Did the clouds improve in Sim Update 5?

[The Moose 1,177]

Yup, clouds are the one case of visual downgrade I actually agree with.  Fine at a distance still but one you get in them or cloud surf right on top of them there is some really terrible banding and grain going on.  It really does look awful at times.

Also objects such as buildings and bridges get some terrible aliasing when enclose in low cloud (try downtown San Francisco and the golden gate bridge with live weather right now for example)

No idea what people are on about with blurry textures etc... it's never looked so crisp and hi res on my machine.  Clouds are a definite downgrade in certain situations though.  No doubt about it.

[aniiran 431]

The clouds look really bad with live weather.  I don not know why but we keep getting these blocky Minecraft looking upper layer clouds that look like blurry blocky garbage. I have also noticed the upper level clouds don't draw to the horizon anymore, which is one of the things I could not stand in FSX and was happy they fixed in MSFS.  They really cut back on graphics for these frame rate improvements.  The sim looks bad on my system and for some reason every thing seems really far away and small. 

[MarcG 2,980]

In response to the topics title; No especially not in VR, the clouds on Ultra look like Medium before the update yet the FPS cost is still huge. This is definitely a backwards step.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

I am seeing zero difference - not better - not worse - identical.

Clearly something has changed for some people. I never move clouds off Ultra so maybe they have fiddled with the settings for some of the lower levels. Or the change effects some GPU more than others ?  Whatever they changed, it is clearly not effecting everyone.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[JaseMelbo 387]

10 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

I am seeing zero difference - not better - not worse - identical.

Clearly something has changed for some people. I never move clouds off Ultra so maybe they have fiddled with the settings for some of the lower levels. Or the change effects some GPU more than others ?  Whatever they changed, it is clearly not effecting everyone.

Yep - agree with this.  I am seeing great performance gains in the sim however clouds look same/similar to before.  For me, everything still looks really, really good.

Jase

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

4 hours ago, Alvega said:

It's one of things I noticed almost immediately because I'm a cloud fan, the clouds are not as good as before. Dunno if it's just the lighting, looks like they intentionally lowered the cloud quality.

I agree there is no question something was changed, possibly a gamma change. I've tried all the different sets of clouds, and there is definitely a difference from now and before. As far as ground textures, it could just be the shading, but it doesn't appear to be. I can see a distinctive difference in the way the grass is being rendered (I'm on a 120" screen, and I do rendering on the side, so it's easier for me to see the subtle differences others may not notice). The biggest change appears to be a blur filter they added to compensate the LOD.

 

[CFIJose 5,485]

My clouds are awful after the last update. I'm done with MSFS until they get it right.

[Ixoye 1,821]

Clouds on Ultra looks like Medium before SU5, another area that has been degraded to fit the Xbox, I'm also done with MSFS until they put their act together, this patch is unacceptable.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Ixoye

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

Yep, clouds on Ultra are now like Medium before the update but since they said they won't degrade anything, we must be all wrong.

Edited July 30, 2021 by Tomaz Drnovsek

[Tom_L 533]

This is Ultra on my SDR Monitor - Watercolor clouds (especially in the middle right section of the screenshot)! I hope this was not intended and will be changed to SU4 standards.

[Aristoteles 471]

Clouds definitely don´t deserve this, please Asobo, how can you do this to one of your best assets?

[z06z33 763]

It seems like this sim looks worse and worse every update.......

[The Moose 1,177]

29 minutes ago, z06z33 said:

It seems like this sim looks worse and worse every update.......

Well for me, apart from the clouds close up, it looks better in every aspect. 

 Those clouds though...   Still, it's not like its all situations they look bad...  but when they do it's not a pretty sight at all.   

I have complete confidence they will improve them again.  At the moment the trade off of worse clouds for everything else about the sim being vastly better (for me) is one i'll happily accept. 

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

6 minutes ago, The Moose said:

I have complete confidence they will improve them again. 

There are probably limitations regarding Xbox capabilities so the only way they will improve anything is by adding options in the Settings. Why they chose the lowest common denominator between PC and Xbox and not for example leave Ultra settings for the PCs is beyond me. They have their reasons, I guess. Maybe they will add this, maybe they won't. If you ask me it's all down to which market is the strongest. If they will have more sales on Xbox platform, PC users are second class citizens. If Xbox users won't be buying as much as PC users, we stand some chance to get what we want :)

[fakeflyer737 992]

I agree. 
 

clouds are looking less realistic compared to SU4. 
 

I really hope they fix this it is a flight sim after all !