Ground textures have been annoyingly blurry and inconsistent, not sure if it’s server related or settings related. Anyone still using this tool? If so, do you notice ground texture business?

Thanks

Edited yesterday at 04:37 AM1 day by V1ROTA7E

I'd think since the nerfing of the terrain textures a good few months ago in the main sim, it means the app no longer has much benefit, and it forces the app to nerf its own texture. I now stay zoomed out, don't use passenger views, and have Rex Atmos going so the horrible blurry mush mountains don't bother me during my flying. I hate what they've done to the sim compared with the clarity we had in 2020 (which now AFAIK has also been nerfed).

There also seems to be a big difference when it comes to different parts of the globe (South Africa looked rubbish yesterday, the UK is sharper)

I tried the app a month or two ago and I didn't see much improvement. Any others who've used it?

Edited yesterday at 01:21 PM1 day by Langeveldt

I only used the enhancement tool in MSFS2020, haven't needed to in 2024.

I fired it up now, my distant mountains at Malpensa still looked like mushy slop, and everything streamed in slowly, replacing previous tiles as I flew, even though I have fast internet.. Bijan's mod also stopped working. Going to uninstall and give it a wide berth. Doesn't seem to help with the resolution degredation.

32 minutes ago, Langeveldt said:

I fired it up now, my distant mountains at Malpensa still looked like mushy slop, and everything streamed in slowly, replacing previous tiles as I flew, even though I have fast internet.. Bijan's mod also stopped working. Going to uninstall and give it a wide berth. Doesn't seem to help with the resolution degredation.

Bijan's trees stopped working? or the terrain masking? Thanks for testing...seeing the trailers (especially the new 4th of July trailer) made me wonder what is going on, or what i'm doing wrong because the ground and distance textures look so sharp. Of course it's marketing...but it's been a silent gripe of mine for a while now.

4 minutes ago, V1ROTA7E said:

Bijan's trees stopped working? or the terrain masking? Thanks for testing...seeing the trailers (especially the new 4th of July trailer) made me wonder what is going on, or what i'm doing wrong because the ground and distance textures look so sharp. Of course it's marketing...but it's been a silent gripe of mine for a while now.

Any visuals from Asobo are heavily "marketed", while not fake, you always see their arty screenshots focusing in on some high fidelity engine cowling or a random piece of scenery with a massive depth of field. The fact of the matter is terrain resolution has been nerfed and there is nothing we can do about it.

It's still passable and the best of what we have, but a definite degredation. If you sit at Malpensa and look north, northwest, the Alps in the distance just look like a white blob.

Also consider that Mount Rushmore is going to be far more high fidelity, than some random mountain in Croatia. Bing imagery plays a huge role, as does their decision to lower resolution to improve the load on their servers.

I use Atmos to give a bit of haze, that looks natural anyway, and it means I can't actually see the distant ugliness. Some stuff close to the ground doesn't look that sharp either. Highly annoying given how during the MSFS 2020 heydey, we know how sharp this terrain can be. Running in 4K with a couple of ReShade sharpening shaders helps too.

Edited yesterday at 02:35 PM1 day by Langeveldt

15 minutes ago, Langeveldt said:

The fact of the matter is terrain resolution has been nerfed and there is nothing we can do about it.

Yeah, that was kinda my suspicion. Just knowing how good it can look, and how 2020 looked towards the end, it's just a bummer. I get it, it's a flight sim...but it's like flying on Frontier vs flying on Cathay Pacific. They'll both get you where you need to go, but one is definitely a better experience lol.

18 minutes ago, Langeveldt said:

Bing imagery plays a huge role, as does their decision to lower resolution to improve the load on their servers.

I was reading somewhere yesterday that they no longer use Bing as their provider and everything has been moved to Azure. Not sure if this is true, but i guess the Bing stuff expired a while ago. Could explain the degradation, coupled with the LOD nerfing.

It's definitely been a retrograde step and a sim we didn't really need. I'm pot committed to 2024 now, and I generally like it, but it's like we've added better lighting and taken away the terrain quality. I don't see it as a massive progression.

I do think the issue is server related. I've noticed less sharp imagery when I'm flying at the weekend, at peak times. But I count myself lucky because I really don't see too much blurriness. For the record I'm on fast 8GB broadband, but I'm not convinced the user's broadband speed is even that impactful, compared to what is going on with MS's servers. The frustrating thing is that it's so inconsistent across the user base. I really don't get much blurriness but I do see it sporadically at those high peak times. I have seen others who are getting terrible imagery though, quite persistently.

It would not surprise me if MS were throttling servers and reducing bandwidth to save a couple of dollars here and there on their server bills 😄

MSFS2024 is tempting( better lighting , atmospherics, new aircraft and airports ) but "blurry and low res" textures " are a HUGE no-no

Maybe in 2005 when we were playing FS9 , but definitely not in 2026!

I tried 2024 with game pass and using Map Enhancement, mountains in the distance look like 2003. Don't know if it is a bug in ME, but back to 2020 no such issue exists.

Plus i can crank up my TLOD to sometime like 540 ( i generally fly high and fast) , with using Dynamic LOD or Auto FPS to keep the TLOD around 250-300 on the ground and up to 2000 feet or so (to reduce stutters on takeoff and landing). I have a 4090 ( thank god) with 24GB or VRAM /64GB of RAM and it handles it just fine.

Without ME , in 2024 textures in the distance load up fine. But when i don't use ME , missing textures are frequent ( try flying in Canada BTW) ,replaced by generic FS2 textures :) . With Map Enhancement, this issue is mitigated , with maybe some baked in clouds instead ( still not perfect but better than before).

And forget flying in Alaska or Northern Canada . No Bing coverage , you need MapBox which works great .

Looks like i am with 2020 for the foreseeable future.

Edited yesterday at 07:48 PM1 day by planechaser

2 minutes ago, planechaser said:

MSFS2024 is tempting( better lighting , atmospherics etc) but "blurry and low res" textures " are a HUGE no-no

Maybe in 2005 when we were playing FS9 , but definitely not in 2026!

I tried 2024 with game pass and using Map Enhancement, mountains in the distance look like 2003. Don't know if it is a bug in ME, but back to 2020 no such issue exists.

Plus i can crank up my TLOD to sometime like 540 ( i generally fly high and fast) , with using Dynamic LOD or Auto FPS to keep the TLOD around 250-300 on the ground and up to 2000 feet or so (to reduce stutters on takeoff and landing). I have a 4090 ( thank god) with 24GB or VRAM /64GB of RAM and it handles it just fine.

Without ME , in 2024 textures in the distance load up fine. But when i don't use ME , missing textures are frequent ( try flying in Canada BTW) ,replaced by generic FS2 textures :) . With Map Enhancement, this issue is mitigated , with maybe some baked in clouds instead ( still not perfect but better than before).

And forget flying in Alaska or Northern Canada . No Bing coverage , you need MapBox which works great .

Looks like i am with 2020 for the foreseeable future.

Oh, so ME is still a big gamechanger in 2020 but not 2024? Can you still get good results using the Bing option in ME with 2020? Might tempt me into a reinstall.

Edited yesterday at 07:51 PM1 day by Langeveldt

2 hours ago, JYW said:

I do think the issue is server related. I've noticed less sharp imagery when I'm flying at the weekend, at peak times. But I count myself lucky because I really don't see too much blurriness. For the record I'm on fast 8GB broadband, but I'm not convinced the user's broadband speed is even that impactful, compared to what is going on with MS's servers. The frustrating thing is that it's so inconsistent across the user base. I really don't get much blurriness but I do see it sporadically at those high peak times. I have seen others who are getting terrible imagery though, quite persistently.

It would not surprise me if MS were throttling servers and reducing bandwidth to save a couple of dollars here and there on their server bills 😄

I stopped using the Map Enhancement app. Whether I'm at 40000 ft or 1000 feet, I get great sharp textures and sharp distant mountain views. I saw no reason to keep subscription paying for textures when in game 2024 look so great. Waaay better than 2020.

31 minutes ago, Bigmack said:

I stopped using the Map Enhancement app. Whether I'm at 40000 ft or 1000 feet, I get great sharp textures and sharp distant mountain views. I saw no reason to keep subscription paying for textures when in game 2024 look so great. Waaay better than 2020.

I'm happy for you. But the ground ortho, no matter where i am or what server, are low rez. Like Zoom Level 16-17 at best. Photogrammetry is generally alright, but i remember in FS20 the ground textures were so crisp that I didn't use photogrammetry very often because the sim really didn't need it.

Are people with good textures in the 5.1 beta by chance?

4 minutes ago, V1ROTA7E said:

I'm happy for you. But the ground ortho, no matter where i am or what server, are low rez. Like Zoom Level 16-17 at best. Photogrammetry is generally alright, but i remember in FS20 the ground textures were so crisp that I didn't use photogrammetry very often because the sim really didn't need it.

Are people with good textures in the 5.1 beta by chance?

Yes I'm still in the beta program. But I struggled with the blurries at first 2024 release, but the last 6 months, everything has been peachy king for me. High and low level

6 hours ago, Langeveldt said:

Oh, so ME is still a big gamechanger in 2020 but not 2024? Can you still get good results using the Bing option in ME with 2020? Might tempt me into a reinstall.

Yes because you can adjust the brightness, terrain ,saturation to your liking. With 2020 also ( depending on your hardware) you can crank up your TLOD settings with little perf loss, i find that the ground textures are better looking.

If you fly in Alaska, Canada ( e.g. Alaska Airlines 737 milk runs) , this mod is a must or you will be encountering areas in the scenery that will make FS9 look good. I would have assumed that 2024 would get rid of all those generic looking textures in areas( they look like minecraft)

I flew from Barrow to Anchorage Alaska with Mapbox active ... everything was covered and looked amazing .

If you fly in mainland USA and western Europe , than i would say MSFS 2024 without the mod is good

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by planechaser