I don't fly much to bigger cities and I have Photogrammetry off most of the time. But at some of my recent flights when I came closer to big cities it seems to me that the ai-generetated buildings look worse from a medium distance after SU5. Most large buildings look like wood builing blocks for children. Only when coming very close, more details like windows appear on the building textures. Is this another aspect of downgraded visuals in favor of performance or has it always been like this? As I said, I don't fly often in urban areas and I could be wrong memorizing pre-SU5 urban areas.

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by Nemo

I think there is some change but cannot be certain exactly what. The towns and buildings looked realistic before, now they have lost their sharpness and the colours seem to have changed for the worse

If it looks to grainy, you can test by setting the Filmgrain setting to 0 in the UserCfg.opt file (under PostProcess).

They've been super aggressive with cutting down detail in their own models such as airport furniture and cars after the update so it would make sense that they've extended it to buildings as well. 

I've found that default buildings turn into single-colour rectangles once you're over a mile or two away at VFR heights. This is definitely a SU5 degradation, I'm flying almost exclusively low and slow these days.

I understand why, Asobo's orders are to increase framerates (on Xbox) and this is one of the ways they've achieved it, but the visual quality is noticeably worse for it.

I just dont understand why they havent given the user the ability to choose this for themselves. The original buildings exist somewhere, so why not let us decide what we want to see.

Its all very well them trying to have one platform with Xbox, but it is PC users that have been using Flight Sim for years up until now. Why cant they make it customisable rather than forcing an inferior looking product onto us?

I really enjoyed looking at and discovering at real places and it was so realistic it was incredible. Now I feel like im back playing a game

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by chickster25

3 minutes ago, chickster25 said:

Why cant they make it customisable rather than forcing an inferior looking product onto us?

It should be because when i bought MSFS i bought it for the upgraded visuals over FSX and how they looked at that moment.
Then the XBox comes into play and us PC users have downgraded visuals to deal with. Not a happy costumer at this point.

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by Lange_666

10 minutes ago, Lange_666 said:

It should be because when i bought MSFS i bought it for the upgraded visuals over FSX and how they looked at that moment.
Then the XBox comes into play and us PC users have downgraded visuals to deal with. Not a happy costumer at this point.

Dont get me wrong, Asobo have created an amazing product but I have invested a lot in upgrading my PC just for this and now I am concerned about the direction this is going in.

I am hoping that this will still be a ground breaking simulation after some further updates, but cannot help but worry that we could end up with a lesser version with some frustrating long-term bugs that is not what we originally hoped for.

 I would also like to enjoy the game, rather than keep reviewing settings to optimise or regain graphical improvements every time there is an update,

Edited July 30, 20214 yr by chickster25

all you guys complaining about down graded visuals and worrying about where the game is going, sound like chicken little. Go compare your visuals to the best p3d and xp has to offer and then ask yourself if could get the same visuals and performance on the other sims

Just now, devgrp said:

all you guys complaining about down graded visuals and worrying about where the game is going, sound like chicken little. Go compare your visuals to the best p3d and xp has to offer and then ask yourself if could get the same visuals and performance on the other sims

We are not comparing apples with pears (MSFS vs P3D), we are comparing the same product (MSFS SU4 vs MSFS SU 5).

Im sure you would not be happy if you bought a 200hp car and then had it downgraded to 150hp after you had taken it in for a service?

It may not be the same experience for everyone - and some are happy with the changes - but for me,  its been a downgrade.

2 minutes ago, chickster25 said:

Dont get me wrong, Asobo have created an amazing product but I have invested a lot in upgrading my PC just for this and now I am concerned about the direction this is going in.

I am hoping that this will still be a ground breaking simulation after some further updates, but cannot help but worry that we could end up with a lesser version with some frustrating long-term bugs that is not what we originally hoped for.

 I would also like to enjoy the game, rather than keep reviewing settings to optimise or regain graphical improvements every time there is an update,

You're absolute right!

I paid for MSFS 2020 Premium Deluxe and, in addition, more than 3.000 € (about 3,500 US dollars) in hardware to adapt my PC to the new Flight Simulator.

And what I have now?

CTDs and visual degradation!

I'm not happy with it!

1 minute ago, chickster25 said:

We are not comparing apples with pears (MSFS vs P3D), we are comparing the same product (MSFS SU4 vs MSFS SU 5).

Im sure you would not be happy if you bought a 200hp car and then had it downgraded to 150hp after you had taken it in for a service?

It may not be the same experience for everyone - and some are happy with the changes - but for me,  its been a downgrade.

If what I have now is far better than what I had before on its lowest setting, why would I complain? The performance and visuals surpass what I'm used to so I'm not going to complain. All I need is my sim to perform well in dense areas like NYC or LA and look good and so far it hasnt let me down yet.

I remember when we had drzewiecki design NYC, flying there in fsx or p3d was impossible. The building textures would turn black. Same for LAX. Now we have scenery, performance and visuals and people still complaining because they cant see trees 20 miles out or their clouds arent as fluffy anymore lol

3 minutes ago, John Fields said:

You're absolute right!

I paid for MSFS 2020 Premium Deluxe and, in addition, more than 3.000 € (about 3,500 US dollars) in hardware to adapt my PC to the new Flight Simulator.

And what I have now?

CTDs and visual degradation!

I'm not happy with it!

Thank you.

I am in the same boat, I was not bothered about FPS as I went out and spent money for a better PC that can handle better FPS and would allow me to move from High to Ultra settings. My goal was graphical excellence.

Now I have better FPS but visually its now worse than the high graphic settings I had originally plus more CTDs. Its gone in the wrong direction for me.

6 minutes ago, John Fields said:

You're absolute right!

I paid for MSFS 2020 Premium Deluxe and, in addition, more than 3.000 € (about 3,500 US dollars) in hardware to adapt my PC to the new Flight Simulator.

And what I have now?

CTDs and visual degradation!

I'm not happy with it!

You can always use that hardware for xp and p3d. I'm sure you'll get good performance but it wont look as good unless you buy a ton of addons

I wonder, for those that want to change things, can LOD be forced from the Nvidia control panel? 
I used a setting called LOD bias for FSX.  There is also a 'clamp' setting - not sure what that does.