City Update 12: Germany is now available as a free download from the in-sim Marketplace for both Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Please see the release notes linked below and use this topic for discussion and feedback.
Poll Questions
Feel free to answer these poll questions after you download and experience the new update.
Did you experience any CTDs during this download process? If yes, please respond to this post and let us know more details.
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On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, how do you like the new photogrammetry?
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On a scale of 1-10, 10 being smoothest, how is your performance/stability in this update? Please vote once you have played the updated sim for at least an hour.
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Is your performance/stability worse, the same, or better than before the City Update? Please vote once you have played the updated sim for at least an hour.
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On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best, how would you globally rate this update? (This question will be used as a reference between each update)
City update? Augsburg, Bremen, Dresden, Kiel, Leipzig, etc… were already tin cities in 2020? Nothing new. What a lazy update. We are getting very far from the promoted 2024 Tin cities map.
My first flight in SU3 .27 was checking out Kiel & vicinity in the Eurocopter EC-135.
Overall, my impression is that this area is similar to previous CUs. No big surprises. This update does not significantly decrease performance on my PC / settings.
The cranes around the harbor are rendered much better than cranes in earlier photogrammetric areas, which tended to appear as a disjointed, melted mess.
“Tin Trees” are not as noticeable as in other CUs (unless flying very low or on the ground), perhaps because they are, for the most part, better hidden under 3D trees:
Not shown: High-voltage power line towers are duplicated, with model objects superimposed on TIN-generated towers that are rendered as very odd-looking trees.
Still I am not sure if this is already the right time to use photogrammetry in the sim… Jorg talks about a resolution of 3cm of this new cities but honestly I can’t imagine that this is true. IMHO Asobo/MS is not yet able to introduce those scans properly into the sim. Still way too many photogrammetry trees and geometry errors and a landscape that looks like a warzone if you are flying low and slow in a helo… Overall this CU looks better than some that were published before, but there is still so much so improve.
Whilst I really appreciate these CU/WU and enjoy flying around them, it would be nice if there was a ‘quality control’ pass over them before release to tidy up some of the more obvious shortcomings.
I was flying at about 1200ft south towards Bremen and noticed a load of photogrammetry spikes, so reduced altitude to get a better look. They’re ugly PG pylons, with the modelled pylons right next to them. It really spoils it, we have these nicely modelled objects that get mostly obscured.
It’s a similar situation with the PG and 3D trees. Bijan often goes over areas and reduces these when they are requested, but really these should be picked up and cleaned when they form part of a city update.
As always, thanks for the free update. I always appreciate new TIN cities over autogen-buildings (actually, what’s the status on the new upcoming autogen-tech? Haven’t heard anything for many months now)
Here are my first impressions:
Münster, Bremen, Augburg look pretty great and a joy to explore
Dresden, Leipzig, Kiel are completely ruined
Main issues:
massive green tinted buildings in Dresden, Leipzig, Kiel
seeminly low detail / messy scans also in these 3 cities
scanned trees are still a big issue in all cities
bridges still have sandbanks beneath
cars still partly cross rivers under instead on the bridges
and what are these bugged towers? (e.g. Bremen, Münster)
The TIN in Kiel before was way better. The green tint is really annoying. Don’t fly in from the north…everything is green (which used to be in the shadow).
I don’t understand, why this dataset wasn’t reviewed by MS before release. It’s really low quality (especially in contrast to the one before).
Next flight was around Bremen and then onto Hamburg in the Eurocopter. Performance (FPS) was in the right ballpark for a photogrammetric city on my PC & settings:
