I’m flying in the updated Washington Mountains, but when flying close to them the constant change of LOD is looking really bad. Is there a setting or file i can change to increase the LOD distance?
“Objects level of detail” is set to ultra, but the issue is still quite bad.
Actually I like the latest update more. It seems to have better mesh and sharper edge. The previous data has better texture but looks more rounded and smooth.
I like the newer data, but Bing Maps on the right is the best! 
yes there is a UserCfg.opt file , you can increase the LOD to whatever you need, remember though you will need a fast PC to make use of it.
you will find in Users/ (your name) / AppData / Roaming / Microsoft / flight simulator
Wow this wish has been added to the wishlist on the FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT! It’s targeted towards a 2021 solution, and 2021 is just a month away. I am really excited about the prospect. MSFS is firstly a beautiful sim, and don’t let the fake feel of the mountains spoil her beauty!
How come you think it will be fixed in January ! My guess is December 2021. Earliest.
I have to add my vote to this topic.
I am living near Grenoble and I can see the mountains from my windows.
I have been using XPlane 11 in the past with a very good addon improving all the alps mesh/dem.
Result was realistic.
When seing first advertisements for MSFS one year ago, I was wondering to get at least the same level of realism.
I have been very disappointed when seing the Alps.
I have been walking around Le Mont Blanc last September and It was difficult to recognise this area in MSFS.
Mesh/Dem and texture must be improved on the core product or SDK should allow to use external data which are available for free.
Anyway I am confident that Asobo/Microsoft team will be able to improve this during 2021.
Which add on in xp did you use for the alps ?
You will find information here:
[X-Plane 11 UHD Mesh Scenery v4]
You will find different resolutions HD, UHD …
Thanks for that link. I am planning to have a massive splurge on X-Plane later this month and use it as my go to when FS2020 breaks, which is often right now. I’ve been compensated by having Aerofly FS2, Il2-Stalingrad and DCS, but I do love natural looking terrain as a like to fly low and fast 
They have to update the mesh worldwide not just country by country
I can support this post.
Fly once also over the Rosengarten (Rosegarden?) in the South Tyrolean/Italian Dolomites.
Even the famous Schlern is not visible.
Simply sad.
How to do it much better can be seen in X-Plane.
There is plenty of very good open source mesh data available that they could use. If they really want to supersede the other sims they gotta deliver on this.
I don’t know how the code works, yet for rendering, a higher res mesh shouldn’t make much of a difference. It already smooths everything out, thus inserts a high detail mesh in between the sparse data coordinates. Otherwise you would see what happens to low resolution river polygons and roads, angular shapes. That’s also why you don’t get sharp cliffs and ridges, it’s all smoothed out.
Anyway, the Himalayas in its current state, Saser Kangri I for example
Getting closer only makes it worse
The real thing
Yeah, this is my MAIN issue with MSFS. I reported it to Microsoft several times. I do hiKing in Pyrenees mountains in Spain. I know them well. When I fly there, I have to quit the game, as so DISAPPOINTING…Hope they can fix this soon.
They know and acknowledged it in the last Q&A. I’m pretty sure by the end of this year all major montain areas in Europe will be amazing.
Anything tall usually looks bad, maybe because clouds like to hang out around them.
I went here yesterday, Gunung Sago on Sumatra, Indonesia
That’s a decent one, a lot look so bad I don’t dare take a screenshot. Mountains are about the most important landmarks for VFR. No idea what can be done about clouds on the source data but at least the height mesh could be improved a lot.
I have found that mountains look better from a distance, and when you get in close they lose all definition. I was flying a 747-8 over the Himalayas, and under the aircraft there was a circle area where it looked like the sattelite imagery had disappeared and looked worse than default FSX, but outside of that circle it looked really good. Maybe an LOD issue?
Hi all,
As of today (1.3.20) the swiss government offers all their Geodata (Areal-Pictures with 23cm resolution, diverse height models and so on…) for FREE for ALL to use. I hope Asobo sees this, and make use of this enormous dataset. For all of you interested see this link for the data:
Swiss Topo GeoData
and this one for the press release(not english):
Press release
I hope this is the right place to post something like this…
Have fun with it 
Thanks for posting. I wanted to write this too today :))
@Asobo: No more excuses for the bad terrain in Switzerland anymore. The very good data was available before. But now it’s even for free at Swisstopo! Please finally give us the Swiss alps that actually look like it 
