Clouds look better and have higher fidelity. I'm not thrilled with the extremely straight cloud bases.    Live weather is still extremely lack luster, still no high overcast depicted, even though if you manually enter it, high overcast looks fantastic.  Thunderstorms are a bit taller and realistic.  Snow coverage fidelity is 10 fold better than it was and quite accurate now.

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Worse ground textures, are you kidding?

The ground resolution is higher (even from higher up), not lower, though I have seen a few places with poor texture quality in Alaska, but I think it was bad before. They fixed most of the colors in Alaska anyhow. 

Also, due to the trees, when I load FS 2020, it now feels like I'm playing a Sim that is 8 years old. The trees in 2020 are horrid looking compared to 2024.

At this point I assume anyone saying the ground textures are worse is just having server issues still (or issues with cached data from when the servers were having issues).  At absolute 'worst' the ground textures should be identical to 2020, because they're literally pulling from the same set of Bing data, and at best they should be properly using all of the new high-resolution crafted texturing overlaid on the sat data. Could also just be a bug, since they clearly have more than a few of those.

I don't expect everywhere to have great resolution since as I said - same satellite imagery as 2020 - but I certainly wouldn't expect it to be WORSE unless there's an actual issue.

I am absolutely not trolling.

Many people are suggesting that LOD has been downgraded in 2024, resulting in lower resolution of objects as move away than in MSFS.

The ground textures when you are actually on the ground in 2024 look amazing 100% amazing. But as soon as I climb the resolution gets very blurry compared to 2020. The ground looks really sharp in 2020 all the way up to cruise, but 2024 just looks low resolution in comparison. I have even just paused the sim just to make sure it has streamed all the data. I can tell it has done this by viewing the bandwidth in dev mode.

Many streamers who have spend a lot of time on both sims have said exactly the same thing.

It is hard to show in screenshots because the resolution just gets compressed etc. But I know what I am seeing on the screen.

If others do not have this problem, great, genuinely pleased for them, but it is real for me.

This is with high end PC on 400 TLOD. (The draw distance of TLOD also seems reduced to me.)

I am not suggesting anyone here is, but I think many are blinded by the hype of 2024, and see the amazing ground textures when you are on the ground and then their brain convinces them the sim is amazing and the ground textures are incredible an way better than 2020. As I say, they are on the ground, but for me at least, they get considerably worse with distance.

Best wishes to all and happy simming!

Edited November 29, 20241 yr by abennett

22 minutes ago, abennett said:

I am absolutely not trolling.

Many people are suggesting that LOD has been downgraded in 2024, resulting in lower resolution of objects as move away than in MSFS.

The ground textures when you are actually on the ground in 2024 look amazing 100% amazing. But as soon as I climb the resolution gets very blurry compared to 2020. The ground looks really sharp in 2020 all the way up to cruise, but 2024 just looks low resolution in comparison. I have even just paused the sim just to make sure it has streamed all the data. I can tell it has done this by viewing the bandwidth in dev mode.

Many streamers who have spend a lot of time on both sims have said exactly the same thing.

It is hard to show in screenshots because the resolution just gets compressed etc. But I know what I am seeing on the screen.

If others do not have this problem, great, genuinely pleased for them, but it is real for me.

This is with high end PC on 400 TLOD. (The draw distance of TLOD also seems reduced to me.)

I am not suggesting anyone here is, but I think many are blinded by the hype of 2024, and see the amazing ground textures when you are on the ground and then their brain convinces them the sim is amazing and the ground textures are incredible an way better than 2020. As I say, they are on the ground, but for me at least, they get considerably worse with distance.

Best wishes to all and happy simming!

If this was directed to me, I don't think you're trolling - I simply think any change to the ground textures for the worse would be due to either a bug or residual server issues. LOD settings changes I could see affecting many things, but the actual basic ground imagery isn't one of them.

I don't doubt the reality of what you say you're seeing.

4 minutes ago, Scottoest said:

If this was directed to me, I don't think you're trolling - I simply think any change to the ground textures for the worse would be due to either a bug or residual server issues. LOD settings changes I could see affecting many things, but the actual basic ground imagery isn't one of them.

I don't doubt the reality of what you say you're seeing.

No it is not directed at you.

Ahh but TLOD does affect ground imagery. It only loads at a high resolution at a certain distance. This is why the distance beyond the LOD radius defined by TLOD setting is blurry. Set really low TLOD and you will see the ground imagery blurry close to you, set max and you will see that the distance at which the imagery becomes lower resolution gets further away.

So they can easily tie the distance at which the ground imagery becomes lower resolution to LOD levels. Then your setting determines at what distance you see these different levels.

2 hours ago, Scottoest said:

I don't expect everywhere to have great resolution since as I said - same satellite imagery as 2020 - but I certainly wouldn't expect it to be WORSE unless there's an actual issue.

It's not the same, they replaced it in several areas, it just depends where you fly. Grand Canyon, some parts of Colorado, some parts of Texas, definitely replaced. In Europe, I'm not as sure since a lot of Europe was already good. Also, the blending is now working from higher up and the trees add to it as well, so it's altered a bit regardless. That said, I agree that MOST of the terrain is the same, but it's not all the same.

3 hours ago, Scottoest said:

If this was directed to me, I don't think you're trolling - I simply think any change to the ground textures for the worse would be due to either a bug or residual server issues. LOD settings changes I could see affecting many things, but the actual basic ground imagery isn't one of them.

I don't doubt the reality of what you say you're seeing.

LOD has a deep impact on ground textures in 2024. Just try and set it to 10 and see the difference.
 

The first time I tried the sim I had a lot of blurries and was dissapointed because it looked better in 2020… Then I discovered I had this «Dynamic» setting activated with a setting of 60, so I turned it off and voila, textures become just as sharp as 2020. Been playing a lot with the LOD slider to find a sweetspot between blurries and performance.

Looks like I’m going to go against the grain here and say the clouds *can* and generally do look better than MSFS2020. But there are times when they look decidedly worse in my opinion. The atmosphere modelling is improved (I agree with the previous poster, using Rex Atmos you can get some way towards that in MSFS2020) but the new system can still throw up strange sky colours at the horizon at just before sunset (a kind of strange bluey-grey layer - a depiction of Rayleigh scattering maybe?).
One thing that I noticed last night for the first time is a ‘blue plasma’ type effect around buildings and trees with a certain combination of low cloudy weather and sun position. I remember this anomaly from P3D when they went to a volumetric cloud model and it is an unwelcome return to my sim experience even if not as prominent. Possibly it’s related to object transparency. Once seen you can’t help but notice it!
All settings on Ultra (9800X3D/RTX 4090). 

Clouds and atmosphere is the best out of all sims. First sim which can accurately represent cloudy/overcast sunset which is dark blue and gloomy. Any other sim made it look like I was on mars. Red, pink what else not.

12 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

The default clouds are much improved over 2020, but ASFS clouds are another step up in authenticity imho.  The same compromise has to be considered - local weather model with default clouds, or ASFS with better looking clouds but a global model.  The compromise is less than it was with 2020.  So far I have found the weather in ASFS to be more accurate than default.

2020 default clouds.

 

 

How is it that the compromise is less in 2024? I‘d have thought if default clouds are much better / more realistic, the compromise would be more - because you‘d have to lose a dynamic weather model for more marginal improvements to clouds.

12 hours ago, psolk said:

Thank you.  ASFS turbulence depiction alone didn't give the results you were looking for? Is there still an active or passive mode?  I believe I was using active mode with 2020.  

ASFS does not have terrain-induced turbulence (i.e. streams and drafts being influenced by terrain), but RealTurb does.
MSFS 2020 default only has mountain waves, which is basically only relevant to aircraft flying *over* mountains (and not e.g. to aircraft on final approach *between* two mountains). I don‘t think MSFS 2024 has changed in that regard, at least I haven‘t heard about that.

Weather graphically looks better than in FS 2020, that's for sure.

I also believe consistency regarding the merge of weather data from their Meteoblue feed also got better - at least the few flights I have made gave me the sensation that the aloft (forecast) and the aerodrome (observation) blend better now, and when transitioning between the levels of forecast and observation, wind, for instance, looks like matching way better than it did before.

Regarding weather effects under bad weather situations I still find:

- Effects of shear and turbulence still shake/wobble aircraft, specially the lighter ones, in a way that I don't think is realistic. They "wobble" like mad under circumstances that are far from justifying such an effect, with oscillations that still make them look as if they "don't hame mass", and even if shear could act so strongly in real life, by their nature, most aircraft don't behave like that - theres a lot more of inertia and other factors intervenning;

- Effects of crossing dangerous ( IRL ) convective clouds, namely up/down drafts and turbulence, at least in the tests I performed, look tame to me. IRL it would be critic to even just get near such cloud formations, and I can not only do that but actually cross them in the regions where the weather radar "paints" the worst activity, without any consequences;

- They have apparently redesigned their "thermal" model, but the result, very clear if you enable "thermal visualization", is far from realistic. Has nothing to do with RW thermals ... A shame because otherwise FS 2024 offers a true to real environment / scenery that could be used by RW glider pilots to train and get familiarized with different aspects of soaring...

There's another aspect that may or not be directly related to weather modelling, namely the simulation of shear and x-wind effects on phases of flight like takeoff and landing. 

I can notice improvements in this area, but I really don't know if they're from the side of the flight dynamics / ground physic model or due to any fine tunning in weather parameters, or both ? 

I saw V1's comparison video, and he did his best to make the various tests the best that is possible, but I would like to be able to switch to Dev Mode and try to visualize the weather variables "on the fly" just to check if there's still some "trick", like the one ASOBO introduced at a given stage of FS 2020 updates  by reducing the normal component of the wind, while not touching the axial one, in the few last meters before touchdown and then in contact with the ground to.

My tests so far make me think this is not the case in FS 2024 because I have been testing with the default GA under various x-wind / turbulent scenarios and I got the impression that the normal component was there without being "modulated". I also believe that FS 2024 at least tries to model the drag effect and associated "veering" and reduction of intensity in the wind as you get near the surface, as well as the influence from nearby obstacles, which makes it a very SPECIAL and detailed simulator !!!

Edited November 29, 20241 yr by jcomm

14 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

2020 default clouds.

 

Maybe I'm misremembering but did you post this previously as an example from 2024? Not sure if that's a typo above and "2020" should read "2024". Either way, looks good to me 🙂 
 

Disclaimer: I'm still on '2020, so I can only judge based on videos. After that, I get the impression that the new lighting contributes a lot to the widespread impression of improved clouds. Sebastian Wloch (ASOBO) had previously only mentioned cirrus clouds and a slightly higher cloud density as improvements, as wake turbulence is not so much a weather phenomenon. Subject to the above-mentioned restrictions, I currently do not see more. In '2020 I also notice that the typical November weather conditions here in Europe are now represented much better than last year. Stratiform cloud shapes are more common and more convincing, and the layering seems improved as well. So I suspect adjustments on the server side for both simulators. It surely doesn't matter where improvements come from, as long as the weather simulation progresses.
My main criticism of MSFS in general remains that the weather, as THE essential element in aviation, does not have the importance I would like in development compared to all other components of the simulator.

On a sidenote: I just watched a video from a "tornado hunting mission", where the Caravan was flying near the funnel in fair weather conditions - apart from a dark clouddeck above - with single digit winds indicated on the G1000 and not a single movement of the airframe. Well....

Ground textures are blurry. Worst than 2020. Thats for sure..