I know it isn't just me but I have noticed that the visual eye candy is slowly disappearing

I have had MSFS through several updates now and I have noticed that the visual eye candy is slowly disappearing without me changing any settings on my end. Now I have seen many others comment the exact same way so I know it isn’t just me. I feel they are dumbing down the eye candy in preperation to port the sim to xbox and I have to say there should be no need to do so. I’m running MSFS on an ancient I7-930 and a GTX 1660TI with all settings on high and have no issues running the sim. So I’m pleading to the Dev team to stop attacking the eye candy.

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I’m assuming you are talking about the FPS that is in the screenshot? What good would come out of me posting an image that isnt accurate when all I was commenting on was that if something as low end as my system ( all be it years of fine tuning) could run this sim halfway decent even though not on max setings then surely the xbox could do it. But as soon as I figure out how to post a video on here from my phone I will upload it just for you.

Sorry for the quality but I had to take video with phone but I hope this satisfies your curiosity.

Fanboy here.

That issue has been covered to death and we see that same claims by a few people every single patch. And the reasons this can occur have been written about many times too.

I can get mine to look like that if I turn photogammetry and maybe Bing off but on the two occasions it happened to me it was trivial to 1. select a working server from the drop down or 2. go and re-enable Bing and photogammetry in my settings. Maybe you have a third way of triggering it, I don’t know because you don’t say anything about what you’ve tried or looked at.

It is super simple to look at the many many photos and videos out there to see that it is not “dumbing down eye candy”.

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Im still confused how this is going to be an Xbox series X title. Are people going to really be flying KORD-EGLL on their xbox just using an xbox controller? which hasnt change much at all from the looks of it from the Xbox One. Also the FBW team says the reason the MCDU cant be modded is an Asobo issue. I dont see why they would make it more advanced if this is the end game to be an Xbox game. How is someone supposed to have an advanced computer on the airplane and make adjustments during their flight with just an Xbox controller? :joy:

The cash grab argument has something to it if you ask me. Right now you load up your flight with the SID/STAR already in the computer and the sim is ready to fly exactly as you set it up once you hit “FLY” and not able to accept any changes nor another flight after landing without reloading the entire simulator or you will run into issues.

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I agree. Sometimes it seems like there’s some trouble loading the maps and then the conspiracies come that with recent updates the graphics are getting worse. I have pictures form day 1 and now and I see no visual differences.

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I think Microsoft considers this game vital to the Xbox sales as it will be exclusive to the Xbox and not available on PS5. So even if it’s unplayable, it doesn’t matter, what does matter is to have those fancy videos running on the next gen Xbox.

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The current situation is that several users say they are observing a gradual decline in “eye candy”. Asobo say they have not made any changes which will “dumb-down” the sim, but do say they are coninuously updating the scenery as they get new data, in particular from government sources across the world. An obvious impasse.

If changes have been noticed “slowly” happening (but fast enough to notice), then the change in visuals from first to last must now be significant. Publishing a single photo unfortunately proves nothing. If Asobo are to be convinced, they need to understand exactly what users are complaining about, and I mean exactly, not just a general subjective opinion. So there needs to be a side-by-side comparison to show specific changes which can be pointed out to Asobo - if this can be done, they may realise what they have changed to cause it, which may actually be something as simple as making things more realistic. (Remember, not much of the world looks like the pictures in an art gallery.) So you need to take photos now of a range of areas, and again (in exactly the same location/conditions) after the next update, then highlight the precise changes you dislike, for example, sharpness, colour, content, and publish those for everyone (including Asobo) to see.

As it is, the only side-by-side comparisons I’ve seen have certainly not convinced me of any dumbing-down. When I’m flying, some areas I find boring, but much of it looks exceptionally good (and realistic).

But if things have changed, I would like to know about it.

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I reckon they are still trying the old foot in both camps scenario…the Flying Game Camp…and the Flight Sim Camp…but the Flight Sim Camp is losing/has lost. Only the 3rd part devs can move it into a Flight Sim…and they are all waiting for the SDK to become workable to their requirements.
Maybe another 12 months or so?

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Sadly, there have been so many obvious ‘dumbgrades’, (eg water, draw distance, night textures, autopilot, AI pilot etc) although some simmers simply still opt for overlooking them…

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I don’t know, I remember flying around Santa Monica when the game launched and it looked better to me then. You could see under the pier and the ferris wheel looked like it had a frame. Now pier is solid, everything is blocky and the palm trees look like they are painted on rocks. I don’t remember any of that. Hopefully USA upgrade will improve most of this.
Also, some graininess in reflections I do not remember seeing in early patches. Some things do look better but it seems like they are trying to optimize so they can add more scenery features in the future but it seems like every new patch is like a box of chocolates. You never know what your gonna get.

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Here’s a video I made from the sim to try to recreate some of the North America promo video to see if I could get the same as they were showing in the promo.

Guess what - I do. No dumbing down at all.

And the official version

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Yeah but when was the official video made, before or after the “dumbing down”? :smile:

Just kidding, I haven’t noticed any visual degradation since launch. Night lighting could use some work though.

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The Xbox will support honeycomb controls including the alpha yoke, bravo quadrant and others. They have an Xbox adapter to allow older alpha yokes to work with the Xbox x. Newer yokes will work out of the box. I think we should give asobo/microsoft a little credit. A sim of this magnitude and scope would not ship on Xbox with just the Xbox controller add an option.

I for one can’t wait to see how the Xbox performs. Many issues encountered in the forums are hard to trace due to pc and software differences. In addition based on some code snippets it might even also support VR.

Source:

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The pier was always a blocky object, trust me.

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I have edited the title of this topic to try and give some sense of what it is intended to be about.

I compared the video, and it is obvious that we are waiting for another decrease in graphics, look at the distance to draw houses!

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The severe melted or blocky visuals can come from Bing data or photogrammetry being off. That’s easy enough to test.

Perhaps Asobo may have recalibrated a slider? Just a guess. Even though it goes to 100 on our screen some have reported that you can take it to 200 by modifying a file. I have not tried this for myself.

Agree re night lighting - probalme is there are so many views on it

That’s fine. Meanwhile us fanboys are having great fun flying and not worrying about conspiracy theories.

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I think mine looks better than the official video in the areas you’ve highlighted

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