Download speeds in India via Indian ISPs taps out at 2Mbits/s which for a 200GB download would take almost 9 and a half days with my system online 24/7. If I use NordVPN to a Seattle based server, I'm getting 150Mbits/s to 250Mbits/s

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Brief description of the issue:

Download speeds in India via Indian ISPs taps out at 2Mbits/s which for a 200GB download would take almost 9 and a half days with my system online 24/7. If I use NordVPN to a Seattle based server, I’m getting 150Mbits/s to 250Mbits/s. Is Microsoft disregarding its customers in India by providing slow access to their CDN from India?

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Connection speed with my ISP is 350Mbits/s symmetrical.

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

Been experiencing this ever since the beta as an insider.


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2 Likes

Moved to Tech Talk for triage and Community input.

With very little knowledge I can only interject that using a VPN from some areas has been very beneficial.

I’d just like to state that this comment is merged into this thread and makes me appear a complete idiot.

The thread I responded to had at the time made no suggestion to using the VPN as a cure.

Not sure Community input is helpful here. I’ve received confirmation from the ISP that the links on their network are operating at optimal speeds. They’ve stated that the slowdown being experienced by me and others like me is caused by Microsoft’s servers in India as part of their content delivery network. It would actually be helpful if they investigated it on their end and fixed the problem. Or allow us to test speeds to various Microsoft Servers or allow us within MSFS 2020 to select a CDN point of our choice or the fastest one available rather than the closest one geographically.

As a customer, if there’s an issue with Microsoft’s CDN, self-service isn’t an answer I’m willing to accept.

3 Likes

If that’s the case, you should open a Zendesk Ticket directly. Bug reports here would require repro among other characteristics which can’t be done easily (or at all) for a scenario with something as individualistic as a home Internet connection.

Am not the only person here who has faced similar download speeds either. Either MS is hosting MSFS files in select locations and the closest node for a lot of users does not store mirrors/caches of these files, or MS needs to attend to its infrastructure in countries where users are facing these issues.

It has nothing to do with the user’s internet connection but rather MS and their CDN. It’s therefore a bug in the overall experience that MS needs to resolve and not something that affects just one individual and their home internet connection.

It’d help if you fully understood the problem before you casually click away in dismissal of a genuine issue with MS and their CDN.

4 Likes

Great post, partly because it exposes the truth regarding how poor their servers are to run the simulator. It is a big problem, maybe not so bad in the US, but elsewhere absolutely needs improvement.

Honestly, from data streaming photogrammetry to downloading MSFS 2020, it only works via VPN for me. On my 350 Mbits/s symmetrical connection here I get errors from MSFS 2020 that my connection speed is “too slow” and MSFS needs to turn off photogrammetry. Meanwhile, on a VPN to the USA, it works fine.

This is Microsoft’s issue and while they’re happy to take money from countries all over the world, they seem to focus all their network infrastructure on a few hotspots around the world.

The disregard for paying customers elsewhere and the assumption that we’ll either spend over a week and a half download MSFS 2020 every time we need to reinstall or update or use a paid VPN is just both rude and arrogantly stupid.

NordVPN works great when connecting to a server in Seattle (go figure).

I guess it’s up to us customers to list out which countries have great connections to Microsoft’s CDN and that host mirrors/caches of MSFS 2020 so those in ignored countries can BUY a VPN subscription and access those specific countries that MS seems to care about.

I’ll go first then:

Good List
Seattle via NordVPN (If you’re in North America)
Singapore via NordVPN (If you’re in SE Asia)

Bad List
Anywhere in India

No one’s “clicking away” your issue as it’s still here, up on the Discussion Board. However, given you’re characterizing it as a Service Network Issue based on Microsoft’s underlying service (it’s neither XBox Gaming or Playfab that is directly accountable for what you’re framing) - the Dev Team can’t address that directly. Therefore - open a Zendesk Ticket so it can be routed to the team within Microsoft that might be able to address it.

Yeah, I’ve opened a Zendesk Ticket as well but it’s not right that so many customers have complained about this exact issue and the recommendations given so far in these forums are to disable auto-tuning TCP packets, or fiddle with their network adapter settings or hit this tweak or that when in reality the issue rests entirely with Microsoft and their CDN. Those troubleshooting tips don’t do jack and just frustrate us, customers, more and more.

Microsoft has yet to admit they’ve messed up and they’ve yet to do something about it and this is a problem I’ve faced right from day one as a beta tester.

As pointlessly suggested by the Mods here, I reached out to MS via Zendesk and raised a ticket.

Below is the useless reply I got from them:

Hi XXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Flight Simulator Support today. Unfortunately, we at MSFS2020 Support have no control over the connection speeds to the various content delivery networks.

Content delivery is provided by Microsoft | Azure Playfab. You can view the Status of PlayFab services and history of incidents here: https://status.playfab.com/

Authentication : May prevent players to access the game in Online Mode.

Data : May prevent players to access the game in Online Mode.

Content : May prevent players to access the game in Online Mode.

Cloud Script : May prevent players to access the game in Online Mode.

Data : May impact the Marketplace.

Inventory : May impact the Marketplace.

Content : May impact the Marketplace.

If there is an outage, please try again later.

If there is no outage, we recommend following our guide “[Slow download speed]”(https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015761760-Slow-download-speed)" to improve the connection to Azure Playfab’s servers.

Kind regards,
Microsoft Flight Simulator Support Team

MSFS_Stetson

I have since replied to them with the following:

Hi MSFS_Stetson,

Thanks for your reply. The team at MSFS2020 may not have control over connection speeds to various content delivery networks, however, you could switch to or use better CDNs or fix MSFS2020 to select the fastest CDN INSTEAD of the geographically closest one. The closest one need not be the fastest as demonstrated by the screenshots shared.

In India, when using MSFS 2020, the speeds of the CDN we connect to (possible servers in India) are impossible to work with. My symmetrical 350 Mbits/s connects at 2 Mbits/s to the servers that MSFS uses. This means a download time of either 9 and a half days with my system running 24/7 or almost 20 days if my system runs only during the day.

To bypass the connection to your Indian servers or whichever servers MSFS 2020 choose to connect to, I use a paid VPN service that puts me in Seattle. When that happens I’m downloading and streaming data at 150 Mbits/s to 250 Mbits/s.

Based on the above, the issues are CLEARLY not to do with my connection or my settings here. Also, it’s not my job to figure all this out for you and figure out some way to make MSFS 2020 playable after spending all that I have on your Premium Deluxe Edition as well as your content from your Marketplace.

Since you cannot control Azure Playfab or Microsoft’s CDN, you can fix your game to connect to the fastest available server INSTEAD OF the closest geographical server because as I stated before, the closest one need not be the fastest and I’ve proven the same by using a VPN to Seattle.

As a customer, I’m putting the onus and responsibility back on you then as you need to fix your game/simulator to work with the CDN that YOU chose such that customers all over the world have equal access and great connection speeds to the CDNs that YOU chose. Get my drift? Now does this make better sense for you?

P.S. I reformatted my entire system, ran a fresh install of Steam and MSFS 2020 and still got 2 Mbits/s. No antivirus, no software tweaks, no other applications running in the background. Switch on the VPN and boom, decent speeds to your chosen network.

The issue rests with the MSFS team and the CDNs they choose. If they cannot direct the CDNs they choose to provide better services to those ignored in other geographical locations, you need to fix MSFS 2020 to select the FASTEST server as opposed to the CLOSEST server.

Regards,

XXXXXX

Final reply from MSFS Team:

Hi XXXXXX,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Flight Simulator Support.

First, we want to thank you for taking the time to share your feedback and ideas with us today.

We have requalified this ticket into a Feedback and Feature request which means your message has been tracked in our internal bug & feedback tracker for review. While we review and log every suggestion in our database, we are not always able to provide an individual update which is why the Community team publishes a weekly “Feedback snapshot.” Make sure to check the Weekly Development Updates to see if your feedback made the list. If it didn’t, do not worry, as the name suggests it is only a snapshot and even feedback and ideas that don’t rise to the top are taken into account.

Rest assured that we are committed to improving Microsoft Flight Simulator over time and greatly appreciate your feedback!

If you have any further suggestions, visit the Wishlist and vote for your favorite potential feature update.

Kind regards,
Microsoft Flight Simulator Support Team

MSFS_Stetson

Looking at www.submarinecablemap.com, you should connect to singapore vpn server and use MSFS server south east asia (Singapore). You would retain more bandwidth compared to going all the way to US.

1 Like

It appears if we want to get this feature implemented, then the community needs to apply a little pressure on the development team to get this issue fixed once and for all.

Bang on, Singapore seems faster, tested it out in MSFS 2020 and it’s also up in the 200 Mbits/s plus range but with a much lower ping. So Singapore is a great option for those in Asia maybe, SE Asia at least.

Shame we need a paid VPN to use MSFS 2020 in India. For those experiencing slow download issues, I’d say ignore the official advice from the MSFS 2020 team and just get a paid VPN like NordVPN and access the closest major hub where it’s likely MS and Azure Playfab have servers.

My suggestion that the MSFS 2020 team add the functionality to MSFS to select the fastest server instead of the closest one geographically has been submitted and accepted. Till then, try this as a potential fix.

1 Like

Great.

That said, being located in India and frequenting international sites, a VPN is a standard necessity anyways.

I’m in central USA and your stats were interesting.

Can download speeds increase if my VPN uses Seattle, WA?

Here is my stats.
ISP is Spectrum at 300Mbps.
VPN is IPVanish.

Seattle , WA
Down 224.15 Mbps
Up 10.63 Mbps
Ping 126 ms

Chicago Il
Down 223.85 Mbps
Up 11.09 Mbps
Ping 63 ms

ISP
Down 233.14 Mbps
Up 11.46 Mbps
Ping 64 ms

In your case it did not make too much of a difference however keep experimenting to various backbone hubs where MS or Azure Playfab may have servers and see. Till MSFS automatically selects the fastest server available, we’re going to have to fend for ourselves and see. Your pings seem rather high though and what are your upload speeds with your ISP? Something I’ve noticed in the US is assymetrical connections where downloads are what’s advertised but uploads are just terrible.

True that and not just for speed concerns.

I was getting only 5Mbits/sec for downloading. Left it running all night to no avail. Loaded up my NordVPN and connected to the SEATTLE Wa VPN server and it took off. Average 120Mbits/sec. Seattle, as you may know, is MS headquarters so that may have made a difference.