I wanted to squeeze every pretty penny I paid for 5090 so I had this mentality that I must keep things as high as possible, and that includes keeping clouds setting at Ultra in VR. It cost me 10 fps easily and after getting stuck with gloomy live weather for weeks I was finally fed up and lowered clouds setting to High. Geeze, I instantly jumped to >50 fps VR category and that is so refreshing. 

Feels like that I finally escaped from the grip of the tyranny of Ultra clouds. Can't believe why I had been so stubborn to stick with Ultra clouds for so long. Clouds on high certainly looks good enough. 

7 hours ago, FlyIce said:

I had this mentality that I must keep things as high as possible

I thought clouds on HIGH or MEDIUM look more fuzzy and even better than on ULTRA. instead I use ULTRA for ground detail, trees, grass and water waves, where FPS doesn't really matter, fortunately.

besides and no solace for you 😀: I think their latest optimisations in SU4 beta and foveated rendering support has done more to my fps than a costly upgrade from my 4090 to a 5090 could ever do.

Edited November 30, 2025Nov 30 by turbomax

12 hours ago, turbomax said:

I thought clouds on HIGH or MEDIUM look more fuzzy and even better than on ULTRA.

Well, I have to admit that clouds on Ultra indeed look much real when you fly right into it. I have flown in and out real clouds and the ultra clouds definitely deliver the visual impact (in VR) that is quite close to flying into real clouds. From a bit distance away though, the high settings can definitely pass. 

 

1 hour ago, FlyIce said:

I have flown in and out real clouds

same here and on top a solid cloud deck for several hours before spotting a VFR whole to descend through 🤣 and got a nice free "car" wash along the way from some rain, but once you are in them clouds there is nothing but white or gray, no visible "voxel" structure  left. flight simulator experience helped me to get through this white-out without loss of orientation by looking straight and only at my instruments.

I remember in earlier versions they looked like volcanic ashes and I had to reduce the clouds sliders to overcome that ugly immersion killer, have to try it again and see if they look better now. in the old FSX/P3D days, clouds could be a real fps killer, but luckily no more in MSFS.

A VFR hole to dive through was always fun.. 😆 

Yeah, once inside the clouds, no difference as all around just soup. But, when fly into the clouds, the visual of ultra clouds does look more realistic during those moments. Of course, whether that is worth 10-15 fps in VR is very debatable. For now I'll ditch that luxury for flying >50 fps in VR. 

I agree about the "High" quality being a much better quality/performance ratio than "Ultra". The clouds look good to me in High, contrary to Medium. Ultra sometimes looks great, and sometimes weird... and I also get 10 FPS more in High than in Ultra (on an old GTX1070ti...), so I'm very happy with that 🙂

I have clouds on High but in AutoFPS there's a setting to bump them up to Ultra should the FPS/performance allow it, pretty handy and it's hard to notice the change. 

(But it is a massive shame Asobo nerfed the clouds in SU5 for 2020, they're nowhere near those levels and even on Ultra they can look very poor up close at times.)

I concur with the VR Ultra Clouds conundrum.  Usually I fly clouds on high and forget about it, but I can overclock my 5090 to a stable 3150 mhz which yields enough headroom to run Ultra Clouds, even with dense cloud cover, at a solid 45 fps (my fps limit).  But when doing so my 5090 sucks a consistent 450W - 550W, so literally I am paying for it.  Usually run I MSFS 2024 with my 5090 undervolted to get ~2800 mhz which uses 350W - 450W, where high clouds do just fine.  BTW, IMO the REX Atmos Core cloud enhancer really helps clouds in VR.

Edited December 2, 2025Dec 2 by TheFamilyMan

20 minutes ago, TheFamilyMan said:

IMO the REX Atmos Core cloud corrector really helps clouds in VR.

That's great! Is the cloud corrector automatic in Atmos or do i have to select a setting somewhere? Still very new with Atmos... cheers

That feature is only in REX Atmos Core, which is MSFS 2024 only.  It's one of the slider settings in the Weather tab.  I used Atmos in 2020 and really liked it, and other than its cloud enhancer I'm a bit disappointed with the Core edition.

I am with ULTRA and practically same hardware and G2, and with the new SU4 beta really there is no reason to get that step back, are you in the beta?

Ah edit: ok, Pimax Crystal, it needs more power, in the HP G2, ULTRA runs well.

Edited December 3, 2025Dec 3 by peloto