Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

[jztemple2]

Figured it was time to start a new thread for a new game

Here's some news: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 download rate peaks at 180Mbps during flight

With the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 alpha already available for players to try, gamers are understandably jumping at the chance to soar through the skies of the stunning-looking title. However, despite an initial install size of a mere 30GB, the game is proving to put an unexpectedly high strain on users’ internet connections thanks to its constant downloading of new environment data.

Even with the best gaming router around, the sheer amount of data you could be downloading via Microsoft Flight Simulator is enough to both put a strain on your home network and quickly max out your data allowance for those not on an unlimited data plan. Not to mention, you’ll need a fast enough connection in the first place. 180Mbps is equivalent to 22.5MB/s, which is well inside most modern broadband connection speeds but could be a limiting factor for those with older and slower connections.

Evidence of this high internet usage can be seen in the video below which shows a whole host of real-time data as the player flies around. CPU, GPU, and RAM usage are tracked, along with CPU and GPU temperature and that all-important “internet download rate.”

[Unagi]

[Blackhawk]

Does everywhere have that level of detail, or just select areas?

[Unagi]

The guy mentioned at one point that he picked a place in the Lake District at random. (for what that's worth).

[Blackhawk]

Thanks. That's useful. In the past they've occasionally detailed specific areas, but left other areas relatively plain. I'm glad they're not doing that here.

[jztemple2]

Version information.

[Blackhawk]

Have they said anything about repeating the 'no upgrades' policy that they got so much flak for with FS2020?

If not, be sure to get the pack you want. With 2020 there was no way to upgrade - get the $129 version, decide that you want the aircraft from the $199 version, and you have to buy the $199 version at full price.

[jztemple2]

Have they said anything about repeating the 'no upgrades' policy that they got so much flak for with FS2020?

If not, be sure to get the pack you want. With 2020 there was no way to upgrade - get the $129 version, decide that you want the aircraft from the $199 version, and you have to buy the $199 version at full price.

There is as of yet no mention of a "no upgrades" policy, but then there are also no DLC listed on the page. Since there is no pre-order bonus I could find, I'll wait till release day or afterwards.

[hitbyambulance]

i think i'm good with FS2020 for a long while longer yet

[Unagi]

Have they said anything about repeating the 'no upgrades' policy that they got so much flak for with FS2020?

If not, be sure to get the pack you want. With 2020 there was no way to upgrade - get the $129 version, decide that you want the aircraft from the $199 version, and you have to buy the $199 version at full price.

I'm only pointing out that specifically the difference between the 129 and the 199 version is 30 payware aircraft - so I'm going to guess you can pay for the payware aircraft later - - but you may (still) be right.

[jztemple2]

I already have the wife's concurrence (permission? grudging acceptance?) to spend the $199 bucks... Christmas is coming and I figure she's planning to spend a lot more than that

However, I'm still dubious until I see some impressions here from you folks.

[jztemple2]

Don't know if folks here are aware of this page... there are a bunch of flight manuals for MSFS2024 aircraft. Good for geeking out with.

[jztemple2]

[naednek]

buy? gamepass baby

[jztemple2]

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 crashes on takeoff thanks to massive server woes, and Microsoft's advice isn't great: just keep waiting until something happens

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is out today, and it's not going well. Installation issues are being widely reported, and while Microsoft has some advice, it is unfortunately just this: Keep waiting until something starts happening.

The troubles are most visible (as usual) on Steam, where Flight Sim 2024 is currently sagging under a "mostly negative" rating thanks primarily to install issues. Some users can't get it installed at all, while others say the process took hours to complete and left them with missing menus or content. Others say they were able to download and run the game, but after a restart or crash were forced to start the process all over again, which resulted in them being stuck back in a wait for server queues.

[Punisher]

I'm using it on GamePass. It installed while I was out but it won't start.
It's stuck on the Login Queue.
Says "too many users are trying to connect at the same time. You are in a queue. Please wait a few minutes or try again later"
I've restarted twice and it didn't help. Now I'm just leaving it there. Going on 1.5 hours so far.
I don't care too much since I didn't pay extra for it but I can see a lot of people going for refunds if this keeps up.

[Unagi]

I'm shocked anyone expected to play this on launch. Honestly a bit shocked.

[Hrdina]

I'm shocked anyone expected to play this on launch. Honestly a bit shocked.

Yeah, I didn't even try (or pre-order for that matter). I'll get it, but I'll wait for the dust to settle first.

[Punisher]

I was able to get in about 20 minutes after posting.
I only messed with it a bit to try ot out.
Started with my local airport to fly to my house.
Everything was set to ultra and looked very nice. I need to go over settings to change jow fast the external camera moves because it was bouncing around a bit fast. The drone/vehicle is used also had some bouncing up and down. I don't think it was a graphics issue. It could be because I didn't know how to fly it or maybe it was a wind setting. I'll have to look into that.
I was able to follow the roads to my house and while it's not 100% accurate it was close enough to work.
The various buildings along the way were not really accurate and had some weird things like a tall apartment building where there isn't one. It also showed a cell tower tgat I didn't recognize but could be there.
I did the walk around thing and while it works, it's SUPER slow. Like it should have been called a crawl around. There is a key to run but it didn't seem to do anything. Even after changing the binding.
One thing that I was surprised of...when I zoomed in on the map to my local airport I saw other take off/landings nearby even though there there aren't any other airports near it. Turns out that they have included hospital helipad. Thus is pretty cool! I don't recall the older game version had this but haven't really played that in a while I donr think.
Only had keyboard and mouse right now. Will need to pull out one of my flight setups and go through career and training.

[naednek]

I can get in but once I choose a flight it just gets stuck at the map screen

[gbasden]

Same. It just sticks after selecting an airport. Maybe it will be better tomorrow.

[Alefroth]

I imagine both Valve and Microsoft are being affected by the massive storm we're having here, and we've had internet disruptions across the region for several days.

[jztemple2]

I got gifted the game by somebody awesome . Unfortunately it won't install past 11% right now. I'm not discouraged, Forza Motorsport from MS had a rocky launch as well but things got better. So I guess I'll be trying Stalker 2 later today for the time being.

By the way, this was posted on the Steam News feed for MS2024 from the devs

We have worked hard with our partners, including Asobo and others, to bring you an amazing sim experience. The excitement for the sim today has been overwhelming, but we encountered an issue with one of our services handling the new systems in the game like career mode and various missions. The server responsible for handling data requests got overloaded, causing delays and errors.

As a result, players are experiencing long loading times and missing content like aircraft. We have solved the issues and are now bringing players in at a steady pace. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We will keep you updated on our social channels, forums, and website. Thank you very much for all your feedback and support.

[naednek]

Same. It just sticks after selecting an airport. Maybe it will be better tomorrow.

Damn Microsoft

It was working, I played a little during a boring meeting Flew from Cameron Park over my old house, to my current house, and landed at Mather.

[gbasden]

Same. It just sticks after selecting an airport. Maybe it will be better tomorrow.

Damn Microsoft

It was working, I played a little during a boring meeting Flew from Cameron Park over my old house, to my current house, and landed at Mather.

Nice! I'll give it a shot when I get home from work. I know that unexpectedly high demand along with the crazy weather have made for a rough launch.

[jztemple2]

Turns out trying to download this game and Stalker 2 at the same time doesn't work . I'll get Stalker2 downloaded and then try again. This morning it froze at about 11%, I'm hoping for better things this afternoon.

[jztemple2]

Got the game installed, picked my local airport, a Cessna 172 (which is the plane I learned to fly on, a half-century ago ) and took off and flew over my house. And damn, it was almost all correct, except that last month Hurricane Milton took off the roof of my covered patio but it still shows up in the game

[naednek]

Got the game installed, picked my local airport, a Cessna 172 (which is the plane I learned to fly on, a half-century ago ) and took off and flew over my house. And damn, it was almost all correct, except that last month Hurricane Milton took off the roof of my covered patio but it still shows up in the game

my red forte is at the front of my house

[jztemple2]

I thought I was seeing another MS issue, I was missing a lot of planes . Then I happened to look at the MS store and noticed that I had missed a second package I needed to install

I went through several flight training missions which went well, except I'm finding that my Logitech flight stick has issues with the pots . It is pretty old. Well Christmas is coming up, maybe Santa will bring a flight yoke.

[Punisher]

I thought I was seeing another MS issue, I was missing a lot of planes . Then I happened to look at the MS store and noticed that I had missed a second package I needed to install

I went through several flight training missions which went well, except I'm finding that my Logitech flight stick has issues with the pots . It is pretty old. Well Christmas is coming up, maybe Santa will bring a flight yoke.

Should you even be smoking while trying to fly?

[jztemple2]

I thought I was seeing another MS issue, I was missing a lot of planes . Then I happened to look at the MS store and noticed that I had missed a second package I needed to install

I went through several flight training missions which went well, except I'm finding that my Logitech flight stick has issues with the pots . It is pretty old. Well Christmas is coming up, maybe Santa will bring a flight yoke.

Should you even be smoking while trying to fly?

I've been putting in more time today on the game in the flight training and free fly modes. The flight training is going OK, I'm still dealing with over-controlling constantly. I'm almost tempted to try just using the keyboard or maybe my Xbox controller instead of my joystick. The Cessna 172 hasn't really changed in... ah, 53 years and I'm getting used to the new Garmin instrumentation.

Free flight has been working well except that in spite of tinkering with settings, if I select a departure and an arrival airport I get those blue brackets in the sky. I've figured out how to turn off all the visual clues, but not just the blue brackets, even though I've turned them off in the settings, or at least I think I have.

I tried their world photography mode, but the game just sat there with the little spinner spinning for several minutes, so I gave up. I have also found one aircraft missing from the Aviator's edition, the Fokker VII. Selecting it for free flight results in a CTD.

The full 3D world is very good. I can fly all over the local neighborhood and recognize a lot of the streets and buildings, although the biome selected for my location means I'm seeing bunches of palm trees, which are almost non-existent in my locale . There are some funny glitches, like the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the Kennedy Space Center, about 500 feet high or so, gets interpreted by the game as a two story high square building with an oddly long shadow .

I tried several of the planes in free flight mode. The Hughes H-4 Spruce Goose is amazing.

[jztemple2]

Screenshot from over my house (circled). They even got our two sheds in the picture.


Over the past couple of days I completed all the flight training from basic to VFR through IFR. This evening I decided to start my career. Unfortunately, although there are a zillion airports you can choose as your home airport, my local one isn't included. So I instead choose the airport at Alamosa, Colorado where I went to college. Probably not the smartest choice at it is at an altitude of 7500 feet and so my initial Cessna 172 will be performance limited

Career is kind of fun, you start off working on your private pilot's license (PPL). You do an introductory flight with the instructor and fly around the airport. Then, as I didn't realize before, you're supposed to do all the flight training lessons. Since I already did that I could go for my certification flight right away, which I passed.


I then took my first mission to build up flight hours, taking a couple in a flight over "Alamosa County", which is to say the city. I passed that, although not all that well. Heck, since I only have my PPL I'm not being paid for the flight, so what do they expect?


Yesterday I did do some other free flying. I landed in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the city not the falls. Things look pretty decent at altitude but a bit wonky on the ground.

[Alefroth]

On XBOX with my T-Flight HOTAS, the elevator and throttle controls are reversed by default. I had to go pretty deep into the settings to switch those axes to inverted.

[jztemple2]

I played the career mode for a couple more hours this afternoon. Had two CTDs . I now have my commercial pilot's license (CPL) and so I can do jobs for money, although the company I work for takes most of it . I'm doing ferry jobs, mostly moving Cessna 172s from A to B. I also flew a couple of other aircraft as well. I went through the pre-flight checklists for fun and sadly both had errors, as does the checklist for the Cessna 172. Nothing I can't work around, but annoying.

One of the other planes is a Robin with a number of switches and gauges labeled in French but I figured them out. The other was a JMB VL-3, lots of fun with retractable gear and a different type of primary flight display (PFD) than the Garmin in the Cessna.

There are a lot of bugs like the checklists in the game, but so far I'm able to enjoy it. Some are comical, like how the ATC and voices say "tree" instead of "three" . Some others, not so much fun like the CTDs. I'll have to spend time tinkering with the Electronic Flight Book (EFB) to figure out how to plan a flight that gives me the checkpoints I want instead of what the game generates.

On the plus side the graphics are great, the 3D world very immersive and the aircraft nicely detailed. The game does take about a minute or so to start up and maybe 10-20 seconds to load Career mode when I select it, but nowhere near the horror stories other folks are reporting on Steam.

Ultimately the game is most definitely not ready for prime time. If you are lucky like me and it's working reasonably well then it's worth the time to enjoy it, but it would behoove folks to try it out on GamePass or use the two hours grace that Steam allows to check it out.

[coopasonic]

Some are comical, like how the ATC and voices say "tree" instead of "three" . Some others, not so much fun like the CTDs.

That's military radio pronunciation: tree, fife, niner.

[Blackhawk]

Plus 'Fower' and 'Zero' (two syllables for four, and never 'oh' for zero.) Plus each number should be spoken individually (one-six-eight, not one sixty eight.)

[jztemple2]

Some are comical, like how the ATC and voices say "tree" instead of "three" . Some others, not so much fun like the CTDs.

That's military radio pronunciation: tree, fife, niner.

OK, I did some research on this and apparently it's now the accepted way. Apparently things have changed in the half-century since I learned to fly and was in the military

[Isgrimnur]

Some are comical, like how the ATC and voices say "tree" instead of "three" . Some others, not so much fun like the CTDs.

That's military radio pronunciation: tree, fife, niner.

OK, I did some research on this and apparently it's now the accepted way. Apparently things have changed in the half-century since I learned to fly and was in the military

There's this thing called NATO...

[jztemple2]

So I tried helicopter training lessons... which didn't work out. Three times I went through the introductory steps that show what's what in the cockpit, then you are told to start the engine. I did it and the instructor said, wait, you're getting ahead of yourself and the whole lesson restarts . I'll try again tomorrow.

Here's that look at the VAB at the Kennedy Space Center... whoops!


And someone parked my plane on a slope in the dirt.

[jztemple2]

I got the first helicopter training mission to work properly on the fifth try and I completed all the training (sorry, the image was too large for one screenshot)


Then I took my rotocraft commercial license, which I passed, surprisingly considering how many bounces I made on landing.


For my first charter I took a passenger on a sightseeing tour over Montreal. I had a little issue on landing, seems someone put a building where I intended to land


My passenger apparently wasn't too bothered by this as I got an "A" rating for the flight