I’m about to purchase the Sim but even the MS tech guys seem to disagree on the answer so would appreciate help from anyone in this same position:
I max out my d/l at 400Kbps due to where I live so wish to know if I can d/l the installer, install it on my PC at home and also another PC (say, at work) download the files at work with a decent 10MB/s connection then take them home on a USB drive to use at home.
Would also want to d/l the High Quality scenery (UK Only) as there’s no way my connection gets anywhere near the recommended min mum of 5Mb/s for streaming.
You may be interested in the boxed version.
Do a search here on the forum for MSFS boxed in all categories.
There is quite a bit of info there that will help make your decision!
Tbh the box version is so old now that the first thing it does is ask you to update… almost the whole sim as a download again. The high quality scenery is also streamed from the internet and while it can be cached, you need the initial connection and download to start with. Would 4G be an option?
Thanks for the pointers.
XR219, 4G is available outside my place but not indoors…!
Was hoping that it was possible to d/l the installer package on my home PC and also a work PC on a faster connection and then install the game / scenery on the work PC and just transfer it to my home machine on a USB drive hence saving almost a week of downloading, esp if I can cache the UK scenery as well.
Thanks!
I think this would be possible to do. Copy the Official folder to USB, then copy to another PC. Make sure you install NOT in the default location on the first download PC - that way you’ll be able to easily find the files, then use essentially the same location on your home pc. Download the 1-2 Gb installer from the MS Store, then when you run that, point it at the place you copied the files to from the USB. It should work.
But you can’t download only parts of the scenery - it’s stream or essentially nothing (well, garbage scenery anyway). You will need an internet connection to start the sim though.
In theory possible, but don’t think you could do that on one PC and move to another - you’d have to do that on your home PC I think as a one off. I’m not convinced that will realy work for you.
Bring them home on the flash drive, copy the sim to you slow machine, open launcher and when it asks where to install point it at the directory you copied files to.
You can also copy them, and click on the sim’s .exe file which should open ms store(maybe) it works on steam, and do it that way…
I run the game from 2 different install win 10 and win 11, using the same base install, and just dl’ing the client for which ever os I was on. There is no reason what I wrote above should not work.
Of course on a side note, why would you want to play without an internet connection, this sim looks awful when run offline.
Id just tell the wife im working late, and play at work after hours ;p
@ivorygull in order to cache scenery, would require the “Manual Cache” feature to work properly. For whatever reason, it’s working functionality is sporadic at best. Which means, the majority of time when MSFS is running, for me at least, the feature is grayed out and unavailable.
Even when it is operational, it caches small areas at a time, and in a very tedious manner. I spent probably two hours trying the manually cache the city of Louisville KY when I first got the sim. Then, at least as much time trying to cache a part of Chicago. The process is slow, and not just because of the connectivity, but the process itself.
I too wanted to do all of my downloading from my office at work so I could fly at home. It just didn’t work. Then, whenever there is a sim update, you need to empty your rolling cache, which means probably also any manually cached areas.
Wish I could offer good advice, and maybe I.gave up too quickly. But my own experience has been that downloading any substantial area for offline flying is not really doable with the Simulator in its current state.
In reference to installing MSFS, the most reliable thing to do in my opinion, would be to.simply lug your PC to your office connection and complete the installation of the program, then take your computer back home. Still, you will likely have to settle for default, auto-generated scenery. Again, sorry if I am correct, and would love to be wrong in this scenario.
Since the license is account based, not machine based it’s perfectly possible to install the game on a PC, copy the folder with the Official and Community folder to a external disk and copy it again to the other PC.
As said, better to install the repository on a custom location (so when the sim starts for the first time, hit the “Browse” button and navigate to a custom dir like D:\MSFS or C:\Games\MSFS-repo or some sort) and copy that dir.
On the other PC, first copy the content to the PC again on a custom location. Then after installing via the store/steam (which can be done when signed in to the same account) you can point to the custom dir by using the browse button. The installer will check for updates, probably won’t find any and will boot into the menu.
In that case, one option I might suggest (and I had to use this myself in the first 6 months of being at this house) is a 4G MiFi device with an external antenna. It worked really well and I actually got better broadband speeds than BT Dsl!
I can’t find the antenna that I bought, but the wires were thin enough to go out of the window and close it. This is the little 4G MiFi router I was using (there may now be better).