I’m not sure if it’s false memories on my part, especially since it was a newer experience back then. But I feel like the sim used to look much better back sometime pre 2020 SU10/9/8-ish?
Specifically, I’m talking about clouds, weather, and atmospheric light scattering. I remember seeing things back then that matched what I would see in real life flying.
Now it’s mostly kind of a meh? Like we have been slowly weaned off that real life experience and given a vague mush.
There’s certainly and “Angry Birds colors” atmosphere that I’m not enjoying as much as I did back in 2020. My biggest complaint is the constant blurriness and lack of crispness. Also, yes the clouds now are just blobs. No longer do we have structures that are menacing as we did in the early days of 2020.
Yeah, one of my earlier memories in 2020 was an isolated shower over Lake Okeechobee in Florida. It was just so beautiful and real looking, it was magical with how the light reflected off the clouds, the rain and the reflections in the lake below. I was memorized and just flew around in circles while it lasted. I’ve seen similar views flying in small airplanes at lower altitudes.
The weather system doesn’t seem to do that anymore either. It’s either raining/cloudy everywhere or nowhere.
Also, the sunsets seem to be gone. I’ve seen sunsets flying around for real, reflecting oranges and reds off the water below that were once modeled in the sim.
It’s just all so flat and dead looking now.
Very strange. I have been saving screenshots from the release day of MSFS2020 and have done the same from day 1 with MSFS2024. I typically group them by quarter, with anything from 200 to 1,500 screenshots per quarter. I have taken the time now and just scrolled through literally thousands of screenshots from the beginning of the sim up until today to get a sense of how things looked over time.
And I really, really cannot see this significant, systemic degradation people mention in this thread. I have always used 4K and quite high settings FWIW. The biggest thing that struck me was the insane, overwhelming, almost fluorescent green that was all pervasive in the early 2020 years. In retrospect that looked awful.
Some screenshots in response to specific comments:
Clouds:
This one shows localised rain as well
Sunsets/sunrises:
Local rain
I have seen this numerous times. Obviously I did not take a screenshot every time I saw it, so it is a bit of a chore to find any. A couple to show that it definitely does happen
I can certainly provide hundreds of relevant screenshots from 2020. And I honestly believe they are generally actually worse. Do you remember things like this?
And no, this is not an unreasonable, cherry picked sample. As mentioned: I can show hundreds like this. I honestly do not know why we have these divergent experiences/perspectives? Actually seems very typical of the sim to be honest.
I remember that when FS2020 was ported over to XBOX that the graphics got a whole lot worse…
It could just the wow factor from the early days playing tricks on my memory.
Make no mistake, like many others, I still have some very significant frustrations and issues with 2024 that annoy me no end. VERY significant. The sim’s appearance vs early 2020 just does not happen to be one of them! 
My single biggest gripe with the sim is probably the myriad of silly, basic mistakes that exist and are taking forever to fix. Of these, probably the biggest bugbear for me are things that were wrong and eventually fixed in 2020 that have resurfaced in 2024. That and the cumbersome UI/UX. Very annoying.
But otherwise I must say that, for my type of GA, lowish and slowish sight-seeing flights with regular IFR approaches thrown in, I am enjoying the sim in spite of that.
I’ve flown every version of msfs sim since the very first, many, many years ago. Current visuals are simply the best ever by far. As real as it gets. 
Perhaps OP is referring to the LOD issue, where if you climb or get far away from a subject, it becomes more blurry and loses detail, which wasn’t that notorious in 2020. I’ve seen evidence on that, just take a C152 in LOWI at runway and take a good look at the surrounding mountains. Then take off and fly very close to the mountains and you’ll see how textures start to appear, and they disappear again. Same happens with mountain shapes (they’re rounded from far away), or cities and fields. As far as I know apparently not everyone has this issue (or perhaps don’t notice). I notice it, a lot.
My issue is just in the low-level atmospheric conditions. The details of the clouds, rain and the way light interacted with them. I just remember them being crisper and more vibrant.
Hmmm, then I’m not that sure… would need to fire up both, one after the other in the same place, time and meteorological conditions to assess that (and right now I’m in a long haul in XPlane so can’t test it). Will test later if the wife doesn’t yell at me, but as far as I remember things were not that different (and even would dare to say that actually slightly better in 2024). Is there any specific condition where you would say it’s more noticeable?
That would be hard, I’m talking about back 3 to 4 years ago. 
I’m perfectly willing to admit they may be false memories.
And yet you made this post anyways, with a subject line that makes a definitive statement.
:rolleyes:
A lot of it could be because 2020 was such a big step up from anything before it. 2024 includes a lot of great improvements, but the difference between 2020 and 2024 is not as great as from something like XP11 or FSX to 2020.
That doesn’t really take anything away from 2024, it’s just that maybe we’ve gotten a little used to how things look.
I have a handful of videos from shortly after the 2020 release. To be fair I don’t often fly with Asobo weather now, but when I do to test things, this isn’t what I see anymore. More popcorn clouds than banks of cloud. To get those I now have to use Active Sky.
Continues to be a puzzle how experiences differ. While I do also see the smaller, puffy clouds, I on the other hand also quite often see a variety. Again just a quick random grab of a few recent screenshots. The accuracy and realism can obviously be debated but at least I do see a plausible, decent looking variety
The problem is, they all look fake. None of them look real as 2020 did. Just like that sunset. You may think it’s beautiful but I’ve never seen those colors in any sunset I’ve ever seen irl.
OK, we will just agree to disagree.
To be fair to the OP in the first sentence he did state “Im not sure if its false memories on my part”. But its not. 2020 just looked far far better.
After a disastrous launch, msfs24 is riddled with game and immersion breaking bugs over six months in. Ive got rid of it and went back to 2020 and much happier. I cant help but recall all those hype maxing promises made by the developers when they invited journos/streamers to play it in Seattle around a month before launch.
Im sorry, but on a decent system frame rate stuttering into single digits when either in APR or TO phase of flight from a semi-busy airport is disgraceful. If real pilots experienced laggy input like that their plane would be a crater in the ground. And the lack of hotfixes–also exceptionally disappointing. We have to wait a whole month at least for a “Sim Update” that doesnt exactly even do or fix much. I cant even fly the A32x in landing activites in SU3 Beta anymore as the plane has seemingly “disappeared”. Im met with a “Aircraft is missing to launch activity” warning. Tried everything from clearing cache all the way to reinstalling. All these errors add up to one thing: a fundamentally broken game.
Off topic, but I purchased a game for my Xbox, Kingdom Come Deliverence II and despite being put together on a more or less shoestring budget, (at least compared to msfs) the devs have constantly released patch after patch after patch (way more than Asobo have)–and they werent even really required, as it was a GOTY contender on launch. That is genuine dedication to their product and absolute pursuit of perfection. Asobo have released what, two updates with #3 in Beta? In six months with ZERO hot fixes (bar the one released on a Friday that ruined the game for a lot of simmers for an entire weekend)
