Why does my Xplane 12 look so dreadful?

[rondon9898 84]

Hi folks,

I am at my wits’ end trying to get my XPL 12 to look even remotely acceptable in terms of image quality. Now I know that this is obviously a problem with my system or set-up, because when I see any youtuber or streamer using XPlane, theirs looks really lovely. Q8Pilot, for example, has his Xplane videos always looking smooth and beautiful, like a photograph.

The question is, what am I doing wrong? No matter what combination of XPL menu graphics settings or settings in Nvidia Inspector makes the slightest difference - I am just constantly getting jagged, blurry images, and it just looks like FS98. All settings on high, all settings on low, it all looks awful.  I have observed VRAM on the highest settings in XPL and there doesn’t seem to be any issue there. I have a very capable system (12900KS, NVidia 4090, 64GB RAM etc.) and the other sims I have (P3Dv5 and MSFS) look and perform perfectly fine. 

Does anyone know what is going on? Is it Windows 11 causing the issue? Q8Pilot, for example, seems to have a computer set-up that is pretty similar to mine. What could I be doing wrong? Any little insight I can glean would be very helpful. Laminar support just says adjust the settings or reinstall. Well I’ve done that, and no joy. Any ideas at all much appreciated.

[tonywob 4,769]

Can you post a screenshot with some examples of what you're seeing?

[Sethos 4,336]

Hard to truly say, if we don't know what you're seeing. Should probably throw up a video or some screenshots. Could be a VRAM issue that causes a lot of textures to not load at their highest quality, which I've seen a few cases of, making everything look extremely low-res and blurry.

However, could also simply be because X-Plane 12 does not look very impressive, at least out of the box. Anti-aliasing options aren't very effective, weather can be very hit or miss, ground textures are very dated, overall visual effects leave a lot to be desired. Though it can look nice, even external weather injection can bring the weather in line, some third party high-quality airports, ortho, perhaps a few visual tweaks and then a YouTube video to compress all the aliasing artifacts, that certainly improves the look of the sim.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sethos

[The_Flying_Potato 25]

What is your scenery_packs.ini As far as I know, XP`11 and XP12 are a bit different.

[rondon9898 84]

https://pasteboard.co/zsLm80lH3H3E.png

https://pasteboard.co/C0KR4id5lgXz.png

https://pasteboard.co/a0bDGHALz8ZJ.png

https://pasteboard.co/PIbBjsaTacS7.png

Here are some screenshots. For some reason, the screenshots look quite a lot better than the actual image, which is much more jagged.

When you say VRAM problems - what could they be?

9 minutes ago, The_Flying_Potato said:

What is your scenery_packs.ini As far as I know, XP`11 and XP12 are a bit different.

I'm afraid I don't know - where is that file? I'm familiar with the file structure in P3D and MSFS but not XPL

[gkkes 13]

If you can, please upload a copy of your Log.txt, the answers will be in there..

[Jude Bradley 659]

It depends on your VRAM usage. Try dropping to FXAA and use this

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/271801-lots-of-shimmering-and-jagged-textures/#comment-2402077

"o all Pilots, this is just temporary fix for Jagged Edges " Antialiasing " issue for X-plane 12.

Also, this fixes overall graphic quality of the game including clouds quality at a little bit of FPS cost. (Not noticeable with a powerful GPU).

Follow these steps: 

1. Make sure set Antialiasing in-game graphic setting to FXAA.

2. Go to X-Plane 12\Resources\ settings.txt === change this line under (SETTING EFFECTS POPUP renopt_HDR_antial 4)

     change this last line on red == " SETTING_1 renopt_HDR_antial 1 hdr/fsaa_ratio_x 1 hdr/fsaa_ratio_y 1 hdr/use_post_aa 1    hdr/msaa_hw 0 "

     To == " SETTING_1 renopt_HDR_antial 1 hdr/fsaa_ratio_x 1 hdr/fsaa_ratio_y 1 hdr/use_post_aa 1    hdr/msaa_hw 1 ".

[filou 2,744]

2 hours ago, rondon9898 said:

https://pasteboard.co/zsLm80lH3H3E.png

https://pasteboard.co/C0KR4id5lgXz.png

https://pasteboard.co/a0bDGHALz8ZJ.png

https://pasteboard.co/PIbBjsaTacS7.png

Here are some screenshots. For some reason, the screenshots look quite a lot better than the actual image, which is much more jagged.

When you say VRAM problems - what could they be?

I'm afraid I don't know - where is that file? I'm familiar with the file structure in P3D and MSFS but not XPL

Your screenshots look normal without any issues.

[Jude Bradley 659]

The text file in question is in your installation folder for X-Plane eg: C\X-Plane 12\Resources\  or wherever you installed X-Plane.

The settings.txt file should be backed up before changing in case you need to restore it.

 

 

[rondon9898 84]

58 minutes ago, Jude Bradley said:

The text file in question is in your installation folder for X-Plane eg: C\X-Plane 12\Resources\  or wherever you installed X-Plane.

The settings.txt file should be backed up before changing in case you need to restore it.

 

 

That helped a little bit, Jude, thank you - but still pretty poor.

1 hour ago, filou said:

Your screenshots look normal without any issues.

As filou says, maybe this is just the standard for XPL 12. If so, it's really disappointing.

I'm not sure how to post the log.txt in these forums.

[Jude Bradley 659]

There is a roadmap for improvements here: 

https://www.x-plane.com/2023/05/whats-new-in-x-plane-12-05-and-12-06-short-term-roadmap/

12.06: Better VRAM usage, Improved Clouds, and More

The 12.06 release lineup has lots of fun stuff in it! It is the result of three months worth of rendering engine improvements. New cirrus clouds, lower VRAM use, improved cloud rendering in general and OpenXR integration to make the X-Plane VR ecosystem easier to access for 3rd parties. 

Improved Video Performance

The VRAM re-architecture and improvements coming out in 12.06 will mean improved performance and reduce the risk of blurry textures. 

Goodbye, Awkward Zebra-Stripes!

I’m really excited about the visual improvements coming for clouds. Those zebra-stripes and funky real weather cloud pyramids have been resolved for 12.06.

Clouds Improvements and CIRRUS!

12.06 will have some major improvements to the flexibility and visual quality of our clouds. We will also introduce cirrus clouds to our volumetric 3D cloud engine for the first time.

 

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Jude Bradley

[Sethos 4,336]

5 hours ago, rondon9898 said:

https://pasteboard.co/zsLm80lH3H3E.png

https://pasteboard.co/C0KR4id5lgXz.png

https://pasteboard.co/a0bDGHALz8ZJ.png

https://pasteboard.co/PIbBjsaTacS7.png

Yeah, as mentioned, that's how the sim looks out of the box.

[MrBitstFlyer 3,874]

1 hour ago, rondon9898 said:

As filou says, maybe this is just the standard for XPL 12. If so, it's really disappointing.

LR has said they need to improve VRAM usage before they improve some aspects of the sim, including visual quality.  VRAM improvements are scheduled for the next beta release that includes better clouds, so we should be seeing improvements over the next few releases.  If you are used to MSFS graphics and lighting, XP12 (or any flightsim) can initially look disappointing because of the differences.  However, give XP12 some time and you will quickly appreciate the way it does things.  The lighting in XP12 is so good, I actually find it difficult to use MSFS for more than a few minutes now, even though that sim does have some very good aspects to it.

 

[Bob Scott 7,721]

The OP has a 4090 with 24 GB of VRAM, so I think VRAM optimization is something of a red herring in this discussion.

The ubiquitous jagged and swimming pavement markings are probably the biggest buzzkill I have in XP12 at present.  I don't believe a solution has presented itself for that yet.

[ryanbatc 12,856]

6 hours ago, rondon9898 said:

https://pasteboard.co/zsLm80lH3H3E.png

https://pasteboard.co/C0KR4id5lgXz.png

https://pasteboard.co/a0bDGHALz8ZJ.png

https://pasteboard.co/PIbBjsaTacS7.png

Here are some screenshots. For some reason, the screenshots look quite a lot better than the actual image, which is much more jagged.

When you say VRAM problems - what could they be?

I'm afraid I don't know - where is that file? I'm familiar with the file structure in P3D and MSFS but not XPL

Those look OK - it's just the AA settings that aren't so great in XP12.  In overcast skies the sim is very very dim.  

So I am basically seeing the same as you.  I've got a 12700K and 4080.