Many of us have been exceedingly patient with Asobo. However, post SU8, many of the issues we had in earlier versions are back. Stuttering, crashing, instability etc… Therefore, I just want to say that I am truly fed up, and share some personal sentiments in this regard with the community.
As someone who has been using MSFS since FS98, and having seen the amazing advances in technology and software, I have defended Asobo many times, saying we need to give them time, and I still think we do, but it’s now high time that this release-ready software behaves like it actually is.
I wish to preface what I am about to say with this; I mean absolutely no offence to console gamers in any way. In fact, I believe that every single simmer, gamer and computer enthusiast, no matter what equipment they are using, is important, and helps add to the diversity, expertise and richness of the greater flightsim/gaming community.
However, in my experience, until the xbox release, the sim was truly improving. Each update brought better performance and increased stability, notwithstanding the things that broke here and there, but Asobo were always quick with a hot fix. Personally, powerful as today’s consoles may be, I beleive that trying to get somehting as complex, technically complicated and resource intensive as MSFS running on them, may not be the best idea. This is, of course, my personal view, and I may be wrong.
Still, I completely understand that xbox is a huge revenue stream for Asobo and Microsoft, and I don’t blame them at all for wanting to tap an additional revenue stream. Plus, by taking MSFS to console, I’m sure Asobo has done more than anyone ever, that I can think of, to get new blood into this amazing hobby. But then, why not just have a parallel development for the xbox, and let the PC platform take maxium advantage of the addional computing power, when available?
I’ve seen numerous Xbox users complaining so much about CTDs, stuttering and instability. Perhaps that equipment is struggling to run this software in its full blown form. Perhaps the optimizations tailored for it are messing with the PC experience; let’s not forget the significant loss of visual fidelity, on PC, subsequent to the xbox release. Again, please understand, I have nothing against xbox or consoles, and this is not a “PC vs Console” argument in any way. I myself enjoy many happy hours on PS4 and, now, 5 with my friends.
I am not a noob or a novice user either. In fact, my experience with PCs dates back to the days of DOS and windows 3.1 and I have been an enthusiast for nearly 30 years now, having built and set up countless systems for friends and clients over the years, for gaming, work and other uses.
As far as I can tell, I have optimized my system (5800X/3080/32GB/NvMe/fibre) for MSFS to the best of my ability. However, after SU8, I am now again experiencing CPU/GPU utilization issues. I get 40% GPU utilization and 18% CPU utilization and stuttering and crashing. Whereas, before SU8 and the xbox release, it used to be 50 to 60% CPU and 98% GPU utilization and the visual smoothness, even if not the framerate, was exceptional. Allow me to say that, in the context of flightsim, I personally really couldn’t care less about framerates, as long as the visuals are smooth and not stuttering. I’m definitely not running in developer mode and obsessing over the framerate.
Another significant issue is load time. Sometimes I have just an hour to spare and I have had to spend up to 30 minutes simply getting MSFS to run and load the homescreen, only to have it CTD on approach a few minutes later. This is another huge, huge issue. In an age when complex programmes launch and run swiftly, particularly on capable hardware, these kinds of extended load times are really, quite franky, inexcusable. 5 to 7 minutes, totally acceptable. But 30 minutes is really not. None of these issues were present in SU7, which was by far the best post-xbox-release update, with an average of 3 minutes to the homescreen and 2 minutes to the flight, in my experience.
MSFS is a flight simulator, and flights usually last anywhere from 30 minutes to 18 hours or more, depending on how devoted the simmer is, with takeoff and landing being the most important parts. So, a flight simulator not crashing on approach, after say a 2 hour flight, is kind of non-negotiable, don’t you think?
Asobo, we plead with you; please do not let MSFS go the way of some other MS products; ahead of their time and revolutionary, but destroyed by trying to do too many things. I’m thinking of Windows Vista, and Windows 8; where the real issue lay with trying to get it to run on mobile and desktop devices at the same time. Another excellent case in point is Windows Phone, an amazing product that was, in my experience, far superior to its competitors, particularly with the ability, years ago, in certain configurations, to be able to run a full-blown windows desktop by connecting the relevant peripherals to a Windows Phone.
Having said all this, if anyone would be helpful enough to recommend anything I could do, that I haven’t already done, please do so. At this point, I’m willing to try anything. For context, I am already running a debloated, clean, stable and pristine version of windows 10. All drivers and software are up to date, clean installed. My page file is manually set to 32GB, equivalent to my physical memory. Rolling cache is turned off, and these issues are persistent with or without an empty community folder. If you have any other ideas, I’m more than happy to hear them, and I thank you in advance for sharing.
Honestly Asobo, please get these basic issues sorted. I, and many others, have been rooting for you from the moment we heard about this amazing piece of software being in the works. We have defended you, and we now ask that you heed our humble and sincere request; please resolve these basic issues right away, before anything else. Afterall, we’re paying customers, not voluntary beta testers, and this is supposed to be release-ready software.
At this point, I am not hesitant to say that, if things remain like this, and a competitor with similar or even slightly less “dream come true” software were to enter the market, I, and I’m sure many others, would seriously consider switching. If such a thing were to happen, it would be, for me at least, the first time I would switch to anything but MSFS, since 1997.
I say all this with sincerity, and a sense of true loyalty, fellowship and wanting to remain a part of this community and support this amazing development, which honestly, for that 10 year-old kid who loaded up FS98 in Christmas of 1997, is a dream come true!
I genuinely hope that MSFS will not go the way of the other amazing MS products that I mentioned earlier.
If you have taken the trouble to read to this point, please help our shared call for a stable flight sim with all the basics working right, and like this post, comment and or share it, if you feel so inclined.
Thank you.
