groundbound1 wrote on Jul 1st, 2009 at 11:45am:
More ram is important, but I personally would spend my first useable money on a video card upgrade. With a Radeon 9800 Pro (which isn't a bad card), we're still talking about AGP right?

If so, something like this is rather reasonably price now, and would make  HUGE improvements in your sim. (I actually still have this exact model card, and when I was using it, it kept me quite happy while I was waiting to do a full system upgrade.)


..the snag is... Roll Eyes....

Once you move away from your/my trusty old AGP Graphics Card card, it involves a complete new motherboard with PCI-e slots, a new PCI-e Graphics Card, and most likely, a new Processor and Heat Sink + Fan as well...and maybe even different Memory Cards!

..all adding up to Mr. Loadsamoney!... Cry...!

In my case, I would have to dump the whole caboosh, and re-build a whole new Computer... Shocked....
...which would be a wast of money, as it runs FS 2004 fantastically....for me!... Kiss...!

I would only need a re-build if I decided to use my FSX Sim instead...
..which is very unlikely!...(In common with lots of Simmers, I like my FS 200x FS Navigator too much!..Wink...!

Paul...The Old Fashioned, Socket A, AGP, Enthusiast Extraordinaire... Cool...!

.... Grin... Grin.... Grin...!

P.S...and don't forget the (free) "VOZ" textures and colours, which includes the beautiful "Koorbygen" buildings....
(..and for Trees, I use Gerrish Grey's colourful Tree set!)... Smiley...!
...it all adds to FS 2004's "prettyness"!... Kiss... Wink...!
 
Dell Dimension 5000 BTX Tower. Win7 Home Edition, 32 Bit. Intel Pentium 4, dual 2.8 GHz. 2.5GB RAM, nVidia GF 9500GT 1GB. SATA 500GB + 80GB. Philips 17" LCD Monitor. Micronet ADSL Modem only. Saitek Cyborg Evo Force. FS 2004 + FSX. Briggs and Stratton Petrol Lawn Mower...Motor Bikes. Gas Cooker... and lots of musical instruments!.... ...!
Yamaha MO6,MM6,DX7,DX11,DX21,DX100,MK100,EMT10,PSR400,PSS780,Roland GW-8L v2,TR505,Casio MT-205,Korg CX3v2 dual manual,+ Leslie 760,M-Audio Prokeys88,KeyRig,Cubase,Keyfax4,Guitars,Orchestral,Baroque,Renaissance,Medieval Instruments.
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Reply #13 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 12:24pm

Groundbound1   Offline
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Fozzer wrote on Jul 1st, 2009 at 12:05pm:
Groundbound1 wrote on Jul 1st, 2009 at 11:45am:
More ram is important, but I personally would spend my first useable money on a video card upgrade. With a Radeon 9800 Pro (which isn't a bad card), we're still talking about AGP right?

If so, something like this is rather reasonably price now, and would make  HUGE improvements in your sim. (I actually still have this exact model card, and when I was using it, it kept me quite happy while I was waiting to do a full system upgrade.)


..the snag is... Roll Eyes....

Once you move away from your/my trusty old AGP Graphics Card card, it involves a complete new motherboard with PCI-e slots, a new PCI-e Graphics Card, and most likely, a new Processor and Heat Sink + Fan as well...and maybe even different Memory Cards!

..all adding up to Mr. Loadsamoney!... Cry...!

In my case, I would have to dump the whole caboosh, and re-build a whole new Computer... Shocked....
...which would be a wast of money, as it runs FS 2004 fantastically....for me!... Kiss...!

I would only need a re-build if I decided to use my FSX Sim instead...
..which is very unlikely!...(In common with lots of Simmers, I like my FS 200x FS Navigator too much!..Wink...!

Paul...The Old Fashioned, Socket A, AGP, Enthusiast Extraordinaire... Cool...!

.... Grin... Grin.... Grin...!



Radeon X1950 (the one I linked to anyway) is still AGP, Fozz. Huh  Wink

But yeah, if he/you  give up on AGP, then he'll/you'll be looking at a whole new system.

I'll say this too, if you only use this machine for FS9, and aren't worried about playing any newer games, a ram and video card upgrade should be all you need to keep you quite satisfied for a good long while. Wink
 
Specs: Asus Crosshair nForce 590 SLI,
AMD Athlon X2 6400+ w/ZeroTherm BTF90, 
4GB G.Skill PI Series DDR2-800,
Sapphire HD4870 512MB,
PC P&C 750 Quad, in a CoolerMaster HAF932

...
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Reply #14 - Jul 1st, 2009 at 12:41pm

Fozzer   Offline
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Hereford. England. EGBS.

Posts: 24861
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There you go, Larry...

Lots of good advice there... Kiss...!

For a low cost, slight hardware upgrade, and a few free bits and bobs in the scenery department, you should be able to zip along very nicely in FS 2004....

...and join us in FS 2004 Multiplayer!... Smiley...!

...doesn't that sound good?... Wink...!

Paul..G-BPLF..FS 2004...Californian Tours a Speciality... Cool...!

.... Grin...!
 
Dell Dimension 5000 BTX Tower. Win7 Home Edition, 32 Bit. Intel Pentium 4, dual 2.8 GHz. 2.5GB RAM, nVidia GF 9500GT 1GB. SATA 500GB + 80GB. Philips 17" LCD Monitor. Micronet ADSL Modem only. Saitek Cyborg Evo Force. FS 2004 + FSX. Briggs and Stratton Petrol Lawn Mower...Motor Bikes. Gas Cooker... and lots of musical instruments!.... ...!
Yamaha MO6,MM6,DX7,DX11,DX21,DX100,MK100,EMT10,PSR400,PSS780,Roland GW-8L v2,TR505,Casio MT-205,Korg CX3v2 dual manual,+ Leslie 760,M-Audio Prokeys88,KeyRig,Cubase,Keyfax4,Guitars,Orchestral,Baroque,Renaissance,Medieval Instruments.
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