Multiplayer model & livery matching continues to be broken in SU3

[CyberWarriorNG]

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ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue:
In the Developer Livestream on May 21st, 2025, it was stated on a few occasions that Multiplayer aircraft model and livery matching has been (or is being addressed) in FS2024 Sim Update 3.

As of Sim Update 3 v1.5.3, the issue appears to remain unaddressed.

As this issue had been a major regression from FS2020 which, IMHO, has significantly impacted our enjoyment of multiplayer group flights, and considering Asobo had highlighted the issue in the developer livestream as being addressed, it seems reasonable to document the issue in a dedicated post to give this better visibility and tracking in the hope of finally getting this issue addressed.

Did you experience this issue before you joined the Beta?
Yes

If applicable, which aircraft is experiencing this issue:
Any aircraft

[PC Only] Did you remove all your community mods/add-ons? If yes, are you still experiencing the issue?
Yes

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?
Consistent behavior

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. Ensure the aircraft and liveries of the other players in your group flight are installed on your simulator
2. Under Settings, Graphics-> Global Rendering Quality → select “Custom” and ensure “Air Traffic” is set to “Ultra”
3. Under Settings-> Online, ensure “Multiplayer” is enabled. Select Save and back
4. In the main menu, select “Free Flight” and set you departure airport
5. Under Flight Conditions, ensure Multiplayer is set to “All Players” and Save
6. Start Flight
7. Validate the multiplayer aircraft model / liveries of your group flight (or any multiplayer aircraft really) at the departure airport

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using, if relevant:
N/A

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?
No

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use?
Asus Prime Nvidia RTX Geforce 5070ti

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?
AMD 5800X3D
32 GB RAM

MEDIA

Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.

Below are some examples of aircraft with their respective multiplayer nameplate details that continue to demonstrate issues with aircraft model matching in FS 2024 SU3 1.5.3:

Diamond Air DA62 showing as a Beechcraft King Air C90:

Vision Jet G2 showing as a TBM 930:

FS Reborn FSR500 Turboprop showing as a Flysimware C414W Chancellor:

[END OF FIRST USER REPORT]

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For anyone who wants to contribute on this issue, Click on the button below to use this template:

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
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Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
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If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
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[Jummivana]

Thank you for the bug report.

We have created an internal ticket to see if our team already has this logged, and if not they will attempt to reproduce the issue and create a new bug report. This item is now marked as feedback-logged. If there is an existing bug report or one is created, we will move this thread to bug-logged.

[CyberWarriorNG]

Model matching issues in multiplayer free flight remains unaddressed in Sim Update 3 1.5.7 of FS2024 Aviator Edition, with empty community folder.

Issue affects default planes and store purchased ones just the same:

A320 Neo v2 displayed as Carenado F33A:

Cessna C208 Caravan as Carenado F33A:

Cessna 404 Titan as a Passive C172RG:

Boeing 737 Max 8 as a Ryan Navion B:

Cessna Citation Longitude C700 as Vision Jet SF50 (ignore the parked plane on top of it):

Magni M24 Orion as a G111 Albatross:

Based what was observed in today’s multiplayer group flight, it was noticed that this model matching issue appears to often arise after players “End Flight”, and return to the group flight in a different aircraft.

[C0rsten]

There is also model matching problems with AI OFFLINE traffic, with high amount of custom .bgl´s. Icao designators arent used everytime.

[CarefulFlea4800]

I’m not seeing any liveries on Xbox at the moment on live traffic or any parked. All I get are the default Boeing and Airbus liveries or the awful default Asobo ones.
I know not many liveries are available but you would expect to see some KLM at Schipol for example? Maybe even a couple of United at Heathrow? Does anyone else see liveries on Xbox?

[GlobalJavan]

Not even just multiplayer model matching but the general static traffic that Xbox users are not allowed to disable, absolutely awful. Sea of a320’s, 737’s and embraers in default company liveries, decimating performance at airports. So annoying that we can’t just turn it off like in 2020.

[DegageCaribou40]

Absolutely this, still a huge issue that needs to be solved

[CyberWarriorNG]

There appears to be not many running SU3 1.5.10 as of yet, but issue appears to still persist in this new build..

Just Flight PA28 Arrow that I have purchased (the bundle) and enabled is showing as a DHC-2 Beaver:

I fear the fix may not make it in SU3 as had been suggested.

[CyberWarriorNG]

Not looking good so far with 1.5.12…

A320 Neo v2 as a Citation CJ4:

[Airbus320Neo624]

My observation is that only Inibuilds a320Neov2 liveries (those that came as part of the A320 Nv2 package) are showing correctly because I see the AirNewZealand when flying around Australia and EasyJet around Europe frequently. No Other aircraft types have any livery match just generic manufacture livery.

Xbox X player

[CyberWarriorNG]

I think there may be some good news so far to report with SU 3 1.5.15.

With 1.5.15, model matching “seems” to be working much better.

With previous SU3 builds , it was easy to find examples of the model matching issue, but with this build, I have been unable to find any obvious issues… at least not so far.

This could be good news.

[DrVenkman3876]

I have seen only three multiplayer nameplates at all in 1.5.15.0, and in all three cases, they were nameplates only - no aircraft were visible beneath them at all, not even generic sim models. I have FSLTL and FSTraffic models both available in my Community folder, as well as the sim’s own models of course.

[GlobalJavan]

I have this exact same issue. Hardly ever see anyone in the beta but when I do, it’s just a nameplate with no plane.

[KipOTG]

I want an option to disable ALL fully-loaded plane models from ever being used in multiplayer. This was an option in FS2020, though with basic model matching still not working (as shown above by CyberWarrior), it’s kind of pointless.

When model matching does work (if we can even call it that in the case of Ultra air traffic – it’s really only working if someone loads a plane you have installed), it’ll be someone in an iniBuilds A350 – that I am not flying – causing the entire full-detail A350 model to be loaded into the sim as if I’m flying it, or as if I for some reason need a 100% fully-rendered version of that plane shown for multiplayer purposes.

And those times when I’m in a C172 and there happen to be others in A380s, A320s, A330s, etc. nearby… and every single one of those planes is loaded in fully as if I’m flying it? It’s kind of ridiculous this is even possible. You can verify this by just flying your drone camera into any multiplayer plane and seeing if it’s fully rendered (every switch, button, knob, seat material, shadow, etc.). If you own the plane, it will be. It’s a huge waste of resources.

We have also found in many group flights that these fully-loaded plane models will cause the game to CTD. We have reproduced it multiple times in group flights, and the solution is always to turn “air traffic” to the “low” setting, which results in only ~10 generic plane models being used for all multiplayer traffic.

These two issues force us to have to decide between (1) keeping air traffic on Ultra so we have a small chance of seeing the correct planes, but getting worse performance and CTDs because of it, or (2) avoiding the CTDs, getting better performance, but only seeing a few generic models loaded, resulting in every plane being shown as a bonanza or a generic airliner, no matter what it really is.

We need to be able to see generic planes only, and have them properly model-matched with the 100+ generic models that were added in MSFS 2024. This will improve our performance and avoid CTDs associated with the full planes being loaded as if I’m flying them myself.

The “air traffic” setting should be more specific as to what it’s even doing. Is it a limit on the number of unique plane models (generic or otherwise) loaded in? I still don’t know. The lower it is, the fewer fully-loaded planes appear, which is what I want. But then I see everyone in a generic bonanza, even though a generic model probably exists that is accurate to the plane they are flying. Worst of both worlds.

[CyberWarriorNG]

Bringing back the option to show “Use generic models for AI and Multiplayer Traffic” from FS2020 would certainly be a nice addition, but personally find this to be a band-aid workaround at best as its use would also impact our ability to view each other’s liveries (assuming we all have those same liveries installed (from the Store or otherwise).

I found that being able to see other flyers, within a multiplayer group flight, flying in their plane and respective livery in FS2020 to be quite enjoyable and incentivized me, and surely many others, to purchase planes and livery packs from the Store to be able see, and try, the cool planes and liveries that other players were flying in.

Since FS2024 model/livery matching has been broken until now (recent SU3 builds seemingly shows some improvement), there has been less incentive to buy liveries and planes from the Store.

If we all use generic aircraft to workaround the ongoing multiplayer issues in FS2024, I believe multiplayer group flights won’t be as enjoyable and would offer little incentive for many in purchasing livery packs, and even planes, from the Store.

I believe the ideal solution would be:

• Ultimately address the outstanding issues with aircraft model and livery matching
• Address the CTD issues that seem to be occurring when many planes (or specific planes) are loaded by FS2024 in multiplayer mode
• Improve performance and/or reduce impact of multiplayer on performance.
  • Possible solutions might be:
    • If possible, instead of loading the full planes of other multiplayer planes, load only the following:
      • The multiplayer plane’s exterior shell (aren’t planes already more modular in FS2024?)
      • The multiplayer plane’s matched livery
      • Lights and landing gear configuration, tail number, its wake turbulence, flight surface configuration (if possible) and other useful parameters…

That’s my 2 cents.

[C0rsten]

In aircraft.cfg, is there entries isAirTraffic = 1 ? If there is, they can be used as model matching. If it is = 0, they cannot. In theory.

[DrVenkman3876]

@KipOTG

You can verify this by just flying your drone camera into any multiplayer plane and seeing if it’s fully rendered (every switch, button, knob, seat material, shadow, etc.).

Sadly, this is a carryover from MSFS 2020, where this has always been the case. I noticed it myself in very early days of the sim when I was doing practice landings at St. Bart and happened to drone-cam into a parked TBM and noticed all the fully-rendered glass cockpit instruments and detailed interior.

[Lamonastery]

lmao despite this being know months ago for su3 beta the problem still made it into su3 release

[TaruTaru113]

MSFS2024 SU3 has many problems with model matching and aircraft rendering.