MSFS 2024 is broken ... Or is it?

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Hi all,

I have recently upgraded to FS2024. And to be fair, I am seeing a few bugs.
I have read a lot of people complaining that FS2024 is “broken”, and that it is an incomplete product, and that it should not have been released.

I have been flight simming since “Flight Simulator II” on the Commodore 64 , when it was Sub Logic/ Bruce Artwick. In those days, you bought the 5.25" disk, and whatever bugs were in it, you lived with.

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With Every iteration, things got a little better, and even then there were always bugs, and crashes. In those days, nothing got fixed, as it was as it was.

Finally moved to a 386, and got Flight Sim 5

I wont list them all, but safe to say, I have owned every iteration of FS since those days.

What I see today, is a magnificent attempt to recreate every aspect of flying, to the nth degree on a home PC. I sometimes wonder if the people who are complaining really understand just what a monumental task this is for the developers. To me, its actually incredible that FS2024 actually runs as well as it does. Bearing in mind, the Devs have tried to streamine the disk space taken, by could streaming, improving the graphics, by using DX12. ( Yes I actually bought a new 12GB 4070 for FS2024, as my old RX580 just couldnt cut it) and have added many other improvements and quality of life touches.

It usually takes me a few weeks to get everything in flight sim running the way I like it, and this has always been the case. There are always bugs, and to be fair, the Devs usually fix them. For those who remember FS5, and EMM386.EXE, DOS=HIGH,UMB to squeeze every last byte of RAM available to run it, this will be quite the norm :slight_smile:

Personally I dont think FS2024 is broken. I think we are at the start of a journey on the next generation of Flight Simulators, and I think the devs have done a fantastic job, on supporting FS2020, and im sure they will do the same on FS2024.

If you want to see just how far we have come, take a look at the YT vid below. It puts things into perspective, and for many who are complaining, take a moment, and just look at how far we have come…

Happy Landings,

DS.

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I’m using FS2024 exclusively since November. It’s most definitely not broken, otherwise I would have gone back to FS2020 for the time being. Yes, it has bugs and yes some Local Legends and Famous Flyers are broken since the beginning (which is really bold, considering they actually sell the FS2024 Aviator’s Edition with all these broken aircraft at a hefty price), but like you say, it’s entirely par for the course for the whole history of Flight Simulator. Better even.

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Well said. Totally agree. Ah the days of QEMM, what a nostaligia trip.

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Whats frustrating to me, going by a quote from Jorg. “If we add something, we want to do it right”
If the sim was broken down by each element, theres something wrong with everything. In the old versions, there wasnt much to go wrong. Which makes this version “seem” worse.

Ui -
EFB-
Flight planner-
AIRCRAFT-
ATC-
ATC voices
AI traffic-
Multiplayer
Weather-
Flight Dynamics-
Graphics-
Ground textures-
AIRPORTS-
CONTROLS-
Performance-
Career Mode-
VR-

Whats frustrating is when ,a quote from Jorg, " we didnt take anything away, from what was in fs2020, and added to it for fs2024.
Wheres:
Marshallers-
bush trips-
Auto checklist -
Etc

4 months in missing features:
Wheres :
marketplace-
Red Bull-
Own Pilot Voice
Brazil Wu- which was supposed to be released in December of 2024
Aircraft turbulence- i dont know, i havent encountered it

Theres always bugs, true. But when each and every thing in the sim is half done, its obvious, excessive, and clearly nowhere near baked. Something is seriously going on here with Asobo or microsoft. And i truly dont think its Jorg.

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I think there are differences between what is acceptable for users and what is really a broken feature in game. In a similar way there are differences between what developers intended to do and what they really did to achieve that.

I don´t think we can argue that there are many broken features in game and some prevent the game to even launch or run, such as the updates checking, the hanging on streaming/downloading, the missing UI buttons to enter world map or the profile assignments/settings being corrupted o lost. With that alone it´s clear that game is broken at the basic level. Then you can start looking at other technical features or the ported FS2020 content that is not really fully compatible or even creates severe issues and then decide what is acceptable for you.

The significant delay on releasing SU1 and Marketplace in my opinion also shows that things were not planned correctly. I don´t disagree on Jorg´s quoted words (“If we add something, we want to do it right”) however this is exactly what was not done upon launch, so here what you did to achieve targets is what really matters at the end, as words alone won´t make game work.

I was really reluctant to go for FS2024 but I finally got it for just one reason: it was on a flash sale for half the price on a third party site during a few days. After that I could check that most of the reported issues in forum were already true bugs I have also faced myself.

So when developers release half finished things is therefore reasonable to pay just half of the price to them as well. If this is the way we want to go then let it be :man_shrugging: In my opinion this rushed release was a big mistake. During next months we will see if this is a new marketing/development pattern or things somehow change and there are true intentions to improve.

Cheers

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What’s really “next generation” compared to MSFS?
It’s not a huge gap like the previous one from FSX.
The number of bugs and regressions is NOT justified.

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I finally bought 2024 to check it out. The scenery in 2024 looks the same as 2020 to me. The only real difference in 2024 is career mode. Seems like career mode could have been made a dlc for 2020.

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Yeah, just because it’s a big job doesn’t mean it’s ok to start selling it when it’s half finished, and without telling anyone it’s half finished and badly broken in places. It’s dishonest that Jorg’s corporate overlords make him parade this software around without labeling it early access due to unrelenting release dates.

The more you actually use this software, the more you discover how much it actually is broken under the hood and not ready for release. I’ve had five career flights in a row fail due to issues in the simulator. Large sections of the career mode are just missing. There is not a single stage in career that does not have glaring issues. I routinely watch my gauges and the runway reloading from an internet stream after they’ve already downloaded several times. The streaming model and career mode are cornerstone new features of '24 and they are indeed broken in many places. This is barely alpha level software.

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To be fair, it’s the same bing world map data so it was never going to look all that different

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The “Good old days” before “The Internet” and SCRUM / AGILE.

Back then, developers had to get it right before release, as updates were very difficult (and expensive) to distribute.

Now, with easy Internet based updates, there is far less of a requirement to get it right first time, – SPRINT to shipping, ship it now when it’s “Good enough” , and fix it later if there are major issues (SCRUM / AGILE).

Also, gone are the days of getting Documentation with the product - if you have questions and need answers (in varying accuracy), search the Internet, forums, Discord for Help (or misguidance from other who are as clueless as you )

The good news, this looks like being an increasing shorter situation, as AI takes over the job of software development,
(be careful what you wish for )
:stuck_out_tongue:

So, no MSFS 2024 is NOT BROKEN – it’s just not all working correctly (100% as expected) at the moment … ( Literally “BY DESIGN” )

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I’m enjoying the sim - by choice.

But I am disappointed by many aspects:

  • I wanted a ‘Journey Mode’ in which I could fly any plane certified for the Marketplace from point to point, with complete state-saving.
  • I was hoping that the ‘Dynamic LOD’ feature we got would be far more granular. We got a switch, with zero control over the parameters of what that switch does.
  • I see no reason for ‘object popping’ - especially with a fairly powerful PC and fast internet connection like I have. Same with gauges, textures, etc. reloading during a session. The Rolling Cache needs work, and we need to be able to download things like aircraft and airports to our local drives. Streaming should be limited to terrain, live weather, traffic, and mulit-player aircraft.
  • Speaking of multi-player… Where is model matching? All we need are generic external models that match what everyone in the flight are using. Liveries would be nice, but the bandwidth requirement for that would probably be excessive. But if you are flying a Vision Jet, I should see a Vision Jet. And you should see my HondaJet.
  • Some aspects of the UI are OK, but overall it’s a real regression.
  • I haven’t touched Career Mode yet, and based on user reports I wonder if I ever will. This was supposed to be a marquee feature of the new sim.
  • I know this will never happen, but we need separate core software for different platforms.
  • Finally, 3rd Party developers can clearly improve aspects of the sim - like weather, ATC, traffic, seasonal foliage, etc. Microsobo should have purchased and integrated those packages into the sim, like they did with Working Title’s G1000 NXi package.
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That’s a shame. This User reports that it’s more fun than not. Perhaps give it a go. If it doesn’t float your boat you’ve lost nothing.

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I had not thought about the runway as I generally start in different places, but the gauges redownloading? I do not experience that. To be fair I normally just use the Vision & the Draco but it all seems to be held in rolling cache satisfactorily. I did use the new 185 recently and it was blocky as expected to start, but then fine. :person_shrugging:

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what gets my goat are the simple things for “Flight Simulator” Why does ATC make me take off on Runway 15, when Traffic is landing from the other way, when the wind is at 270, and theres a runway 24? and the wind sock points the wrong way. Why does the planner change my flightlevel from 360 (westbound) to 370?

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I don’t understand the nostalgia ride of talking about how far flight simming has come as some sort of a means of justifying the state of 2024 as released.

Yes, it is a massive improvement over 1980s technology, but so is everything else based on computer science.

However, the OS in my iPhone is just as solid as the OS in the Macintosh I first used in 1984.

I really fail to understand how/why we — who paid for a completed product — are supposed to, what?, feel sorry for the developers who knew exactly how complex of a software program they were developing and, yet, chose to release it before it was complete.

And please do not confuse “complete” to mean 100% issue free. The state of 2024 has so many alpha/beta-level issues all over the place that it is far from what anyone should call a release candidate.

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IMO, the scenery in 2020 is too greenish. To me the lighting and coloring of the textures is much better in 2024.

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It’s not broken. Buggy, yes; but not broken. Broken things tend to not work.

That’s an unfair comparison as the gap between FSX and MSFS was 14 years. That between MSFS and its successor is four years, and many simmers are running the newest iteration on four-year-old hardware.

Like many, I tried to download and use the sim on release day. After spending a few frustrating days getting not much further than nowhere, I abandoned the sim… until a couple of weeks ago. Recently flying the Twotter around the Norwegian fjords, I realised the differences were much less nuanced than I initially thought — the atmospheric colours looked more natural; as did the trees and the landscapes generally. Sure, some areas looked worse than 2020 (I’m not sure ‘worse’ is actually the right word) but I felt the environment better reflected reality. Sometimes you’re primed to look for bugs and flaws and you forget to do the most fundamental thing: get a sense of the recreated world around you, and immerse yourself in it. But not only did the world feel better — the aerodynamic physics felt better too — I had to be really careful flinging the Twotter around on the ground because the change in momentum when executing a turn would cause it to almost tip over (if taxi speed was excessive). This didn’t really happen in 2020; and when it did, it didn’t feel particularly convincing.

It’s not hard to see and feel FS2024’s enormous potential. It should probably have been delayed till early this year but what’s done is done. It will be continually improved and hopefully we’ll see additions like in-cloud turbulence, better model/livery matching, improved ATC, two-player flighdecks, dual jetway connections, etc.

I’m not perturbed by the domination of career mode currently as most of the more serious simmers are sticking with 2020 for the time being. I’m sure it’ll change and free flight usage will dramatically increase when people starting abandoning the old sim en masse.

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As released, yes it was terrible. And the developers wouldn’t have chosen to release it before it was complete - that’s just simple shareholder pressure to release it on the date that you said you would regardless of whether it’s ready or not

But now that it’s starting to come together - I’ve been flying on the beta since that came to be and on Sunday night there was a group flight on 2020 that I wanted to join in on and when I did, I realised that I hadn’t done a flight on 2020 in a couple of weeks. Almost immediately, I wished I was back on 2024 for the significantly better air and ground handling as well as the much improved lighting. There’s still plenty of things needing fixed on it, but it’s getting there quickly

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It might be the Aviator edition, and because I’m using lots of different aircraft, or because each of these is a barebones 2020 port not designed to work with 2024’s streaming model. Again they’re not labeled as such, and you don’t discover this until after you buy this edition. But aircraft are not caching properly on my system despite my 200 gb cache. But even the airports aren’t caching properly. My home base field routinely redownloads all of its textures.

Without the streaming model or new career mode, 2024 is merely an incremental upgrade to 2020. Yet these are the most half baked parts of the simulator. Of course the parts that are just copied over from 2020 work ok-ish. That should be a given.

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I suppose so. I’ve read the thread on the likely workings of the rolling cache with interest, but have just left mine on the default 16GB for now. I don’t particularly notice difficulties so empirically that is good enough for me. My cache must have turned over many times as the system reports 199GB downloaded since the logging function stabilised. I am so glad I did not purchase the PD version I originally intended, roll on the marketplace and a few premium 2024 native aircraft in my hangar.