Trade some FPS in for increased Cloud Voxel Density?

[Noel 4,572]

I state the title of this as trade off because no question this comes into play. This screenshot demonstrates when frame rate is limited (in this case 34fps) the load on the GPU goes down accordingly.  Unlocked this shot was at ~62fps with GPU utilization at 99%.  Locking frame rate to 34 drives this same scene to 51% leaving headroom to accommodate a significant increase in cloud resolution.   Clouds on Ultra of course.  Especially at this kind of an altitude there isn't much appreciable difference between 34fps and 62fps, at least not nearly compared to having substantially higher resolution cloud depiction (like the examples below).  Not saying that RW level is going to happen anytime soon, but moving in that direction commensurate w/ hardware's steadily increasing capabilities.  I would love to see Asobo implement slider control for cloud resolution.  My GPU is no longer state of the art yet has massive headroom almost always and I would love to allocate that to cloud resolution. IMO we're not likely to see detailed distinct cloud morphology until resolution amps up.  Perhaps they can employ an algorithm that increases resolution the closer the plane is to cloud masses and decreases the farther away or something along those lines to help attenuate the impact of increased voxel density on the GPU.   

Edited March 31, 2023 by Noel

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

Bought this sim for the clouds. Was disappointing there was so much drama initially with them, and the resultant FPS impact. It is (finally) worth the performance hit to get the ultra bestest greatest clouds 🙂

[Gerwil 179]

I must be at the wrong places all the time but I have yet to see towering cumulus like that in the current MSFS and resolution. It must be there because I saw something like it 2 years ago.

On a serious note, I vote for higher voxel resolution as well but it might work like with screen resolution and going from 2k to 4k could lead to quite an impact.

 

This MSFS loading screen made me think they either experiment with higher resolution or they edited the high level clouds in to make the screenshot look nicer:

[Orlaam 324]

I'm not sure how to respond.  My new system, listed below, is maxed out.  Yet I still get these ridiculous grainy edged clouds.  It's like they're made of filaments woven together.  It's not 100% of the time, but often enough.  Previous MSFS versions had good clouds, either with add-on textures or even default.  The edges were never poorly defined.  Now we have no cirrus clouds and sometimes little variation.  The way they flow over the plane, the lights reflect on them and the overall atmosphere is wonderful, but they really need to add some variety and fix that sketchy edged appearance issue.

[Orlaam 324]

1 minute ago, Gerwil said:

I must be at the wrong places all the time but I have yet to see towering cumulus like that in the current MSFS and resolution. It must be there because I saw something like it 2 years ago.

 

I saw what was similar to a "towering" cumulus cloud yesterday heading into SLC.  It wasn't nearly as tall, but had that structure and was branching off and upward from all the others.

[Gerwil 179]

2 minutes ago, Orlaam said:

I saw what was similar to a "towering" cumulus cloud yesterday heading into SLC.  It wasn't nearly as tall, but had that structure and was branching off and upward from all the others.

Thanks a lot Chris, that sounds really comforting. I am just at the wrong places 🙂

[Orlaam 324]

6 minutes ago, Gerwil said:

Thanks a lot Chris, that sounds really comforting. I am just at the wrong places 🙂

I've been searching out raining locations just because the effects are so much better in MSFS 2020. I even got some turbulence on realistic, despite some on here saying they aren't experiencing it after the change.  I had it set to low and never had turbulence.  Now it's occasional, which is the best balance.

[Noel 4,572]

57 minutes ago, Orlaam said:

I'm not sure how to respond.  My new system, listed below, is maxed out.  Yet I still get these ridiculous grainy edged clouds.  It's like they're made of filaments woven together.  It's not 100% of the time, but often enough.  Previous MSFS versions had good clouds, either with add-on textures or even default.  The edges were never poorly defined.  Now we have no cirrus clouds and sometimes little variation.  The way they flow over the plane, the lights reflect on them and the overall atmosphere is wonderful, but they really need to add some variety and fix that sketchy edged appearance issue.

With your system my goodness you could manage much greater voxel density, and the more voxels per square area the less grainy. I so hope Asobo creates the algorithms to build clouds with greater voxel density set by slider per user preference--and with a substantial range from Low to UltraX or what have you.   Much like you can use the Render Scaling slider and take down the strongest of GPUs and then some I'd like to see that kind of range.  I'd like to be able to shift that cloud resolution slider to the right to the point I'm only getting 5 FPS to leave ample room for the next hardware upgrade to be able to address.

[scotchegg 4,271]

1 hour ago, Gerwil said:

This MSFS loading screen made me think they either experiment with higher resolution or they edited the high level clouds in to make the screenshot look nicer:

The presets can be made to look very nice indeed, with a variety of clouds types (through tuning levels, not actually selecting types). Some of the add-on presets are stunning.

Unfortunately, the Live Weather data doesn't seem to be able to replicate it at the moment so we're left with some pretty uninspiring and repetitive skyscapes (certainly since SU7).

[ryanbatc 13,103]

I've been asking for this since the beginning (tech alpha).  I'm guessing not a lot of simmers have flown near/around/through real clouds in general because of how happy most simmers are.  Yes we've come a long way when it comes to volumetric clouds but they are still very blurry and lacking detail when you're close to them.  There's another piece of software that was recently released that has even worse looking clouds, and lacks even more details than MSFS.

 

Edited April 1, 2023 by ryanbatc

[ThomseN_inc 1,128]

While i generally agree with the OP i would prefer to see some more different cloud types first. This has been discussed many times before. The whole MSFS Weather consits of different forms of Cumulus clouds. Where are the Stratus layers? Where are the cirrus layers and all those types in between? I really miss them hot and humid days.

 

[Silicus 899]

1 hour ago, ryanbatc said:

I've been asking for this since the beginning (tech alpha).

They have 'dumbed down' the cloud quality for sure, I guess it is always with frame rates in mind...

27 minutes ago, ThomseN_inc said:

The whole MSFS Weather consits of different forms of Cumulus clouds.

I have been complaining about this forever. There are at least a dozen cloud types missing. All clouds are created out of cumulus clouds. In that regard msfs is gamefied. 

[cianpars 1,217]

I can certainly run with ultra clouds by limiting FPS to 30.  My GPU fan runs at 30% with frames limited but at 80-90% unlimited.

Things that affect the appearance of clouds include:

DX11 v DX12

DLSS v TAA

Filmgrain 0 v 1 in the user cfg.

 

 

 

 

 

[Noel 4,572]

10 hours ago, ThomseN_inc said:

While i generally agree with the OP i would prefer to see some more different cloud types first. This has been discussed many times before. The whole MSFS Weather consits of different forms of Cumulus clouds. Where are the Stratus layers? Where are the cirrus layers and all those types in between? I really miss them hot and humid days.

I think a good part of the reason we don't have stratus and cirrus and "all those types in between" is because it's hardly possible at this voxel density which is why I maintain you need to be able to get the resolution up before you can really get distinct enough morphologies and there is no question the hardware is already there.  And you won't see XP12 get there either until this is addressed in their volumetric clouds which are far worse than MSFS' currently.  And HiFi is limited by this as well should they get access to MSFS.

[abennett 177]

I have to say, that I do find the clouds to be awful in MSFS sometimes even on ULTRA. Just landed at Heathrow with this, I have to say, to me it looks pretty horrific and totally unrealistic.

https://imgur.com/a/zDMCuYS

Edited April 1, 2023 by abennett