I have been flying MSFS 2020 for years, with no major issues (save for the occasional ones that are resolved (or started) by Sim Updates -- looking at you, SU16 and blurry ground textures...).

Recently, I was doing a flight with time compression on, and noticed that my contrails were super gray and thin. Although going down to normal time compression made it better, the thin gray line was still there. I've attached screenshots to this post from a test flight today, with the subtitles showing the time compression. Clearly, it's an issue no matter what rate the sim is running at. And, screenshots at the end, from flights I did earlier in October 2025, do not show the issue.

I have not changed any graphics settings or updated my video drivers in-between when this wasn't an issue and when it started. Any idea what the issue is here, or how to fix? Thanks in advance!

Normal time compression:

2x time compression:

4x time compression:

How my contrails used to look:

The contrails do change depending on the outside conditions so it might just be that. They won’t be the exact same at all times. 

Thanks!  I don't think that's it, though -- these have looked like this in a variety of conditions (altitude, weather, aircraft).  And the thin, gray appearance is too blocky or artifact-like to be intentional; doesn't look realistic or anything like the actual, other in-game contrails. 

I'll see how it looks on my end when I fly in a bit. 

Thanks.  I have tried renaming the Community folder to rule out any mods -- confirming that this does not resolve the issue. 

I'm flying in Thailand right now and the temps are weird. I'm at Fl330 (flying daytime, 8 AM local), and the TAT is showing as +17C, the SAT as -12 and the ISA as +16.

I'm not a pilot but this does not seem correct to me. Also not seeing any contrails. This may be a live weather issue, though I am seeing clouds and such as they should be. Just the temps are weird. 

Thank you for trying!  The issue isn't that contrails are not appearing; it's that there are very thin, gray lines emanating as part of the contrails.  It's hard to see on some of my images (I suspect due to png compression), but most visible on the lower time compression ones.  I believe that it is a rendering/graphics issue, rather than a contrail generation or weather issue.