Water Masks - Major Problems

[PilotCentaur736]

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue: After installing the latest Australia World Update I suddenly became aware of some horrible water masks around shorelines and more in particular around marinas (see screen grabs at end). In so many locations the water texture is not present around the marinas and boats. The boats sit on a muddy area of sand. Certainly times of the day are worse than others. Tested a number of updated cities and its everywhere and difficult to ignore. Photogrammetry on/off makes no difference. Map displacement on/off doesnt help either. All settings on highest and 400 TLOD. Running at 4K, TAA. I have made quick tests also elsewhere and its present globally but definitely worse in Australia. All caches have been cleared. 100% default scenery.

Coordinate or location of issue: Everywhere but first noticed ir big time in Australia. A leading Australian content creator on Youtube also highlighted it in his recent video about the Update breaking MSFS 2024

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?

All the time but only recenly noticed how bad it was. Not sure if its an SU5 problem or its always been there but I have just noticed. I can no longer ignore it

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. Fly in sim around marinas that have jetties, boats and piers. They will be surrounded by either a matt blob or awful dark or sandy ‘beach’ like the infamous issue with bridges in London.

2. Its more obvious at dawn or dusk.

YOUR SETTINGS

What peripherals are you using: Shouldnt matter but Honeycomb Alpha, Bravo. WinCtl Orion pedals, Airbus sidestick and MCDU.

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it? No

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use? RTX 5090

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share? AMD 7800x3D / 64 GB DDR5 6000 C30 ram / 1200W PSU, various SSD, nvme and sata drives / 1150 Mbps wired connection and speed never dips below this.

MEDIA

SYDNEY

GEELONG

MELBOURNE

ADELAIDE

PERTH

COFFS HARBOUR

The above are just a few quick tests and it is so bad. I do not recall seeing it as bad as this before and it really is ruining the immersion for me.

[davegranstrom16]

If I remember correctly, they purposely lowered the water levels in marinas because the water would cover the boats and docks. I also hate seeing this, wish there was a better solution than to destroy it like they did.

[PilotCentaur736]

Its awful and once you see it you cannot unsee it. Going to try a few areas in Europe

[MeusMagister]

@PilotCentaur736

I do not recall seeing it as bad as this before and it really is ruining the immersion for me.

It seems to be a PG-related feature introduced in the last couple of years. I like flying as low as I can. So, it is an immersion killer for me too.

@PilotCentaur736

Going to try a few areas in Europe

The Thames shoreline and boats have had this awful “slurry floating on water” look since at least WU-17. See:

• WU17 River Thames worse than before, now looks like tide is out - Bug Reporting Hub / Scenery and Airports - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
• [Polls] World Update XVII: United Kingdom & Ireland - Archives / Feedback Threads - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums (See comments by Saltash53 and others about “So many beaches have appeared around the London bridges.“)

Perhaps, with his study of PG cities, @AirRhodessa could offer a more objective and comprehensive perspective than mine. See his thread: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/which-are-your-top-favourite-cities-places-with-the-best-photogrammetry-to-fly-in-fspghangar-com/

[AirRhodessa]

Apologies for the late reply…

I have noticed the same thing and it’s not just limited to Australia and it does ruin the immersion. Hence I now do a lot of dawn/dusk/night flying, just so I don’t notice it as much.

I’m not entirely sure why they have lowered the water levels world wide. I do recall some post mentioning it was something to do the all the sunken boats, but if that’s the case, I’d rather have the sunken boats as I already have Mamu Designs Marina’s which is top notch and a soulution for all the sunken boats.

Micro/Asobo need to hire people like Mamu & Bijan, not to mention quite a few others, with them MSFS would leave any competition past or future in the dust!

edit… just seen the post about sunken boats above