Aerofly FS 4 September Update Now Available

Quote from admin

@TomC RLG: Please try flying somewhere else than LA area and report back. The LA area is extremly heavy on the GPU, there are just houses over houses. If you fly for example in EDDF or KSFO performance should be much better. Please also report your quality settings, including VR settings. Even with a 3090 it might be necessary to adjust some settings when using VR.

Also keep in mind that normal release channel and beta are currently the same.

Pretty pointless for me since I love to fly your r22 where there are heliports. As I already posted earlier, my current FS4 quality settings are all medium except shadows and trees = low and buildings = high. My SteamVR settings remain at visuals manually set at 100% and advanced super sample filtering disabled. Also, no motion smoothing or asw enabled.

The main point I want to make is that FS2 allows me to max all in-game settings to Ultra and still performs, and looks better than FS4 currently does (except for night VR lighting). Also, have you at least found a reason why I cannot roll back to the non-beta version 4.00.03.05? Thanks and cheers.

Quote from admin

@douglas55: You keep reporting it works and then again it doesn't. If you can report to us your GPU and your quality settings, we can check and see what the issue might be. We also recommend to NOT mess with the NVIDIA settings at all. Leave everything at default. If you have a 6 GB GPU, areas like Los Angeles are probably too much for this card, or you need to reduce the quality settings. Especially the buildings density and quality has a huge impact on the GPU memory consumption, so reducing this should also help.

I know, I waste bandwidth posting for nothing and I'm sorry for that. Its just, after using using FS2 for the longest time and expecting FS4 to be the same in performance, its a real bummer realizing my video card isn't up to snuff. Its frustrating to say the least. So my apologies to all for being a malcontent and obnoxious online. lol That said, I have a NVidia GTX 1660 SUPER with GDDR6 @ 6gigs VRAM. My PC is a T5 Lenovo i7 10th Gen, 8 core (16 thread) processor @2.90Hz. As far as Quality settings, I've tried every combination from low to high in 4k to 1440p to windows mode and nothing worked. Process of eliminations says.....its definitely my video card. Its 6 gig not 8 gig as is the max card requirement as per specs required. I'm just gonna have to face facts I need a better video card plain and simple of which I don't have the $$ for right now.

Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

The quality settings ultra in FS 2 are now about medium or even low in FS 4. We've shifted the quality settings to make better use of the newer graphics card. So don't be fooled by this please. Medium is the old Ultra if you will. Doesn't mean it is performing badly just that you selected to high of a quality setting.

But, I have tried low quality in various screen resolutions as mentioned above and still not smooth like I expect it to be. Its my video card. It doesn't have enough memory (as per specs) to run it. I am aware that it has been said several times FS4 is to take advantage of modern video cards and that I would have to run the SIM in a lower quality setting due to my video cards lack of capability. No other option but buy a new *modern* video card.

*sigh*, Ok, so far, NOTE: All testing was done with the EC-135 only.

PC set to 3840x2160 @50Hz (recommended)

NVidia settings all "default"

Task manager set to "high" priority when in SIM

SIM set to 3840x2160 @ 50Hz

Vsync "on"

Everything else not needed turned "off" except traffic

Clouds, Cirrus only !

Wind etc. all turned "off"

Quality settings all set to "low"

Every so often (scenery dependent) there is a Nano second stutter, the higher the altitude the less pronounced (livable)

Turning sharply the scenery gets slightly fuzzy then is normal flying straight.

Some big airports (due to graphic heaviness) there is some slight mushy, watery looking, stuttering)

Exiting in and out of the SIM several times to test if its a fluke, and its consistent every time. I may be jinxing it by posting all this. If so, I remain silent after this. tttthhhuuupppp

Call me a stubborn old fool crying "wolf", call me what you will (except too late for lunch), I deserve any negative comments because of my malcontentness, lol But I just can't stop wanting it to work because its just so worth it to get it right and try over and over again till it works for me on my PC. I'm addicted, its too late for rehab. lol

Ya think.....

Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

Well 4K has 4x as many pixels to fill and requires much more power than regular 1080p. Have you tried lowering the resolution in the sim to 1440p or 1080p yet?

Ya, I did try those, got ugly, 4k seems to be working with "low" quality settings and everything I mentioned above.

Quote from Jet-Pack (IPACS)

The quality settings ultra in FS 2 are now about medium or even low in FS 4. We've shifted the quality settings to make better use of the newer graphics card. So don't be fooled by this please. Medium is the old Ultra if you will. Doesn't mean it is performing badly just that you selected to high of a quality setting.

Only way I can get decent, smooth VR performance at LA Heliports is to set ALL graphic quality to Low. This is almost as smooth as FS2 with mainly Ultra settings (except shadows and trees = low). FS4 Landing light is still broken. Too bad since this the best feature improvement that FS4 has over FS2 right now, for me anyway.

Good to know that Beta and non-beta versions are currently the same. I wish I knew this before spending +3 hours yesterday re-installing FS4, lol! I'll stick with non-beta for now and hope you put out fixes soon. Thanks.

Dear Jet-Pack (IPACS) and admin

Here are a few pictures to illustrate what I encounter since September 22’ Update.

Before, I believed the buildings were endless sight, but since the update it hits my eyes because they seem to be displayed at 12 NM or so.

Whatever the graphics settings from LOW to INSANE. By the way, whatever I set here, the quality is top level (apart shadows).

So I took screenshots in density areas to make the issue obvious.

Farther than the red line (around 12 NM), no towns:

Approaching CDG:

It’s on a MacBook Pro M1 Pro 14-CORE GPU 16GB.

[EDIT] I forgot to join the tm file, it is done now.

I think I had experienced something similar landing in Salt Lake City. But interesting note, I just flew in to KISP on Long Island and I can see lights and buildings all the way to Manhattan. It looks absolutely beautiful.

Yes, at 12.5 nm the streetlights to the airport ahead just appeared. (half of the 25nm map size).

All settings exept shadows are on ultra.

Quote from TomSimMuc

Yes, at 12.5 nm the streetlights to the airport ahead just appeared. (half of the 25nm map size).

And before the September Update, I could see endlessly the whole Silicon Valley (building, trees). Was I dreaming?

(all to ultra)

Concerning VR performance in Aerofly FS4, I have to personally say that I am very impressed. Even in the LA region with Ultra setting, it is very smooth with the Oculus Rift. Great works IPACS!

Quote from aenbacka

Concerning VR performance in Aerofly FS4, I have to personally say that I am very impressed. Even in the LA region with Ultra setting, it is very smooth with the Oculus Rift. Great works IPACS!

You must be using ASW or fixing your framerates to 1/2 of your headset refresh rate. Either that, or you're still on FS2, lol!

Quote from TomC RLG

You must be using ASW or fixing your framerates to 1/2 of your headset refresh rate. Either that, or you're still on FS2, lol!

Well actually I have been using it with ASW off (mainly due to performance in other sims) 😀 Using latest Aerofly FS4 beta.

Quote from aenbacka

Well actually I have been using it with ASW off (mainly due to performance in other sims) 😀 Using latest Aerofly FS4 beta.

Sorry but I have a hard time believing this mate.

Well, try FS4 LA Heliports in ultra settings. Compare that with FS2 (at ultra settings) and I think you'll see a big difference, lol!

You don't say what your PC specs are but in my case (see my signature) I'm using a i9 9900k/rtx3090. You also do not say what Oculus Rift headset (cv1 or S) you're using. I run a dual setup with a Vive Pro and Quest 2 (Air Link).

Interesting observation tonight. I decided to steal the better quality HDMI cable that came with the "X" console and use it for my PC. It seems that it made the overall imaging better in FS4.

I noticed it right away. Is it me or am I imagining it...?

Also those Nano-second hiccups I mentioned above are almost non existent, but I still have the slight stuttering over big airports.

Quote from TomC RLG

Sorry but I have a hard time believing this mate.

Well, try FS4 LA Heliports in ultra settings. Compare that with FS2 (at ultra settings) and I think you'll see a big difference, lol!

You don't say what your PC specs are but in my case (see my signature) I'm using a i9 9900k/rtx3090. You also do not say what Oculus Rift headset (cv1 or S) you're using. I run a dual setup with a Vive Pro and Quest 2 (Air Link).

Well of course everything is in relation to what hardware you are using, but this was just my own observation for the settings and hw I am using (of course the VR resolution etc. will impact the performance significantly) I do use Oculus Rift cv1 still, with the gtx1080/i7-6700k, and it still provides very good performance in Aerofly FS4 (not using FS2 anymore at all). Will probably upgrade PC and headset at some point, but have been waiting for the rtx4000 series.

I did flying around the LA heliports and several different regions in Europe.

Quote from aenbacka

Well of course everything is in relation to what hardware you are using, but this was just my own observation for the settings and hw I am using (of course the VR resolution etc. will impact the performance significantly) I do use Oculus Rift cv1 still, with the gtx1080/i7-6700k, and it still provides very good performance in Aerofly FS4 (not using FS2 anymore at all). Will probably upgrade PC and headset at some point, but have been waiting for the rtx4000 series.

I did flying around the LA heliports and several different regions in Europe.

I've retired my Rift cv1 over a year ago and don't miss the SDE, lol! I still have a very hard time believing that you can maintain 90fps with Ultra settings using your setup. The only way I can achieve Ultra with FS4 is if I use 45 Fixed (no asw) with my Quest or use SteamVR famerate throttling to 45fps with my OG Vive Pro. This works ok but with a heli you get a lot of motion blur in fast turns. With FS2 I was able to get smooth 90fps performance with mainly Ultra settings.

Anyway, as long as you're happy with your results that's great mate. Personally, because I have quite a few FS2 DLC's and user content from Flight-Sim dot org, I'll probably continue to mainly use FS2 and monitor FS4 development. Cheers.