How long does it take you to get MFS ready to fly?

Once I start Flight Simulator, it takes me an average 2 minutes and 44 seconds until I see the World Map in the Welcome Screen. Whether my addons are active or disabled in my Addons Linker makes no difference. I tested this after restarting my PC, a 2018 Alienware tower (Intel Core i7, 16GB, GTX 1060) with up-to-date Windows 11. My Flight Simulator is Edition 1.25.7.0 with all available World and Sim updates installed including Iberia.

There’s a marked difference however in the time needed to get from the Welcome Screen to the Ready to Fly window. From MFS Start without addons, this takes me 4 minutes and 35 seconds. Once I activate my addons, the time required increases to 4:33 and I’ve no idea if these times are ballpark or not.

I’ve considered replacing my PC with a more powerful one but I wonder if I would see a meaningful difference in launch times. I would really like to know what performance simmers with very powerful PCs achieve so if any of you would care to post their MFS Start-to-Ready to Fly times, I would be grateful.

When had MSFS on PC, it took 4 min 34 secs to load to Main Screen. Some of that is Sim downloading lots of stuff it needs and making sure its connections are good. I wish this stuff was loaded local, speeding up game. After SU8, got memory error so deleted game and waiting until more stable.

PMDG also announced delay in their highly anticipated 737 line, since again the core code in sim changed, how do I know, all the errors being reported on the forum. If, big IF we see PMDG’s offerings before mid-summer I will be surprised, how much rewriting/fixing of the almost finished plane is taking place and then that needs to be tested.

DC Designs also has update schedule for the F-14 and that last I checked has not hit the street yet either.

I would wait on new PC, channel for parts is just now starting to show inventory, but more than one “so called expert” has said manufacturers have reduced QA/QC to keep up with demand, so aint buying nothing until channel is clear of all the bad stuff. Lots of Nvidia 3090 cards failed with certain games, ASUS Z690 board had some capacitors wired backwards, which should have been caught at QA, but slipped right through, hmmm. Going to wait.

It takes me an average of almost 15 to 20min ( i have a medium rig computer, no super duper fancy shmancy one :grin: ). But let’s say, it is mostly because of my very full Community folder and heavy payware ( and freeware ) add-ons. That’s the “price” to pay for loving airliners with state of the art glass cockpit that often fly to big detailed airports. Add some realistic AIG and IVAO AI planes to make VATSIM more realistic too. No complains on my part. I take simming very seriously, and i know i’ll never just lite up the PC, MSFS, and fly randomly for less than an hr and a half.( not judging anyone here, it’s only my way of simming/flying).

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I just measured it.
2 min 2secs from clicking the shortcut to getting the mai screen. I have some aircraft in the community folder. not a lot but does incudes the pmdg DC6 .

2 minutes 5 seconds. After flight is created using world map and clicking Fly, about :40 til I’m in the cockpit

It does take time, but you have to accept it. For me to start the sim, Axis and Ohs, Streamdeck software, LNM, Navigraph, g940 LED prog, etc and making sure that it all relates to the other progs can mean 15 minutes before I even look at the flightdeck. I often need a beer before reaching V1.

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Running on PC
also about 2min 30 sec to welcome screen
Seems to be faster since SU9

About 2:40 to the main screen here. That’s with several marketplace updates and a lot items in my community folder. The main program is loaded on my primary drive (1TB NVMe) and the sim content is installed on a second, dedicated 1TB NVMe.

If there were any improvements in load times from SU9 as some claim, I’m not seeing them. But it’s not any slower than it was before, so no complaints on that front from me.

Launch times are tied to how many mods its got to load up, and how fast your storage is (fast SSD vs HDD is DRAMATICALLY different).

With an empty community folder its up and ready pretty fast (a minute or so, haven’t timed it).

However thats not how my sim is normally, and with all my junk in there it takes a long time. Probably – 1 minute 51 seconds or so to the welcome screen. However while timing that I noticed that for the first start of the day steam version does a few steam related housekeeping tasks that took about 30 more seconds. But the time above was a second start after steam was already happy with itself for the day. From the map to in cockpit is wildly dependent on the plane I’m using. Intel i9700k with 32gb ram, and 3070ti video

In a simple plane PA28 by JF, it took 39 seconds to get to ‘ready to fly’ at an airport with no nearby 3rd party scenery. Aircraft affects this a lot tho, CRJ and FBW320 both take much longer.

I have also noticed the time to get to ‘ready to fly’ is much longer the first time I go to fly since launching the app. So if I end a flight, and start a new one (even at a different airport with a different plane) the time to 'ready to fly is always faster the second and subsequent times. Another funny thing that happens there is I sometimes get a CTD on the first attempt, but almost never on second and subsequent attempts. I think this is an add-on doing this. Because I never see that behavior if the community folder is clean.

When did WU5 release? I haven’t started MSFS since then except to do the other updates…I have gone from flying hours every day in FSX to less than 10 hours total time now…bored with it.

Machine basically built for MSFS, OS/MSFS/Cache/Community Folder (only 16gb) all on separate drives 2:09 to welcome screen. I run the full REX suite and my local Aerosoft airport and about a dozen other freeware and also Aerosoft’s Simple Traffic.

Oh and I have uninstalled all of the training and challenges.

Edit: Just checked 211 things not installed lol, bloaty mc bloat sim

2 min + to get to the world map. Another 2min to get to the fly now page. 30-40 addons. I9-10900, RTX3090, 64gig DDR4, all m2 SSDs. So you’re about right.

Thanks all for the feedback. Quite a range of start times, from what I read in the comments. But I’ll be happy to subscribe to CKSURFGIRL’s opinion that my rig works fairly well with this weighty simulation and I shouldn’t worry unduly about getting another rig for the time being.

MFS is on my C Drive, a one terabyte SSD, so that must help. I usually keep 35 or 40 community add-ons active, mostly small strips around my home airport for the Cessna and Icon 5, and I tend to fly either the FBW A320NX or Headwind’s A330-900neo for scheduled airline work. I don’t have any other seriously heavy stuff at this time. By the way, I love MSFS. It works very well for me and if it had a Tower View like the earlier Microsoft flight simulators had, it would be perfect. I loved switching to Tower View in the earlier sims and watching my aircraft exactly as the controllers saw it as I landed and taxied from the runway to the gate.

Some sweet rigs in this topic

Sim load time for me is irrelevant. Sorry, I know you’re look for actual sim load time, but for me, by the time I click to start the sim and the time I finish doing all of my pre-flight prep - fuel planning, checking weather, preparing flight plan, getting ATC frequencies, loading Pilot2ATC for ATC, loading flight plan into Foreflight, etc. the sim is already up and waiting for me, not me waiting for the sim.

If you’re a ‘jump in and fly’ sim pilot, then sim load time may be relevent, but for me I plan a sim flight the same as I do in real life. (just make sure to start the sim before you’re planning starts and not the other way around. ; ) )

Never in real life have I been able to get in the plane and takeoff in 2-4 minutes… lol

Cheers. Happy flying.

It takes me about 5 minutes to load. I have about 80GB in the comminity folder. but no problem by the time I prepare my coffe and snacks MSFS is ready to fly.

Where did PMDG announce a delay at? I’ve been to their Facebook page, no mention of that.

For me, 6 minutes to reach the main menu.

Time for a new PC I think…

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Has anyone managed to execute the program in command prompt screen and monitored the progress to see where the loading is slowing down? yesterday my msfs hung at 95 % and i tried unsucessfully to do this.