On 3/9/2025 at 9:08 AM, DD_Arthur said:

Uncanny….

Yes, it's quite something, isn't it? I think we are all so focused on the flight part of it, that we really haven't noticed what they have built on the ground. The fidelity is incredible. They have the correct trees, animals, birdsong.. all you need is people walking around and you'll have a city level sim. Crazy how far we've come. 

15 hours ago, JonathanC said:

Yes, it's quite something, isn't it? I think we are all so focused on the flight part of it, that we really haven't noticed what they have built on the ground. The fidelity is incredible. They have the correct trees, animals, birdsong.. all you need is people walking around and you'll have a city level sim. Crazy how far we've come. 

Yes indeed, sort of...!  I live near the Front Range in Colorado and there are way too many deciduous trees full of green leaves now!  Seriously though, yes it's quite remarkable most of the time, the detail.  At least until I decided to do a nice short flight from an old home town airport, KSBP, to Bishop CA's KBIH only to arrive to....NO AIRPORT!  Oh well you can't have everything 😂.  That flight sent me back to 2020 for my next two flights!

And this is interesting on a CYVR > CYEG flight this morning the sunrise was replete with colors that look just like 2024's, the yellows and oranges, weird!  And managed to see some more of those popcorn, very similar sized cotton balls that are in 2024, in 2020.  I was thinking maybe yesterday's update brought in some of this but no mention in the update details someone said.

Edited March 11, 20251 yr by Noel

I guess this thread is about clouds and lighting in 2024. I find it is very much improved vs 2020. Just completed a flight from Heathrow and landed at Malpensa just before sunset. Using live weather (I haven't really used Active Sky much at all in 2024), I found that everything looked rather lovely throughout the flight. 

The only thing which was a bit strange, was that I had a weather transition with default live weather initially in the flight. I've had this a few times in 2024 - mostly I get it with ASFS. Strange. 

EDIT: I have the sharpening slider set to default, which, IIRC, is 100 - I'm not using any Nvidia filters or ReShade. 

Edited March 11, 20251 yr by Cpt_Piett

18 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

EDIT: I have the sharpening slider set to default, which, IIRC, is 100 - I'm not using any Nvidia filters or ReShade. 

I find default sharpening (100) to be very good.  Much more than that and objects start to get artifacts.  2024 is the first flight simulation I have used that doesn't need any filters due to the excellent lighting engine.

I do not use any filters in MSFS 2020.

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I do not use any filters in MSFS 2020.

2020 needs filters if an approximation of realistic light and colour is desired.

On 3/11/2025 at 12:12 PM, Noel said:

Yes indeed, sort of...!  I live near the Front Range in Colorado and there are way too many deciduous trees full of green leaves now!  Seriously though, yes it's quite remarkable most of the time, the detail.  At least until I decided to do a nice short flight from an old home town airport, KSBP, to Bishop CA's KBIH only to arrive to....NO AIRPORT!  Oh well you can't have everything 😂.  That flight sent me back to 2020 for my next two flights!

And this is interesting on a CYVR > CYEG flight this morning the sunrise was replete with colors that look just like 2024's, the yellows and oranges, weird!  And managed to see some more of those popcorn, very similar sized cotton balls that are in 2024, in 2020.  I was thinking maybe yesterday's update brought in some of this but no mention in the update details someone said.

The green trees is a bug and I've reported it way back in November.  I believe it's also related to the green roads that sometimes are under the winter/late fall brown textures.

There's a near night and day difference in favor of 2024 for me. 2024 clouds make the 2020 ones look like dog water now. The only thing I don't like about the new lighting  is how overpowering it can be at midday.

Personally, I find msfs 20/24 weather to be its most disappointing aspect. I fly The Other Sim 12.3 for flying through beautiful and varied weather and MSFS24  to explore terrain.

I wish I could stitch the sims together into Frankenstein’s Flight Simulator, render sky and apply flight models with the former and terrain and in cockpit controls with the latter.