Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance

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In the time I’ve been here I’ve come to understand that our reaction to this sim often parallels the grief model first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, ‘On Death and Dying.’

Denial:
“I can’t believe my system doesn’t let me fly the most complex planes in the most resource-intensive areas, with the highest graphics settings. This can’t be right.”

Anger:
“I can’t believe I spent that much money on a system that doesn’t let me fly the most complex planes in the most resource-intensive areas, with the highest graphics settings. I’m really upset about this.”

Bargaining:
“Dear Microsobo, can you please update the sim so my system can fly the most complex planes in the most resource-intensive areas, with the highest graphics settings. If you do, I’ll stick around and buy more stuff.”

Depression:
“I’m thinking of quitting the sim. It’s just no fun anymore. I’m really sad.”

Acceptance:
“I finally realize that I won’t be able to fly the most complex planes in the most resource-intensive areas, with the highest graphics settings. I have to accept that this sim is extraordinary in many ways, and I’ll have to make some compromises between my expections and reality.”

The above is of course partly tongue-in-cheek. But there’s also a modicum of truth in it. I’ve reached the final stage, and have come to the realization that I have to fly within the limits of my system. I had no real expectations when I spent close to $3,000 three years ago for my computer - only hopes and dreams. Those dreams haven’t been dashed, but I have gone through the first four stages to some degree, wondering why a fairly powerful computer seemed handicapped in certain situations.

I still get a lot of enjoyment out of exploring all the different and wonderful aircraft, scenery, and weather out there (in there?) I’ve just learned there are some things I cannot do. I can be depressed about that, or I can accept it and fly on.

Also, I want to apologize if this offends anyone who faces, or has faced, a diagnosis of a terminal illness in themselves, their friends, or family members. That’s a real thing, not a game, and demands the deepest respect.

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You see similar things within bug reports:

I haven’t changed anything on my system but its not working
I don’t see why I should have to remove my addons to fly, and flatly refuse.
Is there a way to get my sim to work with all my addons?
I can’t believe I have to fly without that addon.
I found that once I updated the addon it now works.

It’s quite common, and the struggle is getting to that final step as quickly as possible to get people up, and running again, but in such a way as not to trigger step 2. :wink:

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I think I’ve been in acceptance since it released. As times gone on, and seeing folks with PC equivalents of a Bugatti Veyron, I’ve come to realise that spending thousands on the best components known to mankind, probably wouldn’t have improved things enough to justify spending those eye watering amounts anyway, at least from my perspective. At least not on a 40mb internet connection… :laughing:

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This is all very true, but there’s another layer that interferes occasionally: The promis of a fix for something that turns out to be a let down (e.g. new ground physics). Then you have a new round of hope, followed by frustration, anger and eventually acceptance.

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Understand I’m not talking about our reaction to a lack of a fix for things that are truly broken.

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yes - the ‘Event Horizon’ or the point of final realization - the intersection where our rigs, our expectations, and the actual reality of what we can reasonably afford to work with collide. In my personal experience, the quicker a guy can accept these things, the happier he will be.

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In the old 8086 days when PC’s had a clockspeed of a mere 4.77mhz this happened too. The few 8386 owners that i knew where able to play their flight simulators at a smooth fps while mine was just like an animated slideshow.
So, i took it for granted and hoped for the best.

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My first PC was a Leading Edge IBM clone (Green or amber screen! Dual 5 1/2" floppies!) A friend brought over a copy of Lightwave v1.0.0 that had a 20 second sample animation from Blade Runner. I excitedly installed the app (I forget how many floppies I had to load, but it was - ahem - more than one. :wink:

Before I went to bed I set it to rendering. I came back the next morning and it had finished 2 seconds. That’s like 0.002 frames per second. :rofl:

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on the flip side it’s worth noting that it is that very dissatisfaction and frustration that drives innovation - and that without it - we’d all still be living in caves with our stone knives and bearskins. The critical component is just not to be overrun by extreme emotions maybe. What do I know - I’m prone to fume for an hour over someone failing to use their turn signal in tight traffic.

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First of all I will say I liked your post a lot. However it would be also good to remember how MSFS performed after summer 2020 and how it performs now, 4 years later. During initial stages a 2080 card on Ultra settings could deliver 40fps at urban areas and there was no camera panning freezing. Now even a 4090 card is not able to reach that figure (raw fps without FG) on ultra settings and it has a lot of camera panning freezes. You can see two examples below in videos from 2020:

The software degradation factor is missing here and indeed is the reason to trigger the other steps you described. This is not a problem of users pretending to push their systems beyond their limits but a problem of a design that initially worked well and now works worse. Is as simple as that.

The console users can´t push their systems beyond their limits at all, to start with, because they have no control over those limits. What they get is what Asobo decides they have to get after each update in terms of performance and graphical quality.

Therefore I only disagree on the acceptance step, because while acceptance continues we will just receive more degradation for a higher price. I honestly think that such situation has no sense and is not good for users nor even for developers.

Cheers

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All the new airports and scenery updates should be for the region where I live. Never mind the other side of the planet!

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I like the original post, its true i guess, we have to accept it is what it is but i personally find it difficult to accept, ive upgraded my pc a few times over the years yet i havent really gained any fps increase since release because some of the sim updates have lost fps , i often wonder what fps i would be getting if i hadn’t upgraded… So ive proberbly spent the equivalent cost of 2 xboxes to achieve better performance and a smoother experience yet gained nothing, i cant help feeling abit cheated. And on top of all that the sim doesnt look as good as it used to.

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I would simply ask this:

So much has changed in four years. Has anything improved? Have those improvements added complexity and resource utilization?

I didn’t tag Xbox because my post specifically excludes Xbox users. That’s a whole other discussion.

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I think those of us who have been with FS since its infancy don’t really have that problem anymore.
We have had 40 years of all sorts of emotions……good and bad, high and low dare I say utter joy and despair.
And we have literally spent thousands of dollars on the various iterations of FS, PC hardware and hardware upgrades as well as peripherals.
Those really infected may have even gone so far as to get a real pilots license just so that we can compare first hand if it now is finally „as real as it gets“
I have done all those…and I am glad I have. I certainly will also get the premium edition of 2024 as soon as it is available.
And probably will have to visit my favorite computer store again….they probably will start building a system as soon as 24 is released anyway :rofl:

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Great post and I can vouch for that from my own life experience, what we ideally need in our shed/barn/garage is a super computer like the “frontier super computer” hopefully that should be able to deal with any stutters, frame rate issues and allow us to fly in 4k! :rofl:

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Probably not, because as soon as computer hardware has caught up to FS, they will release a new SU and once again the hardware will be wheezing and puffing just to keep up.

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And sometimes when you get to “as real as it gets,” you can take that step back and admire it at it’s core. Knowing that even in reality, we can’t do everything. Playing it for the game and not because of the frames.

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spends a couple thousand putting together a sick gaming rig that runs MSFS perfectly, uses it exclusively to watch YouTube while using a smartphone that costs half as much to play Snake

:person_raising_hand: Yeah that’s me.

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Regarding addons, I am reminded of the old drinking joke. Imagine MSFS is your bar and an addon is a beer and your body is your PC system.
Drinker: “Your bar sucks, you sold me a beer last night and I vomited then passed out!”
Bartender: “sounds like your body couldn’t handle that beer sir…”
Drinker:“My body’s fine mate. I drank 20 beers before that last one and THEY didn’t make me ill!”.

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a 4090 is wasted at 1080p, even single screen 4k will not tax it enough and can possibly stutter.

This DX11, TAA 100% Ultra preset on an rtx3060 (a 2080 is considerably faster), 5800X

TAA 100%, Ultra preset, 1080p
TAA 100%, Ultra preset, 1080p1920×1080 307 KB

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