Experimental Video Rendering - UPDATED 8.1.2011

[noisy]

1. I usually run FSX with frames in FSX at unlimited and the external frame rate limiter set to 24. Is that OK, or should I just run FSX without the limiter. If so, should frames be unlimited or set to a limit in FSX?

The internal frame rate limiter does not affect the frame rate or speed of the resulting video. It might however have an effect on texture/scenery loading, can't tell for sure, would be interesting if some users could experiment with that. Possibly it could also slow down the rendering process slightly when set lower than the video frame rate.

I don't know how that external frame rate limiter works, but would expect the same here. At least it shouldn't have an effect on the resulting video's frame rate/speed.

2. The frames setting in the renderer -- does that have any affect on the rendering or is it designed just for purposes of the playback of the wmv. I guess what I'm getting at is it defaults at 25 but in the US should we use 30 or 24 based on typical frames on NTSC display, or doesn't that matter?

It is the frame rate of the resulting video, and therefore also affects the rendering; if you enter a higher frame rate, more frames have to be rendered, so rendering will take longer.
You should choose the frame rate depending on how you want to play the video. For playback on a PC monitor (which usually runs at 60Hz refresh rate today) 30 or 60 fps is a good choice to have it synchronized with the monitor frequency. If you want to make a DVD choose 25 fps for PAL, 29.97 or 30 for NTSC.

3. I experimented with capturing sound using audacity. Is there some way to create a sound that could be used for an external camera for synchronization? For internal cams I guess a switch click would work but haven't figured out a way to create a sound that you could see in the video and hear in the audio.

I used pause markers to synchronize recorded sound with the rendered video. When FS is paused there's no sound output, and the silent parts are easy to identify in the recorded audio.

[scott967]

Thanks, I will try to do some controlled tests. I never of thought of using "pause" as a marker -- excellent solution.

scott s.
.

[BJC]

The internal frame rate limiter does not affect the frame rate or speed of the resulting video. It might however have an effect on texture/scenery loading, can't tell for sure, would be interesting if some users could experiment with that.

I can confirm it does Matthias (with FS9.1). I've been fiddling for a few weeks trying to overcome the problem.

AMD Athon 64 3200+
2GB RAM
512MB Radeon 800 GTO
Minimal XP SP2 installation
Built 5 years ago as a dedicated FS box and still is.
FS9.1

I like using the Photorealistic England and Wales scenery and fast fighter jets which are a bad combination for blurry textures. I've been trying for a few weeks to get a decent video recorded but I'm still fighting the blurries.

The first attempt at rendering was with the framerate locked at 25fps to match rendering at 25fps. I did a quick test at 640x480 and the result was horrendous. I had more blurries than I did flying realtime at 1280x960. I then set the framerate to unlimited and saw a huge improvement but still lots of blurries.

Doubling the rendering fps to 50fps also saw a noticable improvement. More recorded aircraft on the screen also helps. It seems that the slower the rendering the less blurries I get but I can't get rid of them completely, however I haven't tried rendering at insanely high fps yet. It's also worse using full screen cockpit view which seems to be very demanding on resources, external views show much less blurries.

I've also tried frequent pauses and scenery refreshes which gives me sharp scenery but I don't like the way that scenery such as mountain tops suddenly appear and the sudden sharpening of the textures looks silly. It also means sitting for hours watching it render so I can pause when the blurries begin. (my recordings are a bit long at approx 30 mins)

My research 5 years ago seemed to show it was HDD speeds to blame for the blurries and my solid HDD activity light confirmed that however this is not the case while rendering so I don't know what to upgrade to get rid of them. 5 years on a whole new PC is probably best and I need to stick to FS2004 as I've spent so much on addons, I'd be perfectly happy with 2004 if I can fly fast over photorealistic scenery without blurries.

I hope this is of some help and another huge thanks from me Matthias for an excelent addon.

Finaly... is there any way to get the rendering to auto-stop when the playback has finished? That way it could be left unattended.

Regards
Brian

[noisy]

Thanks for the detailed report. I'll try to find a way to improve texture loading, but don't know if it's possible.

Finaly... is there any way to get the rendering to auto-stop when the playback has finished? That way it could be left unattended.

Currently not, but if you enable the Pause after Playback option in the FS Recorder settings, FS is paused when playback ends. Or you can set a pause marker, if you want to render only up to a certain point of the recorded flight.

[BJC]

Thanks, Pause after Playback is a good workaround.

I was reading more on texture loading with photographic scenery at lunchtime and found this interesting.

FS2004 seems to load textures on a ”per frame” basis, so the higher the framerate is, the better the quality of the scenery will be. Locking the framerate to a lower number will actually cause more blurries to appear. Generally, if framerate starts dropping below 30 FPS, the sim will have trouble keeping up and you will see blurry textures. If you manage to get over 60-70 FPS, blurries will virtually be non-existant.

This would confirm what I'm experiencing. I'll try rendering at a high fps when I get home from work.

[BJC]

Yes that's the answer. For photrealistic scenery the more fps the better.

I did a quick test for comparison using the Sigma Harrier with the true hover mod. Although it's jumping when hovering I've hovered smoothly before with FS Recorder so don't know what's up there. I'm surprised it works at all with FS Recorder considering the feat the author achieved, it shouldn't be possible to fly backwards in FS9.

25fps - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH40GAZokQo

100fps - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wo0GvQjmQw

At 25fps as new scenery is needed it begins with delayed sharpening then the severe blurries till the aircraft is slowed down again.

I haven't had this much fun with flightsim for a long time, I've been using MSFS since V4 which ran on DOS.

I've sent a well deserved donation.

[noisy]

I had a closer look at what happens inside FS, and found that at the end of the frame loop (after all other per-frame tasks are finished) some functions are called, which are related to texture/terrain loading. FS measures the time already elapsed for the current frame's processing, and, if the frame rate limiter is used, spends the time remaining to keep the target frame rate on these functions.

This means that a lower target frame rate results in more time per frame spent on texture/terrain loading. I tried to set the target frame rate to the minimum of 10fps (slowed down the rendering a bit), and in fact got better rendering results than with a setting of 100fps.
I then tried some hacks to give more time to the terrain loading functions per frame, which seems to work, but the effect is limited. I looks like there's some limit for the amount of terrain/texture loading per frame deeper inside FS, which is independent of the frame rate limiter. When the frame-to-frame movement of the aircraft gets too large (i.e. high speed/low FPS), terrain loading can no longer catch up. Increasing the video frame rate for rendering helps here, as then you have less frame-to-frame movement, so FS can better catch up with terrain loading.

I now plan to add two rendering options: One to activate a hack giving more time to the terrain loading functions, and another one to render additional frames, which are however not captured (e.g. rendering runs at 100fps, but only every fourth is captured and encoded, so you get a 25fps video and rendering should be faster, as less video frames have to be encoded).

[scott967]

IIUC when the "frame rate lock" is set in FSX, the time available between frames is allocated partly to the fiber thread and partly to texture loading, by default the fibers get 1/3 but can be adjusted using FiberFrameTimeFraction parameter from 0.0-1.0.

scott s.
.

[chappati21]

Hi

I tested this new version of FS recorder, and the video rendering feature is really awesome.
However I don't know if someone already noticed but when using a complex aircaft (with integrated systems etc..) there are some bugs with the flight controls especially with the ailerons and the spoilers.

Here is a quick vid. I made using Overland Simmer's sky A330 model merged with Wilco Airbus 2 Panel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt9FxIzRsMg
Obviously the movements are accelerated due to the recording trick but it's basicly what happens when I replay what I recorded.

Otherwise it works as charm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2qYirG1954

Anand.

[noisy]

Here is a quick vid. I made using Overland Simmer's sky A330 model merged with Wilco Airbus 2 Panel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt9FxIzRsMg
Obviously the movements are accelerated due to the recording trick but it's basicly what happens when I replay what I recorded.

This looks like the autopilot or fly-by-wire simulation is fighting against FS Recorder playback. Currently FS Recorder only records control inputs, but version 2.2 will support recording of the actual control deflections, this could maybe solve the problem.