VR Lighting Issues: Eye Adaptation and Overexposure in MSFS2024


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:

  1. 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.

  1. 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:

  1. 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]


:loudspeaker: For anyone who wants to contribute on this issue, Click on the button below to use this template:

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

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

5 Likes

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

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• Snow covered terrain is getting blown out and overexposed during mid-day, to the point where you can hardly see any texture or terrain detail except for at sunrise and sunset. It’s essentially turning mountains into white silhouettes. Things improve if it’s a a cloudy/partly cloud day, but a clear day is real bad visually.

This is most noticeable in VR, but I also see it happen on my flat screen with ultra settings, so not sure it’s entirely a VR issue. It really diminishes the visuals when flying over snow covered terrain, especially in the mountains. But the same thing happens to clouds or other bright white objects.

This was a problem in 2020, and I had hoped that in 2024 with the new lighting changes it would have been resolved. But, it almost seems worse.

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:


2 Likes

In 2020 you could disable eye adaptation via USERCONFIG.CFG file. Is that no longer possible?

1 Like

It never really worked, I tried so many times.
And there’s no option like that, as far as I’m aware in the new config file.

I wish there was one.

Cheers!

1 Like

I think you’re right, it’s an issue both in VR and Flat, but way more prominent in VR.
At least to my eyes and
Monitor: LG OLED 48" C1 calibrated.
VR headset: Brand new Quest3 512Gb, three days old.

Cheers!

Yes! I hate this too!

I was hoping '24 would fix it because the lighting system was rebuilt, but it still does not work in VR.
The sim needs an EXPOSURE SLIDER that other games have. Or a way to limit the brightness overall. And as OP said, this needs to be done in the engine, it cannot be fixed with filters after the fact. If you look at the sky through the sun visor, it looks correct.
Maybe we could get a “sunglasses” mode, preferrably bindable that would lower the exposure for everything so it isn’t being washed out.

3 Likes

If you’re using OpenXR try using these settings to fix the overexposure. Use it as your base and fine tune to your liking.


3 Likes

Yes! I’ve been using OpenXR toolking since the days of my ReverbG2.

Unfortunately the settings within the app are a bit misunderstood.
While things like Brightness, Saturation and Shadows do affect the image, Exposure and Highlights can’t do their job, and there’s a simple reason for that.

When part of an image loses information, Crushed Whites or Crushed Blacks, no amount of fiddling is gonna recover information that it’s not there.
That’s what happens with OpenXR Toolkit, it simply can’t recover information that the Sim is not providing, because the image in origin is already lacking the necessary info.

But for Contrast, it’s helping me a lot. The contrast levels in VR now are just not right.
in FS2020, the Contrast levels were almost unusable, because the Sim was well balance there. In FS2024, I have crazy contrast settings and … still those night blacks are not blacks.
Not talking about the Quest 3 displays, behold! it’s the sim.

Cheers!

2 Likes

I think the lighting system is great now, but they need to fine tuning.
See how quickly they fixed the Airport Lights too bright?
Only because 2D users vote in mases, VR users don’t.

We must start a revolution or VR is gonna be really sad in FS2024.

Look at this part of a bigger answer I’ve got from Zendesk:

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Flight Simulator.

We have multiple teams working on the sim and some are working only on console issues and others are working with something else. VR is important in the sim but compared to the total number of players, the amount of VR users isn’t that much. And that is also reflected on how much resources can be allocated to a specific area in the sim. We are still working hard and doing our best to fix the issues users have been reporting.

There you have it. It says it very very clear:

We have multiple teams working on the sim and some are working on CONSOLE issues and others are working with SOMETHING ELSE.
Then, VR is apart from any of those groups in the beginning of the next sentence.

Do we get now that VR in FS2024 is not a priority in any way?
See that black box when entering VR after a Patch with hundreds of COSMETIC BUGS?
While ESSENTIAL FUNCIONAL BUGS IN VR are not even looked at.

We must vote and vote and get others to vote those VR bugs and wishlists, otherwise this is gonna be just pain.

Cheers!

p.s. Asobo, Microsoft, please don’t think for a second that I or any of us VR users beleive that you are doing nothing on the VR side, we know you are and appreciate every minute of it. It’s just frustrating, because I paid the same money than the Xbox S user, and yet I’m not getting Funtional Bugs fixed, while they’re getting Cosmetic Bugs resolved.
We love you all.

5 Likes

I think, before anything else they need to fix wrong rendering issue with one eye. That totally makes it impossible to use VR. I found lighting way better in 2024 as well but still need minor adjustments as you mentioned.

6 Likes

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

Yes
Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

1 Like

True, except it already IS really sad =(
I’m just glad 2020 will be online until 2028 (knock on wood…)!

1 Like

Maybe i fixed this problem in VR with using the tool Nvidia Profile Inspector and changed the value unter 3. Antialiasing - Gamma Correction to OFF. It seems this reduces the effect with the over composure. Give it a try!

The other problem with the Meta Quest 3 not showing the same image on both eyes is really disturbing too - and i found no fix for this yet. Hope we can get something soon.

2 Likes

This is incredibly evident in the Ryan Spirit of St Louis aircraft - whilst flying that in VR the view outside is virtually a white out unless one puts their head outside the cockpit.

Heeeeeey!
I just saw it, Bug Logged!

Thanks a bunch, guys and gals :kissing_closed_eyes:

This setting didnt do nothing for me, but oxr toolkit makes things lots of better with these settings:

Still to much bloom on airport lights in VR. They should check out X-plane 12 nightlighting, its perfect.