Steve Troughton-SmithNov 19, 2024
MSFS2024 is pretty realistic so far; it fully simulates the pre-flight interminable airport waiting experience
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

That thing where your gate information changes but still doesn't have any actual information on a delay or a boarding time, but hopefully progress is being made?

At least I've beaten the login queue!

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

I'm in!

This is a very elaborate character creator for a Flight Sim

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Quick test flight over Dublin. Performance and loading times are leagues ahead of FS2020, even at 4K(DLSS)
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
It certainly uses every last little bit of my internet connection (which admittedly is not great in the first place) to stream in the game world. I started a download in the background and it immediately complained at me 😂
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
This is the killer FS2024 feature: how quickly you can load in/out of the map (for regions you have cached) and jump around the world at will. Gone are the bonkers loading times of the previous version
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

I made the mistake of updating my graphics drivers and now I'm back at the login queue for the next few hours 🥲

Early impressions from my very brief playtime: loading is fast and painless, performance is near-60 most of the time, and it looks every bit as good as the last game and more — but it feels so much more playable because all those pain points have gone away

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

'We built our infrastructure to scale beautifully to 200,000 users, but we got a lot more than that so the servers melted’

Maybe you shouldn't have launched on PC, Xbox, and *Gamepass* at the same time? 😅 That's a lot of users who could kick the tires for 'free’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuMd7udCyFM

Developer Launch Day Update | Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

YouTube
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Bing's photogrammetry remains… poor. Infinite Loop is ‘here’, if you could call it that, but Apple Park is still missing. And still, a far cry from the procedurally-generated wildernesses in the rest of the game
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Flight Simulator 2024 is *really* bandwidth-heavy. They weren't kidding about the minimum internet speed requirements — my home internet is barely enough to keep the terrain LODs fed
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Starting Career Mode. Excited to see how much of a difference a structured mission/leveling system makes. There's a (mediocre) text to speech model here that does voiceover for all the procedural missions from the perspective of randomly-generated NPCs, and you get to choose your 'home' regional airport to begin your career at (so thousands of potential locations for your first flight — each unique)
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
There's something special about seeing your training/certification missions take place in your real-life home town. Because the entire game world powers the main menu on down, you can do some really neat interactive UI screens without lengthy black loading screens
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

Mission Failed Successfully?

…I think the servers still need a bit more work before I can play 😅

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
We're back. I discovered that from the main menu you can zoom all the way down to earth close enough to see simulated cars and water effects, which is a very neat bit of engineering
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Much like Flight Sim 2020, FS2024 excels the further you go from civilization, as anywhere Bing has photogrammetry data kinda brings it down and takes away the procedural beautification (albeit for more-realistic landmarks)
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

FS2024's new photo mode has me scratching my head. It has very basic options, but doesn't provide a ‘hide UI’ toggle for you to use your own screenshot program to save a capture. You have to capture it in-game instead.

Beyond that, nowhere in the game does it tell you where those captures go. There's a viewer to view them in-game, but no ‘show in Explorer' or ‘share’ options.

'All photographs are saved in: Local path’

Checked all the usual places and I have no idea where that's supposed to be

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

I had to use windirstat but I found the FS2024 screenshot path location.

Could you have guessed this one?

Fucking hell.

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
With that out of the way, I actually upped my graphics settings to 'ultra’ and turned off the dynamic framerate target and I'm still getting a smooth 50fps at 4K, which is so much more performance than I could ever get out of FS2020. I kinda wish I had a 40-series card with frame gen just to multiply that, but I would say this finally solves Flight Simulator's performance for me
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
‘On foot' mode doesn't quite work with photogrammetry or hand-modeled landmarks. The on-foot stuff is pretty janky overall, but I like that it exists. Realistically, you have an entire earth filled with content (and collision meshes) designed to be viewed from the air, not hiked, and that doesn't really change with this game
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Is the sim more detailed in general for on-foot gameplay? For sure. Like I said, it's when you go out to explore the wilderness that this game comes alive
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
It's far too easy to become jaded to incredible things just because you've seen them before
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Picking random spots to just land and see what the terrain looks like from human level. The detail is not bad at all; textures are sharp up close and the ground uses tessellation instead of flat surfaces. Grass inherits the color of the base satellite imagery, which provides nice variation
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
If your internet can't keep up, photogrammetry areas look a mess until they load in
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Even in Flight Simulator, Rome's historical buildings are under construction 😛
Show threadSteve Troughton-Smith
Rome, though, is still one of my favorite cities in the world, in-game and IRL
Nov 20, 2024 at 5:25pmIvory for Mac
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
I should emphasize, Flight Simulator 2024 is available on Game Pass, so if you have a gaming PC or an Xbox and $10 to spare, you can play it too
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Bing's photogrammetry brings you the N64 version of Galaxy's Edge
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
I guess that's what the focus blur is for
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

You can get a sense of Asobo's photogrammetry priorities

Disney World: 👎
Paris: 👍

The locations that sucked in FS2020 aren’t any better in this game

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
Nothing quite like flying over Europe
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
If I were trying to predict where the reviews are going to land, on this one, I think we'll see 8s and 9s. It's not that it does anything worse than its predecessor — on the contrary —, but we've 'seen it before’ now, and all the new stuff, while sorely needed, is also a bit janky and sloppy. FS2024 does feel like a much better foundation for the future of the series than FS2020, but there's still a long way to go to make everything as incredible as the world that powers the sim
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

Where are all the tourists?

…and camels?

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
I am quite content to never install Flight Simulator 2020 again. Other than offline play (if you can stomach the 200GB update sizes), it really has nothing for me over the new game. FS2020 was a chore to play, FS2024 fixes all that
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
I had to go back into my screenshots archive to find FS2020 to compare it with FS2024, because the distinction is so subtle that I can't tell the difference from my memory. I don't have anything I can show like for like yet, but you can get a feel for it from these two pictures — maybe not so subtle after all? The helicopter is 2024, the Spitfire is 2020. The 2024 location has photogrammetry, the 2020 does not
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
And for a bit of fun, let's compare FS2024 to my own drone footage. Definitely room for improvement!
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
On my internet connection, it takes a good three or so minutes(!) in a geometry-heavy city for all the photogrammetry data to stream in to the horizon for a decent screenshot. (This has no bearing on performance or fps.) Once it's cached, it's cached
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

I found the location of my Spitfire image! Holy moly does FS2024 look better. I know the satellite imagery has been updated, but the difference is striking.

(I don't have access to the Spitfire in FS2024 yet, so I took the closest substitute)

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
The different seasonal effects are very pretty, too
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024

What does it take to put these pixels on screen?

24GB RAM and 10GB VRAM, apparently, according to the Xbox overlay

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
You know the music.
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
Oh hey, my purchased planes from FS2020 have shown up. Having DLC carry over from the previous game is 👌
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024

The kraken lives!

<…hit a physics bug and was flung into orbit 😂>

At least it's pretty up here.

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
Space, incidentally, exists. So if you want to buy some Space Shuttle DLC, go right ahead… 😅
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
The magnitude of being able to run this *in realtime* is not lost on me
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
(It's real!)
Show threadGiorgio RomanoNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith i’m playing 1080p with a 4070super, i think this is the only game that maxout my card to 100%, and this game is said to be CPU-bounded! i may only imagine what it can do with a 4090…
Show threadSteven DehandtschutterNov 22, 2024
@stroughtonsmith How far have we come! Compare this to cover of one of my favorite C64 games vs a screenshot
Show threadChristian Kent   𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥Nov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith OMG is the maximum altitude now higher than 270,000 feet?
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
@whophd it's way beyond, but there are rendering bugs and other issues
Show threadJon MaddoxNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith do Starlink satellites?
Show threadBrian GrinterNov 21, 2024

@stroughtonsmith plausible 😉

https://youtu.be/olUkx6jNfCg

Doctor Who - Victory of the Daleks - Spitfires in Space

YouTube
Show threadChristian Kent   𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥Nov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Is there any reason, or indeed any way, to “upgrade install”? Should I just not bother moving any files to a new system and go for a fresh start?
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
@whophd as in FS2020 -> FS2024? No, I don't believe anything transfers. The new game is only a 10GB download, though, and everything else streams in as needed
Show threadChristian Kent   𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥Nov 21, 2024

@stroughtonsmith Wow they really listened to everyone’s #1 wish

Haven’t felt exactly this since … Office 98 🤔🤗

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
@whophd I feel like the game hit 9 of my 10 top wishes. I would really love better map/photogrammetry data, but I know that's not gonna happen
Show threadTony WestNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith you got me really interested until I read the specs of the PC I would need. Just a slight upgrade over my current setup. I’ll have to live vicariously through your images for now lol
Show threadAlex PadillaNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith I’m Like A Bird by Nelly Furtado, right?
Show threadTeklNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith This music? 😉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K42QZV2l64
Rob Hubbard - Ace 2 [C64]

YouTube
Show threadBrandon LeedyNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith
Show threadBrian GrinterNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith
Show threadUli Kusterer (Not a kitteh)Nov 23, 2024
@stroughtonsmith *hums Airwolf theme* 😜
Show threadCurtis HardNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith super buggy on PC, this is with a 14700k, 64gb of ram and a 4090, most of the time its just internet issues — but boy what a shit show of a launch.
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
@curthard89 I haven't found it buggy today (yesterday was another story, but servers), other than a repeatable crash using the showcase camera. Game runs great now though!
Show threadMieszko ŚlusarczykNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith What GPU/CPU are you using?
Show threadDiggoryNov 23, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Ha, I know *precisely* where that location is.
Show threadChristian SigritzNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith What speed is your connection?
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
@csigritz 40Mbit on a good day
Show threadChristian SigritzNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Oh. That’s low.
Show threadFrank RupprechtNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith How fast (or slow) is your connection?
Show threadPauliephonicNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Cheers for all the info and screenshots. Looks like I'll have to upgrade my PC :)
Show threadBrad Vrolijk 💬Nov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Flight Sim 20xx has the most impressive lighting engine I’ve ever seen in a game. It’s incredible.
Show threadElan FeingoldNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith pretty close, they just need to bump up the vibrancy a bit 😬
Show threadChristian Kent   𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥Nov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Tweak the wind up a bit? Needs more white water
Show threadFlo GehringNov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith still looking really fun. That’s only possible on PC/Xbox, right?
Show threadNick FosterNov 24, 2024
@stroughtonsmith this is so cool, thanks for sharing these
Show threadD. Griffin JonesNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Not sure how much difference is up to the location, but in the 2024 screenshot, the trees look more natural and diverse and the buildings look less Google Earth
Show threadBernd KilgaNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith I was 12 when I saw my first flight simulation on the C64. It's amazing how far we've come. Perfect graphics.
Show threadChristian Kent   𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥Nov 21, 2024

@stroughtonsmith The 2020 shot has subtle “Flight Similator X” vibes, but I had long ago tweaked the hell out of the settings to provide extra ground detail for little or no performance penalty

In particular, one of the “disk cache” features worked way better when set to minimum (it didn’t have a zero option)

Show threadAlejandro MartinezNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith for me the career more and activities are a game changer. Is fun to make your own goals but having some direction is awesome
Show threadChristian Kent   𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥Nov 21, 2024
@stroughtonsmith Does 2024 really offer no options if your online link dies? I hope I can elect to use 200, 500, or 1000 GB of cache. It’s probably long ago passed the point of “if the company dies, the product dies”.
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 21, 2024
@whophd I'm not entirely sure; the things that rely on servers, like career mode, can go down independently of the game, and there's an overall login/state server that took the game down for all of yesterday. I could see them adding an offline mode down the road, if the demand is there. Right now, they're selling a whole other game for that
Show threadMarcelNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith And Goa'uld
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithNov 20, 2024
@marcel indeed.
Show threadPedro FernandesNov 20, 2024
@stroughtonsmith FS is amazing but, I have been using x-plane on macOS for ages and it also is superb.