5 hours ago, RaptyrOne said:

3. While in sim, observing this problem, hit Escape to return to the menu and adjust the render scale slider down a fraction and return to the sim. Return to your flight. You can then usually have clouds that don’t flash. You have to do this every time you load up a flight though, so keep pushing your render scale back up after flights so it does not eventually end on zero.

Doing something like this, or resizing the window and maximising it again, just seems to completely remove the clouds until I change the weather again, and then the flickering returns. Sometimes hitting the pause screen repeatedly can eliminate the flashing, but the clouds will continue to be stuck on the screen. I haven't been able to find some definitive solution at all.

4 hours ago, Dylanear said:

That said? if you could afford to buy this sim, you can probably afford to buy a 900 series nvidia card. They are selling used for less than the base price of MSFS! 970s can probably be had for $50? I can't  even imagine trying to run this software on a video card as old as Kepler/Maxwell. 

See, the problem is that there is no guarantee that a GeForce 900 series GPU will not become obsolete with another update soon. Maxwell 2.0 is very similar to Maxwell 1.0 as an architecture, and Pascal is mostly a die shrink of Maxwell 2.0. Even if it's just $50, it is likely that it would just go down the drain if they keep shifting the minimum requirements. This is why I'm trying to raise awareness about this issue and warn people who are not experiencing incompatibilities like these yet. Asobo need to handle this situation better in the future.

Since I don't want this to happen to me again any time soon, I will be upgrading to a mid-range Ampere or RDNA 2 GPU when they are out. But considering we are in the middle of a pandemic, hardware availability and prices can be truly awful depending on the region. This is a terrible time to be told to upgrade.

It's also worth nothing that, while according to support the flashing clouds are caused due to the low performance of those GPUs, laptop users found that switching to integrated Intel graphics fixes the issue, even if they are getting like 5 FPS or something. When questioned about that, support give out a robotic response that makes zero sense. They are out of excuses.

also a victim of this issue after one of the last updates. I have a GTX780 6GB VRAM (STRIX)

So what's next? do we now need to panic every time another mandatory update is available? they fix a few things i don't really care about and then break other stuff that is without any pre-warning? They could at least have given me the option to freeze the sim and continue in offline mode if i want to continue with clouds. Now it is unplayable.

The 'grand plan' is said to take 10 years of dedication by the dev team to keep this sim up-to-date. Well I wonder who's next for an unpleasant surprise

Edited November 17, 20205 yr by avhpilot

Sure, a $50, 6 years old card isn't going to assure you long term support. But it's going to be a cheap, but non trivial upgrade from a Kepler or first gen Maxwell CPU. 

But agreed, Asobo does need to handle this better. They need to be transparent about future support of older hardware and give people options if future versions drop support for previously supported hardware.

The upcoming issue is Direct X 12. MSFS is supposed to go to that sometime next year as I recall? As far as Nvidia goes, only the 900 series and up support DX12 other than a few 700 and 800 series GPUs that are actually using silicon from the newer generation Maxwell 2 tech, just marketed lower end and I'm not sure they support all typical DX 12 features while still using the DX 12 apis . So at that point I don't see older cards working at all unless they have the ability to run DX 11 or 12 both depending on hardware and settings? 

Edited November 18, 20205 yr by Dylanear

I totally agree with the earlier comment about slider controls.  Though there have been lots of improvements in the sim, 

1) night lighting is way worse that before, beta 2 was the best...

2) clouds, even on ultra settings are worse that they were at mid / high from just a patch or two ago

3) the LOD range has been greatly diminished from the alpha / release build.

I wish they would make this sim for the highest best systems we can build, and let us throttle back the settings to suit our individual system capabilities.  I have to believe this is a XBOX preparation thing, and that PC users in the end or going to suffer as the program gets tailored to

work on the consoles... just my guess, but these aren't things that are broken, but are items being deliberately scaled back update to update.

I no longer look at the environment around me in a flight with amazement.  That used to be a common occurrence.

 

I don't know why some are so excited to get DX12. Those with a 6 gig video card are going to be surprised. It happened with that other sim that went DX12 - some of my study level planes are not flyable without stripping most graphic settings to a minimum in order to bypass an instant ctd on load. Good for people with the big bucks, but for those on a budget, it's bye-bye for that particular sim. Of course, there are probably only one of me (lol).

On 11/18/2020 at 3:28 AM, bszuch said:

work on the consoles... just my guess, but these aren't things that are broken, but are items being deliberately scaled back update to update

While anything is possible, I see no evidence to suggest that this is the case.  A far simpler explanation is that, having intended to release the sim say early next year, Asobo were pressured by MS into releasing in August and have since been scrambling around trying to roll out improvements and new content while fixing bugs, without having the necessary infrastructure (QA processes etc.) to do so in a reliable way.

Here are some plausible explanations for each of the above-mentioned regressions (none of which involve any deliberate action to scale things back).  These are taken from various threads here and on the main site, and the Q&A sessions, although don't have references to hand:

- Flashing clouds: they implemented a cloud improvement in the recent update and didn't test it on old GPUs.  Now they don't see fixing it as a priority because of the low number of users on these GPUs.
- Cloud graininess: either a) the recent cloud improvement, while improving certain aspects of the depiction, made clouds look grainy under certain lighting, or b) the recent sharpness filter changes, which improved quality on the ground, had a negative impact on clouds.  Either way, an intentional change to improve visuals in some respects had a negative side-effect on another aspect of the visuals.
- Night lighting: they switched to a new lighting method to supposedly increase accuracy and also avoid the use of the night "sepia mask" textures at mid altitudes, however there are three problems with it: a) road data is inaccurate, so rural roads are classified as highways and are now lit; b) lights are too bright (they mentioned in a recent Q&A that they "might have overdone the brightness and will need to adjust it" or words to that effect); c) there is a bug that sometimes causes lights to be duplicated in the air.
- LOD range for trees: they reduced the size of trees based on user feedback, but didn't update some LOD logic that is based on the size, inadvertently reducing the distance at which trees start to appear.
- LOD range for buildings/ground textures.  Not sure about this one; I don't see much difference but others have reported a degradation.

Who knows whether these hypotheses are correct, but they seem more plausible than a deliberate attempt to scale things back, and the common theme is inadequate testing.  Essentially, this sim is an open, paid, beta at the moment.  Personally, I am very happy about that - I'd much rather be able to enjoy the sim with its faults than wait until next year (and I was one of the ones affected by the flickering cloud issue - had to upgrade to a 2nd hand pascal GPU while I wait for 3080s to be available), but I understand why others may not see it that way.

32 minutes ago, loge said:

Asobo were pressured by MS into releasing in August and have since been scrambling around trying to roll out improvements and new content while fixing bugs

It`s not only the fact they were pressured, they managed to ruin a a lot of things they decided to change on their own:

-input controls, LOD, night lighting, now the clouds

Did anyone ever asked them to do those things? No one. Why on earth they just couldn`t focus on the crashing issues, the physics and the missing cockpit features? Just what this game was supposed to be. Graphics were from the start good, now they mess things up on their own. What will be next?

32 minutes ago, loge said:

2nd hand pascal GPU while I wait for 3080s to be available),

It`s a rumor, but a 3080 TI is expected to come with 20GB of RAM. 10 GB VRam is not enough for the upcoming years.

Edited November 19, 20205 yr by BigDee

4 hours ago, loge said:

  A far simpler explanation is that, having intended to release the sim say early next year, Asobo were pressured by MS into releasing in August and have since been scrambling around trying to roll out improvements and new content while fixing bugs, without having the necessary infrastructure (QA processes etc.) to do so in a reliable way.

I don't see it that way. I think the first 60-70% of development came very easy for them and lulled them into a false sense of how easy the sim would be to complete. With each new 5-10% the amount and difficulty of work required goes up substantially and they (and in turn we) are paying the price for not being prepared for that.

Edited November 19, 20205 yr by Phantoms

Shame just checked the Dev list from today's update - clouds are way down at #22 😞

3 minutes ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

Shame just checked the Dev list from today's update - clouds are way down at #22 😞

The status is "Started" so I guess they've already started to fix the pixelated and grainy clouds. Unlike the thread about the flashing clouds which was omitted from the Feedback Snapshot for the second week now.

I really don't think they will fix this before DX12 now, as that is supposed to fix the pixelated clouds and blocky cloud reflections anyway, so it would possibly be a wasted effort if DX12 is imminent (as Xbox is). 

The shame is that a lot of older cards might not run DX12 anyway. 

4 hours ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

Shame just checked the Dev list from today's update - clouds are way down at #22

I really don’t think anyone should read too much into this number order. The list of issues upvoted by simmers and the list Asobo work on are not directly related. Just because the community has voted it into position #22 in no way means it is at that position on Asobo’s list.

Personally I think it is not a bad idea to help draw Asobo”s attention to what is bothering the community most but to think that this is the same ranking or priority that they place on fixing issues is simply not correct. They will be looking at a much bigger picture - how easy is it to fix, how it may have secondary impact on other sim systems, how critical is it to sim functionality etc. The item sitting at #50 may well be resolved with a patch months before the item at #1.

On 11/16/2020 at 7:40 PM, Zimmerbz said:

I don't have that issue but I can say I was a lot more excited about the appearance of the clouds prior to getting the game.  I am sure it will improve but even on Ultra settings I get these pixelated looking things that look like something from the early 90's.  I hope they improve things

I completely agree with @Zimmerbz. I think the clouds look terrible even on Ultra settings. What's even worse -- and what hasn't been discussed anywhere -- is that Ultra Cloud Settings give you a huge FPS hit even in clear skies. You can test this out for yourself. First, set the Cloud Settings to Low and then take an FPS reading when you're parked on the runway with CLEAR skies. Then, set the Cloud Settings to Ultra and take another FPS reading also with CLEAR skies. There is a 20-25% FPS hit even though there's not a cloud in the sky. Sound impossible? Try it and see.

A few years ago, I purchased a package from ORBX -- perhaps it was Global or maybe a Land Class Region -- that installed a few cloud graphics as an ancillary part of the package. Those clouds looked razor sharp and fantastic and had little or no FPS hit at all. I would love to get those ORBX clouds working in the new sim.

In my view, the clouds can look better at 'high' rather than 'ultra', as they tend to look a bit too granular and lumpy on ultra, which actually makes them look artificial.

Also, I read a tip somewhere to put colour up to 10 bit rather than 8 bit in Nvidia Control Panel - I didn't think it would work, but it seems to have alleviated the pixelated / grainy edges to the clouds I was getting when they were against certain backgrounds.

There are so many settings to tinker with I am really not surprised we have such different experiences sometimes.