Seeing how a lot of people aren’t happy with the resolution of the aerials, and the sim basically moving backwards in this regard, how about giving users an option in graphic settings that let’s them choose the resolution / zoom level of the aerial tiles?
The current aerial resolution / zoom level is very low and in stark contrast to the otherwise high quality assets of the digital world.
Something like:
Aerial texture resolution
low (zoom level 18), medium (zoom level 19), high (zoom level 20), ultra (zoom level 20+)
Would love it if Asobo did this, but after they removed compatibility for 512x512 ground textures, I’m not feeling too optimistic. I was looking back at some of my early 2020 screenshots before '24 released and was shocked at how much the aerial quality has regressed
I couldnt agree more my sim is so much worse after su16 its not even fun to fly anymore, stutters, ovecontrasted terrain, low quality terrain, grass textures on buildings, and night looks brighter for some reason than su15 making it worse than it already was
Edit: People saying I turned off photogrammetry just to make it look worse why would i do that? I just fixed my simulator after performance issues and comeback to see this?
The current resolution (likely 256x256) feels like a step backwards compared to the earlier builds, and it undermines the visual fidelity of the sim, isn’t this meant to be the step up from 2020?
Please consider adding a user-selectable setting for aerial texture resolution, such as:
Aerial Texture Resolution
• Low (256x256)
• Medium (512x512)
• High (1024x1024)
This would give users with high end systems the ability to fully utilise our hardware, rather than being limited by a one size fits all approach. The PC community particularly dedicated simmers deserves greater visual flexibility and realism.
On a related note, the state of clouds in MSFS remains disappointing. While I love MSFS as it’s my only sim, from what I’ve saw online X-Plane 12 offers far more realistic and dynamic cloud rendering. It’s a shame to see such a visual gap in an area where I know mnay other share frustration for realistic cloud types (CB,TCU, etc)
Agree with this. I hope they do listen to this as the sim’s aerial textures now look beyond ridiculous. We did warn them in the beta but they released it anyway. Welcome to software development in 2025! I think I’ll take an extended break from MSFS as I don’t see any incentive to play with how it looks now.
Yeah, I’m with you on the extended break. Such a shame, because the sim was finally where I wanted it to be. If only they’d actually value our opinions. We are their beta-testers, after all.
@SimSoaringClub, that is a terrific idea. Let the user control it, instead of us all being bound to one setting.
Honestly looks like you have online data turned off or something, have you checked it’s not changed and then deleted and rebuilt your rolling cache? I guess some areas just don’t have usable satellite imagery so fall back to that fsx level land class texturing and autogen.
Has it been officially confirmed that the highest texture resolution was downgraded yet? Or are we just guessing still because Asobo cannot yet again fail to communicate to us?
