regarding the LOD's:

 

All AIG mdoels have at least 5 LODs so they are developed according to the SDK. But it seems that the game is "overriding" those LODs with its own calculations. This results in the "removal" of small objects (mainly the gears). We have ideas for workarounds but those will definatly have an impact on the overall performance... Lets hope ASOBO comes up with a fix and I am sure Jay is testing different solutions/workarounds at the same time as well 🙂

 

1 hour ago, kevinfirth said:

 

Not saying it doesn't happen at all for me, because if I look off into the far  distance it's sometimes discernable, what I am saying is that it's so far off and at such small sizes on my 4k screen that it's not terribly bothersome for me 

So you use even more than 400 for OLOD? As I wrote and you can see on my screenshot, I also use 4K and it is instantly visible and kills the immersion. Those planes all appear floating, especially those further away like the cargo planes on my screenshot. 

So, please, show a screenshot where it happens further away than on my rig.

the thing is: this was never an issue in FSX or P3D so I do really wonder if the performance impact is really that high. And it could easily be countered by simply reducing the density/amount of AI planes. 

1 hour ago, Kaiii3 said:

regarding the LOD's:

 

All AIG mdoels have at least 5 LODs so they are developed according to the SDK. But it seems that the game is "overriding" those LODs with its own calculations. This results in the "removal" of small objects (mainly the gears). We have ideas for workarounds but those will definatly have an impact on the overall performance... Lets hope ASOBO comes up with a fix and I am sure Jay is testing different solutions/workarounds at the same time as well 🙂

 

It's actually become even worse lately.  At least the airplane used to appear as a high LOD model.  Now you can literally see them changing LOD even as they are on takeoff roll or taxiing, they go from a pointy nose model to a morphed model to the final high LOD model right before your eyes.  Never used to happen like that...

MSFS2020  

There has been no modelupdate from AIG this year - so all changes you see are all within the Sim itself and caused by ASOBO

26 minutes ago, Kaiii3 said:

There has been no modelupdate from AIG this year - so all changes you see are all within the Sim itself and caused by ASOBO

Oh yes, 100%, I know I haven't changed my models (AIG) however the way the sim displays them has changed and they now go through MUCH more aggressive LOD changes so that even if you are taxiing towards a plane as it is taking off you can now see it go through the LOD changes on it's takeoff roll!  

It's the first time ever even AIG models will have the pointy nose Asobo AI is so famous for and it is strictly because of how the sim is handling AI LOD... 

It's a huge regression  on my end. 

It makes me wonder whether Asobo understand the meaning of the term "immersion breaking". Why would you let rubbish like that get past the design stage??

Especially considering the fact that the ESP sims already had a working AI engine. Not perfect, but leaps ahead of this bull we have now. And most embarrassing: no progress at all in 5 years.

Another one, with default ATC: "Anchorage Center, Cessna N390F is at FL380 climbing FL640" or "climb and maintain FL62370, Piper 3LI" ...

time to disable default ATC again ...

Edited August 25, 2025Aug 25 by Nemo

13 minutes ago, AnkH said:

Especially considering the fact that the ESP sims already had a working AI engine. Not perfect, but leaps ahead of this bull we have now. And most embarrassing: no progress at all in 5 years.

You hit the point!

38 minutes ago, Nemo said:

Another one, with default ATC: "Anchorage Center, Cessna N390F is at FL380 climbing FL640" or "climb and maintain FL62370, Piper 3LI" ...

time to disable default ATC again ...

That one is more like "climb and maintain orbit" 

1 hour ago, AnkH said:

Especially considering the fact that the ESP sims already had a working AI engine. Not perfect, but leaps ahead of this bull we have now. And most embarrassing: no progress at all in 5 years.

That's the most laughable twist of reality I have read in a while.

The ESP sims always had an abysmal AI system.

The reason why we now see new quirks is because they simply used the old ESP system and tried to let it do things it was never designed to do, like display itself from live ADS-B data, or land on non flat runways.

Edited August 25, 2025Aug 25 by Farlis

Laughable, yes. Still all of the points mentioned above were a NON-issue back then. Of course with other drawbacks, but the basics were way ahead of what we have now. Besides the fact that they gave several the statement that the AI engine was NOT based on the old ESP variant. That is why...

52 minutes ago, Farlis said:

The reason why we now see new quirks is because they simply used the old ESP system and tried to let it do things it was never designed to do, like display itself from live ADS-B data, or land on non flat runways.

They had more than 5 years time to change it. But they did not, which underlines the low importance of ai traffic for the current MS simulators.

Edited August 25, 2025Aug 25 by Nemo

@AnkH What you have to remember is that Asobo were merely a Disney Games Company before Jorg came along and chose them (for Xbox experience reasons no doubt), since they got the MSFS contract they got some of their staff to obtain flying licenses and experience in the flying world which is all great and that, but the sheer size of this project - as proven by having to hire Working Title to do specific Systems integration - shows that they lacked the knowledge and understanding to make the AI any better than they ever were on top of everything else they had to learn, hence the snails pace little changes here & there over these past five years (regarding AI), on top of everything else they're trying to do with the franchise then throw in the decision to release a brand new (2024) Sim that no doubt threw any other potential advancements out the window.

Essentially they lack the knowledge and skill set to make AI better, remember again they had an advert for an AI programmer on their website for a good year+ and we can only presume that was filled...or maybe it wasn't who knows.
Either way this is an area they perhaps should've got a Partner Program in place for long ago, again akin to Working Title, but for what ever reasons it's never happened and as above it's one of those areas that just isn't that important to them unfortunately otherwise we would've seen better improvements over these past five years.

Now I'm not saying Asobo are at fault here or anything, it points to questionable project management to me but they must have their reasons for not dealing with it by now, just a shame that such obvious issues like "simple" LOD of Gear going missing is something they've clearly never bothered to even try and fix. Lots of areas of this Sims franchise has suffered for various reasons, this is just one example.

28 minutes ago, Nemo said:

They had more than 5 years time to change it. But they did not, which underlines the low importance of ai traffic for the current MS simulators.

To be honest it should not be that high on the list.

I know it is is frustrtating and I sometimes wish it were better, but I use 3rd Party injectors anyway so I don't really care if they improve the AI or not.

 

But in the order of things I'd say it should be something like this:

 

Aircraft Modelling

Flight Dynamics and World Aerodynamics

Ground Physics

Weather

Weather

Weather

 

Airport environment

World environment

and only then

AI and ATC. Because they go hand in hand.