So putting the utter debacle of the launch and its ongoing issues aside. a review and some questions. I am totally new to the recent MSFS series, I think FS 2002 or 2004 was the last one I had.
I downloaded on the 19th, but held off doing anything within the sim till today, Tues I was captivated by the rather fetching grey screen which advised me to either be patient, or preferably go forth and multiply.
I knew it was not going to be plain sailing, these things never are.
So today I got my head around the control binding stack and set up some of my more common controls. I moved the view reset over to num5 as per DCS (it has a little nub, so you can feel it in VR) and moved the VR / fullscreen toggle over to spacebar.
Finally got rid of all the silly lollypops announcing airports and local features and stopped the controls turning blue when the curser ran over them. OK much progress made.
Created a flight from Leeds Bradford Airport (learned to fly a 172 there back in the mid 90s) in the stock C172, after much more binding of controls, I could then walk around it and hop in.
Started it up, immediately hated the glass cockpit and taxied out. Once in the air I set sail eastwards, over Sherburn, headed for Drax power station and thence to overfly my house. The images used must be over 12 months old because I still had the now filled in goldfish pond in the back garden.
Set course back to Leeds Bradford and landed.
The most I can note from that flight is that the cockpit and ground textures were very blurry, far far worse than I expect in DCS where my Reverb G2 is pretty sharp. I also felt a little crosseyed.
A few more tweaks and since I bought inibuilds Leeds Bradford airport on sale a couple of weeks ago for a fiver, I downloaded and installed it.
I can confirm it works just fine in 2024, although the framerate on the ground sucks and there are artifacts when you move your head quickly.
I think I may have to switch Nvidia reprojection off. I am guessing that is the culprit.
So another flight from LBA taking off from the southside general aviation ramp at multiflight. Took off and climbed out (not above 2000ft) as I seem to remember until uncontrolled airspace.
Set course for Keighley and my old training area, the textures seemed a bit clearer than this morning, but still have a ways to go for it to be satisfactory.
I still felt a little crosseyed though, I think the binocular view setting needs tweaking in the sim by the VR bods.
Altering my IPD setting did nothing.
So amazingly, I still remembered the training area and flew around quite happily, though the clouds started rolling in, visibility dropped and it got a little choppy.
So there is Menwith hill in the distance, all those golfballs I knew so well. so set course for those, knowing once over Menwith, Leeds Bradford was around 10 miles or so due south.
Found LBA, standard overhead join and pattern and followed a jet2 airliner down the pipe at a respectable distance. Dunno if wake turbulence is a thing in FS2024, but it is in DCS and I do not want my little C172 to get thrown onto its back.
So conclusion.
The sim needs a lot of work re crispness of textures, both from MS and myself.
I did enjoy it, I conducted a VFR flight around Yorkshire with little more than a pair of eyes and local knowledge. I can see it has a very good core and has very good possibilities.
VR is in need of fine tuning. it is not up to scratch at the moment. I hope by the time I saved up for the crystal light it will have improved.
C172 after almost 1000 hours of flying the Hog in DCS was incredibly simple, far simpler than I remember it to be and I started it up and flew without recourse to the books ( I am a bloke, I never RTFM).
The C172 rudder seems a lot more fierce than I remember though, incredibly fierce for such small inputs and at relatively slow approach and takeoff speeds. I have all the “assists” switched off and tweaked the sensitivity of my crosswinds down a fair bit, but it remains a bit too fierce.
One great annoyance. I have a box that says recentre view or somesuch with various tickboxes like EFM right in front of my eyes in the windshield. I have had no success in getting rid of the monstrosity and actually had to look around it when coming down final.
How do you get rid?
Also, how do you set up the local cache size? Having fitted a new M2 drive just for MSFS 2024, I have plenty room to up it.
I am presently confident enough in 2024 to buy the A2A Comanche. Not big on default aircraft.
There we have it.