"Rounded" or smoothed-over mountains were a complaint as far back as the Alpha test. It was assumed to be a terrain mesh resolution problem back then, I don't know if that's still the case, or just a wonky on-the-fly algorithm attempting to reduce resolution on the fly at different distances. 

I still suspect it might be terrain mesh resolution (i.e. file size) despite what Asobo says about the specs. High resolution terrain mesh like the HD and UHD options in X-Plane require a lot more RAM, beyond the official minimum spec of the base sim.

Whatever they're doing, it may be another project to optimize frame rate in VR at the expense of 2D depiction, like the lowered object LOD and blurry terrain textures that appeared a few patches back.

 

Could be a work from polygon reduction algorithm to save rendering time. I would imagine the non-smoothed version has order of magnitude more polygons to render than the smoothed one.

Hopefully someday we could have a more optimized tessellation algorithm to reconstruct mountain surfaces. A quick Google search yields nothing on such topic 🤷‍♂️

 

I agree that there are more pressing issues, but I also agree that it would be great to have more defined and jagged mountains.

In the latest Q&A Neumann briefly talked about a new technique they’re currently looking into which he hopes will allow them to sharpen the cliffs. Whatever that means. (starting 10:22)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9lMr9JXU04&feature=emb_title

I doubt the sim is actually using Bing data for the terrain mesh.  They may work together with the Bing team but I'd expect it to all be on its own separate servers at this point.  There are also no 'spires' showing up in Bing 😉

There is no smoothing going on, the resolution of the DEM is just bad. Anything below 20 meters just looks like that.

39 minutes ago, Farlis said:

There is no smoothing going on, the resolution of the DEM is just bad. Anything below 20 meters just looks like that.

There are areas of the US that are supposed to have 1m DEM now, and they gave us a map to show us where those are when the USA World Update came out:

One thing I've noticed is that since the US and Japan updates is the terrain 'morphs' when you get closer it.  It's possible they added these higher resolution DEMs, but they don't show until you are right on top of them and the terrain 'morphs'.  Leaving the rounded look to things off in the distance.

Also, regardless of the resolution of the DEM, the choice of how the interpolate between the different points to create a mesh matters.  That's probably what they were referring to in the Dev Q&A

Edited January 2, 20215 yr by marsman2020

5 hours ago, DylanM said:

Count your lucky stars the algorithm is smoothing the terrain at all and you aren't getting Sauron's towers instead...

Spikes on Terrain and and Mesh Problems - Global - Bugs & Issues / Scenery - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

I don’t think this huge spike is caused by the lack of smoothing algorithm, as the smooth and rounded mountains are there from the very beginning. You can see the spikes going along with the smoothing effect. Also in Google Earth and other sims there are rugged mountains, but they don’t have these spikes.

New proof: The before and after comparison pics of the enhanced 20m Italian mesh clearly shows that even though the higher resolution mesh can make mountains look more realistic, they still look too smooth and rounded. So the terrain surface algorithm needs to be improved too. https://flightsim.to/file/5552/italydem

Edited January 3, 20215 yr by yanfeng12342000

Comparing Switzerland Lugano Airport MSFS with 20m mesh mod and Aerofly FS 2 version (about 30m mesh), we can see the higher mesh MSFS version still looks more smooth and rounded. Another proof of the terrain surface algorithm problem.

Out of interest what's the smallest/highest resolution DEM we could possibly hope for in MSF? i.e. what have the other Flight Sims got that we/I can look forward too?

I figure you can have rugged mountains with numerous scenery spikes or smooth rounded mountains with only the occasional spike. Asobo's solution to most problems is some sort of fudge. 

3 hours ago, yanfeng12342000 said:

Comparing Switzerland Lugano Airport MSFS with 20m mesh mod and Aerofly FS 2 version (about 30m mesh), we can see the higher mesh MSFS version still looks more smooth and rounded. Another proof of the terrain surface algorithm problem.

To me it looks similar in terms of smoothness. I think the texture in the bottom one made it look rugged

On 1/5/2021 at 3:34 AM, MarcG said:

Out of interest what's the smallest/highest resolution DEM we could possibly hope for in MSF? i.e. what have the other Flight Sims got that we/I can look forward too?

The optional free UHD mesh scenery for X-Plane 11 is 30m DEM data. It only covers a limited area of scenically interesting areas around the world, not the whole world. It's pretty spectacular though in terms of crisply detailed mountain ridges and cliffs, and has some other benefits like smoother coastlines and river bends.

There is lower res HD terrain that covers most of the world except for Africa and China/Russia. I'm not sure what the DEM number is here, but it's at least higher than the sim's default terrain mesh. AFAIK, the UHD mesh at 30 meter DEM resolution is the highest you can get in XP11.

Note: The UHD mesh has a recommended requirement of 32 GB RAM, and an "optimum" requirement of 64 GB RAM, along with 4-6 GB VRAM on your graphics card. That's well beyond the minimum spec for MSFS, which is why I'd be surprised to see something equivalent without a higher RAM requirement. 

 

On 1/2/2021 at 11:10 PM, marsman2020 said:

One thing I've noticed is that since the US and Japan updates is the terrain 'morphs' when you get closer it.  It's possible they added these higher resolution DEMs, but they don't show until you are right on top of them and the terrain 'morphs'.  Leaving the rounded look to things off in the distance.

Exactly right.

The way this system worked in the past, and as it seems still does, is that you'll need mesh for every LOD in order to avoid morphing.