I haven't noticed anything with clouds in the distance. Could it be a perception issue? This is from my current flight, FL340: 

21 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

This probably needs its own topic but, IMO overall the clouds just keep getting worse. Sure sometimes they may look pretty, but it's all smoke in mirrors; there's no feeling of motion anymore when going into or out of a cloud deck - it's almost like this slow transition. Next time your climbing into an overcast layer notice how the ground stays visible mostly through the whole "layer" then the ground eventually fades out and voila, you're climbing out of the tops. This also applies to partly cloudy situation with cumulus clouds, its really weird because if you climb up into a layer of broken or partly cloudy puffs it looks like you should get over the cloud tops in 1,000 feet or so, but instead it just "keeps going" as if the layer builds as you climb (eventually you do get over the tops but there's just something off with the way the clouds are being drawn). Rubbish. Still no thunderstorms or towering cumulus and although they tried to implement cirrus clouds, it's a half-hearted attempt and it shows. All of this was not a thing before MSFS 2020 SU5, the clouds were much better back then.

Also I've noticed that if using live / historical weather (2024), the weather behaves just like using active sky.. instead of a "set world" of weather systems, there are transitions of weather areas now, and they are not gradual - you see clouds disintegrate or build up unrealistically fast. I suppose that's fine if you want historical weather and better than nothing, but I feel ActiveSky has them beat on the historical weather.

I totally agree, the immersion is lost as you climb/descend through the clouds. You don’t get the feeling you’re powering through the clouds. You don’t see the wings breaking cutting through these clouds. It feels so artificial and fake. My sense is people get overcome by emotions when they spot a nice scenery that they intentionally or unintentionally ignore the deficiencies of these simulators. Nobody wants to say, “yikes, this looks terrible here” And don’t even get me started on oversized trees. 🌳  Entire buildings swallowed by trees and giant bushes. 

But I would say there’s been instances in specific locations when the scenery looks very realistic and majestic, but as soon as you transition out of these area, you get the feeling these simulators are simply marginal. Still not impressed with some of the pictures that have been shared. Keep in mind I have the same sim, and know what it looks like outside those eye-candy areas. 

Edited January 15, 20251 yr by Huascar

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Could it be a perception issue?

Perhaps it’s all perception. 

These are distant clouds you can see with the few clouds preset.  I like them but you could say that they were bitmaps until you fly into them.

dd

1 hour ago, Huascar said:

the immersion is lost as you climb/descend through the clouds.

This is very subjective.  My immersion is not lost at all, maybe because I am concentrating on the flying rather than trying to spot anything that doesn't look exactly like real life.

1 hour ago, Huascar said:

You don’t get the feeling you’re powering through the clouds.

Well I do.  Maybe I can accept the current technology that is available to us?

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

the immersion is lost as you climb/descend through the clouds. You don’t get the feeling you’re powering through the clouds. You don’t see the wings breaking cutting through these clouds. It feels so artificial and fake.

I don't agree with any of this.  Maybe I can accept the current level of technology MSFS has got to?  The clouds are not exactly like real life, but we have a way to go yet for that.

 

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

My sense is people get overcome by emotions when they spot a nice scenery that they intentionally or unintentionally ignore the deficiencies of these simulators.

I don't agree with this either.  Is the scenery exactly like real life?  Of course not, but it is good enough to convey the sense of flight and location.  I used VFR scenery fifteen years ago to practice cross country flights in MSFS then fly them for real.  Even back then everything was familiar, villages, towns, roads, VRP's, towers etc. MSFS has improved on the realism over previous versions in many areas.

It isn't a case of ignoring the poorer looking areas, rather celebrating what MS/Asobo has got right.

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

Nobody wants to say, “yikes, this looks terrible here”

I do, and if the area is really poor I don't use the sim there. However, I consider such areas in the minority where you appear to find them in the majority.

 

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

And don’t even get me started on oversized trees. 🌳  Entire buildings swallowed by trees and giant bushes. 

Why not purchase one of the very reasonable priced tree mods? Here are two examples that reduce tree sizes and improve coverage.

Bijan Habashi Seasons Enhanced
Global Trees by Taburet

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

But I would say there’s been instances in specific locations when the scenery looks very realistic and majestic, but as soon as you transition out of these area, you get the feeling these simulators are simply marginal.

Why not go where the scenery pleases you?  In any case, I can't see how anybody could call MSFS marginal.

 

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

Still not impressed with some of the pictures that have been shared. Keep in mind I have the same sim, and know what it looks like outside those eye-candy areas.

How about posting some matching images from your sim.  I have been highly impressed with most of the images and videos.  I have noted you did not respond to my videos or images - how are we supposed to understand your point of view? I have my doubts you ARE seeing the same imagery that many of us are. Either that, or your expectations are too far into the future.

Virtually all of your posts concentrate on those things that are not perfect, rarely on what is, considering the level of tech we have reached in flight sims.

Edited January 16, 20251 yr by MrBitstFlyer

2 hours ago, Huascar said:

I totally agree, the immersion is lost as you climb/descend through the clouds. You don’t get the feeling you’re powering through the clouds. You don’t see the wings breaking cutting through these clouds. It feels so artificial and fake.

It is artificial and fake - for the simple reason that these are digital emulations of clouds - not real clouds. I understand what effect you are looking for, but that may not be possible for performance reasons. The volumetric clouds would have to be much denser, and affected at a microscopic level by the airflow over the wings and other parts of the aircraft. 

17 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

My immersion is not lost at all, maybe because I am concentrating on the flying

I spend most of my time concentrated on flying but you must also look, we all do. Yes, it very subjective. 

17 minutes ago, Huascar said:

Yes, it very subjective. 

Who is this nuanced, balanced person and what have you done with Huascar?!

12 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Who is this nuanced, balanced person and what have you done with Huascar?!

Mr Scotchegg has spoken, welcome.
 

How many of your 2024 aircraft need repair, and when will they be back in the air? But don’t fret, 2024 has some nice scenery!

Edited January 16, 20251 yr by Huascar

49 minutes ago, Huascar said:

How many of your 2024 aircraft need repair, and when will they be back in the air? But don’t fret, 2024 has some nice scenery!

Oh, there you are😅

7 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

Oh, there you are😅

Come on, it’s only a joke. I’m not quiet a 2024 heretic. 

I will try 2024 again in the future if some of the most prevalent issues are repaired. 
 

Cheers!

Not for the first time (more like the 500th time) over the years, I muse about a possible connection between the innumerable, yet tightly organized and rigidly adhered to details of flight simming, and a possible connection to the perfectionism of OCD..... 🙃

4 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

I understand what effect you are looking for, but that may not be possible for performance reasons.

I put this question to Damian of HiFi who made it clear there currently is no real way around the performance burden of voxel based volumetric clouds.  Long ago when the touted improved multithreading was to happen in 2024 I had said I really wanted the lion's share of that to go toward cloud depiction, and if I recall I got almost no support for that idea.  I think the performance cost is flat out prohibitive when you're trying to do it along with a complete airplane and scenery simulation.  Some day but that time is perhaps many years off IMO. 

Edited January 16, 20251 yr by Noel

1 hour ago, Noel said:

  I think the performance cost is flat out prohibitive when you're trying to do it along with a complete airplane and scenery simulation.  Some day but that time is perhaps many years off

Or perhaps necessity is still the mother of invention.

Does anybody remember Sundog clouds and X-Plane? At the time they were state-of-the-art, but they were also incredibly resource heavy (cost lots of frames) as were all cloud solutions at the time, and we pretty much all thought that the technology was right on the bleeding edge of what was possible, at least on a personal computer.

It seems like only an eye blink later that MSFS 2020 was promising 300 mile view distances, self shadowing and eye opening realism. with a negligible FPS hit.

We drooled.

And now apparently we want better....

Well, who knows, maybe there's somebody out there right now creating some new technique to take us even further than we thought we could go, just like 2020 did. Maybe the upcoming graphics cards will bring some new opportunities to the table?

But in the meantime, don't forget how far we've come, people!

 

Edited January 16, 20251 yr by HiFlyer