in view of what happened yesterday here in (Italy) I am referring to the infinite loading of the initial screen, which was not successful and for which I could not start the Simulator all day. There are those who say it was a server problem, there those who say the other.
Now I ask a serious question, is it possible to start the Simulator in Offline mode in these circumstances where there are server problems? in such a way that i can continue to enjoy my game? or do I have to have an internet connection perpetually, which seems counterproductive to me to be able to use a simulator even without downloading the contents of the Bing maps?
I’m sick of wanting to depend on the internet even in saving settings.
Is it possible to have the settings saved on my local PC? like Prepar3d, X-Plane, etc …
I think you only need to be online on startup for the login verification. But when you’re actually flying you can be completely offline. You can change the data settings in your general options and turn off all online features. That should make the sim run in offline mode.
Although, you will be getting inaccurate generic terrain texture but it should work.
It’s always checking your license online since you probably have a digital version.
This is why if servers are not available, the game asks for a DVD to be inserted - the DVD version can actually be started offline.
Platforms like Steam have options to temporarily set it to offline, allowing to run games despite being a digital version, but Windows/Xbox-app don’t seem to support such a mode.
That being said, the experience of flying offline in MSFS isn’t good unless you pre-cached an area or still have something in your rolling cache for the location you want to fly in.
Because it’s to prevent piracy. If there’s no login verification when you start the sim, it will be at risk of unauthorised copying to other people’s PC and they can run the sim without actually having to pay for it. This is illegal ownership, all of the previous versions Microsoft Flight Simulator in history are prone to this. You have no idea how many unauthorised “owners” of Microsoft Flight Simulator from 95 all the way to FSX who have pirated copies of it.
Having this login verification and DRM check is essential to make sure only authorised people who actually owned the copy of the sim is allowed to run. This also prevents you from running 2 MSFS copies in separate computers at the same time. So if you run MSFS on PC 1, you can’t run another MSFS in PC 2 using the same login because you’re already using one copy in your first PC. Only by closing the sim from PC 1 that you are now allowed to run and login again on PC 2.
Otherwise, the system will think that only 1 copy owned by one person is being used at the same time by two other people, because there’s no way a single person would be using 2 PCs of MSFS at the same time.
You shouldn’t need to worry though, this Login verification and DRM check is quick and easy, even on slow internet. And it only occurs once at the start of running the sim. Everything else can be done offline after that.
True, but there are ways to solve this issue (including parallell execution) by explicitly set one PC to an offline mode, blocking the license for other devices.
Of course this needs to be done before losing the connection so this license is blocked server-side.
This is the approach Steam does (for native games, not for MSFS which has its own license check after launch).
It’s neither quick nor easy if XBox servers are down, which I think is the main concern in this thread.
But for this case the above mentioned approach isn’t feasible either since at the time of setting the license to offline, the servers would need to be online.
How many times have I seen this inaccurate information on this forum?! The sim does NOT use pre-cached areas or rolling cached areas when in offline mode! This functionality is disabled! Why promote it when it doesn’t work?
how about my settings? can i have all my settings in my local PC? why i should have all my settings in the cloud? there is a solutions to save in 1 file my settings? after yesterday the sim reset my settings and i want to apply in 1 file like prepar3d or something like that
The information is accurate. If you are online when starting the sim, you can use the cached data without internet connection.
It does if you set the offline mode inside the sim but have an internet connection when starting it. That’s what the feature was created for - to reduce the internet traffic while flying by pre-caching the data beforehand.
It doesn’t work if you are starting entirely offline by activating the offline mode, yep.
I didn’t try what happens when booting with my DVD version of the sim, if it uses the cached data or not since this is a different license check.
The rest should be discussed in your thread since it’s off topic here (I just wanted to clarify that my information was not inaccurate, it depends on the context):
Thank you for taking the time to reply and clarify things.
This is true for a time. But, as Microsoft is constantly checking authentication, eventually the sim WILL detect no internet connection and disable all online functionality (back to generic landclass textures … pre-cached data useless). I think that should be made clear.
Yes, but from a practical viewpoint, how is that fully utilizing offline functionality features? A legitimate owner of the sim should be able to fire up the sim in a remote area (with no internet) and enjoy flying in pre-cached areas without being crippled by authentication issues. (imho)
Thanks, at least, for confirming this This is my main beef and something I think Microsoft/Asobo should address. (mostly Microsoft since I believe it to be a copyright “ball & chain”
This is my main beef and something I think Microsoft/Asobo should address. (mostly Microsoft since I believe it to be a copyright “ball & chain”