I read a few threads where some beta testers saw better looking clouds. They look the same on my system. I remember a few SU ago when the clouds looked beautiful. In a way they still look pretty god, but not as good as in the past.

To answer the OP, no the clouds did not take a major downgrade in SU8.  That major downgrade came along with SU5 and the situation has changed little since then.

Up this morning and they look about the same as SU7.  This being said, there is definitely room for improvement and by 'room' I mean performance headroom.  If we were clamoring for better performance that might not be the case but we have people here actually thinking about selling their brand new high end PC because MSFS doesn't need it!  I hope they can tune cloud depiction considerably more.  Often they look great but other times really cheesy looking, like large curd cottage cheesy!  Here's an old screenshot from shortly after release--love the rain squalls:

6 minutes ago, DJJose said:

I remember a few SU ago when the clouds looked beautiful.

Yep, there's quite a few feeling the same way. Someone (ZodiaLight) over at the MS forums posted a collage of what we have lost with their "improvements" in SU7. I was all in for their concept of live weather based on forecast model data and had full understanding for their refusal of opening it up for third parties. But man, did they fail making it METAR based! If Live weather basically means synthesizing METAR reports, their arguments for not letting third parties in have turned moot, as for this approach there are experts on the market who don't need to invent the wheel from scratch.

I can't find anything in the patchnotes that says there was work being done regarding the cloud appearance. So why would they look different than before SU8?

 

My opinion, clouds are worse. Flying out of London City, down to Isles of Scilly, 8500FT,  clouds are fugly and as grainy as ever. I have seen this sim looking far better than it is currently. 
So far SU8 is a disappointment for me.

Hmm.. guess this is all subjective and weather and location dependent . Did LIMF-LOWW last night to test the sim post Service update (Did not join the beta) Clouds to me are slightly improved . Thicker .. doesn't have the oil on canvas look going through them nor did i see any super dark angry looking grainy/ash clouds (perhaps there weren't any thunderstorms in the area anyway).

My sim settings ? (Stock ultra / Render Scale 115 on 3440x1440) Only addons for me are Aircraft at the moment with my config file unmodified.

Can they be further improved ? Most definitely but i think there has been some work put into it. Hopefully this is an ongoing process of improvement. I can live with that.

Edited March 1, 20224 yr by Maxis

I seen a cloud the other day while on approach to COCO that was shaped kinda like a bunny.  Flew the same approach again last night after downloading SU8 and didn't see it again so I guess they broke it.  ☹️😉

16 hours ago, Tom_L said:

If Live weather basically means synthesizing METAR reports, their arguments for not letting third parties in have turned moot, as for this approach there are experts on the market who don't need to invent the wheel from scratch.

If this keeps up, cauliflower growers will be suing for plagiarism.

 

Edited March 2, 20224 yr by irocx

I don't think so - can not see mutch different to before, but the weather itself seems mutch more akkurate .

cheers 😉

17 hours ago, Tom_L said:

If Live weather basically means synthesizing METAR reports, their arguments for not letting third parties in have turned moot

It doesn't. In relevant locations, METAR is being interpreted; everywhere in between, a global, dynamic weather system, based on Meteoblue forecasts, is in effect. The two are blended at the seams. There maybe overlap of transitions that they are ironing out.

17 hours ago, ThomseN_inc said:

I can't find anything in the patchnotes that says there was work being done regarding the cloud appearance. So why would they look different than before SU8?

 

I think there are a few things at play here:

They can make adjustments to weather at the server side, so any changes there are not technically patched in, so wouldn't necessarily be listed in release notes. And they said, in the recent Q&A, weather will be constantly evolving (which answers someone else's question here), so maybe they aren't going to mention anything in release notes unless it is a major change to the actual rendering engine.

I don't think they have touched the actual cloud rendering for a while; I really think that different people are getting different results, on different days, in different locations, and varying conditions, simply because of the dynamic nature of the live weather engine. As I said before, I've seen grainy clouds from the early days of the sim, as much as I've seen clouds without that graininess, and it definitely is more grainy according to how many clouds are being rendered, and how voluminous the clouds are at the time. To me, that seems a necessary, dynamic rendering technique to prevent performance plummeting.

So I do expect people to be seeing contrary results because of that dynamic nature, and probably quality of data in certain locations. One time during SU7 when I saw an amazing sky with varying cloud and rain shafts was somewhere around Central America. On the same day, within the same flight session, switching to a different geographical location, I saw cartoony clouds with obvious banding effect (not the colour banding issue, but more of a layered effect) that you might have thought was from a totally different sim from the location I'd just been flying in.

And one time, during SU7, over Europe, I flew in flat overcast and rain, but haven't come across it since to grab a shot. But I probably will again, someday.

Edited March 2, 20224 yr by March Hare

One thing to check is make sure you don't have Geforce Experience installed and turned on.  It will mess with your sim graphic settings and seems to love to turn the clouds way down.  I think most know this, but it still isn't always obvious.  I had this happen when the sim first came out and had no idea why. 

19 minutes ago, kerosene31 said:

One thing to check is make sure you don't have Geforce Experience installed and turned on.  It will mess with your sim graphic settings and seems to love to turn the clouds way down.  I think most know this, but it still isn't always obvious.  I had this happen when the sim first came out and had no idea why. 

No need to uninstall GeForce Experience. Just open the program, turn MSFS optimizations off and it won't mess with the game. Otherwise, GeForce Experience is useful for updating drivers, in game overlay and other stuff.

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