[BUG LOGGED] Mountains/coastlines constantly morphing since the USA/UK/Nordics World Updates

I have noticed this issue as well. I did not encounter this, at least not as noticeably, before the latest update.

Same here, since last update. Spires appear in the distance (not mountains or hills) and as you get closer they disappear. I uploaded a video on Youtube to highlight the issue and reported it to Microsoft. Heres the link; Example of spike pop-ups


It’s seems to be more and more common that with every update we get new issues arise.

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I’m getting that too, but what I am referring to is “normal” mountains such as those near Innsbruck (LOWI) actually changing shape as you fly around or over them. As in ChaoticSplendid’s video above.

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Can I ask have you sent this video to the zendesk? With this thread getting so little votes to date I’m not sure it will be seen by Asobo otherwise…

Yes, I sent this to Zendesk the same day. It was marked as “Solved” a couple of days ago.

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Ah yes just checked mine and says the same now…

River Mersey Wirral Side EGGP Liverpool

Nope! This is not what I am referring to. I am not referring to terrain spikes, which have been widely reported, I’m referring to normal mountains that should be there, continually changing as you fly over/around them. As in the video ChaoticSplendid posted.

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I think some people are misunderstanding this topic. As the post above says, this is not the terrain spikes! The mountains are “morphing” and changing shapes to different mesh positions right near the aircraft. I have voted on this topic as this “morphing” drives me nuts and I really want to see it fixed. So lets make sure this doesn’t go off topic. thx

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@AndyXPO: I suggest you edit your first post and include details about the terrain spikes and a link to the corresponding thread. Let’s hope people will read that and know that this is something different. Ideally you should borrow the great video from @ChaoticSplendid and add it on top too.

Anyway, I assume Asobo is closing the Zendesks about this because it’s simply geometry “pop in”, as it happens in every game with both polygons and textures and they consider it a normal behavior. The problem is that in FS2020 is very far from an elegant implementation. My biggest gripe with this, and something that clearly appears in Chaotic’s video is that when mountain geometry changes, sometimes you can see transparent “seams” appear:

Go and fly around Lukla in Nepal and it won’t be long before you see those see-through mountains.

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I think this terrain tearing appeared with the USA update. I reported it to zendesk the next day. They replied its on their bug tracking list but wasn’t corrected in Dec 22nd update so may be low priority - if you haven’t already done so it would be great for you to send this video to the zendesk :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ve seen these mountain top issues since day one. Saw them in FSX. It’s the detail jump between LOD radii. There is a mathematical difference both in scale factor and the data between any two levels. Switching between levels truncates data. The smooth transition might require a special case that averages these changes over several frames. When the pilot can dance on the edge of a switch between LOD, that code can get really fun.

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Terrain morphing. It’s as old as flight simulators. It was horrendous in FSX and P3D and I thought it would be gone for good in MSFS. Apparently not.

On my system this only appeared after the USA update. It may be that the increased DEM of that update revealed a bug or deficiency that was already there of course. I’ve a series of test flights which I undertake after each update - one of those is flying west out of KJAC and that revealed this phenomenon immediately to me (along with the tearing). It was always part of fsx/p3d which jarred with me and was initially pleased to see it absent from the release version of msfs.

I7 10700k/rtx 3090/32gb ram/1tb nvme/30fps/30hz monitor/vsync

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It was I believe at launch, but whatever they did with the USA update seems to have made it far more noticeable - for me at least. I do most of my flights around Innsbruck area.

Only a problem after USA update. Prior to that it was imperceptible, at least for me. Now it is an absolute immersion breaker.

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IMHO this is (and always will be) fundamentally a FPS vs image quality tradeoff issue.

I suspect that “poor FPS” complaints and the pending VR-support (which now needs two instead of one image) slowly pushed the (LOD) “tradeoff” towards FPS during some of the recent versions.

I hope that the “blows your mind visual quality”-option will return and get expanded. If users want high FPS they can/need to adjust the settings to achieve that goal. However, it is not a good idea to limit “Ultra” in such a way, that it will reduce visual pleasure. Perhaps they need to add yet another category … like “Really Ultra” or “Crazy Ultra”?

But then, sadly users will most like always hope (expect?) that their systems will produce very high FPS at the highest settings.

I am fine with 10 to 15 FPS while flying (cruising) … I even would be fine with 1 or 0,1 FPS … if that would give me constantly higher quality images. So that if I stop my drone camera at a certain location … and watch the scenery, I would love it to “constantly” get a better and more refined look.

I still enjoy sightseeing a lot … for as long as the view allows this little goose to dream about all those far away places.

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The OP is correct. There are two separate issues.

One is the new spikes randomly introduced across the world where the terrain is flat or more uniform. The thread/voting for that is here:

The issue the OP is posting about is as shown in the video above:

I don’t know whether these are linked or not, but it doesn’t matter. Vote for them anyway. To fix the second issue, vote in this thread!

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I came only to the point, because this was also mentioned withtin the other thread. I mean nothing bad… Nobody force you too un-split the topics. I mark my former post as invalid.

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Hello all! The spikes and the mountains popping up and down are two different issues. Please keep this in mind when contributing to this topic. Thank you!

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