Microsoft Flight Simulator - Review Thread

[Redlancet]

You left out it doesn't cinematic cut scenes. How can it be considered to have spectacular graphics when it's not filled with tons of dramatic CGI?

On the plus side, I suspect it will have a much better story than the clichéd Sony wanna-be movies.

console wars in a pc flight sim,some of you are just desperate

 

[Twinguistics]

Don't do it!

I paused and then couldn't get back in for nearly an hour.

Should have checked here before I did! I've already paused it so I can play PoE for half an hour in my break.

Oh well, hopefully I'll be ok.

 

[TriSuit666]

My install seems to be stalled at 49% on the fs-base-cgi package, stuck at 50% for what seems like hours, and still another 30Gb to pull down.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Hmm maybe this is a case of my expectations being too high, but so far I’m disappointed. The graphics are nice, but building detail is quite low and anything with curves looks like a blocky mess. Went to see the Niagara Falls, and it looked like a block of ice. Bridges and architecture also don’t represent the real thing in The majority of cases.

 

[Redlancet]

downloaded tonight and tried this morning,as good as it looks,this thing needs lot of work,its unestable,some airports like singapore are very bad,the good thing its they gonna fix these things with time and dlcs

also what surprises me ,the game is not friendly to newbies,so its gonna be funny how peope expectations clash with the reallity

 

[Dr.Morris79]

I saw that suggested as well. Restarting in Administrator mode did nothing for me, though. I don't think that's the solution, rather the person who said that worked originally was just lucky that it worked when they restarted.

I've got the same error on my lads PC. He's well upset

...Thanks MS, kids crying.

Well he's not but I almost am.

 

[GHG]

oh man this download is gonna take a while.

4.26GB out of 91.63GB


lol.

i've got it on Gamepass just to try it out (only cost me £1 for a month). if i'm happy with the performance my PC gives me then i'll buy it on Steam when gamepass runs out in exactly a month.

Why are you even bothering to cancel gamepass?

It's £3.99 a month on PC. That's more than worth it for the games on offer.

 

[INCUBASE]

Whats area 51 look like?

 

[nemiroff]

This is the strangest experience I've had on my PC in years. I'm gotten so used to everything working with one click that getting the game to start now feels like the tallest wall in the world to climb. After hours I'm still not getting anwhere. First not getting it to download packages, now stuck on some kind of boot screen again with the bar not moving at all. Resetting and rebooting, resetting and rebooting... Watching those splash screens over and over again, and that music, it's all making me rather nauseous.

Edit: I gave up and asked for a refund from Steam. Now trying via Gamepass..

Edit: Steam accepted my refund (had 3 hours logged as "played").

I have no doubt the issues and the frustrating experience will be resolved soon though.

 

[iJudged]

Hmm maybe this is a case of my expectations being too high, but so far I’m disappointed. The graphics are nice, but building detail is quite low and anything with curves looks like a blocky mess. Went to see the Niagara Falls, and it looked like a block of ice. Bridges and architecture also don’t represent the real thing in The majority of cases.

Are you playing on a toaster? If so, put another slice of bread in it and turn your shit up to maximum. Otherwise, you just might be playing MFS 2000

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

I’m playing it on 4K with ultra settings.

 

[Spukc]

I’m playing it on 4K with ultra settings.

You should try it in an 8K tv even better

 

[Tevious]

The game has crashed multiple times now for me while downloading the update. People that are trying to let it download overnight will probably wake up to only a partial download. At one point, after it crashed and I restarted the game, I got into the main menu, but couldn't get any flight to start. The "Fly Now" button just didn't work and eventually the game stopped responding after pressing it multiple times. A couple reboots later, and I'm back in the content manager again and downloading the last 10GB that I guess it missed before.

 

[JLB]

There are people that spend hours exploring Google Earth lol. I'm pretty sure this will be more desirable. I must of spent over 200 hours over the years on that old Google Earth/Google Maps browser flight game where it has that plane and you just go flying around Google Earth.
I feel this game is going to do a lot better than people think.

lol, one of my fav games: just google street random places in the world.

 

[nemiroff]

Hmm maybe this is a case of my expectations being too high, but so far I’m disappointed. The graphics are nice, but building detail is quite low and anything with curves looks like a blocky mess. Went to see the Niagara Falls, and it looked like a block of ice. Bridges and architecture also don’t represent the real thing in The majority of cases.

It's a flight simulator.., simulating the entire Earth.. In the future Flight Simulator's photogrammetry/AI/modelling will come together and be so good that you could potentially use it as a walking simulator in first person and almost everywhere you go it will look pristine. But for now it's still a first release. So for what it does right now it's still a contextual marvel. And again; remember it's a perpetual work in progress. Some things will be perfected soon, some will take longer. Some things you'll have to buy addons for, some not.

 

[Spukc]

It's a flight simulator.., simulating the entire Earth.. In the future Flight Simulator's photogrammetry/AI/modelling will come together and be so good that you could potentially use it as a walking simulator in first person and almost everywhere you go it will look pristine. But for now it's still a first release. So for what it does right now it's still a contextual marvel. And again; remember it's a perpetual work in progress. Some things will be perfected soon, some will take longer. Some things you'll have to buy addons for, some not.

sounds like you just described a demo and not a full game.

 

[GaviotaGrande]

sounds like you just described a demo and not a full game.

A demo with 93 out of 100 on Metacritic ATM. Not too shabby.

 

[_Justinian_]

Do we have an OT thread for this software?

 

[CrysisFreak]

This game has some interesting bugs. Like random Google HTML code that is asking how to make game UI popping up in the middle of a flight (don't ask why I'm flying straight up).

What the hell that is so funny

 

[Spukc]

A demo with 93 out of 100 on Metacritic ATM. Not too shabby.

true i still don't get that 93 tbh. It feels unfinished in spots and it shows. Then again 8 on meta is like a 6

 

[Redlancet]

Are you playing on a toaster? If so, put another slice of bread in it and turn your shit up to maximum. Otherwise, you just might be playing MFS 2000

im playing on a rtx2080ti with a i9 and as looks the game goods in some parts,when you go near the ground on some cities its pretty subpar,alas,its like using google maps vr,and its a thing on flight sims since their inception

 

[GaviotaGrande]

I'M FLYING BOYS AND GIRLS. I have no idea what I'm doing but damn this game is so sexy.

 

[iJudged]

im playing on a rtx2080ti with a i9 and as looks the game goods in some parts,when you go near the ground on some cities its pretty subpar,alas,its like using google maps vr,and its a thing on flight sims since their inception

Lmao at your handle what is u dooin bby

 

[Redlancet]

Lmao at your handle what is u dooin bby

oh one of these,wellcome to the ignore list

 

[Guilty_AI]

What makes these so difficult? I've never played a flight sim and just have no clue what you have to actually do.

Are you calculating wind effects or something? Seems like the only difficult parts would be take off and landing, but I'm completely in the dark on what is actually involved.

Its not really all that difficult. These flight sims are usually pretty customizable and this helps people more unfamiliar with piloting airplanes. For example you can start your plane directly on the runaway, which eliminates the need of taxiing procedures. They allow you to just fly freely without the need to make any flight plans. You can make your plane completely indestructible, so it won't overstress even if you try doing a barrel roll with a Boeing 747. Of course you'd still need to see some tutorials and learn some basic commands, but thats not really any more difficult than learning the play a new non-casual game. The worst part might be finding confortable controls for you if you don't have a Joystick.

Flight sims only starts growing in clomplexity when you're really trying to simulate the real thing rather than just aimlessly fly around just to enjoy the view. In that case you'd need to learn how to use aircraft instruments such as GPS and radio, how to do proper navigation, how to make flight plans, etc.

Oh, but landing can indeed be pretty tricky to learn, although you wouldn't really need to land if you're not serious about the simulation.

 

[nemiroff]

sounds like you just described a demo and not a full game.

Only to those who intentionally try to misunderstand.

 

[iJudged]

oh one of these,wellcome to the ignore list

lmao i didn't mean anything buy it, i just thought it was funny it says
Redlancet
Report me for trolling MS threads > 08/02

 

[Deputy Moonman]

Saw this and it made me laugh

 

[noise36]

I'm just getting setup on the game now. It kept getting stuck on this screen and the bar wouldn't make any progress:

As others have said starting the game in administration mode fixed it for me.

 

[GHG]

console wars in a pc flight sim,some of you are just desperate

Disappointed in CatLady

She's cancelled.

 

[Twinguistics]

Really pleased with how my laptop runs this. 1660ti with 16gb ram and I'm getting good performance on high settings. I'm yet to really push it though.

Made the obligatory first flight to my place, after no tutorial or anything, I just winged it (thanks). Used the drone to look around and it was kinda wild to see it in a game though really you can do the same in Google Street.

Then tried a few tutorials, it's tough but I'm finding it really fun. Crashed twice on the landing tutorial and can't wait for another go. Getting flashbacks to how much I enjoyed landing on the original pilotwings lol.

Random question but anyone else find the cockpit dials really dark? Feels like I need to turn the light on.

 

[Bog]

Hotas might be the dumbest acronym going.

 

[DryvBy]

What the hell that is so funny

I was streaming this and thought my OBS app broke. Nope. Just funky GUI programmer.

 

[Aceofspades]

Congrats to Microsoft, amazing reviews

 

[VFXVeteran]

Finally!!! Asobo/MS are the first studios to finally implement some movie quality PBR shaders. Congrats Asobo/Microsoft!!

1) - HOT DAMN!! There is no way I'm playing this sim until I get more hardware. The sim is completely designed for hardware that just isn't here yet! My 2080Ti @ 4k with Ultra settings on everything is averaging 30-40FPS and that's not good enough for a particular game of this magnitude. 60FPS is pretty much required but all the options in the graphics settings have some MASSIVE complex techinques! It would take weeks to figure out a good configuration and explain all of the features in detail. Skip that.

2) This game has the most accurate looking BRDF shaders to date. I've consistently wanted to see if any studio would go beyond the typical isotropic specular highlights and actually carry derivatives of the triangle along with all the other primitive information so that they can evaluate film quality BRDFs. Well, they did it. This plane in a hanger is rendered in realtime and the reflections (which are still screenspace) look so accurate because of the anisotropic (stretched) highlighting on the planes body. It can be done but most developers are behind working on one. I talked to Anoop @ Rockstar (Sr. Graphics Programmer) about his GGX shader he's working on. These guys made arguably the best looking 3rd party game last gen and is just now starting to play with the advamced 3D features:


3) I still haven't gone around to analyze the entire engine, but I can't wait to see what my 3090 + M2 SSD will do to speed up loading and rendering in the coming weeks.

Here is a shot of the plane I actually train out of in real life - notice the stretched highlights on the plane and in the cockpit's throttle. Also notice the reflections on the airspeed gauge:


We've finally got some REALLY good shading going on! Like I said before, it doesn't really NEED ray-tracing to look incredible but these guys brute forced a LOT of techniques anticipating faster and more powerful hardware 10yrs away (they started this development 10yrs ago). This sim deserves my blessing and my two thumbs up!

 

[CatLady]

console wars in a pc flight sim,some of you are just desperate

That's rich coming from the ultimate troll and console warrior, who has only been here for 2 months but has already earned a badge for trolling.

 

[CrysisFreak]

That's rich coming from the ultimate troll and console warrior, who has only been here for 2 months but has already earned a badge for trolling.

You guys literally brought up Sony so what the fuck do you expect?
Someone said this is GOTY then VFX-Veterinarian had to sarcastically bring up Sony and you had to respond with the Sony movie meme.
Psychos I swear, you brought this on yourself lmao.

 

[Stuart360]

Flown around New York, and over Manhattan, about 10 times now lol. It just looks so damn jaw dropping.
I think its probably going to take me a couple of years before i explore all the world hotspots i want to.
Awesome game.

 

[VFXVeteran]

You guys literally brought up Sony so what the fuck do you expect?
Someone said this is GOTY then VFX-Veterinarian had to sarcastically bring up Sony and you had to respond with the Sony movie meme.
Psychos I swear, you brought this on yourself lmao.

If I go to the PS5 thread or any of the exclusive threads that Sony fans hang out around, I can find continuous "Craig" and Halo Infinite failure comments.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Flown around New York, and over Manhattan, about 10 times now lol. It just looks so damn jaw dropping.
I think its probably going to take me a couple of years before i explore all the world hotspots i want to.
Awesome game.

How's your FPS? Are you ok with 30FPS? Or did you turn down 3D features?

 

[EviLore]

Anyone up for posting an official thread?

 

[CrysisFreak]

If I go to the PS5 thread or any of the exclusive threads that Sony fans hang out around, I can find continuous "Craig" and Halo Infinite failure comments.

Yeah so? Not from me but it's a meme anyway.
Granted it is used as a cheap shot, even though 343 cucked themselves.
In any case, shouldn't you be above that?
I think we should. In any case back to topic enjoy your sim...

 

[VFXVeteran]

Anyone up for posting an official thread?

I thought we had one?

 

[nyr88nyg]

So my pc can’t run this game. You need an expensive new pc to get the experience.

If Microsoft has this on series X they have my money.

 

[EviLore]

I thought we had one?

That's a pre-release hype thread.

 

[VFXVeteran]

That's a pre-release hype thread.

Ah.. Stuart360 ?

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Nope, just cant get past that loading screen. Marvelous.

 

[Stuart360]

How's your FPS? Are you ok with 30FPS? Or did you turn down 3D features?

Yeah locked to 30fps, and can run at 1080p 'High' at 30fps. Framerate was all over the place before i locked it, but its been very steady since locking to 30fps. It drops to around 25fps when you first load into the gameplay, at an airport, but once i'm up in the air, its almost a locked 30fps, even flying low over Manhattan.
Rivatuner was showing gpu utilization was all over the place until i locked to 30fps. 70% utilization, then 40% utilizatuon, then 90% utilizatuion etc, changing in split seconds. Since locking to 30fps, gpu utilization looks more normal, between 60%-95% utilization.
Locking the game through Rivatuner actually has perfect framepacing. The ingame limiter has bad framepacing.

Ryzen 7 2700X, 32gb DDR4 Ram, GTX 980ti. My specs for those interested.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Yeah locked to 30fps, and can run at 1080p 'High' at 30fps. Framerate was all over the place before i locked it, but its been very steady since locking to 30fps. It drops to around 25fps when you first load into the gameplay, at an airport, but once i'm up in the air, its almost a locked 30fps, even flying low over Manhattan.
Rivatuner was showing gpu utilization was all over the place until i locked to 30fps. 70% utilization, then 40% utilizatuon, then 90% utilizatuion etc, changing in split seconds. Since locking to 30fps, gpu utilization looks more normal, between 60%-95% utilization.
Locking the game through Rivatuner actually has perfect framepacing. The ingame limiter has bad framepacing.

Ryzen 7 2700X, 32gb DDR4 Ram, GTX 980ti. My specs for those interested.

I'll try locking to 30FPS to. The unlocked mode is definitely jittery with framepacing. Man, I hope that when Nvidia announces the 3000-series boards they are ready to go on sale.

Intel 6800k, 64 DDR4 RAM, GTX 2080Ti.

The game won't recognize my CH Pro Pedals either. Not sure those are supported. I'm going to do a little digging.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Nope, just cant get past that loading screen. Marvelous.

Where does it freeze up? You have Steam or MS Store version?