Loading times are crazy

Is it just me or did the initial loading screen become longer since the release? I timed it yesterday and it took exactly 4 minutes from pressing the MSFS icon until I was in the menu. Is this normal or do I need to reinstall the sim?

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Iā€™ve had a similar effect 2 weeks ago. It came and went away without my intervention; some other users in my country reported the same. It must have been related to a network issue on MS ā€˜s side. What was characteristic is that the ā€œsearching for updatesā€ took several minutes, then blue loading bar progressed normally until the very end and then was stuck there for minutes (I thought it had crashed at first), and loading a flight took ages too.

So it seemed to be the network intensive operations that took so long. It went away after a few days.

Not sure thatā€™s what you describe though. My whole startup usually takes 3-4 minutes too, I would guess. The faulty one took 10 or 12, it was very noticeable.

I have observed longer initial loading times into the menu as well. However the times when starting a flight from within the main menu have shortened significantly for me, which I absolutely love, as I often do this multiple times within one session. So to me it seems like loading times have shifted a bit, which I can live with. I start the game, go drink a coffee and once it is up flights start quite quickly for me now. Itā€™s just a feeling though and not based on measured numbers, maybe thatā€™s just me :slight_smile:

I noticed the same thing on Xbox: the loading time has increased a lot.
And itā€™s not related to add-ons, because I have nothing extra installed, no plane, no DLC, no scenarios, no airport.

The increase of wait, therefore comes only from the core of MSFS itself (or response time from servers).

My community folder is 141gb.
I timed MSFS a while back and it took just under 11 minutes from clicking Start in Steam, to the menu. That was with a mere 92 gb in the Community folder.
SU7 feels faster, itā€™s definitely quicker going from the world map to the runway.
That menu doesnā€™t always work for me, I canā€™t add waypoints and it doesnā€™t always tell me the expected duration of the flight, but I can live with it for nowā€¦

6.3 minutes here from when I click the icon of MSFS in Steam.
I feel it has improved recently, however, I never measured it prior to SU7.

40GB in community folder.

This is absolutely one of the areas they should focus on. For instance (as a developer myself) I lack the imagination to figure out what exactly it is they are doing in that minute or so where it says ā€œchecking for updatesā€. Surely this could quite easily be compressed to less than a second.

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Indeed.

The only thing however I am happy about it that after the main menu loads, the flights load very quick.
Only FBW takes a little longer depending on the daily update.

141GB? 11 minutes? Perhaps MSFS Addons Linker Ā» Microsoft Flight Simulator might help, as it will allow you to only load whatever is necessary for your next flight? Unless you have specific reasons not to use it.

ps: post-SU7 loading times seem bloated to me as well. Iā€™m running MSFS on a rather fast nvme SSD with only select addons in the community folder (which also lives in the SSD) and Iā€™m pretty used everything use to load much faster in the past.

Agreed. The flight loads even faster than I remember from launch so thatā€™s nice. The problem is I have so many CTDs and having to load up the sim several times eats up a big chunk of my sim time (basically after work before the lady comes home)

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Yes, this would help quite a bit. Looks like it is scanning file hashes or something and checking them against an online dataset. If this is the case it should get a new file when you delete/modify a specific file. Maybe they could loosen this test, so it only triggers whenever the latest update set from the server is higher/newer than that of the client. A Steam like manual scan and repair option could then be used to help users with issues to repair their installation.

Initial screen seems somehwat longer, loading from the menu onto the runway is whatā€™s taking truly ages for me now. It was MUCH quicker before.

Same for me. Today the loading time is much longer than other days.
:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

:laughing: It is crazyā€¦

Pack a lunch and bring a book.

Please see this thread:

I also think loading times are affected by the servers, recently (without any mods installed) Iā€™ve noticed it takes a bit longer and this coincides with this weekā€™s server issues.

Using MSFS Add On Manager with paltry 9gb in add ons (fastlaunch enabled) itā€™s taking me about 35 seconds longer @ 3:33 where prior I would be just under three minutes.

Well yes, it could be that thereā€™s a full on integrity check behind the ā€œcheck for updatesā€. Although I seem to remember having checked resource use during startup once and in this phase there was mostly network traffic and hardly any file I/O. So the question is: is it really necessary to transfer all the data that is being transferred just to find out if any of your install packages are not the newest available version (my naive idea of what ā€œchecking for updatesā€ means)?

Then there seems to be that other minute right at the start. After clicking on the icon (steam, external shortcut) there is no window shown for about a minute. Do others have that as well? I often forget if I have started FS already and have to check in task manager - or end up with several instances.

Hmmm there should be lots of file I/O if my theory was correct, so then if must be doing something else, canā€™t imagine what that could be either. But they should make it go if they could if you ask me :slight_smile: .

I also have that strange period of nothingness after clicking the icon and Iā€™ve got the Windows store version.

it is ridicolous! clicking the icon - 30s nothing happens - then loading to the main menu about 5 minutes. I never waited so long for a start of a gameā€¦and that on a ssd

store version btw

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