London is the Bermuda Triangle of MSFS for me, it has been a mess since day 1. Paris is fine, the odd glitch here and there but they obviously did something different for it. I hope London gets fixed.
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It could be server issues or something on the path between you and the server. You can open the resource monitor in task manager and check what FS2020 is downloading at what speed.
If you pause and it keeps downloading, scenery keeps changing around you, then you’re behind with the incoming data. If not then something else is going on. I assume you have object detail at 200 (max) as well? That setting reduces PG detail when set lower.
At terrain detail 400, PG data needs well over 100 mbps (constant stream) to keep up at 160 knots ground speed. I see that sometimes instead of a steady stream I get drips, pauses between spurts. Sometimes I get less than 30 mbps from the server, sometimes up to 113mbps. I have to fly at half sim rate for London to keep up with my 100mbps internet.
This is what I got in Naples (terrain detail 200 long before SU5, September 30 2020)
That’s about as close as you can get before it starts looking bad.
I don’t know what it looks like today, haven’t been back there yet.
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I’ve already done flights while having the task manager opened and it showed exactly the problem. Despite the textures not being properly loaded (not even close as how they look on your screenshots), the download rate goes up to around 20 Mbit/s sometimes at most, most of the time it chills below 10 Mbit/s (reminder: I have a 100 Mbit/s connection). So it doesn’t even try to load the textures properly. Downloading the map data of the area pre-flight didn’t help either, the servers just won’t give me all the map data.
I’m aware that I can’t go infinitely close, without the textures starting to look ugly. But if the game looked like it does on your screenshots, I wouldn’t complain, this looks gorgeous. But for some reason, it doesn’t.
I see, there is a problem between you and the server in that case. Some people have had better results using a vpn when it turned out their isp was throttling the bandwidth while using FS2020.
I get mixed results. Some days it works great, some days the server won’t cooperate or my isp or whatever on the way between my isp and the server. The screenshots look good because the game has ample time to catch up and ‘complete the scene’ while I’m getting the drone in place. In motion I see a lot of morphing and sometimes it’s still updating right underneath me.
That said, I just flew over Amsterdam in the Shock Ultra, and apart from all the noise in the data, streaming was solid. They really need to clean up the noise though, construction sites are a mess with floating bits of cranes everywhere.
One thing you can do is enable the rolling cache with a decent size and keep circling until it looks good 
Manual cache doesn’t work.
Have you analyzed your line? ie run speed test and buffer bloat test to see what the issue is?
you can check for bufferbloat at dslreports.com or Bufferbloat Test by Waveform here at the waveform page. If your getting alot of bufferbloat that will be you issue right there.
Are you using a wired connection or a wireless connection and do you have access to both?
If your on a wire connection, and you have wireless on you pc as well, disable the wire and try the sim with the wireless connection. Windows has issues with certain Intel Ethernet Cards, if you have one of them that would explain the problem as well. You can find a OEM driver on the Intel website. (I had this issues early on).
Just a couple of things to check on from what your describing…in the been there done that category 
A lot of the issues are things that are closer to the ground, say from tree height down. It does not know how to render them as they are captured in 2D. It might be wise for MS to use a mixture of photogrammetry on anything at a height greater than a tree, including bridges and use Bing and game models for everything at tree level and lower.
It’s also interesting when you see the Bing data is more up to date than photogrammetry in some places.
Also the water with photogrammetry is way to shiny and water level too high.
I added the NY scene pack and then turned off photogrammetry and left Bing data on. It’s so much better looking, no more melted bridges or buildings. Although not every building is modeled correctly but at least the most recognized ones are.
I now fly to cities that have upgraded scenery packs and leave photogrammetry off.
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I’ll just butt in here and say I believe only 3D photogrammetry and bing 2D ground imagery are actually streamed and even then the full LODs and not separated, that all happens on your PC. IMO the rest of the data already sits in the official or community folders including most vector data. Ambience, shadows and non specific textures are generated by DX11 in vram so it’s probably best to be aware of what’s what before making blanket statements.
My other issue with photogrammetry is how it ruins the water movement. It is just too glass like and too high. Plus when you take it off the water moves . Some static examples in pics. Also note at times it puts trees in the water?
Maybe if they remove it from water and trees, that will help some?
Photogrammetry ON
Photogrammetry OFF
Photogrammetry ON
Photogrammetry OFF
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Photogrammetry also fills in bridges and overpass, so remove it from them also.
Example
Photogrammetry ON
Photogrammetry Off
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Hello there!
Im experiencing the exact same issued mentioned here in the post. Im confused why the sim looked great at the beginning but now looks like FSX. With photogrammetry on Ive get the ‘melted buildings’ issue but when I turn it off at some locations buildings are just 2D-topdown pictures. What the hell happend to this sim?
These issues existing since the beginning of the sim an still arent fixed. Is there any chance for getting back the old sim? Currently Im not playing because it looks like ■■■■: Buildings are melting, 2D-topdown Pictures everywhere, extremely low resolution ground textures…
Is there hope that it comes back alive?
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Hi guys,
I see that some fellow simmers have the same problem as me (see picture below of amesterdam)
I see there is a big discussion, i couldn’t find a work around or fix … Can someone enlighten me please ?
Thank you 
More than likely it’s server pressure but try resetting your router anyway
FS2020 Why is the landscape effect so bad? Urban buildings look like ruins, which is terrible.
Reading through this thread will give you the reasons why it can look like this.
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Yes, sadly manual cache doesn’t work. Instead of circling, can I use the free camera to move around? Will that download the photogrammetry into the rolling cache?
One more thing: If I use a VPN, then sometimes Steam acts up. Should I turn it on after starting the sim?
This is with VPN on and I’m flying the Austrian bushtrip. Just took off from Vienna airport and was circling over the industrial area. Looks like Dresden after WWII 
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First of all I want to say I agree on your point. But on the other hand I fully understand the decission to limit it for everybody since the outcry of users believing they would have a high quality system running, while actually calling a pile of scrapmetal their “high end” pc, was much louder complaining about the bad performance on their “super computers” rather than the other way round. So it’s understandeable for as long as the sim is still fighting other, more crucial issues they decided to keep the noise about performance low.
As you said, it’s better (for Asobo) to have a few complaining about the lod rather than many complaining about performance beside all the other issues. Let’s face it, when this thing will finally go full throttle on graphics your current system and fibre wire will appear to your future self like a grandfather’s useless calculator. We all went through this and it will never stop 
Like it or not those on recommended low end hardware must be able to run MSFS 1080p at 30fps, that’s the industry standard and thus is set in stone.
As for the picture above Vienna photogrammetry has never been any better than what you see since MSFS launched, it’s not the best PG data in the first place which has nothing to do with Asobo (however it still looks ok from 2000 feet AGL).
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Indeed. There is nothing we can do to improve PG data. It doesn’t matter how long you circle the area, or the speed of your Internet connection. If the raw data is messy that’s what you get.
@irfanahmed1979 If you want a good example, take a look at London, near the docklands. Get down to street level, and you can see the problems that the cameras had with things like overhead powerlines, or cranes. Or indeed any object with a complex structure like cranes.
The technology isn’t magic, and works really well with large, solid structures. But when it comes to smaller objects like cars, trees, or even smaller buildings, the unfortunate side effect is what you might describe as greebles. All this “junk” data can tank the performance if it isn’t cleaned up.
I need to revisit there, but some areas like Venice are very well done. The building structure, and the city layout, lends itself to the technology very well.
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