1 hour ago, sniper31 said:

At least, that is how I feel about this topic.

Hmmm...yes, that's an undeniably good point.🫡

2 hours ago, sniper31 said:

Asobo promotes and promotes the look of the scenery down low, and then we get that melted building look and monolith tree obstacles all over the place.

I recall flying in the early Beta version of 2020 and being stunned flying around the city of Boston. Crisp, perfect buildings at that time but I think they were slightly downgraded on official release and have worsened even further since then (likely for console performance)...similar to how the weather and night lighting was been slowly downgraded and made worse over time compared to early 2020 builds...

Edited 10 hours ago10 hr by Flic1

1 hour ago, sniper31 said:

I do not fly between buildings as if they are pylons or drive on roads. I DO fly helos in the sim and even flying GA and approaching to land or takeoff from some airports, the melted buildings are visible often. Just because I or someone else says they see melted buildings and obelisk trees, does NOT mean we are all not trying to fly properly or treating the sim like a ground racetrack. I still love MSFS2024 and think it's the best sim we have ever had in the flight sim world, but that does that not mean I cannot have an objective opinion about something with the sim. I keep PG on, but it has its flaws, and almost every time I fly a helo in the sim the melted look of the PG screws with my immersion. It is what it is.

I fly helos also close to the ground. I keep PG on at all times. I haven't seen melted trees or building since SU3 I think. I landed the phenom at EGLC by ORBX v2 where I used to see the terrible melting effect, but now everything is crisp and sharp, everywhere. I think that you're missing out on a lot of great scenery by turning PG off. But to each his own.

26 minutes ago, Bigmack said:

I fly helos also close to the ground. I keep PG on at all times. I haven't seen melted trees or building since SU3 I think.

I just can't believe it 🧐 I have melted buildings near many airports.

36 minutes ago, Bigmack said:

I fly helos also close to the ground. I keep PG on at all times. I haven't seen melted trees or building since SU3 I think. I landed the phenom at EGLC by ORBX v2 where I used to see the terrible melting effect, but now everything is crisp and sharp, everywhere. I think that you're missing out on a lot of great scenery by turning PG off. But to each his own.

If you would kindly re-read my comments, you will see that I said I keep PG ON despite the shortcomings that I see. So no, I am not missing out on anything. When I am around PG that does not have the melted look, I agree, it looks wonderful. I just wish it was like that more. For example, take a helo flight around the Seattle area (which btw is home to Microsoft) and you will see plenty of melted buildings and obelisk trees.

A few screenshots of these utopian PG cities with sharply defined 3D geometry, beautiful trees, and crisp clear high resolution textures would be wonderful.

3 hours ago, sniper31 said:

Just because I or someone else says they see melted buildings and obelisk trees, does NOT mean we are all not trying to fly properly or treating the sim like a ground racetrack. I still love MSFS2024 and think it's the best sim we have ever had in the flight sim world, but that does that not mean I cannot have an objective opinion about something with the sim. I keep PG on, but it has its flaws, and almost every time I fly a helo in the sim the melted look of the PG screws with my immersion. It is what it is.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make, which basically mirrors what you're saying here. PG is a tradeoff. There's good, there's bad and how those balance is going to vary depending on personal preferences and the kind of flying being done. As you say, it is what it is.

I don't personally see that many melted buildings around the airports I typically fly into, but the trees? Yep and ugh! I use Bijan's seasons, so at least some of these are being eliminated as he's actively working to remove them around airports. It's a work in progress and a very big world, but it does help.

And BTW, some people DO fly cities like they're giant air race courses (even if you or I don't), and if that's what someone wants to do, no judgement on my part. * But they will see the world differently than I do. That's what I was getting at with Chicago. And obviously, as noted, helicopter flying is a whole 'nother thing. The city looked great to me on a beautiful sunny day, from a real world GA VFR flight perspective.

Scott

Edit: - * oh, OK. Maybe a little judgement. 😆

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by tttocs

Increasing TLOD is the best way to increase the clarity of it. However there are some areas where TIN is just better than others.

Aside from that, just throwing money at it works too.... a better CPU and GPU, and very fast internet can help.

What is your current PC? And can you post a closeup pic of what you mean by "melted?"

edit: Melted is very subjective too. There won't be perfectly shaped polygons at 100agl but some areas especially ones with vexcel (like Denver) are SUPER nice.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by ryanbatc

I only notice "melted" buildings when there are trees around the buildings that cause the building to basically morph into the blob of the tree, or at a distance with smaller objects. For instance, the antennas on top of the Sears Tower in Chicago look more like spires at a distance, but as you get closer the higher LOD kicks in and the antennas become more detailed. The same can happen with bridges, cranes and towers.

As mentioned above, Bijan cleans up some trees in his Seasons product, and if this is something affecting your home airport he does take requests. For me the benefits of PG outweigh the negatives and I just deal with the occasional building-tree blob. If this affected my home airport though, I could see being more annoyed by it.

Well, I don't want this discussion to turn into more of a tennis match than it already has become in regard to PG. I will not belabor the topic any longer after this post. In regard to some of the comments above:

1) I also use Bijan's and have since it was first released in 2020. I agree it does help some. Just not enough yet.

2) As far as throwing good hardware at the problem, I have an RTX 5090 and 9900 X3D CPU with 64 Gbs of RAM, and 1 Gbit hardline ethernet connection to my flight sim computer. So, if my hardware is the cause of melted buildings and obelisk trees than I need to find a new hobby...lol.

And @tttocs I see and understand what you are saying, all good. And I also don't care if others fly through buildings or under bridges etc, as it is a simulator after all. I just do not. Anyhow, I think my point has been made, so let's all try and go and enjoy some sim flying.

29 minutes ago, sniper31 said:

2) As far as throwing good hardware at the problem, I have an RTX 5090 and 9900 X3D CPU with 64 Gbs of RAM, and 1 Gbit hardline ethernet connection to my flight sim computer. So, if my hardware is the cause of melted buildings and obelisk trees than I need to find a new hobby...lol.

Should be about the best you can get for you then. You're always going to see a little melted stuff, it's just the nature of the beast. But what TLOD are you running? I'd run no less than 400 on your rig, and frankly, I'd use MSFSAutoFPS and set a max of 800 and min of 300. You'll find 800 (while a little crazy) sharpens things right up. You probably can't run 800 while flying big payware in big cities with tons of AI and weather... but it;s going to be far better than the max default of 400.

Do you have a pic of what you consider melted?

Here's an area near me - not sure on the altitude here - not high though - this looks superb to me! Even at ground level it's not totally perfect but I'd say it's still amazing that azure can figure this stuff out in this resolution. Would you call this melted? This is the newer tech area though. I also went to Florida near KORL and it's maybe a little meltier, but not too bad. This is all actually at TLOD100

(sadly forum is shrinking pics now so it's hard to make out small details gah!)

[url= by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/185132751@N02/]Ryan Butterworth[/url], on Flickr

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by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/185132751@N02/]Ryan Butterworth[/url], on Flickr

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by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/185132751@N02/]Ryan Butterworth[/url], on Flickr

[url= by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/185132751@N02/]Ryan Butterworth[/url], on Flickr

@ryanbatc I run almost max to max TLOD depending on what type of flying I am doing. For example, if flying helos, than I max out the TLOD. Your last pic is typically what I see when landing a helo in the Seattle area. I do not have screenshots, and I am not going through the process of posting any. The first pic in your post above looks great, so no, I would not call that melted looking PG. But the second one and the last ones I would. Granted, not a problem for lots of flying, but sure is for helo flying.

As I said above though, I do not want to keep going back and forth with this. We all agree that we see PG through different lenses, so may we just leave it at that.

I am sure this has been mentioned previously, but in whatever tech Asobo implemented to render the TIN, they should have had it focus only on resolving buildings. Trees and bridges invariably end up screwy and that contributes to making PG look hit or miss most, I think. This is why there are hundreds of mods on flightsim.to for PG tree removals.

7 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

I can't live without Photogrammetry, I'd rather have accurate if slightly low quality imagery then the generic autogen buildings.

I turned it off a while back and I love not seeing all the melted word not allowed. After a while without PG it will all seem perfectly normal.

Well, at least it did to me. YMMV, of course. Give it a try...

48 minutes ago, sniper31 said:

As I said above though, I do not want to keep going back and forth with this. We all agree that we see PG through different lenses, so may we just leave it at that.

I mean yeah I guess. I don't think the technology exists to make huge areas in super hi resolution and without artifacts. But with the way AI is advancing (personally I wish it would die), maybe in the next sim we'll have it.