Cameron Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 Hello All, This will serve as a formal forum announcement that we have released the version 5.0.5 update for SkyMaxx Pro. All customers who have purchased SkyMaxx Pro v5 up till now have been sent an e-mail by X-Aviation with complete instructions on how to obtain your update. We have made this a very simple process! For those that purchase SkyMaxx Pro v5 from today forward, your purchased download will already be updated to version 5.0.5 for you.What if I didn't get the update e-mail? If you did not receive your update e-mail don't fret! X-Aviation has updated our system to allow all customers to update with ease, regardless of whether you received an e-mail for the update! Here's what to do: 1. Login to your X-Aviation account here: https://www.x-aviation.com/catalog/account_history.php 2. Find your original SkyMaxx Pro v5 download and re-download the file. It will download as the latest version! The following is a list of additions/fixes included: What's New / Changed: Removed 500 meter lower bound of volumetric cloud layer altitudes with Real Weather Connector Implemented soft cloud / terrain blending with volumetric clouds Fixed regression in how volumetric clouds are drawn on configurations where depth buffer reads are not supported (notably MacOS with MSAA enabled) As always, thanks for purchasing from X-Aviation! 1
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 (edited) Thanks for the update. Here is something I discovered. With Cumulus and Overcast shadows set to use Volumetric I am getting massive fps loss again, down from 80 without SkyMaxx to 14 with Skymaxx. What I have noticed is that if I set the Cumulus clouds to use one of the standard cloud sets and leave overcast on volumetric the fps instantly jumps back up to 80, if I then set cumulus back to volumetric again the fps plummets to 14, if I then set overcast to use one of the standard cloud sets the fps remains at 14. So to my eyes it's the Cumulus clouds set on volumetric that kill the fps. Even with cumulus set to one of the standard cloud sets and overcast on volumetric it looks pretty darn nice but right now cumulus clouds for me at least can't be set to volumetric. This is where I'm at visually using standard cumulus and volumetric overcast. Edited January 25, 2021 by RobH
Cameron Posted January 25, 2021 Author Report Posted January 25, 2021 Hi @RobH, Thanks for the feedback. Can you clarify when it started tanking in this way? 5.0.5, or prior? My hunch is that we're seeing some major performance hit with the code implemented to occlude mountains being seen through clouds at certain levels. The hit wasn't large on my end, but it's becoming evident this may not be working out. Originally we were reserved to thinking being able to even occlude the mountains was not going to be possible with what Laminar provides us and how volumetric clouds work in the depth buffer. Once we saw more reports of it crop up, we started discussing how to tackle this, that there had to be a way, and discovered there was a potential path forward but it would be a multi-month re-write for a projection method we hadn't thought of. Later that day, @sundog came up with a way to make it work that we were happy with, but that happiness is not working out I think. For the most part, I think your observations on what's causing a performance hit or not are mostly conditional. How ray-casting works, certain scenarios cause different hits, all the way down to how low cloud levels are/distance from your aircraft. Appreciate you taking the time to write!
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 It was fine until I installed the 5.0.5 update, I did just manually set the weather to overcast to prove to myself that overcast on volumetric was not killing the fps and indeed it isn't. It's just when Cumulus is set to volumetric. Screenshot is with manual weather set to overcast
Cameron Posted January 25, 2021 Author Report Posted January 25, 2021 1 minute ago, RobH said: It was fine until I installed the 5.0.5 update, I did just manually set the weather to overcast to prove to myself that overcast on volumetric was not killing the fps and indeed it isn't. It's just when Cumulus is set to volumetric. Screenshot is with manual weather set to overcast Wait...those are not volumetric overcast clouds. Also, very interesting that 5.0.4 was better. Hmmmm. Need to think about this some more.
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 With the 5.0.4 update everything worked fine with both cumulus and overcast set to volumetric, sure the fps dipped some when flying though the clouds but I expected that. I tried to fly through the clouds with cumulus and overcast set to volumetric and well lets just say I could have hand drawn the frames faster myself.
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 So leaving overcast clouds on volumetric doesn't make them volumetric, I'm a bit lost lol do both cumulus and overcast have to be on volumetric for it to work ?
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 (edited) That may explain why the fps didn't drop with overcast set to volumetric if it's not actually drawing the volumetric clouds. Either way at the moment with both sets of clouds on volumetric I can't use SkyMaxx. Edited January 25, 2021 by RobH
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 (edited) So I changed the overcast clouds to use one of the standard cloud set and I was in exactly the same place I took that last shot, the standard overcast clouds looks a lot different to me. Ah haaa, I set the overcast to use the standard solid procedural clouds and it looked exactly like the shot before, so I'm assuming that setting overcast to use volumetric may not even be working at all? Switching from standard solid procedural to volumetric for the overcast made no difference at all so there's something amiss . Edited January 25, 2021 by RobH
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 Short video of what happens when I enable Cumulus volumetric 21169793_X-Plane2021_01.25-21_39.25_01.mp4
maksimus1650 Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 Dear Cameron New SMP 5.0.5 kills my XP11 (Screenshots and log file in attachment) This is because the plugin zeroes the standard simulator files, since there are empty files in the SMP plugin folder "Default Sky Colors" Best Regards Log.txt
Cameron Posted January 25, 2021 Author Report Posted January 25, 2021 @maksimus1650 That looks like a file became corrupted. The easiest way to resolve this is to run the X-Plane installer. It will scan your files and realize something is wrong with that one file, then it will update it back to how it should be. The rest of your X-Plane install will not be affected. Let me know how that works.
maksimus1650 Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Cameron said: @maksimus1650 That looks like a file became corrupted. The easiest way to resolve this is to run the X-Plane installer. It will scan your files and realize something is wrong with that one file, then it will update it back to how it should be. The rest of your X-Plane install will not be affected. Let me know how that works. That's exactly what I did. But after restarting, the files are empty again, since these files are zero in the SMP plugin folder and the plugin replaces the original XP files with empty ones and the error repeats. I removed SMP and put the original files back in and XP started working fine right away. These files are empty in SMP folder "SilverLining \ skyColors \ Default Sky Colors \". And each time the plugin overwrites these files in place of the original ones. My XP11 is breaking Edited January 25, 2021 by maksimus1650
Cameron Posted January 25, 2021 Author Report Posted January 25, 2021 @maksimus1650 Do you have any of the older version installers for v5 that you can re-install? Does it still happen then?
maksimus1650 Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 14 minutes ago, Cameron said: Do you have any of the older version installers for v5 that you can re-install? Does it still happen then? Yes, I downgrade back to version 5.0.4. There are no problems with this version. Files in plugin folder "Default Sky Colors" are not empty
Cameron Posted January 25, 2021 Author Report Posted January 25, 2021 1 minute ago, maksimus1650 said: Yes, I downgrade back to version 5.0.4. There are no problems with this version. Files in plugin folder "Default Sky Colors" are not empty Thank you for confirming this, and I'm sorry you're not yet able to run the latest. @sundog will need to take a look at this.
sundog Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 10 minutes ago, Cameron said: Thank you for confirming this, and I'm sorry you're not yet able to run the latest. @sundog will need to take a look at this. @CameronThe 5.0.5 package I handed off to you had no files at all in the skyColors/Default Sky Colors folder. Can you double check that is how it was distributed?@maksimus1650The way it's supposed to work is that SkyMaxx Pro makes a copy of the default sky colors installed by X-Plane when you start it, it substitutes its own, and then restores the ones that were saved when you shut down. I'm thinking that X-Plane crashed on you for some other reason and left these files in a corrupt state. If you delete the contents of skyColors/Default Sky Colors and re-run the X-Plane installer I think that will get version 5.0.5 back in a good state for you.
maksimus1650 Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 11 minutes ago, Cameron said: Thank you for confirming this, and I'm sorry you're not yet able to run the latest. I`am to also very sorry. As an example, plugin version 5.0.4 works normally
sundog Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 1 hour ago, RobH said: So I changed the overcast clouds to use one of the standard cloud set and I was in exactly the same place I took that last shot, the standard overcast clouds looks a lot different to me. Ah haaa, I set the overcast to use the standard solid procedural clouds and it looked exactly like the shot before, so I'm assuming that setting overcast to use volumetric may not even be working at all? Switching from standard solid procedural to volumetric for the overcast made no difference at all so there's something amiss . I think what's causing confusion is some logic where if an overcast layer is very low, and you do not have Real Weather Connector running, we substitute in a non-volumetric overcast layer even if you've specified volumetric because it avoids some artifacts that happen if the clouds are actually on the ground with volumetric clouds. 5.0.5 runs well on my own system (GTX1080) for what it's worth. Can you tell us more about your system specs, and other add-ons or custom scenery that might be competing for resources on your system?
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 (edited) I had ASXP and RWC working to provide the weather/clouds for SkyMaxx, as for my system it's an i9 10900K, 32GB 3600 Ram, RTX 3080GPU, when I was testing SkyMaxx it's was on a vanilla install of X-Plane, no addons at all. When I changed the overcast clouds to or from volumetric no visible changes were made, cumulus on the other hand just crippled my system when set to volumetric. Edited January 25, 2021 by RobH
maksimus1650 Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 7 minutes ago, sundog said: The way it's supposed to work is that SkyMaxx Pro makes a copy of the default sky colors installed by X-Plane when you start it, it substitutes its own, and then restores the ones that were saved when you shut down. I'm thinking that X-Plane crashed on you for some other reason and left these files in a corrupt state. If you delete the contents of skyColors/Default Sky Colors and re-run the X-Plane installer I think that will get version 5.0.5 back in a good state for you. The simulator did not crash. I installed version 5.0.5 from the installer and the installer uninstalled version 5.0.4 completely. But after installation version 5.0.5 the folder with empty files comes back. I Checked 3-4 times
sundog Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 1 minute ago, RobH said: I had ASXP and RWC working to provide the weather/clouds for SkyMaxx, as for my system it's an i9 10900K, 32GB 3600 Ram, RTX 3080GPU, when I was testing SkyMaxx it's was on a vanilla install of X-Plane, no addons at all. What resolution are you running at? Volumetric clouds do heavy computations for every pixel fragment, so high resolutions and/or high antialiasing settings can really affect performance with them.
sundog Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 1 minute ago, maksimus1650 said: The simulator did not crash. I installed version 5.0.5 from the installer and the installer uninstalled version 5.0.4 completely. But after installation version 5.0.5 the folder with empty files comes back. I Checked 3-4 times The installer for 5.0.5 should install no files at all into skyColor/Default Sky Colors. @Cameroncan you confirm?
RobH Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 4K but this wasn't an issue with 5.0.4, there was a small dip flying through the clouds sure. If you watch the video I posted that is on the ground so flying through anything isn't happening at that point.
maksimus1650 Posted January 25, 2021 Report Posted January 25, 2021 3 minutes ago, sundog said: The installer for 5.0.5 should install no files at all into skyColor/Default Sky Colors. @Cameroncan you confirm? I will try reinstalling version 5.0.5 again now. I'll write about the results. You saw that 5.0.4 is working properly now. Pure experiment)
Recommended Posts