Why are the clouds degrading between sim updates

[hvw 415]

54 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

The frustrating thing is after the last update, it was perfect. I don’t think there was any mention of cloud improvement in that one but could be wrong. Why it’s gradually got worse is what I’m struggling to understand.

Apart from the clouds getting worse, do you also have a white round blot that is supposed to be the sun? (I "suffer" from both these phenomenon's)

[G550flyer 1,029]

8 hours ago, Carts85 said:

Also tried changing the user.cfg sharpen an film grain to 0 with no improvement.

I just deleted my CFG and I am back to nice clouds

[aniiran 433]

1 hour ago, G550flyer said:

I just deleted my CFG and I am back to nice clouds

To be clear you deleted UserCFG correct?

[scotchegg 4,240]

Try switching AA gamma correction in NVCP to off if it’s enabled.

[Carts85 1,203]

4 hours ago, aniiran said:

To be clear you deleted UserCFG correct?

 

6 hours ago, G550flyer said:

I just deleted my CFG and I am back to nice clouds

I’ll try that today then… I’m guessing it just generates a default version once you launch the sim again.

[G550flyer 1,029]

11 hours ago, aniiran said:

To be clear you deleted UserCFG correct?

Yep, I quoted his mention of the userCFG and stated I deleted it.

[bobcat999 8,502]

6 hours ago, Carts85 said:

I’ll try that today then… I’m guessing it just generates a default version once you launch the sim again.

Be careful!  I did this once and MSFS wouldn't start as I had it installed in a non-default location (separate SSD). 

The last line of the user config file holds your MSFS install path.

I don't think people should be advised to delete any important sim files like this.  It should just be renamed to .old or something in the same directory in case you need to copy and paste the path location across - that is what I had to do.

It is possible it can be recovered from the recycle bin, but it is a small file and takes up hardly any room, so I would just rename it, and then you can easily bring up both old and new side by side in notepad if you need to compare them.

By the way, this is not a cloud fix that has ever worked for me, and in the user config, the only setting relating to clouds is the one in the sim itself - low, medium, high, and ultra.
Turning sharpening to 0 in the file can make them look better on some high resolution systems, as sharpening can make the pixelated effect look worse, but that's about it.

Edited November 16, 2021 by bobcat999

[G550flyer 1,029]

6 hours ago, Carts85 said:

I’ll try that today then… I’m guessing it just generates a default version once you launch the sim again.

Yes, just like the good ole days. Just mind the fellow in the previous post. I'm not sure of your computer savviness.

Edited November 16, 2021 by G550flyer
mistake

[aniiran 433]

16 hours ago, G550flyer said:

Yep, I quoted his mention of the userCFG and stated I deleted it.

Thanks for the idea.

I know if you delete it there is a chance of chaos so I wanted to make sure.  

Seems to have worked for me clouds wise, but now I have jittery cube maps on water reflections, TAA artifacts on light poles in clouds and all sorts of weird stuff.  For some reason NVIDIA keeps updating the driver weekly (they just came out with one today 11-16.  Then SU6 GOTY is going to come out and it will be a whole new host of problems. 

[G550flyer 1,029]

7 hours ago, aniiran said:

Seems to have worked for me clouds wise, but now I have jittery cube maps on water reflections, TAA artifacts on light poles in clouds and all sorts of weird stuff.  For some reason NVIDIA keeps updating the driver weekly (they just came out with one today 11-16.  Then SU6 GOTY is going to come out and it will be a whole new host of problem

Yes Sir, I'm with you on this one. You try to get back to square one with a fresh cfg and then wonder if it's worth tweaking the file again if you can figure out what tweak caused the issue lol. It reminds me of the ole fsx cfg tweaks. You back yourself into a corner with issues and have to refresh and tweak again. We need another one of those Nick's fsx bibles for msfs. It had more than you wanted to know, but it broke down each section. It actually told you what each section does and what to expect if you tweaked that section. Made it easier to un do things based on what you saw in sim. But, as you said, the updates usually bring in other issues so it's a constant change. I usually leave it alone and will go with a new cfg if I see any strange issues that I can't resolve. I wonder if there are some sliders that you can change to solve what you are seeing.

[aniiran 433]

10 hours ago, G550flyer said:

Yes Sir, I'm with you on this one. You try to get back to square one with a fresh cfg and then wonder if it's worth tweaking the file again if you can figure out what tweak caused the issue lol. It reminds me of the ole fsx cfg tweaks. You back yourself into a corner with issues and have to refresh and tweak again. We need another one of those Nick's fsx bibles for msfs. It had more than you wanted to know, but it broke down each section. It actually told you what each section does and what to expect if you tweaked that section. Made it easier to un do things based on what you saw in sim. But, as you said, the updates usually bring in other issues so it's a constant change. I usually leave it alone and will go with a new cfg if I see any strange issues that I can't resolve. I wonder if there are some sliders that you can change to solve what you are seeing.

Either it isn't affecting everyone or it just isn't noticeable.  

There have been multiple posts on it merged into one on the official forums.

light pole/objects displayed against dark clouds artifacts supposedly fixed with SU5?, but I still have them:

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/video-of-my-artifact-issue-how-is-this-related-to-glowing-objects/368699

jumping cube reflection maps.. which were supposedly fixed with SU5? but I still have them.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/bug-reflections-broken-in-vr-since-update-5/432939

I changed the cube map setting from 128 to 0 and it seems to have turned off the jumping cube maps. 

You can see the artifacts issue at 25 seconds.  I thought it was Anti-aliasing related but I don't think it is,  it doesn't matter TAA, DLAA OFF...doesn't matter. It has something to do with the way the clouds are rendered because it only happens when there is low light dark clouds.

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by aniiran