[BUG LOGGED] Mountains/coastlines constantly morphing since the USA/UK/Nordics World Updates

I’m getting this everywhere, especially around the UK. It’s crap! Completely ruins the immersion and annoying when it goes to normal when you fly over the lumps.

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With the summer deadline looming they will do anything to shoehorn this onto an XBOX. Guess you won’t notice these issues as much sitting away from a TV screen.

Everywhere i fly in Greece with the huge coastlines we have here,nothing is stable for me to record a video.
Everything is shaping constantly…@#@#

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I wish we could get more votes for this somehow. It makes you wonder that if it is ony a few of us what is different in our systems that is causing it.

I flew around the coast of Mallorca yesterday in C172 (so going quite slowly) and the scenery popping of the cliffs there is horrendous and worse than I ever witnessed in previous sims. I have my in game LOD settings as high as possible but it makes no difference whether it is set on high or low. It was happening really close to the aircraft, so not just at a distance which would perhaps be a bit more acceptable.

This is an absolute immersion killer IMO .

Asobo, please tell us that you are working on this as it is ruining the experience.

I would love to know what is causing this and if there is anyting I could do my end to improve things. For example, if it is a bandwidth problem and if increasing my broadband connection would make a difference ( i currently have 60mbs download speed).

My specs are… i7 10700, 2080ti, 32gb ram,M2 SSD, 60mbs broadband.

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There is no difference between each one’s systems, the situation is the exact same for everyone. It’s just that most people are not as sensitive to these artifacts, which pretty much applies to anything. Most do not seem to mind the fact that the TAA was degraded with the UK World Update, or the sharpening filters creating halo ringing and exaggerating the grain either.

Right now our only hope is that the question about this is asked in the next Developer Q&A, which is in three days from now. It’s in a decent spot among the top questions, but not good enough to make sure an answer is guaranteed.

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Unbelievable, just now during the Q&A they again said they’re unaware of this issue.

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Unfortunately yeah, I don’t think they’re really aware. They only talked about the coastline glitch, and Sebastian said that the mesh issues could be down to the data source which is not true at all, it’s a global issue. Jörg talked about the representation of coastlines being very important, but I’m not sure if he understood what the exact morphing problem is.

I think that at this point, all we can do is hope that the photogrammetry improvements in Sim Update 6 will feature better shape retention which will also transfer over to the mesh, reducing the appearance of morphing, or reworking the broken LOD rings sometime.

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That Q&A was SO frustrating to watch. I was so excited to see this question get asked & to see what the devs had to say. Well they said…umm…aahh…mmhh… the coastlines are very important and we hear you and they will be a point of focus moving forward. …WWWHAT?!?

I mean no disrespect to these guys, they are much smarter than I am, but this topic seemed to go completely over there heads!! The way the question was asked was a bit convoluted but still, they didn’t seem to have a clue about the “morphing”. For me personally, this is the single biggest immersion breaker & the reason I haven’t played since the USA update. And yet they seemed to have no idea about it!!!

When it comes to these LOD terrain related issues, they are either playing dumb (for xbox related reasons), simply don’t notice it or recognize it as a problem, or who knows?! Judging by the latest promo video for “before and after WU4”, the answer is even less clear because it clearly shows the “morphing” in both the before AND after portions of the video. Also, I just did a test run after this latest update and nothing has changed, still “morph city”.

I’m telling you, if it wasn’t for DCS coming out with new clouds shortly, I would completely convert my rig back to its original driving sim state. The only reason I purchased pedals, a warthog, etc was for the release of MSFS. Thank god, I’ve found DCS to be very fulfilling in the meantime. Until Asobo gets their collective heads around whatever they buggered up after the USA update, I won’t be coming back.

ps- I really hope they do because this sim has so much friggen potential, it is the reason I’m still keeping an eye on these forums!

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I happened to catch the question about this posed to Asobo right when I switched to the Twitch feed. Acted like they had no idea about this issue…totally clueless or more likely pretending it doesn’t exist and have no immediate plans to resolve it. I can deal with hardware shortcomings related to graphics but this scenery popping is all them.

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It’s funny they act surprised when it’s even in the latest trailer for the France, Belgium, etc. update. Mostly seen from about the second half of the video.

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In last month’s Q&A Jorg -as a teaser- said something along the lines of: “Wait 'till you see Mont Blanc!”

While I do notice the increase in mesh resolution, unfortunately it’s not nearly as good as it could be because of the LOD ring. At a distance of about a mile the Mt Blanc doesn’t look nearly as ‘crisp’ and sharp as it does from really close range.

I think the problem actually IS the data source and the way it is ‘injected’ into the Sim.

When I use the maps app from Win10 (this is Bing maps) the exact same thing happens in these regions when I zoom in and out.

I went to check the cliffs of Dover and the Alps. When you zoom really far in, the detail is pretty amazing. Cliff’s have sharp edges and the system seems to compensate for the vertical texture that’s going up a steep hill or cliff. Roads don’t fall of mountains of cliff’s anymore and seem to follow the terrain more.
But…(!!) As soon as you zoom out just a little you see the morphing going on and cliffs slowly returning to the shape they had when it was just a 25m mesh resolution.

I’m not sure how it works, but morphing I see in the sim is exactly the morphing I see in Bing Maps (the app). So they must be connected or even use the same sort of lod technique.

I think Asobo -without pointing the finger- is trying to say: “It’s not on our end”

I followed his advice and visited Mt Blanc as soon as I had downloaded the update. At first glance, from the distance, it looked quite good (new imagery?). But then, as I got closer the morphing began. I understand that we need to have LOD rings but the morphing also happens when you‘re flying close to the ground. It‘s constantly morphing. I have to say I was really disappointed. Flying low and slow in the mountains like that is no fun at the moment.

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I agree, it feels as it had 100 different LOD levels… the image is really amazing but it changes every second (morphing) as you are getting closer and also as you are already close and passing by. I have to test whether this will the be case with rolling cash and the area loaded in the cash.

Check it on Bing maps and you’ll see that it has nothing to do with cache or settings on your end

Flying in alpine mountain terrain really is unbearable at this point.

Shapes changing every second even at few meters distance.
https://streamable.com/w24pif

I wish i could set a max LOD, after which the sim stops loading in higher values.
The morphing is so bad, i would much rather live with a lower res mesh, but not feel like im on an acid trip.

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I did a quick flight in the Swiss alps and looks a lot better now that a few months ago. There is very subtle morphing in the far distance.

That’s interesting. Can you try and capture a video if you fly other there again? Personally I haven’t seen any improvement, and it is reported that the new Mont Blanc is morphing really badly.

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I tried the Mont Blanc area and I can see more popping going on but it’s not consistent. Earlier today it looked fine for the most part but now it’s worse. I don’t know if that’s down to the sim or just the way I flew.

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Many variables at play in this case, perhaps the first time you flew over the simulator couldn’t load the higher quality levels of detail in time, which could reduce the morphing, or maybe the lighting conditions were different (time of day and weather) which can sometimes make the morphing less noticeable.

The best way to test for morphing is to fly over an area at least once, to make sure that the highest mesh quality is streamed in, or to cache it manually beforehand. In these cases the morphing seems to be extremely consistent. If I fly over Glacier Park for example, it looks exactly the video I posted above, several months ago.

The direction you’re flying at relative to the terrain could possibly explain this as well, as the LOD rings are in a rather weird state right now. Sometimes I see a higher level of detail morphing in, then going back to a lower detail, and immediately back to the higher level. While the LOD system has always been problematic, lots of new issues have been introduced since launch.

Still, thanks for your feedback!

I tried Mont Blanc again now and to me it looks better than the previous time, at least from a detail point of view, even mountains in the distance look crisp and detailed. Morphing overall is acceptable but it really starts picking up when I skim close to mountains. Luckily I don’t fly like that often.

I think I noticed the LOD rings that look a bit like flowing rivers before they snap into place, a bit disturbing.