Looking for help, please.

I am done with the bland colors of the scenery and sky as well as the cartoonish look of the world and clouds MSFS24. Well, that might be an overstatement, but for sure it could look better and more realistic.

I’ve done what I can with the settings of the sim, monitor and the graphic card settings. What else should I try?

I know there are reshades which are made to change the visuals. I have not tried these because I’m little worried if I have enough knowledge to install them. Are they the way I should go (with my limited understanding of computing)? Is it possible for me to mess up my sim? And if that’s the step I should take, which is (which are the ) the most realistic looking reshade(s) out there?

I fly 75% of my flights in Europe and mostly VFR, if that matters.

Or is there some other method to improve the looks of the world, sky, colors, clouds, shadows and lights? It can be freeware or payware.

I am looking for realistic look, not more cartoonish or ai-generated look.

Calibrate your monitor?

I am genuinely curious here. What makes some people think that MSFS 2024 looks "cartoonish", but not MSFS 2020?

Agreed with 2024 visuals also, perhaps the lighting in the sim?

For me 2020 is looking close to reality.

Mike

Before it goes into yet another debate about opinions.....have you seen Rex Atmos? That's supposed to help with this sorta thing, not used it myself though.

I too prefer the visuals in 2020 (I also own 2024 but rarely fly it). I fly everywhere, but over 75% of my time is in Australia and Indonesia where I have homes. For me 2020 (I use REX Seasons as well as ATMOS) provides far more realistic visuals for these countries. Often promoted as an 2024 adavantge - the 3D trees in 2024 may serve Nth American's and Europeans well, but for Australia, Africa, Central Asia arid and South East Asian tropical areas I think the 2020 models are more true to life.

Also the colours in 2020 (again I use 2020 with ATMOS) are less saturated, less Las Vegas, Real Estate Promotional style or Cruise Ship Brochure style colouring which many feel is cartoonish :)

Edited May 16May 16 by mfahey

38 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I am genuinely curious here. What makes some people think that MSFS 2024 looks "cartoonish", but not MSFS 2020?

I describe it as looking like a watercolour painting.

I find Rex Atmos helps, depending on which presets you select of course. I like the AB presets.

As for the poor cloud shapes, nothing you can do unfortunately.

1 hour ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

I describe it as looking like a watercolour painting.

That is exactly what I tried to explain.

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

I find Rex Atmos helps, depending on which presets you select of course. I like the AB presets.

As for the poor cloud shapes, nothing you can do unfortunately.

Perhaps I should try that. I hope it is not too difficult to use.

What is AB preset?

The basics available thru NV Control Panel including color depth, brightness, contrast, gamma and Digital Vibrance is highly effective in dialing back color saturation all the way to the point of black and white. The only issue I have is certain virtual cockpits can be darker than I would prefer while having the outside world dialed in just right--and that was the same in 2020. I used to use GFE filters but since calibrating for HDR and using HDR10 along w/ modest tweaks in NVCP as mentioned above, as well as the sharpening hack for NVCP there is no longer a need to use filters.

I explained how to easily use ReShade to improve the colors and sharpness here, and I'm still using this method: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/until-nvidia-filters-work-again-a-temporary-solution-using-reshade/672513

The clouds won't be as good as XP12, but make sure to set the clouds to Ultra. That helped a lot. Even if the rest of the sim is in lower settings, set clouds to Ultra. They were looking extra cartoonish compared to XP12 until I set them to Ultra. They are a lot better now. I can finally enjoy 2024 without feeling the clouds ruin everything.