Cloud pixelation

[eGGii90]

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ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue:
Clouds are extremely pixelated as seen in the screenshots.

Provide specific location or coordinates:
Near KMCI

Provide time and date of the observed weather issue:
9:21 p.m. UTC, 29.12.2024

[PC Only] Did you remove all your community mods/add-ons? If yes, are you still experiencing the issue?
Yes

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?
Very often. If there’s some overcast and I fly above

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using, if relevant:

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?
No

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12?
DX12

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use?
GTX4080 16GB

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?
AMD 5800X3D, 32GB DDR4

MEDIA

[END OF FIRST USER REPORT]

[Silvera1657]

Is this when you use DLSS? I’ve been using TAA and clouds have no pixelation at all.

[eGGii90]

I use TAA as well.

updated the post with my settings

[Silvera1657]

Here’s my Nvidia Control Panel settings. Give it a go since i don’t have pixelation.

You don’t need to set Shader Cache unlimited though.

[eGGii90]

Tried it, without success…

[utd4life12]

Yep, same horrible pixelation here too.

[Foxhound6050]

same issue for me

[btdc00]

Same old song… It has been around since (mainly) SU5 and the thread for MSFS2020 was closed by the end with the following statement. So don’t hold your breath.
"The developers have noted that under certain conditions (very dense, thick clouds, dark and stormy, your graphics settings, etc. the chance for some pixelation is increased. It is not prioritized to be fixed at this time. Thank you!

Note - This issue is in the Resolved section but it is not “fixed” - I have moved it here as it is closed as not a priority at this time so other items can make it onto the feedback snapshot."

[arniex78]

And here we go again !
Well, it’s been explained 100 times by Seb and here - but I’ll do it again - the engine consists of a kind of voxel engine - why ? Because this is the "only " way to display this number of clouds in 3D without exceeding the performance.
So, then people complained about the pixelation - then Asobo apparently took away the cloud density in the live weather (about SU6/7) which in my opinion led to artefawcts, insufficient representation of the entire weather and to transparent clouds (some cloud types) at night.
So either you have sharp edges and 10 FPS or you seem to take something away from the cloud density, which is just as negative for me.
If there is even less cloud density (including pixelation) we will soon have no clouds at all!
And that was already a huge request from me at the time - that you could possibly have a slider for the cloud density for live weather (Asobo please add this setting) and possibly more options for the cloud quality (not just low, medium and high)!
Then everyone can set it as (s)he likes and then there are also 100s of threads less!
BR

[Tarik94310]

Hum… it seems you just explain mediocrity of coding.

If there is an unsolved problem like this, the question is not about “how many times it have to be explained” BUT “when it will be fix by devs”… FS2020, FS2024 same problems… but we 100% paid for a 100% game not a beta game.

[arniex78]

It’s not about that - it’s also not about defending anyone - it’s just that unfortunately, when such complaints come in, there are solutions such as reducing the ‘density of the weather’. It’s also about the fact that the engine is the way it is and that’s where the pixelation comes from. This is also partly the case with X-Plane. Only if you solve that, 1000 people come back and complain about the performance. That’s why my approach was simply to add sliders and then everyone can adjust them. Or an extended config if you prefer. For some people the density of the clouds is much more important (as it has an influence on the weather and appearance in general) than the fact that they are pixelated in between - again, this has nothing to do with a bug - that’s the way the engine is - these are not textures.
Unfortunately there are only 3 rules here, density, appearance or performance ! It’s not that it looks great - I know what you mean - but these are the options!

[Perrry]

Totally agree, if we only have one option they can’t make everyone happy at the same time. Especially not if they suddenly reduce the quality after release of a software to make those with old hardware be able to run the sim in ultra settings. The thing is we as customers should upgrade our hardware to be able to run a software that requires better hardware. Not the way around. That will be a downgrade for all of the users. One day those with worse hardware want to upgrade but will not have the option to tune up the graphics because the devs tuned down the Ultra setting. Then their upgrade are useless. If we don’t have the hardware to run the sim in ULTRA we should not complain about performance but that has been the case since MSFS 2020 were released, thats why we can see much more pixelation of clouds now. Thats the side effect of it. They change the upper limit “Ultra” because thats what the most users want to use even if we not have the required hardware for it.

Options are good as you say like be able to set density of clouds. But the side effect is that even more users would complain because those would use the highest possible setting for it because thats how we behave. We always want the best even if we know our computers wont be able to handle it and complain it’s not optimized enought.

[Tarik94310]

I understand your point of view but MSFS20 is not XPlane, it was promoted as best visual quality etc etc… at least it’s ok for Xbox players and not for hardcore simmers who owns home cockpit… it’s frustrating.

FS2020 as FS2024 have this problem and for my side, i’ve got high end specs, I notice that since day 1…

There are a lot of unsolved issues on FS20, same on FS24 so why Asobo or Microsoft want to launch a new product and forget FS20… is not to take people for dumbs?

[Deanscoh]

my clouds were absolutely fine no changes made and now just dont look anywhere near what they did last week. Havent updated or changed anything… its like theve changed something - no matter how high i out the settings they are still exteremely pixelated.

[valexyo]

Using the template below will greatly help the team reproduce the issue and ease the process of fixing it. Before posting, search for an existing report. If you are not sure it’s a bug, please first report in User Support Hub.

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• One for iteration (msfs-2020 or msfs-2024)
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ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue: The clouds look expremely pixelated and grainy, it’s more visible during low sun conditions.

Provide specific location or coordinates: everywhere.

Provide time and date of the observed weather issue: 24/01/2025

[PC Only] Did you remove all your community mods/add-ons? If yes, are you still experiencing the issue? still persists

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)? always.

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. spawn in-flight anywhere in the world on a liner
2. change time to make the sun low on the horizon (just to make the issue more visible)
3. go to external camera mode or drone camera and look closely

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using, if relevant: not relevant

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it? i have dev mode active but it does also without it.

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12?

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use? RTX 3080Ti

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share? nothing relevant to the problem.

MEDIA

Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.

[END OF FIRST USER REPORT]

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