1,746
edits
FlightGear Newsletter July 2021: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Add info on a XML mod to enable render scaling for people with 4k/5k monitors and '1080p GPUs'. Cleanup
(Add info on a XML mod to enable render scaling for people with 4k/5k monitors and '1080p GPUs'. Cleanup) |
|||
| Line 27: | Line 27: | ||
== Development news == | == Development news == | ||
<!-- News about FlightGear itself. The FlightGear mailing list and/or core developers are a good source. --> | <!-- News about FlightGear itself. The FlightGear mailing list and/or core developers are a good source. --> | ||
=== 2020.3. | === 2020.3.11 release === | ||
FlightGear 2020.3.'''11''' LTS point release is out. FlightGear 2020.3.'''10''' was a soft release that was not announced on the website or in the update available notification in the launcher. This release will include a web installer for windows that can update old 2020.3.x versions faster by downloading only changed files. Release candidates for testing are already available from [http://download.flightgear.org/builds/rc/ download.flightgear.org]. | |||
This | This follows the FlightGear 2020.3.'''9''' LTS [https://www.flightgear.org/download/ release] that first added a web-installer for Windows. See 2020.3.9 LTS [[Changelog 2020.3#2020.3.9|change log]] - included were improved regional definitions for Mediterranean Africa, improvements to shallow ocean water and inland water in certain areas, improvements to ATC dialog etc. | ||
====Web installer for Windows with 2020.3.9+==== | ====Web installer for Windows with 2020.3.9+==== | ||
| Line 62: | Line 62: | ||
* use the following [[Command line options|command-line option]]: --compositor=Compositor/HDR/hdr | * use the following [[Command line options|command-line option]]: --compositor=Compositor/HDR/hdr | ||
* To enable the command-line option simply copy/paste the line into the [[FlightGear Qt launcher]] > Settings > Additional Settings, or use the command-line or add it to the fgfsrc file | * To enable the command-line option simply copy/paste the line into the [[FlightGear Qt launcher]] > Settings > Additional Settings, or use the command-line or add it to the fgfsrc file | ||
* Notes ('' | * Notes (''The HDR pipeline is under heavy development - by the time you read this the prototype may have improved/changed several times)'': | ||
** Right now, FG will crash if any terrain is in view. So you need start over the ocean - or otherwise make sure no terrain is rendered e.g. by disabling TerraSync, and starting at a location for which you don't have terrain downloaded, or just temporarily rename your TerraSync folder. | ** Right now, FG will crash if any terrain is in view. So you need start over the ocean - or otherwise make sure no terrain is rendered e.g. by disabling TerraSync, and starting at a location for which you don't have terrain downloaded, or just temporarily rename your TerraSync folder. | ||
** Aircraft: The C172P is confirmed to start without crashing right now. To do a mid-air start from the [[FlightGear Qt launcher]] you need to specify a location over the ocean by typing in lat/lon coordinates and then specify an altitude. <code>Qt-Launcher > Location tab > Location search bar > enter lat/lon coordinates over ocean separated by a comma e.g. 30,-40 > press enter</code>. <code>Move the altitude toggle to enable it, and enter an altitude in ft or m</code>. CTRL+u works to gain altitude. You can also try the video assistant which can be selected from the launcher. Try a clear sky as cloud rendering is broken right now. Right now the in-sim menus may not render. | ** Aircraft: The C172P is confirmed to start without crashing right now. To do a mid-air start from the [[FlightGear Qt launcher]] you need to specify a location over the ocean by typing in lat/lon coordinates and then specify an altitude. <code>Qt-Launcher > Location tab > Location search bar > enter lat/lon coordinates over ocean separated by a comma e.g. 30,-40 > press enter</code>. <code>Move the altitude toggle to enable it, and enter an altitude in ft or m</code>. CTRL+u works to gain altitude. You can also try the video assistant which can be selected from the launcher. Try a clear sky as cloud rendering is broken right now. Right now the in-sim menus may not render. | ||
| Line 90: | Line 90: | ||
As Fernando said, this is all very WiP and experimental - it's an investigation of various approaches like a lot of development. Plans can change. There is no timeline, and progress can vary based on availability of volunteers. | As Fernando said, this is all very WiP and experimental - it's an investigation of various approaches like a lot of development. Plans can change. There is no timeline, and progress can vary based on availability of volunteers. | ||
[[HDR Pipeline#Gallery|WiP screenshots]] from | [[HDR Pipeline#Gallery|WiP screenshots]] (some are be from a very early version, and screenshots may be updated by the time you read this) - keep in mind this is very proof of concept using existing art not especially designed to take advantage of the new surface models, and it only works on aircraft carriers / over the sea. It's not an end-user demo of how a craft designed for these pipeline features will look when done, and shows features that people familiar with rendering and what's been tested can pick up on. | ||
==== Virtual reality (VR) support project ==== | ==== Virtual reality (VR) support project ==== | ||
James Hogan, a brand new contributor (not to be confused with James Turner or James Hester), has been working on a ''very'' experimental/WiP project adding support for {{Wikipedia|Virtual reality headset|Virtual Reality ('''VR''') headsets}} to FlightGear. The project needs the [[Compositor]] and next branch of FlightGear (nightly builds), It will not work on 2020.3.x LTS. The work is still very experimental and has not been merged into the FlightGear next branch as of late July. | James Hogan, a brand new contributor (not to be confused with James Turner or James Hester), has been working on a ''very'' experimental/WiP project adding support for {{Wikipedia|Virtual reality headset|Virtual Reality ('''VR''') headsets}} to FlightGear. The project needs the [[Compositor]] and next branch of FlightGear (nightly builds), It will not work on 2020.3.x LTS. The work is still very experimental and has not been merged into the FlightGear next branch as of late July. | ||
| Line 105: | Line 105: | ||
See the [https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/flightgear-devel/thread/From_killaccount%40cox.net_Sun_Jul_18_19%3A02%3A54_2021/#msg37322055 '''archived thread'''] on the sourceforge mailing-list archive for more information. | See the [https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/flightgear-devel/thread/From_killaccount%40cox.net_Sun_Jul_18_19%3A02%3A54_2021/#msg37322055 '''archived thread'''] on the sourceforge mailing-list archive for more information. | ||
==== Render scaling factor mod for Compositor (for power-users only) ==== | |||
On the next branch (i.e. nightly builds) the ALS renderer, Fernando has released an example of a modification for a render quality scaling setting. This mod is an experiment/example but can be immediately useful for people with 4k/5k monitors coupled with GPUs that are suited for 1080p - this is a very common situation with laptops. People with 2k screens may also find this useful, as well as people with older/mobile GPUs . | |||
The normal advice for 4k/5k monitors with 1080p/2k GPUs is to run at a lower resolution like 1080p, but contributors/power users may often run FlightGear windowed for testing/development or to view things like maps on other windows. GPUs that are NVIDIA 10 series or older , and the AMD equivalent don't support lower resolution without a little bit of blur that is optimised for viewing nature scenes in movies - even when the resolution is shrunk by half so each new pixel fits neatly into a 2x2 grid and there is no need for blurring. NVIDIA 11 series and newer GPUs support integer scaling and can handle half resolution without blurring - they support integer scaling. | |||
See the [https://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/37327631/ post on the mailing list] for info. Note: this is an experimental / temporary mod which will eventually expire e.g. when there's a tweak/fix to the ALS pipeline. | |||
* Create a XML file in a text editor (like notepad on windows) in the path <code>YourFlightGearFolder/data/Compositor/Classic/classic-upscaling.xml</code>and copy the text from here https://pastebin.com/GwwfmD4h. This contains a copy of the existing ALS pipeline in classic.xml, with a render scaling option added. | |||
* The [[Command line options|Command line option]] to use the new pipeline can be set from the [[FlightGear Qt launcher]] > Settings tab > Advanced Settings > text entry box > enter the following lines: | |||
** <code>--compositor=Compositor/Classic/classic-upscaling</code>to use the classic-upscaling pipeline xml file. Remove this line to use the normal rendering, or set it to another pipeline such as<code>"classic"</code>to instead of <code>"classic-upscaling"</code> | |||
** <code>--prop:/sim/rendering/scaling-factor='''YourNumberHere'''</code>where YourNumberHere is a value between 0.0 and 1.0 to shrink the rendered image. Try '''0.5''' for a 4k screen. Try values between e.g. 0.75 and 1.0 to tweak settings on older/mobile GPUs. | |||
* Remember that eventually the classic pipeline will be updated and to switch back sometime in the future, or use a newer mod. Remember to return things to normal (or turn render scaling to 1,0 when submitting screenshots. There are some issues such as the splash screen not being resized. | |||
This setting reduces the number of pixels that is rendered each frame, by rendering a smaller sized image. Normally the rendered image is the same size as the screen e.g. 1920 x 1080 for a 1080p monitor. This smaller sized rendered image is then stretched to fit the screen. There is a new control for a scaling factor that determines how much the rendered image is shrunk by, For example if a monitor has a resolution of 4096 by 2160 (4k) a scaling factor of 0.5 will result in 4096*0.5 x 2160*0.5 = 1920 x 1080. That is, each dimension is multiplied by the scaling factor. | |||
Rendering fewer pixels means proportionally less fragments - fragments are colour calculations which can contribute towards the colour of each pixel. Fewer fragments will help in cases on systems that are bottlenecked by the fragment shader. The fragment shader is where a massive amount of lighting and procedural detail math is done each frame for every fragment. | |||
If your performance bottleneck is on the CPU reducing the size of the rendered image will not help! In fact, if you are CPU bound you are free to find settings to turn up to give the GPU something to do. A quick way to check if your FPS is bottlenecked by the fragment shader performance is to go to windowed mode, and change the widnow size slightly - if the FPS also changes it means that the bottleneck is in the fragment processing. See the discussion in the [[hardware recommendations]] page for info and tips on tuning for the bottlenecks on your system (depends on things like the craft you fly and over what terrain as well as graphics settings). Reducing anti-aliasing also reduces the fragment shader load - see the page on [[Anti-aliasing]] for more info/tips. | |||
== Related Software tools and projects == | == Related Software tools and projects == | ||