What you’re asking for is a lot… Don’t try to use 10 layers. Do you know how translucency works and how expensive blending it is? Couple that with some complex terrain material shaders and of course you’ll get low fps… The guy that posted his setup with a bunch of simple terrain textures, that you criticized, had the right idea. If you want more layers, you’ll have to drop special effects from their materials; to reduce instructions. Regardless of however many layers you use, you will ALWAYS get more performance by optimizing the other visual aspects of the scene. Even if it means going from 20fps to 25fps, that’s still a gain.
Did you not read what they said? CE=16 layers per terrain, 1 layer per vertex aka 3 layers per triangle. FC4=really low res far terrain textures (>300m away), heightmap+4 detail layers blended with a mask texture; for up close. Also, in FC4, they bake decals. Don’t get me wrong, virtual texturing is nice, but it’s not an absolute must and it has it’s pros/cons; just like any other system out there.
The point is that we shouldn’t have to jump through hoops. Unreal doesn’t exist in a void. There are other engines out whose featuresets we can compare and contrast. If someone else does something better, it’s fair to request those features in Unreal. Suggesting a workaround to reach 25 fps is insane.