TERRIBLE LOD is destroying a potentially great sim

[GAD16DK]

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Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?

No

Have you disabled/removed all your mods and addons?

Yes

Brief description of the issue:

The in-game LOD sliders no longer have the same beautiful results as they used to.
I have since introduction been using LOD400 with great results both visually and performance wise.
Now i have had to lower LOD to 200 to have ANY chance of a smooth experience. Ground textures will look good at times, but they have most def. lost their crispness all over the world.

The terrain LOD with regards to both buildings and not to mention the NIGHT LIGHTING. Geez!
I understand that for a VFR prop flight staying below 6000ft, it all looks great! But for us who like to fly jets at 36000ft, it looks absolutely terrible. The night lighting LOD and building LOD has to be extended by at least 3x.

PRECACHE. My precache is at ultra but at any and all airports, looking in one direction and the back will continuously introduce and remove objects which leads to stuttering.

Can we not have more sliders on PC for Terrain LOD/Night lighting, and or an option for DYNAMIC LOD with regards to altitude?

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

ICAO or coordinates (DevMode > Options > Display position)

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

Intel(R) Core™ i9-10900 CPU @ 5.2GHz 32GB RAM

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

A long time but got worse on SU11.

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Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

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If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

[DensestSnail693]

Every major update changes parameters so you certainly can’t rely on your previous settings.

Cear your rolling cache, undo any frame caps and recalibrate from scratch. I think you will find that visually the final result will be at least similar to what you had before regardless of where the LOD sliders sit.

[GAD16DK]

That’s a dead giveaway, i am aware of that.

I have already done all that, and there is no doub’t that performance has degraded over time.
You don’t get the same eye candy because it’s been tuned down.

[DensestSnail693]

If the imbalance between cpu and gpu is too great have you considered bumping renderscale or setting up a higher resolution desktop? I have and IMO the results are spectacular, far better than I experienced chasing 60fps with low lods… Oh and for Nvidia make sure texture filtering is set to high quality.

[GAD16DK]

Thanks for your reply.

I am running on 4k solution with Render Scale at 100.
I have set the In-Game to 50% of the monitor I.E 30FPS. - This is fine for me, and is much smoother.

I will try setting the NV control panel like you said, thanks.

But the issue isn’t really a personal issue i have with my settings. It’s how the settings and the outcome has changed in the game. The performance is much lower now than it was before, and the LOD with regards to trees, buildings, night lighting and signs is horrendous.

[DensestSnail693]

Sorry but with LOD 360-400 I just don’t see the degradation that you obviously do. For me MSFS has never run better or smoother (I don’t use vsync at all).

[BorisGlevrk]

To me, the same LOD setting ceased to work since SU11.
Before SU11 I can have good LOD (no terrain spikes) even with only 100 setting.
Now I see spikes at RJDC until I am 18nmi or closer.
in VHHX it’s worse. The RWY 13 flashing lights (cruicial visual reference) doesn’t render until you are practically on top of it.

[GAD16DK]

Exactly! This is the issue all over the world now. Spiked building very visible everywhere, and at night everything is just flat with weird patches of “light”. it looks exactly like FSX. Even FS2004.

[xWimma]

Having to use such low LOD values to get a somewhat decent performance is just ridiculous in my opinion and totally kills the immersion. Like the title of this thread states, it is destroying this awesome sim. I run a 5800X3D and anything above LOD 160 will introduce such heavy stutters that flying is just not enjoyable anymore. Well, it is not really the flying aspect when it comes to performance tbh, performance in the air is great with 110+ fps on Ultra settings due to my 4080; however, taxing or setting up the aircraft at an airport is unbareable due to the stutters. I can’t believe that a 5800X3D is not able to produce better porformance. Of course I could get a 13900k or something like that to mitigate this issue, but it is not the goal to upgrade a PC everytime new hardware comes out.

LOD needs to be more optimised to not hammer the mainthread constantly. I think this picture sums up the issue quite well. The sim looks great all around but the low render distance I and many others need to use, in order to get an enjoyable experience, just ruins the immersion.

Ground textures could also be a bit sharper at only 6000ft, don’t you think?

In this picture, London is straight ahead. Which London you ask? Yes, I can‘t see it either…

As I said, I run everything on Ultra, the only settings turned down are TLOD and OLOD becausee of their horrendous performance optimisation. Regarding the ground textures, maybe seperating TLOD form the object draw distance completly would be a good option to implement. This would at least allow us to get crispier groundtextures without loading in to much objects, subsequently taking stress of the mainthread. This, of course, is not a solution for the ridiculous object draw distance we need to use to get a playable stutter-free performance. Once again, the title of this thread hits the bull’s eye: the terrible LOD - let’s just say its optimisation - is destroying the visuals/immersion of the sim.

[DensestSnail693]

The 5800X3D is a 5800X with extra cache not some kind of wonderdrug. At higher resolutions many of it’s advantages are nullified and system imbalance has always (well at least since SU5) been a problem for high end gpu’s.

[xWimma]

You don‘t get the point, do you.

[DensestSnail693]

Obviously not, presumably because my PC falls within or is at least closer to Microsoft’s recommended specs.

[GAD16DK]

Perfect with the pictures. Thank you! And exactly!

For those blaming our systems and graphics cards are oblivious to the issue here.
I have the same RTX3070 i had when it came out, and it used to both look and run a heck of a lot better. Sooo it has nothing to do with our system, and everything to do with Asobo’s coding and their priorities.

[DensestSnail693]

@GAD16DK

everything to do with Asobo’s coding and their priorities

Just as it should do

[Pazdzie22]

We are seeing a similar problem on XSX but Asobo says it’s all fine as it is.
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/any-new-xbox-textures-quality-degradation-after-19-02-2023-update/570648/306?u=pazdzie22

[GAD16DK]

Like i have said in other posts, i think in my opinion that Asobo is either lying because they can’t fix the issues, or they are unaware of just how terrible this sim has become both performance wise and with regards to visuals.

[Pazdzie22]

Would you also say Sim update 10 was the best graphics and performance wise? Most Xbox Series X users agree on that and miss Sim update 10.

[xWimma]

I am not able to name a specific update where it was good or bad. In my opinion the sim’s LOD - visuals and performance impact - is getting worse and worse with each update… It almost feels like I have to reduce LOD with each update to sustain the performance I had before.

Maybe Asobo thought Framegeneration would safe their pants and start to hide their poor optimisation; but it can’t hide stutters, unfortunately. Also, only a small perccentage of simmer are able to afford such hardware.

Asobo really needs to get their stuff together because I have never seen a game (sim) go backwards over the span of two years. Don’t get me wrong, there are many aspects Asobo have improved and I am thankful for that. But visuals are the sims main selling point. Reducing with each update is not the smartest thing to do.

[GAD16DK]

SU10 was incredible. SU11 was also absolutely incredible BUT… They threw out two unannounced hotfixes that completely destroyed the update and work of both SU10 & SU11.

[GAD16DK]

Exactly what i am thinking. I have never experienced anything remotely close to this in my life with any game.