So please explain why there has been such a decline in texture quality since the release of SU16 last August.
What are the causes? We’ve been waiting for an explanation for seven months now, and there’s been complete silence. Has there been a change in the terrestrial data provider that has caused all textures not generated using photogrammetry to become so poor?
Hello @MisterBenson33,
The panel of Jorg, Seb, and Martial discussed this exact topic during the October developer livestream. Here’s a link to the VOD starting at the appropriate timestamp so you can watch exactly what they said regarding this.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
It’s hard to believe but I’ll try, also because as has been reported several times the downgrade occurred in conjunction with the arrival of Xbox and then with the arrival of PS5.
Jorg said that the arrival of the PS5 caused an unwanted side effect and that they would fix it with SU16.1. Did they fix it?
It’s hard to believe but I’ll try
Hello @GOTAWAKEMAN,
Where did Jorg make this comment? I just re-watched the segment I linked above where the panel discussed the scenery in MSFS (2020) SU16, and nobody mentioned PS5 at all, let alone that it “caused an unwanted side effect”.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
He said it indirectly (sorry, I wasn’t precise), specifically that the arrival of su4 (which corresponds to the launch of MSFS2024 on PS5) caused unwanted effects of the 2020 and 2024 downgrade. But nothing was done, which suggests it’s a structural downgrade to allow all the platforms to coexist. But if you claim that’s not the case, it’s hard to believe, but I’ll try.
Hello @GOTAWAKEMAN,
Do you have a link to where Jorg made these comments so I can see the full context for myself and then follow up with the team as necessary?
Thanks,
MSFS Team
Unfortunately the original video has been deleted but I remember well that statement made even with a bit of embarrassment, the video was here
As also reported in this post
Hello @GOTAWAKEMAN,
Twitch only keeps videos archived for one week before it automatically deletes them, but we re-uploaded the VOD to our YouTube channel. I linked to it in my previous post above, and here’s the link once more. If you can find an exact timestamp where Jorg made those comments, please let me know so I can see the full context.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
Sorry not Jorg but Sebastian said “this (downgrade) took us a little bit surprise because we did not expected this to break..
It’s more like something that just did work, I don’t know why it doesn’t work anymore “
Hello @GOTAWAKEMAN,
That comment was in reference to a player question about zoom level 18 and 512x512 textures in SU16. Seb didn’t say anything about PS5 or how the PS5 release “caused an unwanted side effect” when answering that question.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
Read carefully how I corrected myself above, it did not explicitly say PS5 but the gist of the speech is that the arrival of the SU16 su4 for MSFS2024 (implicitly the arrival of PS5) caused the unexpected downgrade (lower textures resolution)
SU16 for MSFS (2020) released in August 2025. The PS5 version of MSFS 2024 and SU4 released in December 2025. These two releases for two different versions of the sim are not related. Seb’s comment in no way implied that any changes to the scenery in MSFS (2020) SU16 were caused, even inadvertently, by launching MSFS 2024 on PlayStation consoles four months after releasing SU16.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
With SU16 and the texture downgrade, Asobo was probably already preparing to share data for 2024 and the arrival of SU4/PS5, but if it’s like you say, unrelated, it’s hard to believe, but I’ll try.
And if it’s not related, why don’t they fix it? I know I don’t have to ask you, since you’re a moderator, but Microsoft/Asobo directly.
I just hope they fix the downgrade because now that it has the latest-gen high-end hardware, it’s severely penalized by the graphics downgrade.
Hello @GOTAWAKEMAN,
Jorg said in the same video that having unified world scenery and terrain elevation data, etc. between both MSFS (2020) and MSFS 2024 has always been a goal of the team. This change in SU16 had nothing to do with SU4 or launching MSFS 2024 on PS5.
Jorg further commented in the same video linked above that the reason the scenery looks different after SU16 is because the team backported the newer data sources from MSFS 2024 and replaced older data in MSFS (2020). In some cases, this could result in changes to coloring because the newer aerial imagery was captured at a different time of year or under different lighting conditions. Here’s a written transcript from the video:
Jayne: The resolution and colour quality of aerial imagery has dramatically decreased in many parts of the world in MSFS 2020 since SU16’s update to the latest Bing maps. This has been validated on the forums with 214 votes on the corresponding bug/feedback thread and over 1450 replies of users voicing their disappointment on the SU16 feecback poll too. Can you please provide some insight why this occurred and whether it will be resolved? There are many devoted users of MSFS 2020 that would like to keep playing this sim at the high quality that it has been.
Jorg: The first thing, can you provide us why it has occurred? Basically we unified the world. We’ve always talked about this that Flight Sim 2020 and 2024 should have the same basic information, like the height field is the same, the textures or aerials are the same. So what you see on 2020 is exactly what you see on 2024. Now one of my favorite places in the world is Kindervald, and I actually fly around there every so often, and I saw the same thing: the dark nice green lush textures we had before are now a little bit more yellow simply because the satellite images we got was later in the year when it was dry. So we just looked at this. We actually had a meeting on this just this morning, and we still have the old textures around. And now so obviously I’m aware of the community thread and we’re reading it, so we’re going to do an exercise where we go through what is better, what is not and make some creative choices. And I think it’s gonna – I basically said the Asobo Art Director should be part of this because a lot of it is an artistic decision what actually feels more vibrant and more fun. We’ll work on this and we’ll get back to you exactly how we do it. But the theory is we can create our own world which is kind of a blend of what Bing has and what’s great for flight simmers and then we’ll come up with a hopefully optimal solution for us all.
So as you can see, nowhere in that transcript does Jorg mention that the scenery changes in SU16 were in any way related to either SU4 or the PS5 release of MSFS 2024. Unifying the mapping data sources in both sims was always something the team planned to do, and obviously we’re aware of the feedback that some players preferred the older 2020 scenery over the more recent 2024 data. As Jorg mentioned in the video, coming up with a best of both worlds solution will be a manual process by Asobo’s Art Director.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
What I don’t understand is why didn’t they give FS24 the OLD maps and leave 2020?
It is encouraging to see the MSFS Team and Community Managers engaging with user feedback.
I started using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 in late 2024. Until around August 2025, I had a relatively consistent experience in terms of scenery quality. Regardless of where I started a flight in the world, the visual quality of the terrain and satellite imagery was broadly comparable and predictable.
After the release of Sim Update 16 (SU16) in August, however, I immediately began noticing noticeably poorer scenery quality in a number of regions around the world. Since then, the experience has become somewhat hit-and-miss, rather than the consistent level of quality that I had previously taken for granted.
Initially, I assumed this issue might primarily affect the 2020 version due to its older rendering engine. To test this, I subscribed to a one-month Game Pass trial to try MSFS 2024, to see whether the newer engine handled the same satellite imagery better. Based on my testing, this did not appear to be the case. While the seasonal effects in MSFS 2024 slightly change the colours of the scenery, they did not produce any noticeable improvement in the underlying terrain quality in the areas I tested. As a result, I did not see a strong incentive to upgrade to the 2024 version at this stage.
Having used two other flight simulators, I have always considered scenery quality to be one of the key strengths of MSFS. For that reason, changes that reduce the consistency or perceived quality of the scenery can significantly impact the overall experience. Even if the intention behind SU16 was to align the map data between the 2020 and 2024 versions of the simulator, introducing such a change before the updated imagery had undergone similar post-processing and colour correction to what was done for the original MSFS 2020 release may have been premature.
I am not asking for a complete rollback, as I understand that reverting such changes may not be practical in a project of this scale. However, it would be very helpful if the team could acknowledge the scenery quality concerns raised by many users since SU16 and provide some indication of whether improvements are planned. A general roadmap, or even periodic updates on progress in this area, would go a long way towards maintaining confidence within the community.
Jorg did acknowledge that. He said even he had noticed colour changes. He hoped there was something they could do about it but he needs to know, I think, how the new head at MS feels about the Sim.
Firstly, thanks SeedyL3205 and it means a great deal that you have engaged on this thread and very much appreciate that your and others role to manage the myriad of feedback received in the forum is not an easy one. Please know it is much appreciated however!
Also good to know that this su16 feedback thread is not a black hole and echo chamber that I have now for far too long feared it is.
Overall I can see that the scars are still fresh for many of us when it comes to su16, and indeed su5 before it would seem.
I think it is best summed up as we may not be able to forget but there is still a means to forgive if Asobo can provide any engagement on this.
Between 512 texture support being stripped which was catastrophic to those that had leveraged it through 3rd party means, and the MSFS default world being considerably worsened in su16, surely we have endured long enough to have some answers?
As I have said before, in the absence of official information, people will start grasping for answers.
Some areas of aerials have been reported as improved, others it seems have not and all without any notice or update from Asobo of any kind. All the work that went into building a beautiful world has been thrown away, and in its place we have alignment with 2024 which frankly has aerials which were the main concern for many and reason for not embracing it.
At this point we really need a hero to get Asobo to tell us what hope there is left (one way or the other), and I hope still (perhaps foolishly) that someone within Asobo or this forum can help..
I think we need a new world update now..
Hello @okmast,
Please see my earlier posts above. Jorg and the team have already acknowledged the community’s concerns about the world scenery in SU16 in last October’s Developer Livestream. Here once again is a written transcript of Jorg’s comments about this topic:
Jayne: The resolution and colour quality of aerial imagery has dramatically decreased in many parts of the world in MSFS 2020 since SU16’s update to the latest Bing maps. This has been validated on the forums with 214 votes on the corresponding bug/feedback thread and over 1450 replies of users voicing their disappointment on the SU16 feecback poll too. Can you please provide some insight why this occurred and whether it will be resolved? There are many devoted users of MSFS 2020 that would like to keep playing this sim at the high quality that it has been.
Jorg: The first thing, can you provide us why it has occurred? Basically we unified the world. We’ve always talked about this that Flight Sim 2020 and 2024 should have the same basic information, like the height field is the same, the textures or aerials are the same. So what you see on 2020 is exactly what you see on 2024. Now one of my favorite places in the world is Kindervald, and I actually fly around there every so often, and I saw the same thing: the dark nice green lush textures we had before are now a little bit more yellow simply because the satellite images we got was later in the year when it was dry. So we just looked at this. We actually had a meeting on this just this morning, and we still have the old textures around. And now so obviously I’m aware of the community thread and we’re reading it, so we’re going to do an exercise where we go through what is better, what is not and make some creative choices. And I think it’s gonna – I basically said the Asobo Art Director should be part of this because a lot of it is an artistic decision what actually feels more vibrant and more fun. We’ll work on this and we’ll get back to you exactly how we do it. But the theory is we can create our own world which is kind of a blend of what Bing has and what’s great for flight simmers and then we’ll come up with a hopefully optimal solution for us all.
You can watch the video recording of Jorg’s comments at this link starting at around the 7:15 timestamp:
Thanks,
MSFS Team
