I had counted myself in the group that thought there were no changes being made to this game, or downgrades, dumbing down, or whatever else you want to call it in order to get the game running on the Xbox. The Xbox is a fairly powerful gaming machine, there is no need to “dumb down” to get it running fine. Then everything changed over this past weekend. There’s a video on YouTube, from I believe Aus Flight Simmer (think that’s the creator) which talks about how the Asobo development team is trying as hard as they can to get this game running on not only Xbox Series X, but the last generation Xbox One and One X. When I heard this my heart sunk and a feeling of dread came over me. I believe that this is a trustworthy source and can be believed. So if this is true, that they are attempting to get MSFS running on the previous generation of hardware, we should all be very concerned. I don’t think for one second this is the correct route the developers should be taking. There is no way this game will run on previous generation hardware without a significant downgrade in many aspects of the sim. It is now hard for myself not to give thought to what many have been saying on these forums about downgrades and such with each update. It makes me sad that they are even attempting this. Anyway sorry for the rambling and large paragraph but I just wanted to get this out there.
It very much is a conspiracy theory.
Even if they’re working very hard on possibly releasing on the XBox one in the future, why do you think that would have any effect on the PC version? The XBox versions will simply get a set of settings that’ll make it run (if they manage to get it running well enough on the One at all). Why would that impact the PC version?
Add to that; in the latest Q&A stream they even mentioned a possible ‘higher than ultra’ set of settings for PC’s that can handle it.
To me it feels like the PC is the guinea pig for the Xbox releases. It also feels like they are biting off more than they can chew when there are still so many issues with the PC version and they are trying to release on not one but 2 other platforms. It would be great if they could release on both platforms but at what cost will it come?
Why would it be a cost?
They’ve found a lot of nice performance optimizations while working on the XBox version, those will come to the PC as well.
Might turn out that developing the XBox version will only improve the PC version.
Not a cost to the PC version but to the Xbox version particularily an Xbox One version. It makes me think of Cyberpunk trying to get such an advanced game or sim to run on hardware that can’t handle it.
If it can’t handle it, it won’t be released for the One, simple as.
Software has been successfully deployed across multiple platforms for as long as multiple platforms have been around. I see no need to worry on this score.
Lessons learned on one platform can be of benefit on another.
The difference with Xbox is it is a single bit of hardware so they can optimise in ways that the PC version cannot possibly do.
They also have pretty much preset graphics options on Xbox so there will be none of this winding everything to past Ultra and then tweaking the config files to get stuff like LOD 800 and then complaining the game will not run on your parents 3 year old PC.
That said the Xbox One has pretty ordinary specs it will be amazing if they pull that one off,
Would that setting be called “Ludicrous” or just “Plaid?”
I’m partial to Plaid, after Tesla stole Ludicrous.
Higher than ultra settings probably means Raytracing. But that will come probably next year. Right now their only focus is to get MSFS up and running on the console and be as identical as it can be to the pc version. Series X has a native DX12U api. That is probably helping them alot with the optimization.
As for last gen console, they will probably have it up and running at 720p. Even then its only going to be supported on Xbox One X and not the base Xbox One.
It is possible right now on PC to go higher than ultra. Quite a few sliders (such as shadows) have higher settings than chosen when you select “Ultra” and if you want to edit the config files you can push LOD out to 800 . You can also of course wind up the render scaling to 8K on a 4K screen though whether that makes a noticeable difference is debatable.
I vote for Plaid as the name for the new uber-ultra settings…
Can’t imagine playing MSFS on a Xbox I’ve personally have been using a PC with flight simulators since 1982 and Sublogic flight simulator
Not just that. We’re talking larger radius of photogrammetry loading, a larger distance of scenery draws (LOD) and elevation data (so the mountains would not pop up as much) that can be set with a slider beyond 200. I think it is a great idea for those people whose PC can handle it and for near-future proofing.
I guess you know, but Tesla has taken Plaid too!
Mark
The developers said somewhere that there is to be no dumbing down of the PC Sim. Cheers.
After they secretly dumbed down the lights, and instead of the individual LEDs, like on the Citation Longitude, where previously you could see the individual LEDs on the taxi lights, landing lights, wing inspection lights, when they were lit, to now, huge blobs of circle or oval, and very ugly, I’d say that anything is possible with Asobo. Things keep getting covertly uglier while we’re presented world updates to distract those who aren’t paying attention.
Keep in mind, the biggest point is Microsoft is looking for ways to make MSFS a constant revenue stream. This is challenging on PC since free mods are widely available. With XBOX, gamers can only mod thru a paid marketplace. (Look at games like fallout 4, etc) The same mods that were free on the PC version, are paid ones on console. Thats how they will make their most their money back. They are hoping the XBOX version will be their cash cow and they will focus more on making improvements to XBOX version with that goal in mind.
Of course the devs won’t admit it, but they absolutely 100% will dumb the PC down. It will be behind closed doors and you won’t hear about what features could have been implemented on PC. If it doesnt work on XBOX it won’t be an option on PC.
I am more inclined to blame those sort of changes on people with “mum and dad” PCs complaining about performance than anything to do with Xbox .
Slowly turn it into an arcade game to attract as many younger players as possible. SELL, SELL, SELL. Next we will be seeing Airbuses and Boeings appearing with machine guns built into the wings…