Microsoft Flight Simulator

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[randir14]

Sim update 10 beta is out and comes with some performance improvements, including DLSS. I tested it and it both looks and performs better than the default TAA.
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-10-beta-release-notes-1-27-9-0/528823

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Anyone here playing this? The 40th anniversary edition (Sim Update 11) has been pretty neat. It introduced native helicopter support with a suprisingly decent flight model, gliders, a "study level" A310 and loads of additional historical aircraft (with the DC-3 beeing the standput amongst those). There are also great 3rd party aircraft available by now. All in all, I would say viewed as an entire package, MSFS 2020 is pretty good, altough many aspects are still a mess and X-Plane is probably better for the pure physics simulation. For VFR flying nothing compares with MSFS2020 though.

 

[SlamDunk]

 

[anvi]

I've been hoping for a new SimCopter for decades. But I expect this is programmed by sweatshop interns and plays like shit. Buggy. No progression. Probably goofy physics etc.. That's what I expect from AAA fks.

 

[randir14]

According to this it's a sequel https://twitter.com/XboxGamePassPC/status/1667947374273236992

Wtf? They said previously that MSFS 2020 was going to be a 10 year project. So why are they making a sequel instead of just updating it

 

[anvi]

I think because it worked so well with Windows.

 

[randir14]

FS2024 releases today

 

[randir14]

Disastrous launch, there's a fucking login queue as if it's an MMO. Nobody can get in and the game already has an Overwhelmingly Negative rating on Steam because of it.

 

[Modron]

Disastrous launch, there's a fucking login queue as if it's an MMO. Nobody can get in and the game already has an Overwhelmingly Negative rating on Steam because of it.

Game makes you d/l files while in the launcher, which counts as playtime so you can't refund the game by the time you can actually play it.

 

[AwesomeButton]

What's the difference between this and the existing MS Flight simulator?

Was it the same but early access until now? (Sorry for the noob question)

 

[Hag]

Bought the game this morning, installed and went free flying without any issue.
This may have been the worst AAA game launch ever but looks like it's settled now, first impressions are good : UI seems better than 2020 (not a huge feat to be honest) and it looks gorgeous.

What's the difference between this and the existing MS Flight simulator?

Apart from more planes (70 !) and improved visuals, there is now a career mode, more activities, and you can get in/out of your aircraft to do walkarounds or explore the landscape.

EDIT : and you can now fly again under bridges, fucking miracle.

 

[AwesomeButton]

To be quite honest I'm fearful of buying it because of the learning curve. I've been playing DCS A-10C for example and I have about 50 hours just studying and doing tutorial flights. But if my seven year old son finds out about MSFS, he'll ask me to play it for him (tooo complex for him) and it's going to be hell

 

[Hag]

Well, I've only done one flight in the Mustang (that I've also flown in DCS), but I can say for sure there is not much of a learning curve : you release brakes, apply power, and take off, and voila. To be honest flight "feeling" seems to be the same as MSFS2020 : easy, bouncy and overeacting, with a very generous flight envelope that will keep you airborne even if you fly like an idiot (maybe other planes do better, need to check to DR400). Controls will need much tweaking.

All in all a good way to have your son discover flight sims (maybe wait a couple more days before trying if you're in North America as it seems they're suffering the most from server overload)..

 

[Hag]

Now that I've sunk almost one hundred hours in the latest Flight Simulator, a quick review :

The good :
- This is the most beautiful, and arguably one of the greatest technical achievement in video games I have ever seen. You have a 1:1 model of Earth to play with with full line of sight, almost perfect relief (around 10 meters off in the most remote places), beautiful lighting and clouds. It runs very well and as far as the engine goes I haven't encountered any bug. The "online" meteo model allows for realistic weather, something all flight sims have ever struggled with. It's just great and after all this time I'm not getting remotely bored of flying around this wonderful model, seeing sunrise lighting clouds, sudden rain or wind needing rapid change of course, and all those mountain ranges, gorges, forests and landmark that look like photos sometimes.
- As evoked it runs pretty well (60fps) on my good but not top end setup. After scouring the forums the two biggest parameters are storage speed and internet bandwidth.
- There are several activities apart from free flight : world photographer that is quite fun, challenge league that is quite challenging, and career mode that is ambitious and also (more on that later) the biggest bugfest. But all in all it's pretty well designed and fun.

The meh :
- It requires constant internet connection to stream everything. Not much of an issue if you have a 10mb+/s line but I can understand it's a pain for some people. Devs have stated the size of the map is in the petabytes so you're not going to be able to save it offline, however an option to download selected places and airplanes has been announced.
- There are like 70 different aircraft available (more if you buy the premium editions), with airliners, helicopters, small planes, seaplanes, a couple warbirds and jets, hot air balloon, autogyros and even those novelty electric planes. So it's great. However choice is a bit weird, with several redundant models. Also the only supersonic jet is the F-18 Super Hornet, arguably the most boring and ugly thing they could have chosen (but pretty sure it's there because of Boeing licensing agreements). Real issue the various level of finish : most aircraft are bugged, most all the time little details but some have major issues. Most of the time it won't stop you from enjoying a quick flight but when you get more serious and need to plan long trip with fuel management, or do cold starts/restarts it can become annoying.
- Also flight models are ok to weird. Nothing superlative. Turbulence and wind makes flying fun, but some planes have twitchy or unstable behaviour. You need to try, or wait until it's fixed (to be fair, those two points about plane systems and flight models are mostly relevant when you come from another more polished flight sim, as Microsoft Flight Simulator has always been the lame duck in those area. It was the same on previous opus AFAIK, at least this time there is a real choice of aircrafts included from start).
- The flight planner is now running on a dedicated website. On the one hand you can no longer plan quick flights directly from the game, on the other you now have a real serious program that is very useful and comes with all charts and tools you need.
- UI is serviceable. I kind of like its design but it is too much console-centric. Still better than the 2020 disaster.
- It's a very Microsoft release : solid technical product and abysmal QA. At least the devs are kinda responsive and issues are slowly getting fixed.

The bad :
- The reason everybody is complaining is because of the career mode. I quickly dropped it from boredom so I haven't experienced it first hand, but it seems it's bugged to hell.
- For some reason you can't program some airliners computers from your tablet. Either you enter data by hand, or you use Simbrief. WTF.
- Seems that some particular hardware combination, and maybe Intel 13th and 14th gen processors, give a few users a hard time. Workaround guides exist.
- Character models and their AI-generated voices are nightmare inducing awful. You can shut them up, but can't do much to hide their hideous mugs (that you'll mostly see during career mode, otherwise you're good).
- The AI traffic is not very good and for some reason (servers ?) many other players don't appear, so the game's world can sometimes feel a bit empty.

The tl;dr :
It's good, very good if you're in to enjoy flying with selected planes. It has many quirks, many bug reports and many third party mods to fix them, but in the end it is a very solid package that is worth its high price.