Clouds Post WU7

[SubtotalGuide 133]

Pixelated and grainy clouds have been an issue for a while. After all the optimizations introduced along the way, most notably SU5, it's now in the worst state yet. Some notice it less than others.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/pixelated-and-grainy-clouds-are-back-1-14-5-0/375977

My shots were taken using the same graphics settings @ Render Scale 200 on a 1080p monitor.

Sharpen and FilmGrain were set to 0 in UserCfg.opt.

[ErichB 3,700]

4 hours ago, GSalden said:

If you would make a post at the official MSDS forums with these screenshots included I will vote for it.

No idea why this would need even need to be voted on.  It is a glaringly obvious issue which has been around since SU3.  Surely everyone on the broader dev team would realise that something is badly broken with the weather system.  The global weather system which they implemented was superb.  They really should restore it to what it was before.   I'm not a fan of the METAR based system any longer

[GSalden 4,734]

Does it look better with REX ? 

[Pastaiolo 1,690]

2 hours ago, SubtotalGuide said:

Pixelated and grainy clouds have been an issue for a while. After all the optimizations introduced along the way, most notably SU5, it's now in the worst state yet. Some notice it less than others.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/pixelated-and-grainy-clouds-are-back-1-14-5-0/375977

My shots were taken using the same graphics settings @ Render Scale 200 on a 1080p monitor.

Sharpen and FilmGrain were set to 0 in UserCfg.opt.

Screens with vanilla MSFS without changing thing in the .opt file might be better. Still, your second screenshot seems overly sharpened. Pixelled clouds have been with us for ages, but never so much.

[SubtotalGuide 133]

What sharpening? I've disabled it in UserCfg as per recommendations to reduce graininess. Even if sharpened, why didn't it affect the initial version so much?

18 hours ago, Pastaiolo said:

Pixelled clouds have been with us for ages, but never so much.

You're right, thank SU5 for that. No matter how one spins this, the fact remains they significantly downgraded clouds and weather.

There seems to be this mindset of reducing graphical quality across the board for everyone instead of getting rid of the artificial limits and letting people choose to max out performance and quality based on their hardware.

I guess it feels good being able to now run at High/Ultra on mid to lower-end hardware even though the same level of settings look worse than before when you could've just turned down the settings.

[GuyFlyer 34]

The way the sun is illuminating and the bloom on the plane in some of those pictures looks like HDR is on in the after pics and off in the before Pictures. 

[bvdboomen 265]

That looks really bad in that second picture. I've never seen that in my sim.
Not only the pixels are dominant but also the contrast is much higher then I used to see when flying.

[SubtotalGuide 133]

44 minutes ago, GuyFlyer said:

The way the sun is illuminating and the bloom on the plane in some of those pictures looks like HDR is on in the after pics and off in the before Pictures. 

Yes the colours and lighting are brighter and more contrasty since SU5. They've rewritten the rendering engine.

This is why these comparison shots are useless anyway, there's always nitpicking about irrelevant things to try and discredit them.

Even Asobo's own screenshots showed the pixelated and shimmering clouds when up close. They must've forgotten to turn off sharpening and bloom.

[AppleUK 14]

I agree, clouds have regressed somewhat. I have turned Film Grain to 0, which has helped. Playing on a 4K screen I think helps as well

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

On 2/7/2022 at 1:02 PM, SubtotalGuide said:

Render Scale 200 on a 1080p monitor.

I think that might be why your screenshots are looking oversharpened. The downscaling filter is pretty bad, and especially at values above 130%, the image loses a lot of smoothness. I would recommend using NVIDIA DSR/AMD VSR instead (at least with DSR, the smoothness is adjustable from the control panel).

[cchiozza 117]

Here are some of mine from last night. REX does it right. I have not had the bad FPS drop like some. I am most curious about why REX clouds look better and are using the same assets as Live Weather?

https://share.icloud.com/photos/09duFuwbmeXuGwESyfQY_tfcA

 

[cchiozza 117]

Again here are more pics from last night using REX. There is no comparison to LW.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/05dENT4umfU7NArWDqvb29T9g

 

[JasonPC 175]

There is still something wrong with clouds compared to the past builds even with Rex weather force. It’s almost like they have a corrupted shader with artifacting going on.

[cchiozza 117]

Yea, I dont understand. I took these with my phone so not the best but how can REX generate a different cloud than LW? Like I said REX does not replace textures thats why I agree with you something is corrupt.

[KERNEL32 525]

Still ugly REX or not. They are just lifeless puffs of white. I mean yeah. A cloud is just a puff even in real life BUT they removed all the variety in clouds. Cannot even fly in live weather through a true rain storm anymore - there are "holes" everywhere in the clouds you can see in some direction.

Challenge: TRY to count even 1 second where you fly into a LIVE weather cloud and can't see up down, left or right some element outside of the clouds. Can YOU fly into a live weather cloud and see ONLY cloud all around you? Darn near impossible... at least for me. I've tried it! Makes me think of FSX/P3D 2D sprites!

TOTALLY unrealistic since SU3 and the live weather is nothing even close to real world. I don't mean the temperature or cloud cover versus out my window, I just mean the "look" and feel of the weather. I cannot even remember last time I experienced turbulence or a wing "gust"? It's just like using google flight simulator.

Edited February 10, 2022 by KERNEL32