Microsoft Flight Simulator

[endo]

A Kempston joystick and an old Speccy light pen I had lying around. Not having much success tbh.

[briareos_kerensky]

It definitely feels early access, I find the roster of planes fairly limited too.

Yeah. In fact, what I'm disappointed the most is that all stock airplanes come with just one skin.

What controllers are people using for this?

Thurstmaster Warthog, Saitek Pro Rudder Pedals, Thurstmaster MFD set.

[Brad]

To be honest this sounds a bit crap

[gambit6613]

Really interesting to read peoples various reactions to this (on here and Steam Forums). I've been really lucky in that i have not had one single technical issue, apart from a slight download glitch but other than that its amazing for me. Its really bizarre how so many people are having frame rate/performance issues, even PC's that are on paper way more capable than mine but somehow for me it runs amazing. My specs for the record are:

Ryzen 5 3600
16GB 3200 RAM (Dual Channel)
RTX 2060 Super
1TB NVMe
Running at 3440x1440

I cant tell you what the FPS is because i havent checked, its not something i stress over, i just go by what i see and it looks silky smooth, even in major cities, i can fly through New York, San Francisco etc (Night or Day) no problem with just about everything on Ultra and its just fine for me. I get occasional lag spikes but few and far between but certainly nothing game breaking.

The learning curve is tough but ive watched plenty of youtube vids to help and im getting decent. I can somehow now cold start the Airbus A320, power everything on, taxi and take off with all assists off and cruise at 10000 feet. Landing though i cant do with it but can certainly do so with smaller planes not always smoothly but im learning.

I am just blown away by the detail, even the wife is really impressed. I cant get my head around how it works, the detail is just outrageous, i took a flight this afternoon to the Grand Canyon and my god its just stunning, jaw droppingly so. We went there (for real) a few years ago and i have found the exact spot where we stood and using the drone camera flew through and around the canyon, right down into the basin and out again and its genuinly photo realistic, the colours of the rocks are incredible. Only real issue is the closer to the ground you get the detail is poor but thats to be expected, although the rivers look fine. Anything above 700-1000 feet its amazing, when VR comes to this its going to be insane. Its the fact i have the whole world to explore, its so exciting, i keep coming up with ideas of where to go and what to see. For me easily game of the year so far.

[briareos_kerensky]

To be honest this sounds a bit crap

It's not that dissimilar from some other flight simulators (military or not) at launch: DCS World without paid add-ons is sparser than MFS, and Falcon 4.0 was a buggy mess. I think many are mistaking this for a game with objectives and the like, while instead it's aimed at people willing to spend a whole day flying an aircraft from a location to another. I was actually surprised to see more "gamey" challenges and tutorials for complete newbies.
The fact you can fly anywhere in the world with a complete weather system is more than enough for the target crowd.

My complaint about no fast jets is offset by a large number of aerobatic and not prop planes (and that there are a ton of military simulators), which is one of the most popular class for usual FS players. Recreating airliners takes a lot; the standard complement of A320, 747, and 787 is good enough...maybe swap the 787 for a classic trimotor.

[Cepp]

Joined Gamepass again to download it and see how it runs. Just want to fly around for a bit and enjoy the sights.

Won't be downloaded until tomorrow mind.

[JazzFunk]

I admire and applaud the fact it's still up there after all these many years.

Not my typa thang, never was but I was always impressed by having so much world to fly over when our kid had it on his 486 about twenny years or so back.

It sounds brill, tbh, I just wish I had the patience but maybe I will, some day(?)

[Adam]

Spawned at the O2 arena and it took me like 2 minutes to find a street nearby to land on and "drive" to my house. The layout of my area was there but it looked nothing like it heh. The tutorial missions were pretty cool and it's interesting to figure out how to navigate and prepare for landing at the runways but I think I'm already done with the game tbh. Nice big sandbox for people that like this kind of thing.

[Neon Ignition]

That's one of the things I'm curious about with these. It's a technical marvel and interesting to go to different locations as well, the learning curve is well pitched allowing for easy play all the way through to needing to know your stuff but there's not really much too it. I find it fascinating that even fans would want to experience a realistic seven hour flight experience over the sea when even in real life it's boring, and at the end of this your still at home in you cheeto stained jammies rather than on a tropical island paradise. Once running okay it looks nice as long as you keep a reasonable altitude, ground level can look messy. Glad I've been able to muck about with it though, it's not coming to Series X and I doubt it could do a decent job of it if they tried so this has been a cheap method of experiencing it.

[wakka]

[MENTION=345]Neon Ignition[/MENTION]

Why do you think it won't come to Series X? That's me being interested, not arsey

Is it because of the complexity of the controls not suiting a pad or other reasons?

[MartyG]

It's also been confirmed several times it's coming to XBox, including from Phil Spencer directly mentioning XBX: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/0..._xbox_series_x

[Neon Ignition]

Well, that's... hmm. To be honest, there's two reasons I didn't think it'd come to Series X (other than if there's much market for it). 1 - Good looking as it can look it feels like it's still a long way off being where it needs to be to run on Series X and be sold as a finished product and 2 - I'm using the XBO controller and on the basic beginner settings I can cruise easy enough but once you begin to dial up the realism for controls etc I quickly find myself needing the mouse and keyboard in tandem, it just doesn't seem suited to controller when played properly.

You could adapt it to make a MFS based Pilotwingsesque title for Series X which woudl actually be really interesting but nothing at all about the game as it stands comes across like XSX should be a consideration for it.

[MartyG]

You can plug a keyboard and mouse into Xbox One and you can get a HOTAS for them http://www.thrustmaster.com/products/tflight-hotas-one not sure about support for other sticks as there's the unnecessary peripheral lockout chip that meant you'd have to buy the same Logitech wheel twice if you want it to work on PS4 and Xbox One (I'm sure I read they'd dropped this on XBX but I can't seem to find anything to that effect).

I'd agree the pad isn't an ideal setup for FS2020

[nonny]

It's also been confirmed several times it's coming to XBox, including from Phil Spencer directly mentioning XBX: https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/0..._xbox_series_x

Not only is it coming to XSX it's also coming pretty soon. There's been a few rumours it might hit launch but most likely it'll be out before end of 2020 or early 2021.

[MartyG]

Hardware Unboxed did a video on benchmarking FS2020 on various GFX cards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6RIvvMPBTg

So, yes, 4K Ultra quality settings is probably going to be a struggle for consoles (given it's a struggle for PC), but guess what? Yes, you can reduce the settings down to medium 1080P and it'll happily run on a RX 570, so it's not going to be an issue running that game on XBX.

I'm running on high settings at 1080P on a GTX1080 and get the odd stutter. but it generally runs okay. It's clear it needs some optomisation and it's probably not helping that it runs on DX11.