A big thanks to Asobo for fixing the grainy towering clouds in the latest sim update. It’s great to be able to load up real world weather, find a thunderstorm, then duck and weave around the volumetric towering clouds, finding pillars and tunnels to blast through!
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This is a parody post, right? There are clearly grainy clouds in you pics.
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Where are the cirrus clouds?
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cirrus clouds are fps killers… I really hate them.
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Despite the Negative Nellies, great shots zkdos!
Thanks for posting.
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How about ‘cumulus granitus’?
Those kill more then just FPS 
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I really don’t like these cloud formations in the sim. They just don’t look real. I hope they’ll add more different cloud types soon, that’s one of the biggest problems with the live weather for me now.
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I agree. I find the cloud formations amazing. Glad they’re back.
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Real question though, are all possible cloud formations are in the sim? I’ve seen plenty of formations like in the OP’s post, also seen plenty of mist and fog, but how about some flat formations etc?
Would be cool to have mammatus (does really exist you can guess where the name comes from).
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I cant get why clouds got worse since alpha , the release version was ok but now i dont get how didnt got fix yet
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To be honest, I think the clouds are great. I don’t really experience the grainyness, but I have some thoughts on what can be improved: Cumulus are very nicely modeled, but they occur in higher altitude layers as well. I see many instances where there are very mature cumulus in a layer above other cumulus. Very straight dark bottoms with high contrast rounded tops. They look like solely watervapour clouds, whereas in real life the higher layers usually are supercooled water or ice clouds and are not cumuliform. These layers are usually altocumulus or altostratus which look very different, have different compositions and form by different processes. Asobo can still improve at least the looks of the mid and high altitude clouds (altocumulus and cirrus varieties). Phenomena such as mammatus would be nice, but they are very rare, so not really worth investing in as a first imo. My advise would be to first have better models for the main cloud types first (cumulus, stratocumulus, stratus, altocumul ,altostratus,cirrus,cirrocumul,cirrostratus,nimbostratus and cumulonimbus). Then move to model some of the species and varieties that occur in these clouds (Lenticularis,undulatus,fibratus,lacunosus,radiatus etc.). In the very last stages I would wish for the accesorry clouds and rare clouds (pileus,velum,mammatus,arcus,fallstreak holes, roll clouds, noctilucent, nacreous etc.) But the latter two wishes might be far too much and to complex to model. Most simulators up to now only had cumulus, stratus, and cirrus, so I am already fairly happy with the eyecandy that is already there.
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Think the clouds are excellent (well, a great start at least). I really appreciate the dynamics and actually think the weather engine can produce quite a variety of cloud forms … although the cumulus dominate perhaps a bit much.
Today’s flight with live weather - that looks a lot like altostratus to me:
Would really like to see some of the very high forms, as many have already commented.
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Reading the replies from this thread, you can certainly tell who is new to flight simulation vs those who have been around for a while! As a simmer for over 15 years, and a real world pilot for over 10 years, I am blown away by the realism level that the FS2020 weather and graphics engines offer. Often when I am flying for work, I look out the window and think the world outside doesn’t look as good as it does in FS! We’ve come a very long when in terms of immersive virtual environments, and whilst a computer game will never have 100% accuracy with the dynamic 3D natural planet, it’s getting better and better as time and technology progresses. Take a look at this video from FS2004 to remind yourself how far we’ve come: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn52ii-qhds
In terms of the grainy-ness, I was happy to see Asobo pay attention to the forum voting system and actively peruse it. After version 1.10.8.0 in early November, any vertical cloud formations with significant volumes were rendered differently than they had been previously causing the distracting grain effect as referenced in this topic. It appears the rendering system has been swapped back to how it was prior to this fix- and whilst this may not meet every simmers approval, the visual quality is a subjective value and to me it certainly ticks the box.
Remember addons such as REX and ActiveSky were a necessary requirement to make old sims look half decent by completely replacing cloud textures and had an associated hit on performance. Hang tight and wait to see what comes out in the future, I’m sure the live weather we see as of Jan 2020 will morph into a new beast as development continues.
Cirrus clouds? Are you sure? The thin levels of ice crystals usually found above 20,000 feet would be the least volumetric and lowest performance effecting cloud layer out of all of them.
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No idea where the name came from, but when I see those, I just want to grab a hold of them and give ‘em a squeeze.
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When it’s rendered far away is fine. But when you fly through it, and it feels like you’re flying through fog, that’s when it kills the FPS. I’m on 2080 Ti and even though I’m flying in 2160p, I set my volumetric cloud to High, and I’m getting like 15-20 fps. Once I passed through those clouds. my FPS went back up to 30-45. It’s the foggy cloud that I keep flying through at FL390.
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That’s what it is like though IRL. I’d rather it be realistic and haven’t had the performance hit that you’re describing on lesser equipment
Try Rex software from sim market. Very realistic formations etc and better overall.
I don´t undertand that clouds have been fixed, because on January 3 I have write, on Bugs and Issues,“Clouds textures pixelated and grainy”: Still with update 1.12.13.0, the problem of pixel clouds keep going.
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The airplane started stuttering at low FPS IRL? I’m not complaining though, I’ve been through the same situation since my FSX days… Whenever the game renders foggy clouds and you’re going through it, the FPS drops. As if the GPU is over-rendering fog effects.