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They’re currently testing Release Candidate 2, and expect to need an RC3 to fix some minor bugs found during beta testing of RC2. It sounds like it’s pretty close. The 2024 version will be a standalone product (ie paid upgrade for existing users as well) with apparently some new functionality. What that is though hasn’t been made public yet.

Admittedly I didn’t try 2024 for as long as you, I too have also reverted back to 2020. I’m not sure when I’ll try 2024 again. I suspect it will be when I’m forced to switch because developers (encouraged by MS) will release more must-have addons exclusively for 2024 (which is already starting to happen tbh).

That haze though in the second screenshot over the desert... 😍 I agree the resolution of the clouds looks pretty low close-up, but it as @ryanbatc said, they seem to be knocking it out of the park with each new beta update, trying to dial in these clouds. In my case, I've just reverted to 2020, with Atmos and the decent clouds (as well as RealTurb for in-cloud turbulence). Flying through clouds isn't quite as satisfying in 2020 as it is in 2024, and the effect of wind gusts etc on the flight model isn't nearly as refined, but for me personally, those downsides are outweighed by the beauty of the sky colours and cloud detail/definition all the way out to the cloud draw limit in 2020.

I really didn't mean to have this turn into an us vs. them discussion (we've got enough of those these days) by bringing this thread back to life. It was simply an acknowledgement that there's been, in my view, a very clear regression in terms of sky colour and cloud quality in 2024, and I was hoping for the input from someone who had a big impact on this community by bringing their expertise to the attention of Asobo/MSFS.

Thanks! And thanks for the video. I'll have to give this a go. The only thing that I'm hesitating about is the performance on your video. I have the same specs as you do from your signature, but that frame rate looks a bit choppy.

There's a yellow-ish sepia tone by default in FS2024 that isn't there in 2020, and the sunsets and mid-day sky colors (especially the transition on the horizon) look entirely unnatural and greenish. If you view that link I added to the MSFS forum post, you'll see very, very clearly what has happened to the clouds in the near and far distance. There are even some shots there comparing the same scene / weather between MSFS2024 and 2020. If you meant, can I explain why it happened - well, for the clouds I'm assuming performance and/or they just didn't have the time to get around to making more improvements. But the early promo videos of 2024 showed the same relative downgrade to clouds, so I think they work as intended. I've got no understanding of why the broke Biology's original sky colour/atmospheric scattering improvements.

I recently waxed lyrical about MSFS2024, having just recently upgraded to it for the first time. I'm now at the point of reverting full-time to MSFS because I just can't get over the sky colors, the downgrade to the clouds and, most importantly the not-infrequent and seemingly random crashes that I'm experiencing. I also was really disappointed to see that simFX likely isn't coming to MSFS2024 at all. I don't need all of the effects, but the basic contrails that it provided were such a big improvement over what we had in 2020, and obviously infinitely better than the zero contrails we get in 2024. I used XPlane 11 back in the day for a year or two before MSFS2020 was released. I never bought into 12, but I'm starting to think I should give it a go. If I could merge MSFS's ground and graphical fidelity with XPlane's sky, cameras and flight modeling I'd be a happy camper... How hard can that be?! 😁

Oh wow! And that explains why the XP atmosphere just got such an impressive upgrade... The MSFS team missed a trick there, not hiring him in to their team instead.

It's a long time since @Biology was present on this forum, but I'd really appreciate their take on lighting in MSFS2024, given the impact they had on inspiring MS/Asobo to modify MSFS2020's atmospheric colouring/light scattering at short notice. Having been using 2024 for the last couple of weeks, I'd argue that the atmospheric lighting in 2024 has taken a step backwards (or perhaps more fairly sideways) from what we had in 2020. Apparently not sticking to the improvements outlined in the studies he highlighted, resulting in a less realistic and definitely less varied depiction of the sky. Separately there's the whole question regarding clouds in 2024 and the LOD issues of distant clouds that have resulted in an overall less realistic depiction of the sky, while simultaneously adding some variety that we didn't have before. I think it's all been brought into focus a lot more lately with the release of the latest XP betas where they seem to have nailed the overall lighting and cloudscapes at the expense of a cloud definition, where MSFS still clearly wins (at close proximity to clouds anyway). On the cloud LOD issue, there's currently a bug report on the official forums in need of some support, so that those of us who agree with my viewpoint (and who feel strongly enough about it!) can try and get MS's attention once they move past the bug fixing stage of MSFS2024 and start prioritizing new changes. https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/clouds-are-very-poor-quality-in-the-distance/709022

Mind if I ask your computer specs? That video was buttery smooth. I'm running a 7800X3D with an RTX4090 (3440x1440) and get nowhere near that consistent chop-free smoothness, even in 2024.

As far as I know it’s the most detailed one available. iniBuilds did a really good job with this one. I haven’t tried the A321 yet but I will give it a go this week (though I’m sure I’ll switch to the Fenix Neo’s once they come out)

I went for the Standard Edition. The main reason being that I don't ever use the airports that came with MSFS2020 Premium Edition. Aircraft-wise I was really only keen on the Longitude, which I'd read I could pay separately to upgrade to in the sim afterwards. However, after I upgraded I found that the Longitude was already included, cabin and all, so I'm not quite sure what happened there. There's no guide that I could find, I'm afraid. And as well as the new controls mapping system, the keyboard assignments have all changed (unless I'd changed them all to be closer to FSS2004 back when I first got 2020 - I really can't remember!) so it'll take you some time to get used to all of that before being able to fly affectively, I'm afraid. But in my case, I definitely feel it was worth it.

Native AI/Realtime traffic is a hot mess - planes appearing/disappearing/taking off at one another from opposite ends of the runway. I think it's partly due to this that FS2024 isn't supported. I don't think FSLTL is currently supported. There may be workarounds to get it working, but afaik you can't install it from the FBW installer. AIG traffic is working in beta mode. I don't have it, so I can't tell you how well it works. I'm currently running BATC with FSLTL base models, and that appears to be working perfectly - just as it did in MSFS2020. I didn't pay to upgrade FSHud to 2024 (I abandoned it, having only a couple of months earlier bought it for 2020, and not been eligible for a free upgrade), so someone else will have to tell you about that one, I'm afraid.

Yeah, I expect that'll be a quick one, as it was apparently introduced in SU2. With MS/Asobo, half the battle is getting them to notice an issue. Lately, once it's they've noticed it and added it to some release notes, it should be fixed fairly quickly. One other graphical glitch I forgot to mention, is the skylight "leaking" through cloud layers on the horizon over mountains etc. I remember 2020 used to have this as well. If I interpreted this fix item for SU3 correctly, then a fix for this should also be incoming as well:

I’ve been watching the rollout of MSFS2024 from the sidelines over the past 6 months while I’ve been happily flying my stable and optimised 2020 install. I was waiting for a few add-ons to be ready before diving in (Rex Atmos, PMDG 777 etc). But once SU2 dropped, after reading all the good things about it, I decided to jump in anyway and finally give it a go. I wanted to write down my initial experiences for all of those other users who, like me, were holding out until it was stable enough to use. Bear in mind I’ve spent most of my time in it using Free Flight mode. The other things, like career mode, while neat, aren’t really important to me. Download and install were quick and easy. Start-up is massively quicker than 2020. I’ve got a 7800X3D and an RTX4090. Performance before was good, but now with 2024 it’s noticeably better. I’m also able to use TAA with frame gen, and then lossless scaling on top to get me around 100-144fps. All of which, FINALLY without stutters*! (*On my first proper Fenix flight. Yesterday though, maybe due to network conditions, I did have a some stutters, but still a much smoother experience than in 2020). As I said above, I use and love Rex Atmos. When used well, the whole skyscape can look unbelievably real (for me, this is a really important aspect of simming - I understand lots of people don’t feel this way). The atmospheric lighting in 2024 is better than 2020 but still has a long way to go to match what’s possible with Atmos or what they did with the latest XPlane betas. I’m looking forward to Atmos being available for 2024. The clouds are more varied, better performing and better defined than in 2020. Flying through clouds (and especially emerging out of the other side of one) is a joy now! There’s definitely more definition and variation to the cloud types as well, even in a single layer. You get a sense of speed flying by clouds now that just wasn’t there in 2020. In some ways (certain angles, lighting conditions) the clouds do actually look worse than they did in 2020, but I think/hope this is something that Atmos can improve. I’m secretly hoping that MS/Asobo look at what other sims (XPlane/DCS) are doing with clouds/lighting and revisit this part of the sim at a later stage. The violent effect of minor wind gusts/direction changes appears to be fixed! Shifting winds of a couple of knots/degrees just make the plane bobble around a little and gives a much better sense of flying through a medium than 2020 ever did. I wasn’t expecting this improvement but it turned out to be one of my favourites so far. High resolution ground textures! Honestly - before trying it, I didn’t care at all about this. But taxi and takeoff at higher than 60fps with clear markings and concrete/asphalt textures makes all the difference. Trees and ground textures up-close look amazing. From a distance they don’t appear much different from 2020. The sounds on foot are great (Not sure why they didn’t include a jump command for First Person movement, though). Night lighting is lovely. The illuminated street lights are so good looking. Distant runway and taxiway lights are a fuzzy hot mess at the moment but I read they’ve got a fix for those in SU3. I tried the default iniBuilds A330, and was pleasantly surprised to see it perform so well. Strange that it doesn’t seem to be integrated at all into the WorkingTitle EFB/nav/mapping solution which is a core part of 2024, though. Control assignment is, as many before me have pointed out, a complete cluster****. I have no idea how they managed to mess it up so badly. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole system (I use Spad as well, so am trying to defer as much as possible to that. But the different keyboard assignments for different aircraft is proving to be a real pain - much of which is probably because I don’t fully understand it yet. And a couple of notes about third-party tools (that I’ve noticed so far): GSX is also causing me grief by apparently crashing on departure each time. When I arrive at an airport, the GSX menu still shows the “Confirm good engine start” options from pushback and I’m unable to restart it from within the sim. BATC is working nicely, and the live traffic that I’ve seen so far appears marginally better behaved than in 2020 (though I’m pretty sure this isn’t a real thing - I expect it controls them just the same between the two platforms). I have an OpenCockpits PnP “Fighter Radio” unit which isn’t working with MSFS2024. Not sure if anyone here knows how to get it working? I did have a couple of crashes along the way - but a lot I think were because I was too eager to install many (unsupported?) addons at once. Since removing and re-adding verified addons one-by-one it’s been very stable. What started as a quick project this weekend to just give MSFS2024 a try, has by the end of the weekend, led me to think I might be able to make the switch over to it almost immediately.