MSFS is NOT a cell phone, why expect it to work like one?

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Far too many posts trying to compare the development of software designed to run on an unknown number of different platforms, with the development of cars or cell phones or toasters. If I just picked up the new iPhone and it had as many bugs as MSFS I would be a VERY unhappy consumer. If Apple released a phone that didn’t work out of the box, their shares would take a beating and they would lose untold millions. HOWEVER… that phone IS the platform and the software ONLY needs to integrate with that phone. You can test every possible scenario to death to ensure that the product is going to do what it is designed to do.

Developing new software that is going to be installed on personal computers is a completely different challenge. Even if every computer had the same operating system, motherboard, CPU, GPU and memory, we all know that users are tweaking, overclocking, running a myriad of background software competing for resources, some of them so poorly written they don’t release those resources even when they shut down. The variables in that case are untestable.

Now look at reality. I would challenge you to find two MSFS users with the same setup. Two MBs with the same chipset from different manufacturers aren’t even the same. This also goes for graphics cards. “I have the 3070 and I get crappy visuals and tearing”. What 3070? From which manufacturer. What firmware version?

We also know that FS users are notorious for tweaking. Some of the first posts I saw on release were users trying to find the .CFG files so they could start adjusting things. Posts looking for work-arounds from users that had systems that were barely up to the min requirements.
Would someone here care to explain to me how a software developer is to test their creation on every possible platform configuration, alongside every possible combination of software. This may be easy if your software is designed to display, “Hello Bob”, when you type, “Hello Computer”. Conflicts are rare in most simple, self contained software. MSFS does not fall into this category.

There are a lot of users that are having very few issues. I for one have never encountered difficulties downloading, installing, loading or flying. A few strange bugs have appeared occasionally that we all have seen. 2 knot winds, panel displays turning off, excessive lightning or ATC that forgets they were going to vector you to an approach. I am confident that those “MINOR” bugs will all be addressed in short order, as we have already seen with the previous updates. The CTD bugs, tearing visuals, generic buildings and terrain, strange control inputs that disrupt the AP or even make hand-flying difficult are almost all cases of conflicts, overclocking, modding, background apps corrupting resources or even incompatible hardware. I would bet that if Asobo could duplicate a consistent CTD event, they would fix it. (VFR map comes to mind). The rest… who knows. If I told you that my computer kept rebooting by itself, could you fix it, via email, without knowing what kind of computer I had, without knowing what software I was running?

I think we all need to take a step back and look at the big picture here. A bunch of flight sim enthusiasts with an unhealthy need to have the fastest frame rate, the best graphics and the newest/rarest control configuration of all. We are a developers worst nightmare. Given the chance Asobo/Microsoft WILL get the bugs worked out and get the missing runways added in, but there will ALWAYS be CTD and tearing until we all have the same computer with no modifications.

I wonder what would have happened if Asobo had of released a beautiful sim experience with perfect study level aircraft, glitch free, out of the box? We would all be here complaining that our frame rate stutters between 50-60fps.

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Popcorn time…

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100% agree, especially with the sudden desire to mod the bleep out of the thing. I’ve seen a few posts saying that third parties should be locked out for a period, which I agree with, and probably the community folder capability shouldn’t have been turned on for a while either. I’ve seen lots of posts about issues with community scenery hitting frame rates. In the last patch a bunch of liveries with errors in the files created problems with the content manager. The list goes on. I know that some people have had problems with a fully vanilla set up - the are the real issues here. I think it far too likely that a lot of the issues are with pilot error.

So patience is a virtue as they say, and they’d be right

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The bugs are minor in the context of the game changing evolutionary leap Asobo have accomplished with this title.
Hopefully the community will realise this and give them the space to do their work.

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Great post! Curious why it would be ‘flagged by the community’…

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No idea why it’s been flagged. Makes no sense, unless under the tighter moderation, this isn’t seen as a helpful feedback thread - which would seem a bit harsh.

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Probably because it really doesn’t add anything. People should start their own blogs if they just want to post articles.

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The OP is heavily focused on the difficulties of software develoment in a PC environment. I understand this adds variables and increases complexity. But this is limited to mostly software stability (crashes, rendering issues, memory limitations, etc.)

But, most of the software bugs we are dealing with have nothing to do with platform dependencies, hardware specifics, mods, or custom configurations. These are present in all installations and purely due to incorrect implementation of an avionics device, bad logic, or other software regressions that aren’t caught in testing.

I’m refering to bugs that happen on ALL hardware platforms, with any video driver version, no mods, etc. For example: No bush landing detection after patch 2, ias/mach speed indicator stuck, VS button has to be pressed multiple times, auto-throttle cutoff doesn’t revert to correct thrust setting. Unstable pitch oscillations, hysterisis of AP during simrate increases, etc.

Most of this can probably be chalked up to rushed release, lack of testing, etc. Its not really about variations in the customer installs/hardware. This isn’t a dump on the developers by any means. But, lets not pretend the issues are caused by something they aren’t.

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“I wonder what would have happened if Asobo had of released a beautiful sim experience with perfect study level aircraft, glitch free, out of the box? We would all be here ■■■■■■■■ that our frame rate stutters between 50-60fps.”

I wouldn’t be here at all.

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Not sure what the point of the post is, other than to say that yes it’s hard to program across different hardware /software configurations. I for one have not had a single crash whatsoever though I’ve only put in about 25 hours of flight time. I know many of you have put in hundreds or thousands of hours. However I have come across quite a number of odd glitches that I have seen YouTubers experience as well, one of which is a professional airline pilot - such as disengaging autopilot on the king air and having it take a sudden nose dive and try to kill you lol. I too agree it will be fixed in time. I also know frame rates will improve in time especially with DirectX 12. I get the point that everybody just keeps complaining and I do love the Sim but there are some real valid complaints. I think why everybody is upset is because nobody knows when the issues that they’re experiencing or going to be handled. Eventually they will of course but the question is when? Six months a year, year-and-a-half, who knows? I do agree some people need to calm down but whatever.

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Have to be blunt - I can’t agree with this take at all. The software is rife with bugs that are completely unrelated to people running different graphics cards or whatever else.

As a simulation developer, the state of this software at release time would not at all be acceptable in my line of work.

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Gentlemen, please, you can’t flight in here, this is the VOR room.

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And those are the bugs I would like to focus on. I am glad Asobo has taken the update route they have. Sort out the obvious problems and eliminate the easy fixes first. That gets them off the table and frees up the time to solve the deeper issues. I guess my point was, step back, have a look at what may be in your system that may be causing the issue you are experiencing. Include information on your system when posting a bug. Can only help narrow things down.

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Have also to be blunt - fortunately they have not asked you, fortunately they have released this phenomenal software, which makes the majority happy. You as a simulation “expert” should know that the kind of software in this dimension covering so many details, created to be usable by millions of users can not be bug free and bugs can only be addressed once this kind of software is released, the bugs actually reported by users. This is in the nature of such software. They have said from the beginning that this is a project for the next 10 years. Since release they have addressed so many issues and improved the total experience a lot. This software is PHENOMENAL. Thank you and no offence :slight_smile:

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There’d be almost no griping if they’d just sold it for what it is… an early release. I’d have still bought it but I’d have expected many missing features and some bugs. Although probably not as many as there are.

Luckily I only really fly the GA aircraft so I’ve experienced less problems than those that like the heavy metal.

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This is absolutely true; I fully expect edge case bugs and issues to crop up here and there once a new piece of software is released in the wild.

But we’re not talking “edge case” or hard-to-catch bugs here. We’ve got issues that are blatantly obvious within minutes of launching the thing. That’s indefensible.

What MS / Asobo / Blackshark have done on the world engine is, on the whole, really nice work. I’m happy to give credit where it’s due. But a lot of the aircraft are sloppily done and, by their own admission, incomplete. I give credit where it’s due and I give criticism where it’s due.

And that it’s a project for 10 years is irrelevant. I’m 5 years in on my own mega simulation project - it’s certainly grown and evolved over time, but it also worked as advertised on day one.

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Unfortunately, the user that is continuously experiencing CTD’s or graphics issues is so very much louder than the user that occasionally loses a PFD, cycles the avionics and continues his flight. Understandably so. Paid the money and can’t use it. Gonna yell loud. That is my point. The issues that can only be resolved by looking into your system and not by developers are making the real bugs just so much background noise. You list some very real issues. Sadly we can’t get thru to the developer 'cause he’s inundated by all the other noise.

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I don’t deny there are issues. I would just really like to have more discussion around THOSE issues and less about the things that are system specific.

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Yes, I think you have covered it all there.

Maybe, in the future, with sufficient advances in AI, bugless software running on bugless hardware may become a reality.

I also strongly think that there should always be a place for posts such as yours on the forums.

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So it’s story time now…

As a rather old gamer which started in the 1990s I have seen a lot of the development process and release mechanics evolution which happened in the past 30 years, as I am sure many of you have as well. In the old times, you would typically buy games in CDs or other formats (console cartridges etc). Internet back then was not so common, and the possibility to download patches was indeed very limited. In fact, of the tens of games I played between the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 00s, I believe none required any patch to be almost completely bug-free; patches at the time were basically to balance out some mechanics which became obsolete, or to fix compatibility with later hardware (and we are talking years after release). Development was careful, testing was absurdly comprehensive, and released software was generally spotless, at least for the major part. The drive for this is that if the release was botched, in the sense that the software did not work out-of-the-box in some aspects, the fix was essentially non-viable. Software houses, you understand, did not have many options; either release a close to perfect product, or… nothing, no plan B, just damage control.

Then, as the internet infrastructure evolved, the network became so capillary and powerful that it started to be utilized to get developers and users more close together. Lots of good things came from this obviously. Faster patches when problems occurred, new features in the games even after release, never obsolete mechanics, quick compatibility with new hardware and so on. For a time, all was well, because development mechanics have considerable inertia, and the good practices about testing were still in place.

In the old times, in the rare cases you had to get a patch, you would download it through the browser and then install it “manually”; now it’s the game (or software in general) that takes care of that!

However, in the end, as the internet and “digital-delivery” became the main source for users to procure software, the distance between them and the software houses became so small that the development process and the “release” became somewhat blurred. Since patches can be downloaded by the game itself, and since the time required is so small, it’s only natural that software houses take advantage of this. Save on testing costs, and publish x months in advance; start earning earlier.

Consider that the gaming industry has became immense compared to 30 years ago, and consider that, as it is common in this case, margins tend to go down as a consequence, due to competition. The drive to publish sooner and faster is sadly now much more important than the drive to release something spotless. In the '90ies margins were higher, the logistics of fixes was much harder, so games were in general more tested and less bugs were found in the releases.

So, to sum up, for the software houses there is always the possibility to fix things, patch bugs and so on after release in a very streamlined and efficient way. They need typically to balance the - understandable! - anger in the user-base when buggy software is released, with the savings in testing and bug-hunting.

I don’t think there is a solution and I don’t think it will get better any time soon, it is as it is. It’s the modern software industry. For me, I try to evaluate things in perspective, it helps.

I’m not sure that this post contributes to the conversation in that it doesn’t “solve” anything. However, I hope that this could help comprehend how and why most software in recent times is buggy at day one.

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