11 minutes ago, Noel said:

No, I mean at the only airport in their DEMO that is already enhanced at some level.  LOWI

World autogen etc is getting a big overhaul.  That LOWI shot is standard XP12.  It was easy to tell the MSFS and XP12 shots apart because there is no doubt the MSFS autogen is more effective, and the trees have better coverage.  I would hate to see any regression in texture quality in MSFS. Fingers crossed!

Have set up the below thread of aggregated complaints about this problem. Jump in and upvote if this issue concerns you. 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/msfs-su16-aggregation-of-complaints-about-poor-lod-low-resolution-blurry-terrain-textures/731741

Edited July 30, 2025Jul 30 by DModjo

On 7/31/2025 at 12:09 AM, DModjo said:

Have set up the below thread of aggregated complaints about this problem. Jump in and upvote if this issue concerns you. 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/msfs-su16-aggregation-of-complaints-about-poor-lod-low-resolution-blurry-terrain-textures/731741

Great 👍 

Complaints and threads are popping up everywhere. Soon we'll need a sub forum just to talk about asobo Sim scenery.

Actually.. that might be a good idea... seeing as how important that subject is to the existence of 2020/2024.

On 7/30/2025 at 4:50 PM, MrBitstFlyer said:

That LOWI shot is standard XP12.

Not according to the DEMO.  If you look it clearly states it's the only 'enhanced' airport you have in the DEMO. 

32 minutes ago, Noel said:

Not according to the DEMO.  If you look it clearly states it's the only 'enhanced' airport you have in the DEMO. 

I assumed you were talking about terrain and autogen.

48 minutes ago, Noel said:

Not according to the DEMO.  If you look it clearly states it's the only 'enhanced' airport you have in the DEMO. 

I was reading some forum posts yesterday, and people claimed that they felt duped, running the demo around LOWI, and the scenery didn't look that bad, so then they purchased XP, and found that most of the scenery was terrible compared to the scenery around LOWI

On 7/26/2025 at 12:28 PM, jcomm said:

instead of staying with useless 4k textures when I'm on FullHD 1920 x 1080

I've always wondered why do 2k textures look worse in MSFS than in P3D/FSX. In fact, unless the texture was a single file for the whole plane, I always reduce 4k textures in FSX/P3D aircraft to 2k and I get pretty good results. If I do so in MSFS (either 2020 or 2024), I end up getting the same looks I'd get in FSX with 512px textures.

Edited August 4, 2025Aug 4 by Luis Hernandez

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I was reading some forum posts yesterday, and people claimed that they felt duped, running the demo around LOWI, and the scenery didn't look that bad, so then they purchased XP, and found that most of the scenery was terrible compared to the scenery around LOWI

Standard stuff in flight simulators from the past. Remember that awful sim called FS5? It had three or four higher resolution "photoscenery" areas (like Meigs Field in Chicago, and Martha's Vineyard) that did not look too bad in those days. The rest was a shimmering mass of textured garbage. I would have preferred to stick with FS4.

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

I was reading some forum posts yesterday, and people claimed that they felt duped, running the demo around LOWI, and the scenery didn't look that bad, so then they purchased XP, and found that most of the scenery was terrible compared to the scenery around LOWI

But to be fair, Microsoft Flight Simulator isn’t immune to that either. While it has that "wow" factor out of the box, a lot of its best-looking areas are photogrammetry cities or hand-crafted airports. Fly into more rural or less-covered parts of the world, and you’ll see mismatched/missing autogen or awful colours. It’s not always as flawless as the trailers made it seem.  Every time MSFS 2024 loads we see how far the truth is stretched.

Both sims rely heavily on either third-party or community-made scenery to really shine across the globe. Whether it’s XP or MSFS, you kind of have to customize it to get the full experience everywhere.

3 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Both sims rely heavily on either third-party or community-made scenery to really shine across the globe. Whether it’s XP or MSFS, you kind of have to customize it to get the full experience everywhere.

With all due respect to compare the out of the box experiences with these two sims and in any way try to equate them is in my opinion QUITE a stretch and quite contrary to what you posted in the XP forums.

Lots of areas within MSFS require no customization what-so-ever and still provide breathtaking detail the likes we have never seen in any flight sim out of the box. 

XP out of the box without at a bare minimum the Map Enhancement Tool and scenery add-ons is abysmal in comparison to MSFS.  While there are areas of MSFS that indeed look poor, it's the opposite in XP and there may be some areas like default airports that look quite good in XP.   Not to denegrate XP, it does a TON well out of the box but to compare the two out of the box experiences and claim MSFS needs add ons just like XP is disingenuous. 

They are pretty polar opposite experiences out of the box andI happened to agree to what you have posted yourself in the XP forums talking about how the out of box experiences differ and I quote:

Quote

 I have no idea how well XP12 is doing in the market place, but it must be losing out many sales to MSFS

 

Edited August 4, 2025Aug 4 by psolk

The issue with XP12's terrain scenery and overall world visuals are the lack of any sort of atmospheric mood.

Everywhere in XP12 looks the same, meanwhile MSFS's lighting and tones atleast give a distinct feel of which side of the hemisphere/equator you're on.

North America feels like misty dull London skies in XP12

South America feels like misty dull London skies in XP12

Australia feels like misty dull London skies in XP12

UK feels like...well☝️

XP12 Galeão

MSFS 2020 Galeão

XP12 Galeão

MSFS 2020 Galeão

XP12 Galeão

MSFS 2020  Galeão

XP12 looks terrible and MSFS with no PG still looks 100x better and with no PG performance is better than XP12. 

On the flipside, default airports in XP are leagues ahead of those in MSFS - especially at night. It's not even close.

1 hour ago, FPVSteve said:

On the flipside, default airports in XP are leagues ahead of those in MSFS - especially at night. It's not even close.

Default XP12 RKSI and VRMM are indeed miles ahead of anything MS/Asobo could come up with the past 5 years.

Edited August 5, 2025Aug 5 by blueshark747

21 hours ago, psolk said:

XP out of the box without at a bare minimum the Map Enhancement Tool and scenery add-ons is abysmal in comparison to MSFS.  <...snip...> Not to denegrate XP, it does a TON well out of the box but to compare the two out of the box experiences and claim MSFS needs add ons just like XP is disingenuous.

1. This statement is not absolute at all, but strongly relative to what the priorities are for a specific simmer.
2. Features that XP has by default, but MSFS lacks

   1. Correct airports layout and, usually, better default airports

   2. More realistic weather/environmental phenomena in terms of: dangerous turbulence and thunderstorms, icing effects, runway contamination effects, microbursts, wake turbulences, ...

   3. Ability to recreate specific scenarios (for training or just personal enjoyment) in terms of: visibility (MSFS lacks a visibility setting), extensive failures system (available already in all default aircraft, even at random), birdstrikes, etc.

   4. More realistic ground behaviour already in the default aircraft in terms of tire/suspension, but also crosswind

   5. More effective and ergonomic User Interface and Camera System.

   6. AI traffic is visible tens of miles away

   7. The upcoming weather radar should be the most realistic ever done for a flight sim.

3. All of these do not require any add-ons in XP, whereas in MSFS some of them require add-ons, and some others are not even attainable at all

4. Most of these features are focused on increasing the realism of flying, hence the "default XP is abysmal compared to MSFS" could be actually totally reversed for a simmer whose first priority is not just scenery

5. Finally 😉: default MSFS scenery looks better than XP scenery with (free) addons - notice, I said "looks better", not "is more accurate" or "is more realistic". 😛