My total experience has been - trying for a period of 2 weeks to download complete program, finally found limiting download to 500kb's allowed full download. Then a period of the Map not allowing me to "search" for anyplace, there was a period of exaggerated weird plane effects to make you think you were flying through air currents. Then came along "mods" that gave a better flight and instrument representation. A lot of other minor and major problems. With this weeks update, I can finally fly anywhere I wish using ICAO or coordinates consistently. Using available aircraft mods, flight regimens are a lot more acceptable (believable) and considering I run a i7700k and a gtx1060 card it is running with the neccesary graphics on ultra (clouds) and others on high with a few on medium. I am now very happy with how things are going and running. If it wasn't for waiting to see 5.1 version of that other sim, I would clear it out (but would really miss the Q400 and A2A planes). If 5.1 still doesn't cut it, I might consider going back to ver 4.5 in order to keep access to the Q400 and A2A hanger, but MSFS 2020 has a permanant home on my SSD. 

12 hours ago, rtodepart said:

have been since the DOS version of Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator, if anyone remembers

Yes! I absolutely remember it! 

Its a step... Ill give it that . The direction is yet to be determined.

Ill start to pay attention when the LOD, Anti Ailasing and Partly Cloudy lightning storms are fixed. Not impressed at all with the flat oceans compared to initial release either.

 

1 minute ago, Maxis said:

Its a step... Ill give it that . The direction is yet to be determined.

Ill start to pay attention when the LOD, Anti Ailasing and Partly Cloudy lightning storms are fixed. Not impressed at all with the flat oceans compared to initial release either.

 

Flat oceans?

9 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Flat oceans?

No wave or severely reduced wave action.

they definitely changed the waves ,, after 1.8.3 they looked pretty good, then after the next patch i thin they dumbed them down for people with lower spec machines,,, every since then you have to crank the wind up so see any movement,, and the general texture looks like leather,,or elephant hide

Just now, AmeliaCat said:

they definitely changed the waves ,, after 1.8.3 they looked pretty good, then after the next patch i thin they dumbed them down for people with lower spec machines,,, every since then you have to crank the wind up so see any movement,, and the general texture looks like leather,,or elephant hide

I don't mind them dumbing them down by putting in a slider  to accommodate weaker machines. But for the people with systems that can handle it that was a regressive move (If intentional).

Oh well nothing i can do but wait. Just frustrating that all this was working perfectly before..

I could be wrong, but my understanding of what was done was that the water was actually made more sensitive to wind, which is why it looks more rippled, or more like elephant hide, because the wind speeds necessary to cause ripples were lowered.....

If you look at the parts of the video where water is compared, at the same settings you actually tend to see more movement rather than less in the updated Sim.

At least I believe that's what asobo said they were trying to accomplish.

 

Edited October 15, 20205 yr by HiFlyer

Well in practice that idea didn't work out that great. Because as the previous person said.. The winds now need to be cranked up for it to look somewhat decent and it must be noted that naturally without any obvious surface wind oceans still have swells. On a "calm" day in the sim the ocean now does not have the natural look it used to have before they messed with it. But just to be sure i will test again.

Edited October 15, 20205 yr by Maxis

1 hour ago, Maxis said:

Well in practice that idea didn't work out that great. Because as the previous person said.. The winds now need to be cranked up for it to look somewhat decent and it must be noted that naturally without any obvious surface wind oceans still have swells. On a "calm" day in the sim the ocean now does not have the natural look it used to have before they messed with it. But just to be sure i will test again.

This is what I remember:

Quote

 

WORLD

• Ocean rendering has been improved (waves scale, foam and reflections)
• Water mask has been edited to display actual aerial image near the shore in some areas
• Luminance has been tweaked for some photogrammetry cities (Napoli, Darwin, San Gorgonio, Las Vegas)
• Fixed terraforming issue which was causing issues in KTEX airport
• Water elevation has been updated to improve rivers (Missouri river and around Toronto for example) and lakes (center of Canada)
• Fixed detail map rendering around runway/taxiway borders

 

There was also an additional, which may or may not have had an effect on weather depiction:

Quote

 

WEATHER

• The wind gradient when getting close to the ground on live weather has been fixed
• Lightning have been added when applicable

 

There was also a complaint (I believe legit) from many people about water reflections vis a vis building night lighting being removed. There was mention of this on a video by Obsidianant: I start the video at the relevant point.

Finally, here is a visual comparison thread between three patches: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/pre-post-patch-2-3-screenshot-comparison/290063

 

•  

OK cat .. I dont want to argue , we are the same species,, but there are a ton of posts on the msfs official forum saying water looks worse , and I think there is a vote in progress to get asobo to revert it back..personally I think it looks worse and Asobo or ms saying they improved something and not actually doing it or it getting worse is unfortunately not uncommon so lets agree to disagree, that it looks worse,😻

I guess posters have differing opinions about what water should look like .

probably never gonna be to everyone's liking i guess,

I think if the guy up there watching us  was reading some of this threads he probably asked himself 

why are waves sooo important on a FLIGHT SIMULATOR ??? 

Edited October 15, 20205 yr by rtodepart

Is it possible the issue is a difference between "looking better" and "looking more realistic" .

As a part time photographer for example I can tell you the scenery photo's most people rate as "looking best" are often highly unrealistic.  The ones rated "best" have usually been edited in photoshop to increase the color saturation to levels way higher than real life and often have distant features sharpened.

If you want a good non-aviation example of "looking good" versus "looking realistic " check out this Dove video :

https://youtu.be/iYhCn0jf46U

EDIT:

As a case in point, i showed a friend of mine the Orbyx Sydney scenery which I am considering buying as i think it looks pretty good and the price is OK.  Her response was " it looks  a bit like an anime, everything is too new and pristine and shiny and clean, Sydney is not like that it is actually pretty grotty and polluted "

Edited October 15, 20205 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick