So my main gripe with that update, that I generally like for its performance gains, is the blurry / low res ground textures from high above. It was always a bit blurry, but at least right beneath my plane it used to look sharp. Now it looks like this:

https://pasteboard.co/KdxhNCD.png


This is east coast USA, mind you. I have no other problems (except for the brightness, as you can see...) with textures or anything, so is this only on my end, is this a server issue, or another massive downgrade for airline pilots? Anyone else have this?

EDIT: That was from FL 360

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by Fiorentoni

Yes, sadly it‘s all a blurry mess from higher flightlevels. 
I think with SU5 it‘s even more downgraded.

9 minutes ago, Severne said:

Yes, sadly it‘s all a blurry mess from higher flightlevels. 
I think with SU5 it‘s even more downgraded.

I don't understand that. There is no autogen, no trees, no nothing drawn from that high up, so there is hardly any strain on the system. Why reduce textures even more? For 120 FPS that no one needs?

The textures in my picture are FS9 quality, and I'm not exaggerating. I don't understand that.

Yup, same blurry mess higher up for me (and mountains/scenery in the distance.

As someone on here said it looks like water spilt on a watercolour painting.

Agreed....the blurriness is horrible above FL350

seeing nothing like that first screenshot, textures are certainly lower res at altitude if you zoom in, but at default zoom levels they are perfectly acceptable here

3 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

So my main gripe with that update, that I generally like for its performance gains, is the blurry / low res ground textures from high above. It was always a bit blurry, but at least right beneath my plane it used to look sharp. Now it looks like this:

https://pasteboard.co/KdxhNCD.png


This is east coast USA, mind you. I have no other problems (except for the brightness, as you can see...) with textures or anything, so is this only on my end, is this a server issue, or another massive downgrade for airline pilots? Anyone else have this?

EDIT: That was from FL 360

Yup, exactly how mine looks at alt. But the bonus is i can run at Ultra on everythng on a GPU at 60fps everywhere just about anywhere, The same graphics card that could only manage 30fps with the occasional stutter at big airports. But it was light years ahead in quality visuals comapred to this rubbish we see now.

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by Car147

1 hour ago, EGLD said:

seeing nothing like that first screenshot, textures are certainly lower res at altitude if you zoom in, but at default zoom levels they are perfectly acceptable here

Really? That's not zoomed in, as you can see by the size of the aircraft. So maybe it IS a server issue?

1 hour ago, Car147 said:

Yup, exactly how mine looks at alt. But the bonus is i can run at Ultra on everythng on a GPU at 60fps everywhere just about anywhere, The same graphics card that could only manage 30fps with the occasional stutter at big airports. But it was light years ahead in quality visuals comapred to this rubbish we see now.

But great FPS down low (where textures are high-res anyway) could have been achieved without reducing ground textures LOD so dramatically, that you can count the pixels one by one. FPS at cruise level have never been a problem anyway and were not even really needed, since airliners at FL 360 just fly straight with autopilot on. There was absolutely no reason for that.

As an update to this:

Terrain LOD 200 for me means at about FL320 the texture changes to extremely low-res (like unbearably bad).
LOD 250 (through config file) shifts the change to FL 374.
LOD 275 shifts the change to FL400, which is all I need. So from now on LOD 275 is my new go-to, even if it unfortunately means, that I am back to slideshow FPS on the ground at KJFK et al.

Honestly, if they make such a change, at least make the slider go to 300 so I can change that on the fly. You cannot possibly make the ground go FS9-level at FL320 on the maximum (!) graphics setting. That's just a big middlefinger to every airliner simmer...

I noticed this earlier as well on a FL290 flight across France with photogrametry etc all turned on.  I mean airliner altitude wasn't all that great before for textures on the ground, now it's just flat out bad.  Bad enough I thought my eyes dried out and needed eye drops until I popped back into the cockpit and realized it was just outside.

For me, it's both low altitude and high altitude flights where I see graphics degradation. I am on a projector though and it's much easier to spot flaws than from a monitor. Sometimes when I go back to play on a monitor it feels like a totally different game, the projector isn't as sharp but things do look more realistic, but mainly it's for immersion / size.

1 hour ago, flyinion said:

I noticed this earlier as well on a FL290 flight across France with photogrametry etc all turned on.  I mean airliner altitude wasn't all that great before for textures on the ground, now it's just flat out bad.  Bad enough I thought my eyes dried out and needed eye drops until I popped back into the cockpit and realized it was just outside.

This is exactly how I feel. I never found that FL290 and over to be particularly great, but I could live with it.

Now it is just a blurry mess. I am still hopeful that this is just a hiccup and will be corrected in time.

Would feel more confident though if MS/Asobo chimed in and offer some reassurance.

Edited August 2, 20214 yr by michaelray

Interestingly, I have had reasonably sharp textures in places like Quito in Ecuador, albeit getting somewhat less sharp at above FL200 as others have also noted. All the while 45-60fps on my old machine. So even with the strange quality of graphics sometimes, quite tolerable.

However, moving to Austria (Orbx LOWI) a different story. 13-15fps on taxi rising to 25 ish at altitude, but also scenery after takeoff completely blurry, not slightly blurry. Before SU5 I was getting 25-30 on takeoff, crisp beautiful textures, and 40+ at altitude over Austria and N Italy (Bolzano.

Something is therefore clearly broken here. I have made no other changes. And it happens whether I select medium settings or Ultra. Frame rates are broadly similar. CPU usage is 65-75%, so even though I am getting 50-60ms on the CPU, it doesn't seem to be stressing the CPU (or GPU at all). Therefore is probably not my system I conclude, but something in the sim itself.

I cannot see how a Zendesk support request will help, as I have done most of the usual things to test it - other than a reinstall.

 

Wasn't there a thread somewhere about MSFS graphics settings not saving and somehow reverting to medium or even low without telling you? Read it yesterday i think.

Maybe you're a victim of this bug?

 

Edit:

Here is the link:

Settings do not stick since SU5 - Install, Performance & Graphics - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

Edited August 2, 20214 yr by ThomseN_inc