MX Simulator

Here's a question I've been thinking about. When disp maps are more complex (lots of small random hills/bumps for instance) why is that harder on your hardware (drop fps)? Does this happen with all games that render terrain? I just thought that the disp map is loaded and that's it.

A 1025x1025 map would use over 2,000,000 triangles if not optimized. MX Sim, like any good terrain engine, uses less geometry for flat terrain.

So the game actually changes the geometry of the track depending on how complex it is? That's pretty cool, I just noticed a big fps hit if there is a track with lots of ruts for example. Is this how the terrain geometry graphics adjustment can be used?

Yes. The terrain geometry setting controls how far out of the plane (in screen space) a vertex can be before that triangle is subdivided.