Are clouds the best ever now? I'm impressed.

[Noel 4,487]

6 minutes ago, Krakin said:

Uninformed people

I think we're all a little in the dark about this.  Cloud/Weather depiction is such a ginormous part of flight simulation and it is the least satisfying part of MSFS for me at this point in time by far.   I do strongly agree that clouds and weather have very low impact on total performance which is fabulous and implies headroom to improve significantly on what we have now so this is great, there's reason for hope.  This being said, we're all rather uninformed about where Asobo plans to take this, and for someone like myself who is a staunch apologist for Asobo/MSFS I have to admit it's odd we're not being given more information about this and where they hope to take it, especially considering how it's evolved so far:  very low resolution cloud depiction which appears too fuzzy, verging on blurry, low definition.

[DAD 2,650]

well, I also find weather quite impressing tbh. could it be better? probably. but the immersion already now is high (enough) for me

[SubtotalGuide 133]

Clouds and lighting are two of the graphical elements that have been nerfed in SU5. Remember the colour banding? Thankfully they finally acknowledged and fixed that in SU7. But then guess what? Fewer cloud types and layers.

The whole first year was spent developing the Xbox version. I mean here you have it straight out of the horse's mouth. Lionel goes into detail how they had to make the sim squeeze into the box. Why this is still controversial is unknown. If the Xbox was so powerful they could simply have done a straight port, it's just another PC after all. For lower end PCs the sim already had graphical settings that could be tweaked.

"The Asobo Breakdown!" is a fitting title btw.

 

 

[Krakin 5,742]

16 minutes ago, Noel said:

I think we're all a little in the dark about this.  Cloud/Weather depiction is such a ginormous part of flight simulation and it is the least satisfying part of MSFS for me at this point in time by far.   I do strongly agree that clouds and weather have very low impact on total performance which is fabulous and implies headroom to improve significantly on what we have now so this is great, there's reason for hope.  This being said, we're all rather uninformed about where Asobo plans to take this, and for someone like myself who is a staunch apologist for Asobo/MSFS I have to admit it's odd we're not being given more information about this and where they hope to take it, especially considering how it's evolved so far:  very low resolution cloud depiction which appears too fuzzy, verging on blurry, low definition.

The fact of the matter is Asobo has said nothing, not one thing to indicate the current issues with cloud types had anything to do with Xbox. If anyone needs to provide a citation it is the folks saying definitively that Xbox is to blame based on nothing. If anything, opting to have CBs everywhere, all the time would actually be more taxing on hardware rather than having lower density types like stratus and so on. As for the complaints about very low resolution clouds, for the most part this is not what I see when I fly, especially after SU9 mostly sorted out the pixelated mess we had before. At this time MSFS clouds are the best quality I've seen in a sim. DCS is a close second and so far, XP12's clouds look terrible but it isn't released yet so there's room for improvement.

[Noel 4,487]

15 minutes ago, DAD said:

well, I also find weather quite impressing tbh. could it be better? probably. but the immersion already now is high (enough) for me

It's certainly not all bad and from a distance it looks very plausible and even very good.  But this image of yours captures my chief complaint, and often when up close it's even worse:  it looks out of focus to me.

[Noel 4,487]

1 minute ago, Krakin said:

 At this time MSFS clouds are the best quality I've seen in a sim. 

I agree for the overall impact and immersion it's the best thing going currently.  Clouds now, up close, appear out of focus to downright blurry often, lack definition and I absolutely still see the grid/pixelation you refer to, still.  Just depends on lighting and the angle you are viewing clouds from.  As I say, since performance impact is so modest w/ current cloud depiction I think there is reason to hope this will improve.  

 

[Krakin 5,742]

1 hour ago, SubtotalGuide said:

Remember the colour banding? Thankfully they finally acknowledged and fixed that in SU7

What does color banding have to do with dumbing the sim down for xbox? And if they were able to fix it doesn't that contradict what you are implying? If bad color banding was needed to make the sim run on xbox, the xbox version should now be unplayable. 

 

1 hour ago, SubtotalGuide said:

Lionel goes into detail how they had to make the sim squeeze into the box.

Of course they'd have to but the PC version and the Xbox version are running in two different configurations. On PC we have access to graphics options that are not present in the Xbox version for a reason.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Krakin

[WestAir 2,522]

Suggesting MSFS doesn't have performance related compromises due to its use on XBOX is a weird hill to die on. There's no World where we get a high fidelity weather simulation that's PC only, and you can't say that concessions and compromises haven't already been made.

Moreover, whatever the future holds for weather, it will have to work on the XBOX. That's a big statement, because this is a project that will still be seeing new updates in 2028, so while PC's will be in the 5th or 6th generation of Nvidia GPU's, whatever the last version of weather for MSFS looks like will have to run on the current version of XBOX. And I don't think that concern is bashing XBOX, more than it's observing where we're at. Whatever the future holds for this platform, the tech must be married to a 2020 console.

Edited June 22, 2022 by WestAir

[F737MAX 5,552]

14 minutes ago, WestAir said:

Whatever the future holds for this platform, the tech must be married to a 2020 console.

While I'd argue that the 2020 consoles are better (see series S specs) than a notable amount of hardware that Avsim users are running, you're right that it is the limiting factor for at least another few years.

There won't be any parallel running of an Xbox-capable version and an upgraded PC version on MS servers, so there's no incentive to improve the quality in the sim as PC hardware improves. This will remain the case until Xbox cloud gaming becomes a thing.

[SubtotalGuide 133]

1 hour ago, Krakin said:

What does color banding have to do with dumbing the sim down for xbox? And if they were able to fix it doesn't that contradict what you are implying? If bad color banding was needed to make the sim run on xbox, the xbox version should now be unplayable. 

What was my next sentence? "Remember the colour banding? Thankfully they finally acknowledged and fixed that in SU7. But then guess what? Fewer cloud types and layers."

My word, at this point I think you are the one wasting my time. So much evidence lay bare for all to see, yet always ignored or explained away with some esoteric reason. Is all this simply to keep us busy on the forums?

Anyway, Xbox performance has gone down the drain recently so clearly it's already on its knees.

1 hour ago, Noel said:

At this time MSFS clouds are the best quality I've seen in a sim. 

but not in this sim

[HiFlyer 9,343]

The issue for me is that there is always someone, or a group of someone's demanding more and more, edging eventually into items of such minutia, and so subject to deeply personal taste, that I feel for Asobo trying to placate us; all pulling in different directions on pretty much any given item in question, and all of us prone to talking as if we have doctorates and irrefutable proof of our rightness on whatever subject is being discussed.

I feel frustrated sometimes, thinking to myself "This is just about the best, most feature rich, fastest, most beautiful sim we have ever dreamed of up until about two years ago, and often all it seems we can do is throw rotten eggs and tomato's at it at just about every turn".

The question I keep wondering is, what, exactly will satisfy us en masse? What could Asobo possibly do to make us all happy?

I fear that in the end, the answer is nothing.

Nothing at all.

I mean, who out there does better volumetric clouds right now? X-plane default? Skymaxx? Aerofly clouds? P3D clouds? All have their faults that we hear about constantly. (and that have nothing to do with Xbox's)

Hmmmmm....

I guess this is a rant of sorts, but I really do wonder if its actually even possible to ever really satisfy us as a group.

[aniiran 428]

In certain live weather scenarios I have seen some cirrus looking clouds.  I'm just not sure how to make them appear.  I remember last week I was flying over AZ and there were some pretty convincing banded elongated wispy clouds but I only see them rarely.  I'll have to take a screen shot next time. 

[mrueedi 702]

13 hours ago, SubtotalGuide said:

I challenge anyone to try and re-create these Release version upper-level clouds in the current build. I honestly want to know how it's done now.

Since release, the clouds have more parameter, so playing with all these I get the following ones with the current version. To be honest, I can't see the issue vs. your screenshot:

 

 

 

[F737MAX 5,552]

20 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

[...] I really do wonder if its actually even possible to ever really satisfy us as a group.

Simple answer: No.

'Simple solution': Asobo to keep adding things so long as they don't break, diminish or remove what is already in the sim.

e.g. I don't want turbulence turned down for everyone, but I do want a slider so that I can control how much my Sting S4 bounces around during 'calm' conditions.

e.g. I want the ability to display all 32 cloud layers of various cloud types in live weather, *if* my PC can handle it. Anyone else happy with/cannot increase on what's available now, could use a numerical value setting which would limit the number of cloud layers.
 

Edited June 22, 2022 by F737MAX

[spitzer 19]

Now Ultra clouds settings is equal to medium clouds settings before xbox release(su5). 

Also Pixelated and grainy clouds have begun with this su5 update. 

Unless Xbox and pc versions seperates completely we wont be able to see any further improvement graphics wise. 

Edited June 22, 2022 by spitzer