Going by the following post...
Postby JonPatch on Mon Dec 22, 2008 1:23 am
Here's a summary from Holger, taken from FSGenesis forum archives. He is referrring to parameters in FS9.cfg. If you don't know where to find or edit that file, let us know.
In order to maximize the detail/sharpness of ground textures it's a good idea to use terrain extended textures. Below is a summary of what these parameters mean and what values are possible. However, if you're using photoreal scenery (such as MegaScenery) you should turn off extended textures and reduce visibility to 30 miles or so. That is because without extended textures FS needs to load about 5000 texture tiles but with extended textures the number jumps to about 20,000!
There's still a lot of debate what exactly those parameters mean and what units they have but here's what I compiled from various sources and, IMO (!), makes sense:
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
* that's easy: ON/OFF switch to load higher res textures beyond the initial "ring", which extends to about 40 miles
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000
* apparently, values can range from 0 to 9.99 and higher settings will be ignored
* extends the use of the highest detailed mips (sharper textures) within the inner circle; lower settings means less than 40 miles and higher settings up to the 40-mile max.
* changing this value doesn't seem to make much of a visible difference
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.500000
* same range of values as above
* extends the use of higher maps for the outer circle(s). Supposedly, "1.5" reaches to ~70mi and "9.9" to about 100mi
* careful!!! A setting higher than 3.9 can lead to "texture tearing" (blue slivers) in the mid- to far distance when high-res mesh is used. Some add-on mesh files - like some of mine - provide additional "buffer" mesh files, which prevent those blue slivers even at settings >3.9
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4
* range from 0 to 8
* is tied to TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS and defines the max. mip level to be used for the outer ring(s), that is the sharpness of the outer ring textures
* I never noticed much difference between 0 and 4; no changes at all when >4
In summary, the TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS parameter appears to be the one with the biggest visual influence.
Oh, and TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT apparently determines the speed or priority with which ground textures are sent for processing to the graphics card.
I sort of go by this but will try messing around a bit. Although I believe I am back to where I was as far as distance sharpness, I am still wondering what happened to the mostly white winter snow textures. I will have to take that up with Flight1. It sure is darn white around here now.
