Turn off the forced sharpening filter for a cleaner image.

[Colonel X 1,430]

Some of you might have noticed, MSFS uses an aggressive sharpening filter. Some like it sharp, fair enough, but I think the image looks much cleaner without it. Thankfully, we may now easily disable it. Also, there are better sharpening tools using NVIDIA Freestyle. Follow the link below for more info.

Search for your UserCfg.opt, open it with notepad. It's located at \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\UserCfg.opt for regular installs.

At the bottom, find this list. Set Sharpen to 0, save, that's it!

{PostProcess
Enabled 1
EyeAdaptation 1
ColorGrading 1
Sharpen 1
Fringe 1
LensDistortion 0
Dirt 1
LensFlare 0
FilmGrain 1
Vignette 1
LensBlurMultiplier 1.000000
FringeMultiplier 1.000000
}

More filters:

 

[Colonel X 1,430]

Update: Getting rid of the sharpening also kills the shimmering/aliasing on buildings. Seems like this bolt on sharpening works completely against the TAA, which is absolutely brilliant with sharpening off. Also, the clouds become smoother, the dithering/noise which in some circumstances plague the clouds is gone!

[MikeT707 1,181]

 

31 minutes ago, Colonel X said:

Getting rid of the sharpening also kills the shimmering/aliasing on buildings

Ok, this is good to hear. As you turn off sharpening in-sim, are you enabling sharpening in Freestyle? I like the Freestyle version quite a bit because it has two controls that seem to give a precise visual balance. I will have to give this a try. 

[whitav8 98]

THe file for at least some of us is actually located here:

C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache

[IdleTalk 8]

Nice discovery!

Would there be any way to do it on community folders, not on core files?

[Nyxx 6,993]

This will be a personally taste tweak, I tried it and it looks terrible. 

[Carlosx 48]

BTW, I tried to use nvidia freestyle, but when I press the shortcut it says "game is not supported".

[Colonel X 1,430]

11 minutes ago, Carlosx said:

BTW, I tried to use nvidia freestyle, but when I press the shortcut it says "game is not supported".

Hmm, it's officially supported. Do you have the latest GeForce Experience and drivers?

[Colonel X 1,430]

33 minutes ago, IdleTalk said:

Nice discovery!

Would there be any way to do it on community folders, not on core files?

Maybe, yes. But it's just a digit, what could possibly go wrong...

[overt 55]

I don't know how you can possibly see this as an improvement, it looks terrible, like I dropped my resolution down a notch. Maybe in 4k it looks better.

[Colonel X 1,430]

27 minutes ago, overt said:

I don't know how you can possibly see this as an improvement, it looks terrible, like I dropped my resolution down a notch. Maybe in 4k it looks better.

When you say it looks like you dropped the resolution, that's only a testament of how overdone the sharpening in MSFS really is. 

Kill the sharpening, and then use NVIDIA Freestyle to sharpen the image (to your taste) instead, you will get a much better image. The forced sharpening, by all means, is overdone, to the point where it shows artifacting, affecting the TAA.

 

[Blat14 34]

16 hours ago, Carlosx said:

BTW, I tried to use nvidia freestyle, but when I press the shortcut it says "game is not supported".

It says that for me if I try before starting the simulator. Try ALT Z after you have the sim running

Edited August 30, 2020 by Blat14

[DModjo 117]

This is a great tip Colonel X! The sharpening set at application level makes everything look too shimmery and I was trying to figure out why it looked so bad even with TAA.

 

[Ferg 35]

Hi

 

I have my Sim loaded on an separate E/SSD drive.

I can see two folders - Community & Official.

Any ideas where my Microsoft Flight Simulator folder would be and the simulator Cfg please?

[Colonel X 1,430]

55 minutes ago, Ferg said:

Hi

 

I have my Sim loaded on an separate E/SSD drive.

I can see two folders - Community & Official.

Any ideas where my Microsoft Flight Simulator folder would be and the simulator Cfg please?

Just search in your Windows Explorer: UserCfg.opt