I’ve just worked out my PC has burned something like 8 kilowatt hours in the past 24 just displaying the blurry background to the menu system while I’ve been downloading / installing the Update 5. Multiply that by however many people also downloaded the update.
At some point maxing the GPU for hours to display an image no-one can actually see stops being a harmless bug and becomes a corporate irresponsibility.
I have always found it versty st**id that they run the 3D renderer and everything just to update the game instead of simply providing updates vie the Windows Store which can do so without even loading a GUI.
Instead it makes my PC cripple at times and lowers performance in other games just so it looks “pretty”.
If you have a Nvidia card you can edit the 3d settings for MSFS in the Nvidia control panel to limit the frame rate to overcome this issue - I found my GPU was working north of 90%, drawing 180-190 watts of power and running at 800 fps.
Thats said I would have thought it would be possible for the devs to be responsible and limit the frame rate while updating, loading and in the menu…
I’ve been raising this same issue again and again, how can such a simple problem with a simple fix be ignored?! It can be remedied slightly by setting render scaling to 60 in graphics settings (thanks to someone else who told me that), and also going into window’d mode and making it as small as it will go.
I also turned vsync on - not sure if both are needed or not - but it works.
With the best will in the world some instructions in a forum is not going to reduce the environmental impact.
I’m keen to emphasize the issue I’m highlighting is corporate responsibility - this isn’t a gripe about a bug I don’t like or thinking Asobo is dumb for doing this in the first place - it is pointing out an issue and hoping Asobo recognise the environmental impact.
(Edit - Blitzer thanks for the screenshot - I had already tried that myself without success - it turns out the additional necessary step is to quit MSFS and restart the download & hope it picks up more-or-less where it left off - my GPU went from 99% to 40%. I guess you’re saving the planet one person at a time.)
Not disputing your point, but at least my download has reduced the gpu power draw from 180-190 watts to 50-60 watts… not excusing the fact that the poor quality update service now has me into 13-14 hours of the pc being trying to get the sodding sim up and running again…
Curious if you are aware of the massive scale that Microsoft has invested in sustainability and carbon negative work? While what you point out is important, it is equally important to have a view on the big picture as well. If you’d like to learn more…Microsoft sustainability.
And one more: Microsoft’s newest sustainable datacenter region coming to Arizona in 2021 | Azure Blog and Updates | Microsoft Azure
Azure is part of the environment that MSFS operates. So understanding how the Azure datacenter operates under a 100% renewable model is important in the big picture. Until WE start operating our powerful desktop computers with all of their power-hungry requirements in homes that are also operating sustainably, it’s important to know the infrastructure that we use, is.
8.5 hours of downloads over 2 days now and still at 94%
What a joke!
I don’t know whom you might be pointing fingers at, but my upgrade, including all the premium deluxe features that had to be done from within the sim itself, took about 2 hours. Granted, I have a fat pipe, but at no time did I see more than 25% of it in use. So I would suggest that if your ire is directed at Microsoft, it’s probably pointed in the wrong direction, as they have the bandwidth to do it much faster than 8.5 hours spread out over 2 days. Even serving literally millions of end-users at the same time.
Then again, moving data from Point-A to Point-B over the interweb is sometimes more voodoo than it is science. Still, assuming you’re paying for decent broadband, I would start spot checking the speeds you’re actually getting, as opposed to what you think you’re paying for just as a sanity check.
There are LOTS of speed checking websites, but speed.googlefiber.net has become one of my preferred ones when I smell issues.
Kev
It’s not just the speed of the download; all the files are compressed; they have to be expanded, placed in the correct folders and the files that are being replaced have to be deleted off whatever drive things are going on. This requires some significant CPU time; it was one of the few times mine was actually working hard. In addition, if you’re dropping all this stuff on a slow spinning hard drive vs a SSD, additional time is required for the writing to disk part. So there a lot of moving parts; my download from start to finish was 42 minutes; then I had to update all the things in content manager that were needing updates and then I had to reconfigure my community folder one update at a time to make sure things worked as they were added back. So, all in, it was probably four hours of work.
I get ~ 40megs download on my internet & it still kook me will over 9 hours to download the updates.
Think my ISP limited the download or it was jut very busy (youtuve and TV download OK)
I now get CTD after ~ 10 mins (nothing in the community folder)
Happy days think I need to do a complete uninstall / re-install this is not a good upgrading system by Asobo / MS
I usually don’t play for a few days after an update goes live and once all the fuss has died down my updates have all been fast and painless.
I got caught up in the hype for SU5 and jumped on that update the moment it went live.
It took about 4 hours which it much, much longer than I usually have to wait.
There’s a simple fix for that. Don’t do it lol! In my opinion, the only reason to have or use a spinner (HDD) in 2021 is for storage of large amounts of video/movie data. (Storing, not editing!) Games, including MSFS in my opinion, are being designed with users using solid state drives in mind, and it won’t be long until it’s an outright requirement. I think it already is, just unspoken.
@G0EMF that could be, but 40megs is really not what it used to be. When I said I had a fat pipe, I meant a full Gigabit, and at times it was up to ~250 mbps give or take. So, yeah, if you’re only on a 40 meg pipe, your ISP is throttling you, and you’re streaming video all at the same time, well… That’s not MS’s fault.
I feel the same. It maybe the same reason why they have the most annoying soundtrack repeating until the rats in our basement hang themselves.
Can’t understand why the menu can’t just be a simple 2D menu which will have less power consumption.
However we can do something about it and that is to restrict the frames per second to around about 30 FPS which should have lower power consumption for the duration of any update. You can do this through rivatuner or in NVIDIA control panel.
From a carbon footprint moral perspective, you can’t hold a Asobo or Microsoft responsible for the individual purchasing the product or the hardware to run this application. If you’re willing to use high power consumption to obtain hundreds of hours of flight time within a simulator, I’m sure you can spend the odd 24-hours to download an update without feeling guilty.
No one is forcing a gun to our heads.
Looks like everybody is now just trying to find reasons to stomp asobo and microsoft, no matter what, and some are digging deep! This whole update V situation has become slightly ridiculous… It’s not nearly as bad as some of the overdramatic and toxic posts suggest.
Yes, this isn’t a perfect update. Yes, there are many bugs and issues to work on, we get it, we understand. Yes, the marketplace isn’t perfect and there aren’t many great 3rd party planes yet, yes, we hear you, we also perfectly understand that more features need to be added, and polish, we really get it. Many of us have been around since before Fsx, many of us remember how long it took Xplane and P3D to even become something slightly usable, and it was a longshot from what we have now with msfs2020, if we directly compare development time. Updates were orders of magnitude smaller.
P3d was nothing after a year, Xplane wasn’t even a serious contender until version 10, but people forget quickly, it’s normal. I deeply sympathize with everybody that had a nightmarish updating situation, I really do, it’s not fun and it leads to anger and frustration.
But let’s not forget that not everybody has a bad time, not everybody is stuck with bugs or a huge stuttering mess, and let’s not forget that this sim is being updated regularly! More chances to mess stuff up, but also more chances to do quick fixes. All I’m asking, is that we cut the devs some slack and appreciate their work, once in a while.
It’s totally fine to criticise constructively, but some posts are downright hateful and written in a provoking way to produce even more anger, frustration and baseless fearmongering.
Let’s relax, give asobo a chance to do what they gotta do and be patient. Those guys are giving all they got, so that we can enjoy a modern day sim. Would life be better without Msfs2020? Not for me…we will get there. Cheers and let’s tone it down a notch!
Minimise app to taskbar while downloading, problem solved.
Its funny there crying about a few pennies of electricity from a machine, do you know what kind of damage the Azure network is probably doing to the world. From its high power usage (some of which is being off set by solar and wind) to the insanely high temps the server farms generate on top of that, and the scrap metals from the failed servers that have burned up.
Id say you should boycott this game (more bandwidth for me) HA!
I have a harder time talking about corporate irresponsibility without thinking of my own. I use a lot of power just to run a simulator.
And it’s exactly that attitude which prevents most of the world’s population from doing anything whatsoever to reduce our combined impact on the environment. Just a few pennies of electricity you say? A few pennies of electricity multiplied by the millions of people across the world using PCs equates to countless megawatts of power, which in turn is countless tonnes of carbon pumped into the atmosphere to generate it.
So if everyone was to save “a few pennies” of power each day, the combined impact on the environment would be huge… a lot bigger than say, MS shutting down one of their server farms. Passing the buck onto big corporations does not excuse individuals from the responsibility to do their bit too.