I'm opening this thread because I don't want to hijack the other one already opened with a different purpose.

Two open questions: 

1) Do you agree that each update is reducing the visual quality of MSFS? I have four main issues:

a) Water masks 

b) Water quality: now it's very low; in August it was great everywhere with notable wows in tropical seas

c) Visible scenery radius has been decreased

d) (Probably a consequence of c): frequent scenery popping (which was practically nonexistent in the first version)

2) Any idea on what the reason may be? Is it to improve performance on low end machines? To keep compatibility with XBOX? To reduce data transfer? To reduce server workload?

Some of the above may be totally wrong, something could be right. What do you think? 

While I am pretty patient with ASOBO and MS for the autopilot with a killer instinct, for some (a few) unfinished aircraft, the silly ATC, the interrupted engine sounds, the flight models needing improvements, and some other shortcomings, I am not impressed at all when I see some features that were actually there (and were really good) being taken away for no apparent reason.

Just my 2 cents of course, I am curious to hear other people's opinions.

Quick note: this is not whining: this is an opinion based on facts. I can wait for things to improve, ok, but I don't like things being dumbed down with a clear loss of quality of the whole product for some unknown reason.

Andrea

Hard to say. For example I believe the water looks worse because they increased the waves and action based on wind. I was landing somewhere in windy conditions and the water looks the same as it did on release day. Looks less good when its calm winds but that appears to be a design decision to limit the waves.

As for the rest - hard to say. I think when you play something new that looks amazing you don't notice the flaws but when you get used to the amazing graphics the flaws stand out a lot more.

Unfortunately the visuals continue to be degraded. The water masks are actively getting removed. Check out the "Tropical water" thread on the first page, both today's 680KB update and the USA World Update removed several of them.

The water quality underwent several (mostly undocumented) changes. 1.8.3.0 introduced a bug which made the water look like a mirror at lower wind speeds on preset weather only (live weather was unaffected), 1.9.3.0 brought a weird wave texture and made the waves look glitched and the foam textures repeat at higher wind speeds, while 1.10.7.0 removed the extra wave texture and improved the look of the waves at lower wind speeds. It's better than it used to be a few patches ago, but still not as good as launch.

Personally I can't say I've noticed any differences with the scenery draw distance and pop-in, though it is unlikely that they are trying to maintain compatibility with weaker systems if you mean the Xbox One, as the Xbox Series X rivals high-end systems of today. They replaced the cloud rendering system with the 1.10.7.0 patch which is incompatible with some older GPUs that meet the minimum requirements nevertheless. Of course, this was yet another undocumented change...

Tree draw distance reduced (not intentionally?)

Opposite is the case for me: Visuals and frame rates have improved since release. Lately even the photogrammetry.

The water mask are coming (back), watch the latest developer Q&A. They all have to be hand made and being pushed out when the sim loads new scenery.

I am pleased with how things have come along! Of course there are glitches, but the team is committed and working on improving things... 

The sim atmosphere is still impressive, but the terrain/mesh update broke the beautiful islands and the water masks have been removed making it the sim less enjoyable for me since I prefer to explore the tropical destinations. I wish that the LOD (distance that scenery loads ahead) would be increased a bit without affecting the performance.

Some AVSIM members think that I'm negative. I can honestly come up with a bug or something that incomplete every day of the year if I really wanted to, but I prefer to focus ,improving the visually appearance of the sim since this is the its major strength.

I love the sim and will continue to enjoy it daily.

The sim feels better than it did on launch but it definitely does not look good as it used to before... day and night. It’s a shame really. I had hopes it was only going to get better.

I have the most respect for Asobo for taking on such a big task and continuing our hobby... but I’m starting to get this feeling they might need to call in some help from the Pros in flight simulators. 

1 hour ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

though it is unlikely that they are trying to maintain compatibility with weaker systems if you mean the Xbox One, as the Xbox Series X rivals high-end systems of today.

No.... IMO this is exactly what is happening! 

I think that as they work on the Xbox version they are finding incompatibilities, and the quickest (cheapest) fix is to take a "lowest common denominator" approach rather than have maintain separate "branches" (Xbox and PC) for specific features. They simply don't have the resources, IMO.

1 hour ago, Silicus said:

Opposite is the case for me: Visuals and frame rates have improved since release. Lately even the photogrammetry.

Sorry but this is hard to believe when Asobo themselves have acknowledged that they have reduced some visuals to improve performance. Perhaps your performance has improved, but visual quality at similar settings cannot have improved. 

I don't know how many versions back it was, but there was one update that most definitely reduced the object LOD and introduced more blurry ground textures in the middle distance, with no changes in my settings to account for it. Also trees are noticeably popping-in directly in front of the aircraft when flying at low altitudes. It may have improved slightly in more recent patches, but it's different from how it was at release, and also different (degraded) from the Alpha test versions. I don't recall trees ever popping into view in the Alpha.

I doubt it's due to optimization for the new Xbox because that's a fairly powerful system. It should be able to easily run the graphics I remember from the Alpha test and the initial release. 

Maybe it was done to allow VR to achieve decent frame rates? But the odd thing is that I'm seeing this slight degradation in graphics since initial release with no increase in frame rate. I've been using the same settings since the Alpha and early release, and it's always floating around 35-40 fps. Maybe the scenery was "optimized" for VR in a way that doesn't translate to better FPS in 2D, but that's not usually the way it works.

 

1 hour ago, MatthewS said:

I think that as they work on the Xbox version they are finding incompatibilities, and the quickest (cheapest) fix is to take a "lowest common denominator" approach rather than have maintain separate "branches" (Xbox and PC) for specific features. They simply don't have the resources, IMO.

The Xbox One was released in 2013, and they've decided they won't be supporting PC hardware released until 2015. Either it's not that, or they're doing a terrible job at it.

Unless they're focusing exclusively on the Xbox Series X, but then they said in that French interview they will be releasing the simulator on the Xbox One as well.

I thought for a second that the quality of my scenery had deteriorated, but I think it's the winter textures mod making the foliage look dead.

To me FS2020 is better than ever.

You can tweak the settings to your own prefs. Accept lower FPS or higher quality visuals.

I am super happy with the way it looks on my system described below, pretty midrange ai would say. And I run 4 monitors and AirManager.

FS2020 is starting to feel really mature to me. Right now every aircraft I have flies great, I mostly fly the 3 Carenados and the 172 as well as the A320NX with the mod by FBW, and the AM-339 of course.

Sure there have been problems but FS2020 is only a couple months old. And look at all the freeware and payware already available.

As things change you have to change. To me WX and scenery is spectacular and real time WX is working great for me as well w/o any adding like you need in Xplane etc.

I can't wait for the new planes coming out in the next month or so.

I have not enjoyed simming this much ever. I do a couple flights every day. The realism blows me away. 

I like going back in my logbooks and redoing flight I did that were challenging or especially captivating and FS2020 makes it feel almost as real as the  I was in my real plane.

I find IFR procedures especially immersive, it is such a great feeling when you break out just a few hundred feet above minimums or right at minimums.

IMHO FS2020 is only getting better. When something new does not work perfectly, work around it, just like in real life. Concentrate on the good not the bad.

Anyway Sim on and be safe...

Interesting, I haven't noticed any change, positive or negative.

1 minute ago, andyjohnston.net said:

Interesting, I haven't noticed any change, positive or negative.

The only thing I've ever noticed was the AA degradation, which Asobo resolved in a relatively recent update. Admittedly though, I don't fly to many tropical destinations.