Graphics downgrade in icing? What happened?

[GamingCat2130]

The new icing feature was one of the absolute visual highlights of the new Flight Simulator 2020.
Gorgeous fine ice crystals agglomerated on the aircraft`s windows. Now I can only enjoy this feature in YouTube…

…because these visuals are gone now.
No more fine realistic slow crystal build-ups on the windows - because now this ugly graphics bug that looks like black mud on all windows is the “new icing” and no longer it looks like fine slow ice crystal build-up on the windows.
Gone is one of the most precious and beautyful new features of the new flight sim.

Now it looks like this (everything on ultra of course, but it is no longer what is once was in 2020)

This is what´s left of one of the most beautyful and interesting features and this is how it looks now.
This looks no more like icing but like black mud on the windows.

You developers created the best and most sophisticated graphics ever seen - please do not slowly destroy your own masterpiece by downgrading PC ultra settings.
The visuals make the new flight simulator so absolutely special so uniquè and so far ahead of it`s time, please stop downgrading and changing for no reason precious the beautyful graphics on the PC release that look(ed) so awesome photorealistic and special.

Bring these fantastic visuals from the early Flight Sim ultra release back on PC please, these icing effects looked absolutely fine but now this fine visual feature seems to be gone.

[MortThe2nd]

Seems like something is wrong with your shaders/transparency settings. Have anything odd checked in your graphics drivers?

I would suggest leaving graphics drivers settings well enough alone, and just use the sim graphics settings.

[XTCQuinn]

I had icing on my cessna caravan today.
I forgot to turn on the anti icing.

Looks exactly as it did originally just doesn’t build up so quickly as it did.
Looks like something is wrong with your sim or graphics drivers.

[GamingCat2130]

Really? So the old original graphics is still there?
That´s fantastic news because the icing feature is absolute gorgeous and beautyful and an absolute highlight. It looks like during my childhood winters in the eighties outside on the old house windows there also were these beautyful filigree fine-lined ice-stars and ice-crystals visible.

Well I have never changed anything in the graphics driver settings except reducing the power consumption of the graphics card, reducing her maximum rendering speed to 75FPS (to prevent the graphics card from overheating by rendering hundreds of frames for example in game menus) and ramp up the speed of the fans.

In the Flight Simulator itself all settings are maxed out to ultra since day one launch.
Is the icing feature now linked to Raytracing or why does it look so different and wrong suddenly?
I am not able to get a new graphics card for a normal price right now and it´s an Radeon 5700 XT and no Radeon 6000series - so no Raytracing is possible for now.

[MortThe2nd]

I would turn off the sharpening and that surface enhancement (as far as my German skills will take me) off and test without those.

In general it’s better to use the sim graphics settings. If both graphics drivers and sim graphics settings try to do the same thing it might lead to issues.
So turn off everything apart from Radeon Chill.

[GamingCat2130]

After a Radeon driver update I tested icing on my favorite Cessna 172 a few minutes ago, and when flying the Cessna the icing effect looked normal and as beautyful as ever

(The effect is not as intense as it was at the release of the flight sim when the whole plane and all windows went completely white and frozen over - a little bit more icing on the wings and freezing over of the airplane body would be realistic because now there is almost no icing effect at all even with temperatures with minus 20 or 30 degrees celsius in Anchorage.)

I am going to test if the icing graphics bug was driver-related or has something to to with the lighting or interior-rendering of the plane later on my other favorite bird, the TBM930.

[XTCQuinn]

I think they turned down the effect as an number of real life pilots were saying that it was too excessive before.
It’s supposed to be more realistic now, though not having had any real life experience of icing I can’t say for sure.

And just a reminder, in real life you wouldn’t be using a Cessna 172 in Icing conditions unless you are suicidal.

[GamingCat2130]

Yesss after updating the Radeon driver to v21.6.1. the icing effect now looks normal again, and not like a graphics bug
Not only the Cessna icing is perfect but also the visual icing effect on the TBM930.
But I still think the icing effect should be stronger and cover parts of the leading edge and the front of the wings, and especially the windshield (to give the deicing systems more sense, because right now the overall effect is so toned down to almost zero and there are almost no icing effects left on the plane itself, and the windows.)