[BUG/FEATURE] TAA is transforming road traffic into ghosts (self-cancelling moving pixels)

Brief description of the issue:

The TAA implementation is based on pixel motion vectors (most likely). However this is causing any moving feature in the simulator self-canceling itself.

When in VR, it makes nearly all vehicles disappearing except big white trucks (they are slightly more visible due to the larger pixel footprint on the screen and TAA is “only” eroding the edges)

I believe this bug is also one of the reason people have been reporting road traffic doesn’t seem very crowded in 2D either.

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

n/a (see below)

Detail steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

The nature of the TAA algorithm is self-explanatory as to why this is ghosting moving vehicles, nevertheless, to repro, just start FS2020 in VR with road traffic (try 100%), take off, fly over a highway at 1000ft to 2000ft AGL, and look through the cockpit window down below. Unless this is a specific bug on my system, which I doubt, there is no way you can’t see this.


[31JUL2021]
And now there is at least a technical explanation to me (timestamped YT video below):

Inside Microsoft Flight Simulator - Xbox Ports, Performance, PC Optimisations - The Asobo Breakdown!

In short, I suspect the very nature of the TAA implementation using accumulation buffers is why every single moving object in the game is self-canceling its own pixels. I do hope they’ll figure a way to solve this, maybe in accumulating all moving objects in a separate buffer over less frames?!

In any case, I’d like to thank you Lionel for your invaluable and honest insights, I’d really like to see you more in the Q&A or other videos!

I use TAA for VR as well and this isn’t something I have noticed before. All my road traffic looks fine in VR. I have just checked again and I am not seeing this issue- I can see all sizes of vehicles without any transparency. It seems to be an interesting bug! FYI I use Oculus rift CV1.

Edit: Update…I am actually seeing this issue at the altitudes you describe, but not below say 900 ft agl. I always assumed it was due to the poor resolution of the CV1

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Since my last post I’ve been further revising and re-evaluating my VR recommendations and this problem is still showing whenever using TAA, which seems consistent with how the algorithm is working. When using no-AA or FXAA it is definitely not “ghosting” road traffic but at the expense of flickering.

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I’ve updated the OP with more recent info:

PS: regardless of the topic (TAA is transforming…) I’d recommend everyone to watch this video. It has tons of technical details about what’s going on behind the scene and it is excellent in my opinion.

Thank you again Lionel for sharing your insights!

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i’m baffled, at this point either “everyone” (user) gave up on reporting or tracking any bugs or just no one’s noticing this?

@Ju1ius2416
This is a very good question… but who cares anymore?

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After a year of release and hundreds of bug reports, I’ve given up. Before SU5, at least we had decent graphics. After SU, my VR is a shimmer fest especially in bright day light, and unfliable. Asobo simply said ‘unable to reproduce’ and moved on. Honestly, they have not touched the VR side since the release and I have very little hope that they will do anything at this point. Intead of squashing bugs, they are busier squashing legitimate ‘bug reports’. They are more interested in explanding their market place revenue and XBOX expansion. And I don’t care anymore.

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I was wondering indeed, because just wearing a VR headset in the Asobo 787 and you can’t notice anything else than this right away:

[BUG] FS2020 using 3D cockpit camera in VR - wrong horizontal plane rotation (ex: FBW A320, SALTY 747, ASOBO 787, SDK SAMPLE)

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