Microsoft Flight Simulator

[mopman94]

I used the search tool and couldn't find an existing Topic.

 

Thought there should be a thread to discuss Flight Simulator given it's such a massive game to launch which really stretches what is technically possible at the moment.

 

Also if anyone has found work arounds for any of the common bugs I'd like to hear 

[Jumballi]

Installed game.
Wouldn't download 90GB patch.
Quit game.
Reopen game.
Wouldn't download 90GB patch.
Quit game.
Reopen game.
Wouldn't download 90GB patch.
Quit game.
Uninstalled game.
Reinstalled game.
Started download of 90GB patch.
Crashes at 70GB downloaded.
Reopen game.
Download resumes with the 20GB remaining.
Get in game.
Easy won't let me control plane (feels like a stricter assist mode from Mario Kart 8D)
Set the game to medium difficulty.
Plane keeps breaking since I keep "stressing it too much".

I quit game.
Thank god I'm just trying this game via game pass and didn't pay the full $60 price tag.

[RageTester]

Moon landing 1969... The Apollo Guidance Computer had RAM of 4KB and 32KB hard disk.

So am I getting it right, the game is 100 GB+? And you have to pay for it? Who will pay you for new hard drive?

Simulators are just not my thing, but at least they work for real life racing drivers...

 

[mopman94]

17 minutes ago, Jumballi said:

Installed game.
Wouldn't download 90GB patch.
Uninstalled game.
Reinstalled game.
Started download of 90GB patch.
Crashes at 70GB downloaded.
Reopen game.
Download resumes with the 20GB remaining.
Get in game.
Easy won't let me control plane (feels like a stricter assist mode from Mario Kart 8D)
Set the game to medium difficulty.
Plane keeps breaking since I keep "stressing it too much".

I quit game.
Thank god I'm just trying this game via game pass and didn't pay the full $60 price tag.

There are weird issues with the installer. If it doesn't start downloading you just restart the game until it says it's looking for an update.

For some reason if you plug in or unplug a USB device during the download it crashes, that's probably what happened.

Both weird bugs which they should sort out.

 

 

The plane over stressing is user error.

[Jumballi]

Just now, mopman94 said:

There are weird issues with the installer. If it doesn't start downloading you just restart the game until it says it's looking for an update.

For some reason if you plug in or unplug a USB device during the download it crashes, that's probably what happened.

Both weird bugs which they should sort out.

 

 

The plane over stressing is user error.

Oh I forgot the steps where I restarted it twice before I reinstalled, gonna edit

[mopman94]

2 minutes ago, Jumballi said:

Oh I forgot the steps where I restarted it twice before I reinstalled, gonna edit

Yeah you had to keep restarting and it would eventually work, for me it took 1 restart for others it worked on the fifth, I think the download servers were just overloaded. Once you go on though the servers seemed to work fine, was impressed with how well it was handling the number of users.

[SparkiTom]

Using Steam, install the patcher to your games drive, then when the patcher (game) is loaded just allow it to auto install its files to your C drive, making sure you have plenty - at least 150GB spare on your drive. Don't bother installing this game onto a HDD, do not do it!

 

On release day I installed this game in 58 minutes, that was with a couple of initial restarts before the big 90GB download. The Microsoft servers sometimes maxed out my gigabit broadband after the 90GB download had passed 60%

 

I'm really impressed with this game. Its not really a game its more like a travellers guide to the world with amazing visuals. Works perfectly with my HOTAS setup.

 

 

 

[Quinnell]

I plan on waiting a while before getting the game.  Hoping it gets more fleshed out - more planes, airports... and of course, bug fixes and QoL improvements.

[mopman94]

22 minutes ago, Quinnell said:

I plan on waiting a while before getting the game.  Hoping it gets more fleshed out - more planes, airports... and of course, bug fixes and QoL improvements.

Your expectations are off, the bug fixes and QoL improvements will come but planes and airports, there are 40,000 airports in the game and more planes by default then any flight sim ever, there will be 3rd party planes sold through the store but they won't be adding anymore default ones.

[Real_PhillBert]

5 hours ago, mopman94 said:

Your expectations are off, the bug fixes and QoL improvements will come but planes and airports, there are 40,000 airports in the game and more planes by default then any flight sim ever, there will be 3rd party planes sold through the store but they won't be adding anymore default ones.

I'm betting helicopters will be coming in a future update. If you look, heliports are a selectable location, so if they took the time to do that, they must be planning to include helicopters. 

 

As for airports, I agree, unless someone wants a hyper-realistic model of their local airfield I have trouble believing anyone would be disappointed with the current options. 

[mopman94]

8 hours ago, Real_PhillBert said:

I'm betting helicopters will be coming in a future update. If you look, heliports are a selectable location, so if they took the time to do that, they must be planning to include helicopters. 

 

As for airports, I agree, unless someone wants a hyper-realistic model of their local airfield I have trouble believing anyone would be disappointed with the current options. 

Helicopters are on their roadmap so will be coming, unknown when. If you want an ultra realistic build of a particular airport someone will build it eventually as well, the third party content is what will keep this alive

[juanegg]

Anyone know of the benefits of 32GB over 16GB? been holding off an upgrade since I've been getting playable FPS at 1440 on ultra with a 2060. playing x-plane on 4K has really set my bar low, really surprised i'm getting 25-30 fps.

 

Only issue I've been having are random game crashes, last night was painful, game crashed when i disconnected AP on final.  

[Kilrah]

Look at your RAM usage, if you need more than 16 then 32 makes sense, but it's very unlikely it's the case.

 

Never had a crash once I'm flying yet. Only times it closed on my while flying was... when I pressed the wrong mouse button and hit my "close window" shortcut... happened twice, and I've finally reinstalled my mouse's utility to make a game profile where it's disabled 

[juanegg]

I’ve alt F4’d a lot the first couple days. 

[Kilrah]

Yeah, annoying that there are actually interesting shortcuts on the Alt-Fs

[mopman94]

3 hours ago, juanegg said:

Anyone know of the benefits of 32GB over 16GB? been holding off an upgrade since I've been getting playable FPS at 1440 on ultra with a 2060. playing x-plane on 4K has really set my bar low, really surprised i'm getting 25-30 fps.

 

Only issue I've been having are random game crashes, last night was painful, game crashed when i disconnected AP on final.  

New York seems to be the most resource intesive area by a long way, I've hit over 20GB RAM useage flying around there with my settings on High at 1440p so I guess there is probably a reason to upgrade to 32GB, also RAM prices are fairly low at the moment.

 

I've had a couple of crashes, weirdly in the same scenario. I've been trying to fly from Gatwick to Paris and every time I pass into France it crashes, really weird. What you can do though is go into your Profile, then flight logs and reload the flight plan, from there you can skip to long final using one of the options in the top bar and have another attempt at the landing.

[mopman94]

8 hours ago, DutchGuyTom said:

I am at 16 GB of RAM and have not noticed any issues but I am coincidentally upgrading to 32 GB this week anyways so I will let you know if I notice any difference. I will probably do a short flight through new york at low altitude with the AI piloting as a way to benchmark before and after.

Sounds good 

 

If the internet is to be believed, and afterall who would go onto the internet and tell lies, there is an update coming on Thursday to address a number of bugs.

 

It is also worth considering that when FSX first launched its performance was trash but over its life they released a couple of service packs which dramatically helped so I think we can expect performance improvments here as well. They need to in order to keep the sim alive because third party addons are the life and blood of sims like these but if theres no more resource to run them because the sim itself is so bloated people won't use them.

[Action_Johnson]

I love this game, It's shocking how good the world modeling is in the most random spaces that you know, nobody has hand done. I flew over the Painted Hills in Oregon (recently visited), and it's near photorealistic. I landed my cub right on it, and sure enough! Looked a heck of alot like the photo I took when we were there..

 

 

[Warin]

On 8/19/2020 at 12:48 AM, RageTester said:

Moon landing 1969... The Apollo Guidance Computer had RAM of 4KB and 32KB hard disk.

So am I getting it right, the game is 100 GB+? And you have to pay for it? Who will pay you for new hard drive?

Simulators are just not my thing, but at least they work for real life racing drivers...

 

Captain Pedant here! The Apollo era on board computers did not use hard disks.  They used core memory. Oddly enough, Linus and Dustin from Smarter Every Day did videos on that exact topic awhile back. Go watch the videos so you don't look silly when trying to be a smartass

More on topic, the new flight simulator is gorgeous. Outside of the detailed airports built into the game, the airports in the game are best guess sort of scenery and buildings, not precise. I see a lot of room for modders and modelers to build realistic airports for free or for sale.  If  I knew more about 3D modelling, I would even consider making a stab at my local airport (YKA).

As for other buildings, they are mostly wild ass guesses based on top down imagery.  My house is in the game, and the footprint is correct, but the ridgeline of my roof is going in the wrong direction.  I also flew around the small town where I was born, and was able to follow roads to the tiny house that I lived in when I was born, and that my grandmother lives in now.  It is in exactly the right place, so it is pretty awesome

[oeci]

I'm currently learning again to fly as it has been quite some time since I last played a flight sim. But as soon as I get the hang of it one of the first things I am going to do is probably to fly over my house. By the way I'm positively surprised how well the game runs on my system although only at 1080p.

[Action_Johnson]

3 hours ago, oeci said:

I'm currently learning again to fly as it has been quite some time since I last played a flight sim. But as soon as I get the hang of it one of the first things I am going to do is probably to fly over my house. By the way I'm positively surprised how well the game runs on my system although only at 1080p.

Same, I get solid consistent 30fps on this in most places I'd be normally flying around in. Can't ask for more than that with a game like this.

[TheBahrbarian]

15 hours ago, Action_Johnson said:

Same, I get solid consistent 30fps on this in most places I'd be normally flying around in. Can't ask for more than that with a game like this.

Yup, I haven't had too many performance issues here. Just flew out of Orlando and was getting 35-40fps, high settings. I get 75fps cruise and in most situations

 

[oeci]

On my system the game runs on ultra settings at around 60 - 70 FPS while crusing. Over detailed cities I've seen drops to as low as 30 FPS but that's fine with me. I guess the whole talk about how hard this game was to run is a bit exaggerated. Yes I know 4K is a whole different game but if you are content with 1080p and got a decent CPU, a mid to high end graphics card like a RTX 2060 Super with 8 GB of VRAM and lots of RAM (in my case 64 GB) you can actually expect very good performance. And since Microsoft is certainly going to optimize the software in the near future the performance can only improve.

[Action_Johnson]

I think system RAM and CPU clock speeds are really the biggest thing with this game. My laptop has similar specs as my desktop (1660Ti Mobile, i7 9750H, vs R5 3600 + 1660 Super), but it's got 16GB of RAM and when you jump in the plane, it's almost immediately into the Page-File.

 

This game R E Q U I R E S 32GB of fast, low latency, dual channel RAM

 

[Action_Johnson]

BTW, this game... Holy F it's incredible. I loaded it onto my laptop (Helios 300 1660Ti), and hooked it up to the TV in my GF's parents house. 

 

We flew thru the Snake River between Oregon and Idaho, and her 70yr old father was telling stories about things he'd seen, or done, or who's ranches were who's we flew over, it was all rendered in near 1:1 accuracy. Everyone was blown away and how near-photorealistic it looked, and that it was so accurate, pops was able to say what was what out of a Cub.