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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 | We Don't Need Roads

Naked Lunch

Member
There are several landmark moments in gaming history in my experiences.

From the jump from simple single screen games to Mario Bros in 1985.
To the 3d gameplay of Mario 64.
To the cinematics of Metal Gear Solid.
The online play of Quake 2.
The physics of Halflife 2.
The console online play of Halo 2.

Flight Simulator 2020 in no doubt another one of those landmark moments.
Its hard to believe this game does what it does.
Just amazing.
 

M.W.

Member
This game. I've got it set up where I'll plan a flight, do the take off, get in the air for a good 20 minutes or so then set AP to fly the rest of the way. I'll then jump onto console and play while mid air. Multi-tasking.
 

GHG

Gold Member
In your experience, what kind of machine do you need to run FS this good? Something at XSX level or even more?

You'll need at least the following to get it running well:
  • 6 core 12 thread CPU (AMD 3600 or an Intel 10600k)
  • 32GB ram
  • GTX 2070 Super / GTX 2080
  • nvme ssd (1tb)
If you're building for the first time you'll be looking at around £1200+

Post in this thread if you want build advice:

 
Anyone managed the JFK landing challenge? Landing something that big is so hard.

Don't I just press g for landing gear? I did that but when I landed it told me I failed to properly deploy landing gear?

What gives?
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
Anyone managed the JFK landing challenge? Landing something that big is so hard.

Don't I just press g for landing gear? I did that but when I landed it told me I failed to properly deploy landing gear?

What gives?

I thought F8 was landing gear.
 

Schmick

Member
In your experience, what kind of machine do you need to run FS this good? Something at XSX level or even more?
My PC specs are;

i5 4960k
16GB DDR3 1600MHZ RAM
nVidia 1070GTX
2TB Firecuda SSHD
100MB broadband connection

I came across this post explaining and recommending settings, which i have matched on my PC.


I have set maximum FPS to 30 and I am running at 1440p.

My experience is pretty good. I tend to fly with Live Weather and Live Traffic as well.

I am going to upgrade, but cant decide whether to upgrade first or go for a Xbox Series X.
 
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Schmick

Member
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nemiroff

Gold Member
With all the talk about CPU speed and upgrading to 32GB RAM, I just wanted to remind people about the sometimes surprising importance of RAM speed when it comes to CPU bound titles (like MSFS):



Up to 30fps gain just by setting the RAM to XMP.. I'm hoping that someone will be able to test this with MSFS to see if the result is similar (or whether low fps counter it, IDK, I'm no expert..).
 
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SatansReverence

Hipster Princess
With all the talk about CPU speed and upgrading to 32GB RAM, I just wanted to remind people about the sometimes surprising importance of RAM speed when it comes to CPU bound titles (like MSFS):



Up to 30fps gain just by setting the RAM to XMP.. I'm hoping that someone will be able to test this with MSFS to see if the result is similar (or whether low fps counter it, IDK, I'm no expert..).


My 8700k barely nudges 30-35% utilization. Poor 1070 at 99% constantly.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I started going through the tutorials and couldn't see any visual feedback for trim - how do I know when I activated it? Am I just not looking in the right place?

Third tutorial I think, when the chick teacher talked about the mile of runway.
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I started going through the tutorials and couldn't see any visual feedback for trim - how do I know when I activated it? Am I just not looking in the right place?

Third tutorial I think, when the chick teacher talked about the mile of runway.
Which view are you using?
 

GHG

Gold Member
With all the talk about CPU speed and upgrading to 32GB RAM, I just wanted to remind people of the surprising importance of RAM speed when it comes to CPU bound titles (like MSFS):



I'm hoping that someone will be able to test this with MSFS to see if the result is somewhat the same.


Speed isn't the biggest deal here, the game pre-caches required data to RAM and it will happily use 20+ GB to do so. You will have a smoother experience (better minimum framerates) when flying over densely populated areas with 32GB of RAM.

Cockpit view

You can switch to external view briefly and the trim meter will appear on the hud.

Regardless, you will feel it as you adjust it because the plane will start to pitch up or down dependent on the direction you are adjusting the trim.
 

nemiroff

Gold Member
Speed isn't the biggest deal here, the game pre-caches required data to RAM and it will happily use 20+ GB to do so. You will have a smoother experience (better minimum framerates) when flying over densely populated areas with 32GB of RAM.

I understand, and my i7-8700K, 32GB RAM and GTX1080 is actually doing quite good at 1080p. But flight simulators traditionally being CPU bound is an additional thing to a caching bottleneck. That's what I found interesting when it comes to RAM speed and BIOS settings. However, if the title isn't bottlenecked by the CPU like indicated by some here then of course there's not much to gain by changing the RAM profile. Wait, I guess that's what you basically said in other less words, LOL.
 
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The JFK landing challenge is unplayable on my rig (1660 to, 16gb ram, i5 CPU) but most other areas run well, including Manhattan in a cesna.

Could this be due to the complexity of the 737 Vs the Cesna? Any ideas? It's really annoying the difference in performance. In the air above sparce ground I can get 60fps.

Also landed with landing gear again and it said failed to properly deploy landing gear. Why? The gear was down.
 
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Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
The JFK landing challenge is unplayable on my rig (1660 to, 16gb ram, i5 CPU) but most other areas run well, including Manhattan in a cesna.

Could this be due to the complexity of the 737 Vs the Cesna? Any ideas? It's really annoying the difference in performance. In the air above sparce ground I can get 60fps.

Also landed with landing gear again and it said failed to properly deploy landing gear. Why? The gear was down.

You never responded to the other message. Are you sure you are using the landing Gear. You said you pressed G which I believe its F8 to deploy the gear. You will need flaps too.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
The JFK landing challenge is unplayable on my rig (1660 to, 16gb ram, i5 CPU) but most other areas run well, including Manhattan in a cesna.

Could this be due to the complexity of the 737 Vs the Cesna? Any ideas? It's really annoying the difference in performance. In the air above sparce ground I can get 60fps.

Also landed with landing gear again and it said failed to properly deploy landing gear. Why? The gear was down.

Performance is worse in that area because you are flying low and it's densely populated. It's to be expected.

For that landing challenge you need to deploy the landing gear yourself, the gear is not deployed when it spawns you in. Make sure you have it correctly assigned to your stick/keyboard and deploy it as soon as you get control.

Fully extended flaps as well like Nikana Nikana mentioned.
 
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Ok thanks both.

I think in the controls it says 'g' to deploy landing gear and anyway, due to the issues I'm having, I looked at the landing gear stick and hovered over it with my mouse and it said 'gear down'.

Regarding the performance, it's fine flying around big buildings in downtown NY and surely that's even harder on performance? This is way worse, it drops to 1fps.

Edit - a week in and I feel useless at this game. Anything other than a cesna 152 and I'm all over the place. Just tried a Cesna CJ4 and I rocketed to 15k feet and then couldn't get back down. I tried cutting throttle and it just told me to lower landing gear, my speed went crazy as expected and I couldn't regain control.

How do you lose altitude without gaining crazy speed? Less throttle right? Well that didn't work.

I'm sure this game is supposed to be relaxing but I don't understand how. Unless I figure out how to use the ap and go and do something else but what's the point of that?

And don't get me started on trim. It's awful on a keyboard, I don't know whether you press the key or press and hold and I'm just up down up down up down.

Edit ... And we finish the evening with ATC not working properly as he didn't announce my intention to land. Great. Again not sure if it's my fault or the game but, once again, a flight that I'm less happy afterwards than before.

I thought this was supposed to be fun.
 
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GHG

Gold Member
Ok thanks both.

I think in the controls it says 'g' to deploy landing gear and anyway, due to the issues I'm having, I looked at the landing gear stick and hovered over it with my mouse and it said 'gear down'.

Regarding the performance, it's fine flying around big buildings in downtown NY and surely that's even harder on performance? This is way worse, it drops to 1fps.

Edit - a week in and I feel useless at this game. Anything other than a cesna 152 and I'm all over the place. Just tried a Cesna CJ4 and I rocketed to 15k feet and then couldn't get back down. I tried cutting throttle and it just told me to lower landing gear, my speed went crazy as expected and I couldn't regain control.

How do you lose altitude without gaining crazy speed? Less throttle right? Well that didn't work.

I'm sure this game is supposed to be relaxing but I don't understand how. Unless I figure out how to use the ap and go and do something else but what's the point of that?

And don't get me started on trim. It's awful on a keyboard, I don't know whether you press the key or press and hold and I'm just up down up down up down.

Edit ... And we finish the evening with ATC not working properly as he didn't announce my intention to land. Great. Again not sure if it's my fault or the game but, once again, a flight that I'm less happy afterwards than before.

I thought this was supposed to be fun.

In simple terms:

To reduce altitude - decrease throttle + flaps down (don't cut the engine! You should only do this in the final phase of landing once you are under ~100ft above the runway)

To increase altitude - increase throttle + flaps up

The flaps should be adjusted in increments. They should only be fully down when coming in for landing (if you need them to shave off speed when approaching the runway). They should be fully up once you have taken off, you're in flight and your primary goal is not to decrease altitude. Every other time make small adjustments.

After you've done the above you can then adjust your trim in small increments at a time. The trim adjustment is to set your pitch. Pitch down slightly when decreasing altitude. Pitch up slightly when increasing altitude. I say slightly because when you are starting out you want to do everything in a controlled manner. Once you get more experienced and understand stuff like stalls and angle of attack (AOA) then you can start playing with rapid descents/ascents but it's best to avoid that until later.

With ATC you need to ask for permission to land at your desired airport. They will then give you instructions and clear you.

It is fun (well, if you're interested in learning about this stuff) but you need to learn the fundamentals and not try to run before you can walk.

Squirrel has a beginners guide going up on YouTube at the moment. It's WIP so it's not complete but there's enough there so far to get you started:



Go through them step by step and see how you get on.
 
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In simple terms:

To reduce altitude - decrease throttle + flaps down (don't cut the engine! You should only do this in the final phase of landing once you are under ~100ft above the runway)

To increase altitude - increase throttle + flaps up

The flaps should be adjusted in increments. They should only be fully down when coming in for landing (if you need them to shave off speed when approaching the runway). They should be fully up once you have taken off, you're in flight and your primary goal is not to decrease altitude. Every other time make small adjustments.

After you've done the above you can then adjust your trim in small increments at a time. The trim adjustment is to set your pitch. Pitch down slightly when decreasing altitude. Pitch up slightly when increasing altitude. I say slightly because when you are starting out you want to do everything in a controlled manner. Once you get more experienced and understand stuff like stalls and angle of attack (AOA) then you can start playing with rapid descents/ascents but it's best to avoid that until later.

With ATC you need to ask for permission to land at your desired airport. They will then give you instructions and clear you.

It is fun (well, if you're interested in learning about this stuff) but you need to learn the fundamentals and not try to run before you can walk.

Squirrel has a beginners guide going up on YouTube at the moment. It's WIP so it's not complete but there's enough there so far to get you started:



Go through them step by step and see how you get on.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah that's how I use trim and sometimes it works ok. It's just that using the keyboard it either feels like it's not moving the trim, or moving it too much.

I've been watch Squirrel and it's really helpful. I do feel like I can fly the basic Cessna ok-ish but the biggest Cessna was a nightmare! I just can't descend in that thing without hitting a crazy speed and so I have to ascend again to slow down.

With the ATC, I kept waiting for the AI to request permission to land but he didn't say anything until I was over the airport and I manually asked for something (can't remember what) and then they started taking again about weird stuff like I was miles away.

Unless when a lot earlier the tower said 'proceed as planned' that meant I was ok to land?
 

GHG

Gold Member
Thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah that's how I use trim and sometimes it works ok. It's just that using the keyboard it either feels like it's not moving the trim, or moving it too much.

I've been watch Squirrel and it's really helpful. I do feel like I can fly the basic Cessna ok-ish but the biggest Cessna was a nightmare! I just can't descend in that thing without hitting a crazy speed and so I have to ascend again to slow down.

With the ATC, I kept waiting for the AI to request permission to land but he didn't say anything until I was over the airport and I manually asked for something (can't remember what) and then they started taking again about weird stuff like I was miles away.

Unless when a lot earlier the tower said 'proceed as planned' that meant I was ok to land?

When you adjust trim there is a slight delay in the plane reacting to it. So adjust it, leave it for a second and see how that effects the pitch after it settles then adjust again. TBH it will be much easier if you get a flight stick set. I have my trim adjustment set to a dial on my TWCS. Maybe try setting it to your mouse wheel?

For ATC, you need to manually request landing. Tune in to the airport that you wish to land at once you are in the correct range and then make your request for landing. You'll then get instructions and clearance.
 

kuncol02

Banned
Ok thanks both.

I think in the controls it says 'g' to deploy landing gear and anyway, due to the issues I'm having, I looked at the landing gear stick and hovered over it with my mouse and it said 'gear down'.

Regarding the performance, it's fine flying around big buildings in downtown NY and surely that's even harder on performance? This is way worse, it drops to 1fps.

Edit - a week in and I feel useless at this game. Anything other than a cesna 152 and I'm all over the place. Just tried a Cesna CJ4 and I rocketed to 15k feet and then couldn't get back down. I tried cutting throttle and it just told me to lower landing gear, my speed went crazy as expected and I couldn't regain control.

How do you lose altitude without gaining crazy speed? Less throttle right? Well that didn't work.

I'm sure this game is supposed to be relaxing but I don't understand how. Unless I figure out how to use the ap and go and do something else but what's the point of that?

And don't get me started on trim. It's awful on a keyboard, I don't know whether you press the key or press and hold and I'm just up down up down up down.

Edit ... And we finish the evening with ATC not working properly as he didn't announce my intention to land. Great. Again not sure if it's my fault or the game but, once again, a flight that I'm less happy afterwards than before.

I thought this was supposed to be fun.
If you need to slow down pull nose up. That will slow your plane greatly.
 

GHG

Gold Member
If you need to slow down pull nose up. That will slow your plane greatly.

That's not always a good idea because it can lead to a situation where you stall and then you will have little hope of recovering from it because your altitude is so low (when coming in for landing).

Speed needs to be kept at a reasonable amount even when coming in for landing, that way you can bail out and try again if you need to.
 
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Catphish

Member
I, like many others, have been affected by a CPU issue with FS20 where a spike in usage by FS, resulting in a 100% peg on the CPU, will drop my framerate for anywhere from 5-10 seconds (sometimes longer) before returning to normal, smooth operation.

I found this on Reddit, gave it a shot, and it worked. I went from constantly having to deal with CPU spikes once every several minutes to, literally, never having it happen again. If you experience this issue, try this:

In Windows 10, go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Advanced tab -> Performance -> Settings -> Advanced tab -> Processor Scheduling -> select Background Services -> Apply -> OK

100% fixed the issue for me.

Just passing it along...

My specs:
i7-6700K @ 4GHz
16GB RAM
GTX 1080
 
Thanks both! Really appreciate it and, even though my posts don't sound like it, I'm really enjoying learning to fly 'properly'. I'll try and map trim to the wheel and see. I'd like to get a stick but gonna leave it a little while to see if they come back down in price. Any recommendations for the best cheap stick (without throttle or peddles)?

On the ATC point, I had it set to auto do I still need to request landing manually? I think maybe it just bugged out perhaps?
 

GHG

Gold Member
Thanks both! Really appreciate it and, even though my posts don't sound like it, I'm really enjoying learning to fly 'properly'. I'll try and map trim to the wheel and see. I'd like to get a stick but gonna leave it a little while to see if they come back down in price. Any recommendations for the best cheap stick (without throttle or peddles)?

On the ATC point, I had it set to auto do I still need to request landing manually? I think maybe it just bugged out perhaps?

I don't know about the auto part since I have it set to manual but as long as you're landing at the correct airport (and the correct runway) and they gave you clearance you shouldn't be told off.
 
I don't know about the auto part since I have it set to manual but as long as you're landing at the correct airport (and the correct runway) and they gave you clearance you shouldn't be told off.
That's the problem, I didn't get clearance as the AI didn't ask for it. I then landed but didn't get told off. Weird huh.
 
Man I suck.

How do I know where the runway is? I just tried to fly into runway two in a tiny Scottish airport and couldn't see a runway anywhere! Wouldn't I have to come in at 20 degrees? I'm really confused. I couldn't see any lights lining it or anything and i followed my nav line right to the place. Help again please.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Man I suck.

How do I know where the runway is? I just tried to fly into runway two in a tiny Scottish airport and couldn't see a runway anywhere! Wouldn't I have to come in at 20 degrees? I'm really confused. I couldn't see any lights lining it or anything and i followed my nav line right to the place. Help again please.

ATC, ask for directions at the airport you wish to land at. They will tell you the distance and direction relative to where you are at the time you ask.

BTW, on the flight stick recommendation I'd go with the T16000m Hotas:


Very pleased with it so far and it's a step up over the t flight hotas I used to have.
 

Droxcy

Member
28.0529341,-92.797164

A lot of people flying around hurricane laura currently scenery is beautiful yet scary. If any GAF members live near stay safe!
 
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