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

[WellREDBarron]

@BitOfaB4d4zz

But what bothers me the most is the lack of communication! Not a peep out of them

I have never heard MS/Asobo explain a regression. Only what they plan to fix or improve going forward.

Don’t lose sleep waiting for them to explain this one. I doubt they are going to change that practice. It is bad business to explain rollbacks to an annoyed user base. Sure, we could better understand why it happened, but no matter what they said, nobody would be happy to hear it. We would just know more clearly WHY we should be upset.

We all are allowed to ask questions (and upvote our favorites) for the upcoming Q&A. They might answer one about this issue and tell us what they plan to do moving forward or what they plan to fix. But I doubt we will ever get official word on why they took fidelity away.

If we are speculating, we are a less angry mob than if we have a solid reason for our anger and frustration.

[StormVR6]

Well said. I had that exact dilemma moving from a massively modded, mature FSX to a new born P3D. Even though it was essentially a modded FSX.

[DCLTREASURE516]

Folks, a reminder to please not discuss or “force” users from posting certain questions during the Q&A to give every different question a fair chance of getting answered.

Thank you for understanding.

[EchoEightSix]

@Samuel666pl

But who said that gliders and thermals has something to do with downgrade of graphics? Where is evidence that new ‘‘thermals system’’ is more resource intensive than everything what we have seen before? I don’t buy this narrative and it sounds like another ‘‘trust me bro’’ story.

I didn’t say that, frankly I have no idea if that’s the cause. Im not really agreeing or disagreeing with anything said on this thread. My point was just questioning if their time was best spent on gliders and helicopters when there are so many issues with the sim. I still have floating runway lights, now since SU11 almost every landing the runway lights are 100 feet above the runway. Just to name one point of frustration…there are many more.

[WellREDBarron]

I am curious as to why we cannot openly discuss how to properly use the systems you all have set up for us to talk to the developers. Isn’t it better, more positive, and more productive to seek info from the horse’s mouth than blindly speculating and bickering amongst ourselves?

I am sure you have a good reason but it strikes me as self-defeating to explicitly ask users NOT to help others move a question up the ladder when we are expected to understand how to move a question up the ladder in order to move a question up the ladder.

[DCLTREASURE516]

I have only asked not to encourage users to ask during chat about this issue to A.) not spam the chat and B.) as I mentioned before, to give each question a fair shot at getting answered.

You are upmost welcome to ask during the stream-but don’t petition for users to ask the question in the forums.

[WellREDBarron]

Thanks for the info, but I don’t feel like you ever answered the crux of my question. So if you don’t mind, let me try again.

What is wrong with pointing people to the Q&A system you all have built for us to ask questions that might actually get an answer from a reliable source, rather than asking them over and over in here where they will never be answered?

When I understand the logic of this forum’s many rules, I can better navigate them without needing you to pop into the chat to get me back in line.

[DCLTREASURE516]

@WellREDBarron

What is wrong with pointing people to the Q&A system you all have built for us to ask questions for said Q&A rather than in here where they will never be answered?

I will note that Asobo/MS is not ignoring the issue. They may not have an answer right now, or could be working on fixing this.
I have mentioned this, the Q&A chat is for asking questions, but I ask that we don’t ask users to ask the question before hand. This gives each question a fair shot at getting answered.
You can point out the chat, but don’t ask users to ask a certain question in the chat.
Makes sense?

@WellREDBarron

I can better navigate them without needing you to pop into the chat to get me back in line.

We (Moderators) are here to make sure things run smoothly and make sure things do not run out of hand in the forums.

[MajorHrpes]

In my opinion, the way the graphics quality was cut here bordered on customer deception. It is clear to me that adjustments have to be made here and there in order to keep the performance stable due to new features. But what we see in this update is a difference like day and night and robs you of the great feel that made MSFS unique before.

It does feel like customer deception, the official Xbox youtube channel releases a 40th Anniversary trailer days ago that does not reflect the graphical state of the game. I understand bugs and issues arise with updating such a game but the graphical downgrade is beyond acceptable standards IMO. Ground textures are higher res in FSX at this point. Many have been looking forward to this update and to see it take this turn is disappointing. People such as myself have put money into this for add-ons, peripherals etc. The addons Ive paid for have been diminished. I don’t think ‘this is typical for flight sims’ is acceptable when there has been no official word or forewarning from the devs as to the downgrade. This issue was foreseen based on the beta and if it wasn’t intended then the update should have been delayed IMO. Many other games have been dragged for less by the media (looking at you Gotham Knights). Transparency would help on this matter and I hope we get that with the upcoming Q&A. Until this is addressed I will be voting with my wallet.

[Finger117]

Man, just wanted to fly the Waimea Canyon (FA2004) mission but there is just no point in doing it as it looks so uninspired with the low fidelity. I’m just sad.

I’d throw some money to them If I could rollback to SU10 and stay there as long as I wanted to.

[WellREDBarron]

Thank you for being patient with my questions. That makes more sense. Y’all run a tight ship here. But you also have more rules than most forums. Sometimes I just need a little clarification. Some of your rules are new or unique to me, and my goodness, nobody here who isn’t on the staff has committed all of them to memory!

[Pazdzie22]

And here is a view out of the window at 13000 feet. On Series S with World update Italy. Everything online turned on. The ground reminds me of Xbox 360 level of fidelity.

[FL991R]

We are definitely in uncharted waters here with this kind of software on an ecosystem like XBOX. I am in theory okay with taking some detours on the way to improvement, but I guess my question is “have we reached the end of the road”.

In other words, in previous flight sims on PC, with all of the ups and downs of development, did the users have to upgrade their hardware to stay caught up? As some have speculated, if we are near the edge of the envelope in terms of XBOX hardware performance, could this be it for us? As the sim keeps getting new more CPU intensive bells and whistles are we just facing a future of increasing cutbacks just to keep the two platforms on equal footing? If the way previous sims developed is the way this one is developing, how will they make it work with a platform whose hardware specs are written in stone? It isn’t like the old days where we could just play the old version if our computer wasn’t fast enough for the new one - now we get dragged along whether we can afford to or not.

Just interested to hear some speculation on the subject. I know nobody here knows the answer but it might be instructive to learn from previous experience.

[Pazdzie22]

It’s like exploring procedurally generated planets in No Man’s Sky now, a game from 2016. An alternative, cartoon reality.

[WellREDBarron]

@FL991R

Just interested to hear some speculation on the subject.

Did somebody say, “Speculation?”

Happy to oblige.

We are NOT at the edge of what the Xbox can do. This was built as a LAUNCH release.

It isn’t as efficiently coded as games for the consoles will be by say, the fifth year of its life cycle. And it tries to do new things like getting most of its data from the cloud while you play. When you are the first to do something, you pave the way for others to do it more efficiently but your own software can become a bit bloated.

Anyway, MSFS is remarkably scalable and will work on PCs that can not even come close to the fidelity of a Series S! Let alone the Series X. And it can also blow the fidelity of a Series console out of the water on a cutting edge PC. The Series consoles are in the middle of the fidelity you can expect in MSFS depending on your hardware.

I think the solution is becoming quite clear.

We need options (because we aren’t likely to get all the PC graphics sliders).

We need a QUALITY graphics option, which would be great for eye candy, and GA VFR flying, and a PERFORMANCE option which might be better for study level addons, and for folks with a lot of payware scenery.

SU 10 was a nice QUALITY fidelity.

SU 11 is a decent PERFORMANCE fidelity.

And perhaps a FSR option, for folks who might want something kinda in between QUALITY and PERFORMANCE.

Folks who choose QUALITY would know it might cost them some PERFORMANCE and those who choose PERFORMANCE would know it might come at the cost of QUALITY and almost all major Series console releases have these kinds of options available. I think we are LONG overdue for the same options to become available in MSFS on Xbox.

Folks are less likely to complain about stutters if they CHOOSE a QUALITY mode, and they are less likely to complain about fidelity if they CHOOSE a PERFORMANCE mode.

I think the days of trying to simultaneously accomplish both QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE are behind us, and an option for us to pick our preferred graphical fidelity is the clearest path out.

[Pazdzie22]

What is interesting it’s that the game on Series S can still look good but only when flying very low (500 feet max), when the engine has not switched to lower LOD (it’s tied to altitude). Any higher than that and the magic is gone in SU11.

Here’s an example on Series S with the beautiful Jenny Jn4.

[PilotGlint81358]

I used to get a lot of satisfaction from using an actual, paper nav chart and navigating VFR through unfamiliar areas by identifying landmarks in the Sim.

Previously there was enough detail in the mid range terrain to make out road intersections, river bends, and distinctive hilltops. The distant terrain, while simplified, still had enough sharpness to get a valid fix on mountains and lakes in the far distance.

I could maintain a straight line to my destination by identifying things left and right of my path.

Now I have to slew over and inspect things - ‘is that a town or a ploughed field? River bend or a road corner? Surely the golf course I’m looking for will pop in soon!’

Then slew back to my course and grumpily continue my odyssey through this new melted hellscape.

[UnitedArt]

I’m very sure we’re not at the end of Xbox capabilities. It’s clear that one of the best titles from previous generations were those from the last, let’s say, 2 years of their lifespan. Since Series consoles are just 2 years in their lifespan, there’s plenty of room to optimize further.

[FL991R]

Thanks! That’s exactly the type of speculation I was looking for!

Now if I may just ask for a little more:

Asobo seems adamant that the sim remains one unified code base (not sure if using the correct terminology), because they don’t want to split their team in half and basically make two sims. Do you think something like the quality/performance toggle could be accommodated while still keeping the sim unified? How much as they able to differentiate the sim on the two platforms until they become two separate sims? I guess they already have graphical options on PC that XBOX doesn’t have so maybe it’s more of a tweak than a change in the game.

[PoshLuigi]

Sorry to interject but was Toronto always like this on the consoles?? Tower looks strange but scenery looks normal. Is is part of this bug?