Some news about 10.25 from Ben

[JohnMAXX]

Hi John ... here I have a first teaser for you from Seattle (disclaimer: it might look like this later or not) ... the magic with the new urban textures is especially tweaked for the "distant view" which now looks much better than before.

 

Baron_58_3.jpg

Quite honestly,  there may be no need to reinvent the wheel......This looks fantastic......

 

 

To be more clear, no need to update UrbanMAXX.......

 

 

I remember not that long ago LR wasn't interested in using orthos and was going a different direction with the urban environment. 

 

Not even a nod to Maxx-XP and UrbanMAXX for the inspiration....Thanks

Edited October 5, 2013 by JohnMAXX

[alpilotx]

To be more clear, no need to update UrbanMAXX.......

 

 

I remember not that long ago LR wasn't interested in using orthos and was going a different direction with the urban environment. 

 

Not even a nod to Maxx-XP and UrbanMAXX for the inspiration....Thanks

Yes, in that the new urban textures still take the way of "no ortho when close to the ground" ... so, for those who like your interpretation, will still be happy with it. And for those, who like the LR interpretation will be delighted by the new "improvements", which will make cities definitely look like cities when flying at higher altitudes.

[JohnMAXX]

Yes, in that the new urban textures still take the way of "no ortho when close to the ground" ... so, for those who like your interpretation, will still be happy with it. And for those, who like the LR interpretation will be delighted by the new "improvements", which will make cities definitely look like cities when flying at higher altitudes.

 

 

Ah OK I see, well this gives me a renewed sense of purpose, thanks for the clarification.....

[waltari]

Hi John ... here I have a first teaser for you from Seattle (disclaimer: it might look like this later or not) ... the magic with the new urban textures is especially tweaked for the "distant view" which now looks much better than before.

 

Baron_58_3.jpg

Oh my gosh, that looks fantastic!

[scubajuan_new]

Can't wait t see the results of new textures and other art in the autogen, and to see all this in the v2 HD mesh. Since Canada and USA will be covered (except for north of N70) it will take just a bit extra space to include Mexico and then we would have a complete North America

 

Note to self: Don't forget to plan and schedule a visit to INEGI with a truck load of DVD's

Edited October 6, 2013 by scubajuan_new

[PhM]

Yes, this will be a complete replacement .... (and after it, you will - I think - not want to go back )

Has anything been done to improve the number of primitives per openGL calls ratio ?

 

PhM

[alpilotx]

Has anything been done to improve the number of primitives per openGL calls ratio ?

 

PhM

Huh? Could you elaborate why this bothers you (because until now, nobody cared for this)?

 

And I would say, the primitives (if you mean the multitude of triangle patches the scenery is comprised of) are not created with "maximizing OpenGL efficiency" in mind (especially as this is not so much a parformance cost factor on modern hardware anymore) but the needs of the visual representation of the landscape. And this needs a lot of such patches - usually per terrain type change ! - to reflect the landscape in as much naturally as possible ....  (and yes, this is always a weighing of cost-benefit ... or what visuals you get at what performance hit).

[PhM]

Huh? Could you elaborate why this bothers you (because until now, nobody cared for this)?

By "nobody" I am guessing that you mean the average X-Plane user. Not sure if this is a correct guees but let's say it is. So yes indeed, "nobody" has been directly stating that they cared about the number of primitives per openGL call, for the simple reason that they have no idea about what this is. But a great number of those "nobody" have already, indirectly, stated that they care about that by voicing their concerns about v10 not being what they expected, even with incredible hardware setups, and having to reduce the amount of content they get on the screen to reach an acceptable (over 19 fps in order to stay real time) frame rate.

 

And I would say, the primitives (if you mean the multitude of triangle patches the scenery is comprised of)...

No, in graphics rendering terms a primitive is basically a triangle, not a set of triangles.

 

are not created with "maximizing OpenGL efficiency" in mind (especially as this is not so much a performance cost factor on modern hardware anymore) ...

Now that's interesting, and I would greatly appreciate any link to any published paper on that subject because those I have exactly say the opposite. That given the state of today's hardware, it is mandatory to have as many primitives as possible in order to avoid being API (or CPU if you prefer) bound.

This is nothing new as this paper dated back 2004 (it's a DirectX paper but the principles apply to openGL as well) and this paper, published at an earlier dated, state. Only things have got worse because the speed gap between CPUs and GPUs has widened quite a lot.

 

but the needs of the visual representation of the landscape. And this needs a lot of such patches - usually per terrain type change ! - to reflect the landscape in as much naturally as possible ....  (and yes, this is always a weighing of cost-benefit ... or what visuals you get at what performance hit).

I agree, there is always a tradeoff somewhere. But in this case there is wasted resources that could be used to getting things on the screen.

In case this is part of your work on sceneries, may I suggest that you connect together, with degenerate triangles, all the little bits that are using the same drawing context (texture, etc) and draw them in a single draw call instead of several ? This would be a first step in the right direction.

At least it is good to see that there is a will to improve things, and I believe that, someday, I will be profiling a v1x frame with a big smile on my face.

PhM

PS : I will update this post with numbers form some captures I made, so that everyone gets some understanding on this subject.

[pryoski]

And I would say, the primitives (if you mean the multitude of triangle patches the scenery is comprised of)

No, in graphics rendering terms a primitive is basically a triangle, not a set of triangles.

 

PhM .. that's exactly what he said .. he was talking plural (primitives) to your singular (primitive) .. but essentially what you go on to explain is exactly what he said.

[HarryCYUL]

simflight posted that 10.25 has been released.

 

http://www.simflight.com/2013/10/07/x-plane-10-25-new-version/#comments

[pryoski]

Lol .. also saw your comment there .. good one Harry!

[alpilotx]

In case this is part of your work on sceneries, may I suggest that you connect together, with degenerate triangles, all the little bits that are using the same drawing context (texture, etc) and draw them in a single draw call instead of several ? This would be a first step in the right direction.

At least it is good to see that there is a will to improve things, and I believe that, someday, I will be profiling a v1x frame with a big smile on my face.

PhM

 

Hi PhM,

 

Well lets put some things straight first. I have to admit, that I am NOT the one who works on the rendering engine, nor did I ever see that code from inside. What I have is a more generic understanding of how it works in general (and yes, I have some knowledge of OpenGL and computer graphics ... even though I don't code it) AND I have a very good understanding of the underlying data structures of the scenery (how it is) and especially how (and why) the scenery is generated from raw data (which is a quite complicated process on its own). I do also have - at least I think so - a very good idea of why many things are the way they are (need to be) at the moment (and also have some ideas about possible future improvements etc.) .... especially from the viewpoint that many things need to be as they are, because they make it possible to have the visual "effects" (how the scenery appears to the user in the end) we can have now (like for example the need for the the patchwork triangle mesh).

 

This all of course does not mean, that it is the perfect / most state of the art rendering engine of all times (neither do I think that there exists such thing .... you always have different priorities, different approaches, different trade offs to take) ... but at least neither is it the worst (and of course it was also something growing over many many years, with some legacy here and there, new approaches added, old stuff thrown out etc. and some necessary backward compatibility being in the equation too!). The most important character behind it is Ben Supnik, and I can assure you, that he is quite likely someone who knows OpenGL and all its possible tricks in extremely great detail (I have talked to him a lot in the last years, and this gave me good faith in his abilities) ... so I would expect that he is the one who could discuss with you your OpenGL ideas the best. But maybe you might first consider reading trough his Blog to get a feeling on how that guy thinks, and what moves him to do things the way he does it (because with a big flight sim platform like X-Plane he needs to see much more than just some OpenGL tricks ...):

http://developer.x-plane.com/

 

And finally ... Laminar (mostly Ben Supnik I think) is just in the process of modernizing / improving parts of the OpenGL code (likely coming in 10.30) .... hints are in the comments of his latest Blog post:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2013/10/now-that-breaking-bad-is-over/#comments

[HarryCYUL]

Lol .. also saw your comment there .. good one Harry!

they corrected the error....changed 10.25 back to 10.22

[PhM]

PhM .. that's exactly what he said .. he was talking plural (primitives) to your singular (primitive) .. but essentially what you go on to explain is exactly what he said.

I wanted to say that a primitive is a triangle, several triangles are several primitives, but several triangle patches are not primitives, they are several sets of primitives. Sorry this was not clear enough.

 

PhM

[PhM]

...Well lets put some things straight first. I have to admit, that I am NOT the one who works on the rendering engine, nor did I ever see that code from inside.

That's what I guessed, I thought that you may have had some way to format the mesh when editing it and that the rendering engine was a worker whose only task was to take whatever it was given and put it on screen. Given your answer it seems that this is not the case and that you have no control over how the engine will use the mesh you provide.

 

...The most important character behind it is Ben Supnik, and I can assure you, that he is quite likely someone who knows OpenGL and all its possible tricks in extremely great detail (I have talked to him a lot in the last years, and this gave me good faith in his abilities) ...

Well if you say so I believe you. It happens that I am working in the game industry, so I do have some knowledge in multi-core engines architecture be it using openGL, several DirectX versions and other proprietary APIs, which is why I spot things that we would not do in order to get the most out of the hardware we have. As I already stated I am only relying on what I see from the openGL commands in the captures I make during one v10 frame. I perfectly well know Ben's blog and read it quite often, I had quite a long email discussion with Ben on how to parallelize a game engine, back in 2008 probably, nothing about openGL, or how current rendering engines are architectured these days.

 

And finally ... Laminar (mostly Ben Supnik I think) is just in the process of modernizing / improving parts of the OpenGL code ...

Which is good and tells that the captures did not lie and that I was right in stating that there is room for improvement, chances are this will bring us a v10 closer to expectations. A lean and mean engine for X-Plane is all I am hoping for, so our hardware can start smoking and us enjoy a solid 30 fps rate with plenty on the screen.

Thanks for your reply.

PhM

PS : Tell Ben to keep an eye on Mantle from AMD, not much info publicly available yet but the thing is definitely worth following.