18 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

This comment in that thread really puzzles me.....

"even at just 3000 feet with high texture resolution and 200 TLOD the ground just looks so bad compared to before. everything is way too green and artificial looking, the extreme blurryness of ground textures just makes me no longer enjoy this sim. every time i take off and look outside i instantly see blurry ground textures it just puts me off, was not like this before, textures were crisp. i’ve lost most of my motivation to fly in msfs 2020, and msfs 2024 is unplayable so thats not an option."

If it were this bad on my PC, then I would also be complaining........but it really is not. Why is the situation so different for a lot of users? 

.....Why is the situation so different for a lot of users?

because the different display resolutions.

Those who fly at 720p 1080p resolutions do not notice any worsening, those who fly in 2k begin to notice a slight downgrade, those who fly in 4k the downgrade is very marked and destroys the experience

Yes, but surely the ZL number refers to the resolution of the textures themselves, not the resolution at which they are being displayed? I would have thought that the clarity (or lack of it) would be visible to everyone?

Edited September 26, 2025Sep 26 by Christopher Low

41 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

If it were this bad on my PC, then I would also be complaining........but it really is not. Why is the situation so different for a lot of users? 

Where are you flying? PG areas are fine. It's in the non-PG areas that you'll find most of the degradation. And not necessarily everywhere, but anywhere there is already poor sat imagery it's way worse.

I generally only do wide practice circuits at around a hundred airports at the moment, but these are scattered throughout the UK and Europe. I do not use PG.

Edited September 26, 2025Sep 26 by Christopher Low

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

Yes, but surely the ZL number refers to the resolution of the textures themselves, not the resolution at which they are being displayed? I would have thought that the clarity (or lack of it) would be visible to everyone?

Yes, but if you lower or halve the resolution of the source data (to lighten the servers) you immediately notice when that data is processed for a 4k display, while you might not notice it in 720p or 1080p

Yea I'm not seeing the zoom level texture downgrade enough for it to ruin my sim experience and I'm for sure one of the "nit picky high end max setting visual" simmers.

My terrain still looks amazing at any level and if the zl downgrade has indeed given this nice performance boost in SU16 it was totally worth it imo!

Edited September 26, 2025Sep 26 by blueshark747

2020, before I switched to 2024 a few weeks had never looked so good, imo. I only switched because curiosity got the best of me and I’m glad I did because 2024 is awesome. I’m running it at 4k. Just did a tour of Alaska which has limited sat data and no PG and it looks so much better after SU16 and even better in 2024. I’m just not understanding how some people are saying the sim is ruined and looks terrible. Maybe auto fps has something to do with it because it can whip up crazy high LOD’s if you have the bandwidth.

3 hours ago, blueshark747 said:

Yea I'm not seeing the zoom level texture downgrade enough for it to ruin my sim experience and I'm for sure one of the "nit picky high end max setting visual" simmers.

My terrain still looks amazing at any level and if the zl downgrade has indeed given this nice performance boost in SU16 it was totally worth it imo!

Count me as one of the "very satisfied with SU16" folks.  Yes, I run at 1080 and I'm well aware that can have an influence, but the performance improvements 16 brought allows me to run at higher LODs so its been a net win.  I also think some of the "downgrade" talk comes from the variability inherent in any change in satellite data sets.  Some areas got better (including many places I regularly fly).  Some got worse (though I don't fly in many places that qualify), and if you fly regularly in an area that isn't quite as good as it was, well...  Yep, I can see why you might be a bit less pleased than I am.

That said, some of the hyperbole does not help in building a case for change.  Comparisons to FSX, in particular, cause me to roll my eyes and wonder if the person making the comparison ever used FSX, 'cause, um... yeah.

I also don't get blaming it on consoles.  I expect most xbox users display to 4K devices, as will most PS users when that port happens.

 

Scott

As humans age, eyesight and hearing continually degrade. Some of this could just be people experiencing the effects of natural aging and blaming the simulator. Only a doctor could confirm if this is actually the case for any individual though.

12 hours ago, rjquick said:

As humans age, eyesight and hearing continually degrade. Some of this could just be people experiencing the effects of natural aging and blaming the simulator. Only a doctor could confirm if this is actually the case for any individual though.

Lol 😂

On 9/26/2025 at 3:22 PM, rjquick said:

As humans age, eyesight and hearing continually degrade. Some of this could just be people experiencing the effects of natural aging and blaming the simulator. Only a doctor could confirm if this is actually the case for any individual though.

On 9/26/2025 at 1:28 PM, LIML2020 said:

Yes, but if you lower or halve the resolution of the source data (to lighten the servers) you immediately notice when that data is processed for a 4k display, while you might not notice it in 720p or 1080p

No issues but I render TAA.
So maybe coherent relation to DLSS downsampling ?
Lower texture size should be neutralized by lowering DLSS downsampling (higher target resolution) ?
May not resolve ZL but reduced tile resolution ?!?

 

On 9/26/2025 at 9:22 PM, rjquick said:

As humans age, eyesight and hearing continually degrade. Some of this could just be people experiencing the effects of natural aging and blaming the simulator. Only a doctor could confirm if this is actually the case for any individual though.

So I should have saved my money for better glasses instead recently buying a 5070 TI ?
And I understand why the noise of nine fans in my case doesn't bother me.