Looks like the terrain LOD is linked to photogrammetry in MSFS2024 and only a setting of 400 will give a reasonable clear view of the roads, highway and motorways. In 2020 even a setting as low as 100 terrain LOD gives a very clean crisp look, not to mention way better performance as well. All in all however even with a setting of 400, 2024 does not look or perform as good as 2020.
This issue have to be looked at as it is a major spoiler.
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What are you expecting to happen?
Youâre not going to get better photogrammetry than whatâs on Bing maps âflyâ mode.
How high does one have to fly to get out of PG scenery and into the bing maps view? Anyone know or have tested this in 24? Thanks!
I do expect or better said wish things to be put right. In other words the clarity and quality of the photogrammetry should be as good or better then in MSFS2020, that`s what we paid for !
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I donât know if LOD is linked to PG but FS24 looks like sh# !!!
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There must be a logical explanation to why is such a difefrence between 2020 and 2024. I wish we have same comment from the devs on this issue.
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It is still hard to say how connected to texture resolution TLOD is.
But it always has had something to do with photogrammetry detail and view distance. Even in 2020.
It does seem more severe in 2024.
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FS24 uses advanced features of DX12, that do not exist in DX11. So one cannot literally compare FS24 and FS20 as their rendering systems are different.
FS24 has higher density meshes, especially for the ground which is no longer âflatâ like FS20 was.
The CPU-GPU combination is working harder in FS24. Limitations in VRAM seem to impact FS24 more than they did in FS20.
Listen to Sebâs comments carefully in the last dev video. He suggests 128GB rolling cache to keep your streamed planes and airports.
At 29:00 he talks about VRAM overload, which can suddenly reduce fps and lead to stutters.
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I am wondering. 2024 has the option of dynamic LOD. This reduces the LOD to preserve fps. Could it be, hypothetically, that some simmers, who experience lousy resolution, have this new option active without knowing (because it is the default setting if I am right)? Iâve read posts that deactivating this toggle helped bringing back crispiness.
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With the original release, I had Dynamic enabled. I disabled it and my LOD settings made the terrain looks really good at altitude.
After the latest patch terrain looks blurry when Iâm at altitude, even with Dynamic OFF, and TLOD=250 (which should be plenty high.) I think they are doing something funky with terrain textures to reduce VRAM load (and probably server load at well.)
MAJOR disappointment if true, especially if thatâs their âfixâ for the DX12 memory mismanagement.
The reason for the blurry textures is pure speculation. But itâs definitely WAY worse after the latest patch.
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What we certainly did not need it`s a regression, which we do have. The code is not up to the job by the look of it with the current available hardware and bandwidth availability / server capacity. MSFS 2020 looks and feels way better for now. I do hope like many here that things will improve as the time goes by.
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TLOD has always been linked to PG. It was in fs20 and is now also in fs24.
The way TLOD works is having concentric rings of level of details. The ground texture and PG is a part of that. Basically everything scenery wise is. Which is why TLOD is such a performance killer.
Where is that option? I only see the dynamic setting with the frame rate target. I dont see any mention of dynamic LOD anywhere.
I know there is an app that lets you use a dynamic LOD, however that is a 3rd party app afaik.
I hope I wasnât wrong in thinking that this option for a desired frame rate tinkered the LOD dynamically to target the set frame rate? 
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I assume it does. But I have not yet seen anything definitive. And it will not scale from say 400 down to 10
In my testing. Higher LOD settings if they scale, still scale fairly high, and low fairly low. 
Need more info.
But you know? It does seem to help in a pinch.
This need fixing no doubt about it and also the poor frame rates particularly in VR which are 30% less than in 2020.
They throttled it back to get them through the hollidays with some sense of pesudo âstabilityâ. Thatâs all there is to it.
I hope they can swallow their pride and move hard assets and aircraft back to the HD. Problem is they trapped themselves with the stated size of the required game footprint when virtually nobody is for want of HD space these days. Another shark jumped for the arbitrary release date(and sim name).
Just needed a streamlined modernized graphics engine, a better optimized comprehensive digital PG world/traffic/weather and optimized access of assets. They should of erased that âFULLY STREAMED/CLOUDâ off the whiteboard three years ago.
All it needed was better implementation of WU data and meshes into the streamed planet and it would have been fine.
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What they SHOULD have done is prioritize aviation assets LOD.
The sim âknowsâ where an airport is, so there should be an enhanced bubble around the area where the LOD is punched up for that bubble. So from 5-7 miles out even on lower settings it gets detail priority so you can physically spot and make out the airport/runway orientation/obstacles, etc.
For city assets, set an LOD priority for buildings of a given height, say 8+ stories tall so these buildings generate from 15+ miles out, so a skyline or landmark can be spotted at appropriate distance for not only the general âexperienceâ but as dead reckoning assets.
Having all this in the same sphere detracts from what a pilot would utilize, but the seeming âpop inâ wouldnât be so obnoxious. You KNOW youâre flying to a metropolitan area, so having a ghost like skyline that becomes more defined makes sense, rather than jarring blocks of buildings regardless of importance visually just finally appear. Where youâre flying into London waiting for London to finally âshow upâ into the game. You wouldnât notice if row housing was popping in when you can already see âthe cityâ.
And throttling things like tree detail per spec per setting so itâs not just drawing X number of trees per setting all the same way. For a mid setting or canned XB setting this needs to be masterfully scaled so the experience in a helicopter or ultralight gives the impression of where you would look is detailed and the âbackgroundâ is populated in the abstract.
But in particular, having a runway as another part of the blurry-sphere is the WRONG way to do it. at a lower/mid spec you canât wait until 1.5 miles out for the runway to finally âpop inâ like itâs some local landmark hotel.
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I completely agree, however the problem is that the current LOD system is not dictated by distance, but rather pixel size on screen - which leads to a poor implementation.
Airports and scenery are all just under the regular way of treating LOD, so I completely agree with you regarding some things should have a different LOD ruleset. That way I dont have to see the luggage cart next to my aircraft disappearing as I change the FOV in external view, or the taxi signs pop into view right in front of me as Im taxiing (and so on)..
Example(this is 100TLOD/OLOD):
One thing they really should do is force highest LOD on your aircraft, no matter how small it is on screen.
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Certain things have âjobsâ to do from an aviation perspective, and the rest is scenery. Even at an international airport, from 5+ miles out main terminals and relevant buildings along with taxi signs, any critical obstacles, and of course the tarmac itself should hold top priority above other scenery assets. Even though you donât dead reckon into LAX, from a distance itâs also used as a visual confirmation/reference. As you get within a 1-2 mile radius for airport ops, all jetways and other major secondary assets should have full LOD without pop in, then small objects and carts are prioritized again as things like trees and adjacent popped âoutâ of LOD unless resources remain. It should âknowâ when you are either functionally on the ground taxiing or within range that you need these assets, IE heli operations within a large airport.
So basically ALL primary assets go to âthe airportâ and throttle outward from there per capabilities while within the useful are of airport operations. If that makes sense, so a nearby cityscape isnât crushing what youâre seeing while taxiing around objects on the ground, as it IS first and foremost a sim for the aircraft.
Right now everything is fairly lumped together with no real respect to the things we need and use to fly versus some âlandmarkâ or trees. Lower spec machines would be able to see the entirety of the airport and youâd throttle back any textures outside of the bubble of necessity as needed.
In 2020 on something high end, you can be bee-boping around at 8K AGL and can pick out and spot airports and even runway numbers with no issues. Now that of course is high end at 4K. But if a âless capableâ PC was being used, that given radius/bubble of that airport below should still be that crisp and precise, and have any sacrificial LOD tied to areas outside the airport and runway approach bubbles. Should you have a complete in-flight failure, if thereâs a runway/airport close enough to be seen, it should be fully seen. Even if the ârunwayâ is a dirt strip on the edge of the field. THAT should be #1 priority, the adjacent shopping mall can be blurry or jaggy. The higher your system, the more âunnecessary candyâ it can refine. For lower systems, at least you can fully interpret visually all of the the areas your aircraft requires to function.
As if you turned off all mapping and PG textures, it would be a wire-frame earth with perfectly rendered airports/applicable grounds rendered, that you could operate aircraft in with zero issues. Then fill in the rest with throttled scenery.
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