Looking at the initial requirements to run MSFS, they had minimum, recommended, and ideal.
Ideal was: CPU: Intel Core i7-9800X / AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X RAM: 32GB GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 / AMD Radeon VII VRAM: 8GB Storage: 150GB SSD Bandwidth: 50 Mbps OS
Now that we can get 11900K and 3080, will the software keep adding features and updates so we will eventually need even faster pc parts - like the 13900k and the newer 4070 coming out by next year?
they’re shooting themselves in the foot if they keep on increasing minimum hardware specs.
Not everyone will have the finances to keep up; on top of that Xbox is not really upgradable. !
I can’t see that happening for the vanilla version any time soon as their aim is to keep the sim running on the XBox. Eventually the XBox will get a hardware upgrade in a couple of years (?). I think Microsoft is developping a new chip for their console. When this gets released the hardware requirements for the PC version will surely rise too.
But beware of 3rd party devloppers. A lot of products especially the ones that are only available for PC don’t have to be held back by the XBox. The requirements for 3rd party addons can be quite high as a lot of developpers test their products only on the fastest PC. Also some products like scenery is poorly optimized and you will need a beast of a PC to run them.
So all in all, if you have a middle tier PC, with let’s say a last gen CPU and GPU, that’s currently able to run the sim adequately, my guess is that you should be fine for a couple of years, only if the XBox doesn’t get a major upgrade. But you will run into trouble with 3rd party addons sooner or later as you always will need the fastest hardware to run the newest addons.
yes, agree and at the rate that hardware manufacturers are releasing newer models, current hardware will be obsolete in 2 years time.
Gone were the days where I could stretch the use of a GPU for 6-8 years.
The newer models have insane power draw - i wonder how many people will be able to use a pc while consuming 1 KWH.
checking the image i saved from before release against what is claimed in the ms store atm …
the required specs have not changed at all (they still show minimum, recommended and ideal)
nor do i expect them too, the game will run on what it runs on, new released hardware does not change that
additionally they are kinda locked to what can be done on the xbox platform which cant upgrade to new hardware as its released
my point is software doesnt react the way your suggesting to new hardware - its more a case of “dangit now we have to make sure its compatible” rather than “ohh goodie we can raise the requirements and add more data”
“MSFS could run on a potato” … it’s as true now as it was then especially with modern data handing/ garbage collection methodology now being used in memory. I started out with a below spec GT1030 at 720p resolutions, vram usage was the bottleneck but I think it would fairly comfortably manage 1080p nowadays on the low preset.
This is a misunderstanding or at least a conflating of hardware development/improvement and actual hardware capabilities.
Hardware is always going to improve. That doesn’t automatically mean games wont run on old hardware - it means the games wont run as good as they would on hardware made in an era the game was developed in.
Thats just how things go. That doesn’t mean that a rig that is 6+ years old can’t run a new game, just means your game config is going to be set lower than someone running the latest and greatest.
I still have my first build running games. i7-2700K with 16GB DDR3-2400 RAM, and a GTX690 (dual GPU card). It runs all the esport games like CSGO, LoL, Rocket League, R6 Seige etc at 1080p at 100+fps at medium settings. And some “lightweight” games like Among Us and Fall Guys at 1080p/60-80fps at medium settings. An 11 year old rig thats still capable.
MSFS’s minimum and recommended specs aren’t going to change - because that is the lowest common denominator for entry into playing the game/sim. And given that its also available on Xbox Series S/X - as long as your hardware matches the performance of the current consoles, you’ll be fine.
As the game improves and gets optimized, older hardware CAN actually run it a bit better as optimization takes an incredible amount of time and it must be balanced with business needs.
As an example of this, there are some crazy programmer hobbyists, one of which were able to optimize Super Mario 64 to run as much as 50fps on original hardware with some minor graphical improvements - he spent an insane amount of time doing so though. Nintendo couldn’t reasonably delay the game to spend a few extra months optimizing the game to run better because it was needed for the launch of the N64 as a system seller - or any developer - when the bare minimum for consoles is just to get it as playable as possible without crashing and having functioning features. We’d probably have far better running games and hardware stretched much farther in their use if optimization became a major priority.
But you will run into a point of diminishing returns and you have to make the choice to chase that dragon of performance and fidelity, or just stick with what you got and play what you can.
As others said it’s unlikely they changed the minimum specs for now - anyway this can change at some point some years in future when a new console is released by MS.
Anyway I would guess they go the GTA Online way: old versions for XBX/S will still be supported with basic updates, new additional features will be exclusive for the new version and on PC you still have the option to upgrade your system or go with lower settings and other optimizations.
At some point years later support for then “old” XBX/S versions will be cancelled if they’d use different servers.
But for now I could let MSFS execute just fine on my old notebook from 2013 by keeping in mind I cannot go ultra or high on most settings 
But this is what concerns me: MSFS has been out 2 years now. A lot has been updated. there are newer, more in-depth complex aircraft now, more detailed planes and scenery, etc.
I pretty much have the ideal specs they listed before launch, I have a 10900k CPU (now they are coming out with the 13900K - that’s three generations removed from my 10900k, and my 10900k was the high end of cpus when MSFS came out . It’s still great, but seems to be getting outdated in another year or two), we have people who are running video cards of 3090ti, 32 fast ram, etc, so these gamers should have no issues running msfs with that hardware, and should feel no need to upgrade at all, but some people feel the need to upgrade to the 4090 and 13900Kin order to get better visuals and more FPS but shouldn’t they be at max for what they have if the requirements did not change.
This is why i think the requirements have changed or the opinion that is frowned upon: the visuals, visual distance, clouds have been “lessened” to have msfs run on the XBOX, and now people want to upgraded to get back to those visual qualities they had before SU5…speaking for myself, since that update, my visuals seem less…and now i am looking at upgrading to a 12900k, 3090ti, but i really shouldn’t need to or want to if the “ideal” specs have not changed.
Ideal now seems to be 12900k, 3090t1, 32 gb ram, etc.
You don’t need a 4090 and 13900K to run at maxed ultra in 4k, for sure (that’s if you aren’t stuttering) you’d get better frame rates than my rtx3060 and 3800X but the picture quality will be no better (a few 8k textures on some 3rd party aircraft excepted).
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