I've reached the point now, with all the retrograde steps in the visuals, that I haven't even bothered to fire up the sim to get the SU6 update. And I quite likely won't for a few days yet. I had managed to convince myself get back to MSFS a few days back (after weeks of not using it) and bought a couple of new planes, but if they've dumbed the visuals even more with SU6 I can see I might regret those buys. And yes, I guess it probably depends on both your setup and inclinations, but for me the visuals ARE the reason to use MSFS. And with a 50 inch HDR monitor running at 4k I'm well aware of the issues and it really is nowhere near as good as it was a few releases ago, and absolutely nowhere near as good as early 2020 was.

And no, I don't expect it to get any better any time soon (or ever, to be honest). I understand about the consoles driving all this, but also wonder how long anybody using MSFS on a console will keep doing so, and if indeed they do generate much in the way of additional income for MAsobo in the way of addons. And that's not just griping, I really have no idea about the console market and how long a typical user stays with a game in that world.

One thing's for certain - it's going to take something pretty amazing to convince me to the next version of MSFS, assuming they release one. Once bitten etc.

11 hours ago, JYW said:

Did he have to?

Or did he want the additional $$$$$$ revenue from mass Marketplace / Xbox sales, and thus chose to?

Confirmation bias is an interesting thing. He's literally part of this 'dumbing down of visuals' phenomena that irritates you and many of us, but because he is universally viewed as an amazing guy, he was "forced to do it". 😉

Nothing about this opinion is suggesting that Raul is a 'bad guy'. Just that recent times have proven that his overarching interest and priority, is his business and maximising his revenue.

I only say this because he did release it as 4k and once people on Xbox complained (and complained loudly), he had to update to 2k.

4 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

I only say this because he did release it as 4k and once people on Xbox complained (and complained loudly), he had to update to 2k.

So why couldn't he let the rest of us have the 4k set separately? Would it be so bad if a 4k set somehow found it's way onto Flightsim.to? Disguised as a repaint maybe? Or is he contractually obliged to only provide the dumbed down version?

1 hour ago, St Mawgan said:

So why couldn't he let the rest of us have the 4k set separately? Would it be so bad if a 4k set somehow found it's way onto Flightsim.to? Disguised as a repaint maybe? Or is he contractually obliged to only provide the dumbed down version?

I have no idea. But I presume because of the relationship with Microsoft he had to do the 2k.

What's not normal is that they don't let players choose their own settings. I don't think it would be that hard to allow PC players to access more powerful settings, but with every patch, we seem to be taking a step backward.

On 8/15/2026 at 12:44 AM, ryanbatc said:

Just a note that it is good, but they nerfed the LOD - which is why everyone is getting a good performance boost from SU5. We're back up to about SU4 performance but with worse visuals.

There are a lot of good things from SU6 so I'm not trying to be a debbie downer. But this is why it's performing better than SU5.

I did some rough comparisons and TLOD 400 is pretty much like TLOD200 in SU4. TLOD 400 is like TLOD 100 in MSFS 2020.... But we already knew Asobo disabled the 512x512 ground textures (that 2020 used) and went to 256x256 in 2024.

Yeah running 600 TLOD in auto fps and still is just really underwhelming. Also the way the vegetation tiles essentially flicker in at the edge of the "render sphere" is awful. If it would fade into and out of view it would at least make it less ugly.

4 hours ago, Piperdriver1093 said:

Yeah running 600 TLOD in auto fps and still is just really underwhelming. Also the way the vegetation tiles essentially flicker in at the edge of the "render sphere" is awful. If it would fade into and out of view it would at least make it less ugly.

That bothers me as well. This is why I am still using mainly MSFS20 for long distance flights, because I don't see any of this flicker or tiling

Edited Tuesday at 01:41 AM3 days by Nandengo12

3 hours ago, Nandengo12 said:

That bothers me as well. This is why I am still using mainly MSFS20 for long distance flights, because I don't see any of this flicker or tiling

Well it worked in SU5 just fine. But performance was tougher. Obviously disable dynamic settings too cause some people run that and it makes the popping in much worse. The first thing that setting affects is TLOD and OLOD.

2 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Well it worked in SU5 just fine. But performance was tougher. Obviously disable dynamic settings too cause some people run that and it makes the popping in much worse. The first thing that setting affects is TLOD and OLOD.

That's a good tip, thanks.

In any case, I still end up using 20 more due to frequent use of devmode. The 24 SDK causes CTD too often.

On 8/15/2026 at 6:44 AM, ryanbatc said:

Just a note that it is good, but they nerfed the LOD - which is why everyone is getting a good performance boost from SU5. We're back up to about SU4 performance but with worse visuals.

There are a lot of good things from SU6 so I'm not trying to be a debbie downer. But this is why it's performing better than SU5.

I did some rough comparisons and TLOD 400 is pretty much like TLOD200 in SU4. TLOD 400 is like TLOD 100 in MSFS 2020.... But we already knew Asobo disabled the 512x512 ground textures (that 2020 used) and went to 256x256 in 2024.

Ah, interesting Ryan. I thought it was me! Yeah, I've noticed much less sharp terrain than I enjoyed in 2020. In fact, I had a really hard time convincing myself to jump across to 24, because I had got 2020 looking really nice. In fact, it was working beautifully. So I am a little peeved that 24 looks worse in my opinion, for me anyway. However, having said that, I really appreciate the smoothness and the overall look of the sim, it does look sweet, and of course there are other improvements, but, as you quite rightly say, Asobo seem to be giving with one hand, while taking away with the other!

Edited Tuesday at 08:01 AM3 days by Rocky_53

I have not noticed any difference with TLOD on my PC, and I have it set to 250 on a permanent basis. However, the jury is currently deliberating with respect to OLOD (which I have set to 200).

Edited Tuesday at 08:58 AM3 days by Christopher Low

This post pretty much sums up the degradation;

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/su6-scenery-level-of-detail-survey/770677/273

Edited Tuesday at 09:35 AM3 days by MarcG

Pretty sure this will be ignored/silenced to death as any other bug the community de facto proofs right to their head. Ignorance is a bliss, no?

On 8/15/2026 at 1:44 AM, ryanbatc said:

Just a note that it is good, but they nerfed the LOD - which is why everyone is getting a good performance boost from SU5. We're back up to about SU4 performance but with worse visuals.

My performance, and in particular VRAM usage, seemed dramatically improved on my first flight in SU6, but I did see some degradation in IQ and in the way things seemed to load in. A quick look at settings told the tale. One key thing had changed - dynamic settings had mysteriously been enabled. Turned that back off and things were pretty much as they had been on my system. YMMV and all that.

On 8/15/2026 at 1:44 AM, ryanbatc said:

I did some rough comparisons and TLOD 400 is pretty much like TLOD200 in SU4. TLOD 400 is like TLOD 100 in MSFS 2020....

Curious as to how you're checking this. Things may well have been nerfed a bit, but I'm not seeing anything this noticeable on my system. But as I've noted before, I'm running 1080, not 4K where things may well be more apparent.

Scott

I'm running TLOD 400 at 5120 x 2160 and honestly haven't noticed a difference post SU6. I typically fly GA between 6,000 and 16,000. The clouds are better, everything else seems the same.