[Xbox Series X/S] Visual Downgrade - LOD Reduction

[WellREDBarron]

@StormVR6

I reckon Asobo did what they had to do to ensure a reasonably stable (there’s no such thing as a perfectly stable FS, not even on dedicated rigs) 40th Anniversary release and in time will work to optimise the new build.

I agree.

All we can do is speculate, as Asobo will not likely be too open about rolling fidelity back. Bad business to admit steps backwards.

But I remember something like this happening before. Last year, when the GOTY and Xbox Edition rolled out, clouds were rolled back in detail on PC. Asobo never exactly said why this happened but it seems clearer in hindsight. They needed the game to work on the Xbox and the GOTY edition with all the new planes and whatnot, and clouds were a resource hog. They needed to be rebuilt to work on PC and Xbox alike.

Folks on PC were mad and blamed XBOX but now, look at the post above mine. Clouds are a selling point. They are better than ever.

This year, we have the 40th Anniversary and Asobo knew a bunch would return to try the new content, so they needed a working, stable sim.

And I suspect they rolled back Series X fidelity to guarantee smoother gameplay for returning players, while they worked out the kinks on fixing the notorious Series X Main Thread stutters, which are most likely LOD related. They definitely are on PC.

New and returning players are the least likely to notice the rollback.

I have to imagine they did this because they knew a fix was imminent but wouldn’t be ready in time for this important SU.

Speculation. But with precedent.

[gcanever]

This topic is going to be one of the most important for Xbox users. Had a quick flight in Rio and can’t believe what I see. Reminds me the old times using tileproxy for super slow resolution. I’m pretty sure that Xbox can handle high texture LOD. Maybe a surprise next Friday??? Why not? C’mon dear friends, don’t let this topic die and let’s go keep it up, right on top!!!

Plz Asobo give us a hope message

[Pazdzie22]

Rember this a full, retail release for the 40th Anniversary. Unfortunately I don’t believe this downgrade is a bug, it seems like a decision to get CTD with third party content under control. I would gladly return all the new, free planes for graphics like there were in SU10.

[FleeToTheCleve]

Sim doesnt just look worse in SU11 it runs worse as well for me… Theres others speculating that VRR is not working now. That better be a joke.

[gcanever]

Thats weird cause I had a CTD with Gimbal without any 3rd party airports

[gcanever]

I think a plausible idea is just put LOD slider. You choose the risk, more chances to CTD or more stable (or less chance to CTD)

[WellREDBarron]

@Pazdzie22

it seems like a decision to get CTD with third party content under control.

I really haven’t seen anything that would lead me to think this is true. But we all have our speculations at this point and who really knows?

I DO highly suspect this was a decision. A deliberate rollback. Hard to imagine this accidentally happening. But the reasoning may not become clear until we see how it ultimately gets addressed.

[WellREDBarron]

@gcanever

I think a plausible idea is just put LOD slider. You choose the risk, more chances to CTD or more stable (or less chance to CTD)

This is unlikely and almost unprecedented on Xbox.

But I DO think we can hope for an option or two for fidelity or performance. Which could really help depending on what you wish to fly and where.

[gcanever]

But IMHO will be hard to wait till SU12. Dunno if the team will quickly solve….maybe

[LuvMyXBOX]

all they have to do is give us the game on xbox before last friday. problem solved.

[Flyboy709063]

I think the consensus is there’s been a substantial reduction in visual quality. Many of us in the Beta have been flagging this since mid Oct and our worst fears were realised on Friday. The truth is we don’t yet know the reasons for this we can only speculate perhaps our efforts would usefully be focused on attending the Developer Q&A on the 18th and submitting the questions we have raised here and if anyone feels strongly about this you are able to vote in this thread at the top of the discussion here. That’s your choice I’m not directing anyone to vote. Let’s hope for better times ahead.

[Samuel666pl]

It’s all about money. Most of people will never accept such a kind of visual downgrade. Who will buy addons in market store? There is no any new feature in SU11 that can justify this kind of ugly look, especially when you will take a look how stable and good looking was game on series s before su11 release.

[ArchBlizzard278]

The “rollback” is large and obvious enough that new and returning players will also notice it. It’s pretty hard to miss, as I immediately noticed it and I typically fly IFR and don’t care much for looking super closely on the visual details.

As has been reiterated above, none of us know enough about the decisions made nor the software itself to make any definitive statements about the tradeoff between graphical fidelity and stability of the sim.

[WellREDBarron]

It is a very noticeable drop in fidelity. I agree.

[DookieDuke5746]

Im really glad people are keeping this thread alive as i feel like this issue needs to be seen and adressed by the devs.

I see many users saying that in order for the sim to support the new features that Asobo has added that the visual fidelity has to be reduced. While i completely understand the reasoning behind a statement like that, i also believe that it isnt reasonable for a game to become worse looking as time goes on. Also this isnt just a slight graphical downgrade, this is massive.

I really hope the devs bring back the beauty into the sim. I miss the feeling of wanting to fly.

[FL991R]

Regarding a LOD slider. I agree that they probably won’t implement it because of the philosophy behind the XBOX, which to me is “we won’t allow people the freedom to bork their game”.

The problem I have with that is they already give us that power through the marketplace. I doubt I would have a particularly stable sim if I bought every addon and try to use them at the same time. So, the sim operates kind of in a nether region where it’s not locked down like Call of Duty or Forza, but it’s also not open like the PC version of MSFS. I worry that they’ll end up building the sim to the lowest common denominator, which is the one guy out there on a series S who is running every add-on. All power to that guy, but they should offer everyone else a slider or graphics option so that we don’t all have to live in his world.

BTW this is idle chit chat to keep the thread going at this point. Just counting down the days to the 18th. Also I have a ton more spare time now that I’m not playing MSFS constantly.

[gcanever]

There is a change to ours efforts be present in next Q&A? Someone has a close contact to moderator or development team? They should pay attention to us, let break the post record, more and more messages

[AerMingus]

This post might be a bit longer than usual, but please bear with me; I’m going to do my best to make an important point regarding the future of the sim. Recall my post from a few nights ago.

@AerMingus

Since I haven’t really flown in over a month, I decided to take the good ol’ 787 for a whirl despite my disdain for the graphics. I loaded into FlyTampa’s KLAS. Within about a minute I was experiencing the black avionics bug, which is suspected to be a memory issue. After about two minutes I got a CTD.

Guess what… I decided to try again. This time I was using an A320neo with a 4Simmers livery at IniScene’s KBUF. Shortly after pushback, another CTD. In SU10, I would have CTDed the second I clicked “Ready to fly”, so I guess stability has technically improved, but it’s functionally no different.

Assuming that visual quality and stability can be traded for one another, and assuming that Asobo is engaging in a balancing act between the two, this is what concerns me:

In my experience, the sim currently doesn’t work well nor does it look good. They’ve run out of room to spare on either end of the spectrum; they can’t trade graphics for stability, because the graphics are already so disappointing. They also can’t trade stability for graphics, because the sim already crashes any time it’s tested by more than a few high quality addons concurrently. Therefore, if Asobo is stuck in the aforementioned balancing act, they’re bound to upset plenty of us (unless they give us some performance/graphics settings as a workaround).

The only way to dig themselves out of that hole would be to optimize, thereby increasing visual quality or stability (or both at the same time) without the tradeoff. However, optimization typically lies somewhere between laborious and impossible due to hardware limitations, so I’m not sure how much can be done.

Best case scenario is either: 1) the poor visual quality is merely a bug that can be fixed without reducing stability, or vice versa; or 2) I’m simply underestimating Asobo’s ability to optimize their software.

All we have for now is speculation, so I’m not going to get hung up on anything; however, if reality doesn’t align itself with either of those two scenarios, I’ll be very worried about the future of the sim on Xbox.

[FleeToTheCleve]

Theres speculation that VRR / Freesync is also now not working on Series X? I used to have unlocked frames. Great FPS. Something is definitely not working here along with the terrain.

[ArchBlizzard278]

One last example on how reduced the LOD distance is and how much it reduces immersion. This is on approach coming into KDCA from the south, not even that high up. Maybe 2 miles away is DC, which is a blurred mess with no buildings visible.

Northern Virginia to the left is visible in detail for a couple of miles and then back to blurry soup. Kills immersion completely.