Clouds are very pixelated and grainy - Asobo listen please

[Epgd 134]

I wonder why nobody talk about it here....

The clouds after patch 6 are unacceptable, they looked very nice and on high standards from released day.., currently most of the clouds formations look very grainy and pixelated, especially when you fly through them and overal around you... and most on the fluffy one..

the quality has droped very drastically, making it impossible to enjoy the view and cut immersion of fly ....

I try like others everything, settings , change "film grain" to 0 ...etc, etc nothing can bring looked like before

I talk on ULTRA Setings only - have everything on Ultra

The problem exist and is very common...

take a look here also, includes photos...   https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/cloud-textures-pixelated-and-grainy/179116

So Asobo you said on last Q&A that you dont made any changes to the clouds...... but however, something is broken and it need to be fix...

Edited November 26, 2020 by janda

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

To be honest, I too noticed this.

[bendead 1,085]

Yep, and the further they are the uglier they look, like the "grain" is not really changing size with distance.

I just don't get why they can't see it

Edited November 26, 2020 by bendead

[frankla 44]

The linked image has grainy sky too, not just clouds.  Its as if its painted on textured canvas.

[109Sqn 1,557]

22 minutes ago, frankla said:

The linked image has grainy sky too, not just clouds.  Its as if its painted on textured canvas.

Those are clearly images taken with the camera close up to the monitor, so the individual pixels are being shown. That's why it's not just the clouds which look grainy.

[bendead 1,085]

I will post a picture of it tomorrow, because I tried but HDR screenshot are just wrong

But it seems not only because of the cloud alone, it seems to be a mix of light and multiple layer of cloud.

On external view, just by moving around the quality of the same cloud can change a lot

[BijanStudio 896]

I used to see them then  changed the sharpen from 1 to 0 in UserCfg.opt  file and marked the file as "read only" so it won't change back every time the flight sim starts.

I don't see pixels anymore.

The video quality is not great though.

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by BijanStudio

[nosaj_armstrong 10]

Thank you for that tip. 
 

Pardon my ignorance but where do I find the user.cfg file. My purchase was through the Microsoft Store. Not sure if that helps. 
 

thanks again!

[BijanStudio 896]

5 minutes ago, nosaj_armstrong said:

Thank you for that tip. 
 

Pardon my ignorance but where do I find the user.cfg file. My purchase was through the Microsoft Store. Not sure if that helps. 
 

thanks again!

[Isaiah53six 134]

5 hours ago, janda said:

I wonder why nobody talk about it here....

The clouds after patch 6 are unacceptable, they looked very nice and on high standards from released day.., currently most of the clouds formations look very grainy and pixelated, especially when you fly through them and overal around you... and most on the fluffy one..

the quality has droped very drastically, making it impossible to enjoy the view and cut immersion of fly ....

I try like others everything, settings , change "film grain" to 0 ...etc, etc nothing can bring looked like before

I talk on ULTRA Setings only - have everything on Ultra

The problem exist and is very common...

take a look here also, includes photos...   https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/cloud-textures-pixelated-and-grainy/179116

So Asobo you said on last Q&A that you dont made any changes to the clouds...... but however, something is broken and it need to be fix...

I see it too.  Release day the graphical settings were much better than they are today.  I hope I'm wrong now but I personally believe they are lowering the graphical settings for Xbox.  Many may be in denial of it but we know computers are capable of much higher settings than a console.  Something has to get dropped or tweaked unless they release separate versions of the sim (one for computers and one for xbox).

[mitrowsky 0]

Is there anything in settings to restore graininess to pre-update level?

 

[SierraHotel 976]

8 hours ago, janda said:

I wonder why nobody talk about it here....

The clouds after patch 6 are unacceptable, they looked very nice and on high standards from released day.., currently most of the clouds formations look very grainy and pixelated, especially when you fly through them and overal around you... and most on the fluffy one..

the quality has droped very drastically, making it impossible to enjoy the view and cut immersion of fly ....

I try like others everything, settings , change "film grain" to 0 ...etc, etc nothing can bring looked like before

I talk on ULTRA Setings only - have everything on Ultra

The problem exist and is very common...

take a look here also, includes photos...   https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/cloud-textures-pixelated-and-grainy/179116

So Asobo you said on last Q&A that you dont made any changes to the clouds...... but however, something is broken and it need to be fix...

Did you miss the announcement that said the grainy clouds would not be fixed until they introduce DX12?

Edited November 27, 2020 by SierraHotel

[Concorde79 65]

I get really annoyed by the grain on the edges of the clouds. it's clearly visible and have clouds set to Ultra.

Clouds in P3D with REX looked much better...

 

It's sad that in 2020 an entirely new simulator DOESN'T use DX12. but instead uses the dated DX11....

Edited November 27, 2020 by Concorde79

[pstrub 998]

In one of the developer Q&A videos they explained it's due to the way they calculate/sample the volumetric clouds. Sebastian (I think) said they could improve it, but that would increase the rendering time for the clouds, so it's a tradeoff. I suppose they could add an option to make this accessible to the user, at least in a config file... 

However, these pixel-scale variations get emphasised by applying a sharpen post-processing filter - which, incidentally, is activated by default in MSFS. As @BijanStudio pointed out, you should at least give it a try and disable the sharpen filter in the UserCfg.opt file. In my case this made the graininess a lot less noticeable, and I prefer the overall look of the image. But your mileage may vary.

The sharpen filter tends to pronounce edges in rendered graphics that wouldn't be there in a real photo anyway, so I always feel it makes everything look artificial and too crisp in places where it shouldn't be. 

While you're at it, disable the Fringe option in the config file too. It removes the hideous chromatic aberration you see in the hangar - the coloured edges that make everything look like you filmed it with a super cheap lens. 

 

Edited November 27, 2020 by pstrub

[Mark1616 47]

To be honest, coming from P3D and XP11, the MSFS clouds are amazing and some pixelization is just a slight imperfection. The convective ones perhaps grow and dissolve a little bit too fast, but a giant technology and realism leap has been made here. Only respect to the developers!