problems with Alps scenery

[richard99]

Hi Justin,
I have installed the whole Europe terrain mesh. No words about the great and exciting resolution, it is a complete different world than the FS default.
Unfortunately, I have a problem with the Alps scenery. In fact, when flying over Alps within a certain range from the aircraft the mountains are in high definition, but beyond that they are rounded as I would have not installed the high resolution terrain mesh provided by FS Genesis product. Only when I move forward and closer them, they become more detailed, they rise up becoming with the correct definition.
Do you think it is an hardware problem or it is due to the FS2004 engine limitations or to an incorrect FS9.cfg file configuration?
My hardware specifications are:
Centrino core 2 duo, P8600 2,4 GHz, 4GB Ram, Ati mobility radeon HD 4650 with 1GB memory.

Thanks bye.

RR

[JustinFSG]

Hi Richard,

That's a limitation of the terrain engine.  The higher the resolution the shorter the visual range.  It's hard-coded for performance purposes.  If it wasn't, installing any higher resolution terrain mesh would bring the system to it's knees, as the number of elevation points increases exponentially with every higher LOD level.  It might look great, but you wouldn't be able to fly.  Just one of the trade-offs involving detail vs performance.

[richard99]

Hi Justin, thanks for your reply... I am a little disappointed because I didn't know about this kind of problem; has FSX a similar problem or it is better about that? Thanks bye.

[JustinFSG]

Hi,

Yes, FSX has the same limitation.  When you think about it, it makes sense from a performance standpoint.  Considering that there are a million elevation points in any 10 square kilometer area at 10m resolution you can imagine how much work the processor is asked to do, and how quickly everything would be brought to its knees if there wasn't some sort of throttle on it.  And from 10 km distance, how much detail can you see anyway?