ISSUE DESCRIPTION
Description of the issue:
Hi everyone,
I’d like to bring attention to a couple of significant issues with the lighting system in VR, which I believe are impacting the overall experience in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. After some testing and digging into the problem, I’ve identified two main concerns:
- Eye Adaptation
Microsoft and Asobo, while I understand the intention behind simulating eye adaptation, it’s important to note that in VR, this feature doesn’t work as intended. Eye adaptation aims to mimic how our eyes adjust between dark and bright areas, but in practice, it ends up crushing the whites, removing all definition and detail from bright elements like clouds, mountains, or parked white aircraft.
For example, when inside the cockpit, looking outside in sunny conditions often results in a washed-out scene where details are completely lost. Conversely, in 2D, these same views retain contrast and detail, making the visuals far superior compared to VR.
This feature fundamentally contradicts the principles of VR design, where you should simulate the world, not how eyes function naturally. Just as head movement was fixed in the early days of MSFS, I believe the community should rally to request a way to disable eye adaptation in VR. If it must remain, at least provide an option to toggle it off.
- Overexposure and Crushed Whites (Outside View)
Even when eye adaptation is not a factor (e.g., in outside views), VR appears to have severe overexposure issues compared to 2D.
• In 2D, the whites are still slightly bright, but details are retained—you can see the lines on doors or textures on clouds.
• In VR, the whites are completely crushed, and no amount of contrast or brightness adjustments can recover what’s lost.
This seems to be an issue in the rendering pipeline itself, and external tools like Nvidia filters or OpenXR adjustments cannot fix it. If the data is lost at the source, no post-processing can help.
Suggestions
1. Provide a toggle to disable eye adaptation in VR.
2. Fix the rendering pipeline for VR to retain detail in bright areas, as seen in 2D.
3. Consider adding user-adjustable sliders for brightness, contrast, and highlights, specifically for VR. These tools would help users further refine the visual experience and address individual preferences.
These changes would significantly improve the visual experience and make flying in VR more immersive. I’ve attached screenshots comparing 2D and VR to illustrate the issues more clearly.
[PC Only] Did you remove all your community mods/add-ons? If yes, are you still experiencing the issue?
Yes
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?every time
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:
- You can check it in any situation where the sim has high contrast by entering VR and comparing the image quality with the one produced in 2D
YOUR SETTINGS
If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.
What peripherals are currently plugged in, as well as your VR headset? Please name all of them as there could be a potential conflict.
[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?
No
[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12?
[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use?
4090
[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?
MEDIA
Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.
Eye adaptation, sitting as back as I can in the 225, whites are crushed.
Eye adaptation, sitting much closer to the windshield, whites start to recover a bit.
Eye adpatation, sitting as close as possible to the windshield, the image looks almost ok.
2d exterior view, there are details in the whites.
Same location, but in VR. All whites are crushed.
[END OF FIRST USER REPORT]
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