Is this the end of the story?

No, it isn't. We've seen that them maximum resolution that FS2002 can display terrain mesh scenery at is ~19m and the maximum in FS2004 is ~38m, but we haven't begun to examine the interaction of the terrain mesh with other types of scenery, particularly land/water masks in FS2002 and FS2004, and vector scenery such as roads, railways, rivers and streams in FS2004.

We've also not looked at the effect of the gradient of terrain mesh polygons on the choice of generic textures and their associated autogen, nor have we looked at how the shape of the terrain affects the lighting variations applied to both custom and generic terrain textures.

Neither have we looked at how, despite the absolute limit on terrain display resolution in FS2004, setting a higher level of TMVL will affect how the terrain is displayed, even if this is only as the result of a possibly unintentional inconsistency within the FS2004 code.

Finally, we've not looked at the effect of changing various terrain parameters on the distance at which the various LOD levels are displayed, and how this can lead to the false indications that FS is displaying higher resolutions than are documented here.

It remains to be seen whether these topics will be presented in the format of this article, but if you are happy to pick out the relevant information, you can read many of my observations on them in this discussion on the Visual Flight forums:

Forum Discussion: "Terrain_max_vertex_level"

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