Decided last night that the sim has probably settled down a bit after the flurry of usage that always follows a large release and jumped into a late night Fenix A320 flight. I say late night but, since I live in Spain, it was prime time usage in the US and I chose US airports to fly. I did a quick flight a day or so after release in a Cessna and experienced fully expected stutters since I cleared out my rolling cache and shaders and it was obvious worldwide usage was through the roof and could clearly see the affects of rebuilding those over complex areas like London. I flew back and forth over London and could see things continually getting better. This was in VR.
So, I decided to give a full test to the sim last night. Created a flight plan from Albuqueque to Phoenix for the Fenix A320. I have a good portion of the FS2024 data downloaded to my computer. Neither of those airports are custom. I ran GSX, Bijan scenery, BATC, Navigraph charts. Started cold and dark in Albuqueque and had a bit of an issue that I donāt blame 2024 for. The jetway was attached but too far forward and half my cockpit was obscured. Restarted at another gate and things were as expected.
From that point EVERYTHING worked smoothly and nearly flawlessly. GSX fueled and boarded the plane with great animations. Flight plan loaded seamlessly. Control interactions were spot on. BATC gave great instructions although the Navigraph chart of the airport seemed odd. I couldnāt find any of the taxiways so I just winged it to get to the right runway. Air traffic seemed logical and smooth. Takeoff was perfect and BATC vectored me direct to a waypoint after a turn out of the airport. Autopilot almost to the runway in Phoenix. I switched to VR once airborne and the view and cockpit were stunning. Weather outside was scattered thunderstorms that showed up on my radar. Clouds were highly realistic. Descent and landing were wonderful without any stutters although there was a slight runway mismatch to the right from the ILS signal. Landed Cat 3 and it put me a little onto the shoulder. The whole Phoenix valley needs some attention so not surprised the airport is not perfect. It always was perfect in the 2004 scenery I created back in the days.
The assigned gate was a bit weird, this area of disconnected jetways but GSX got me through deboarding with some stairs. Someone needs to build a realistic KPHX and surrounding areas for 2024.
Overall the experience was great, in particular the smoothness and graphic quality in both 2d and VR given I was throwing so much stuff at the sim and I have a mid-range PC setup.
Well, I must be on a different boat in an alien ocean or something cos on my Series X it is looking lovely. The draw distance issues in PG cities are still there. Maybe aaābeen away from FS20 for too long or perhaps it is because of the poor graphics in 2024 that Iām enjoying 2020 so much. It is looking unreal, canāt complain, really.
Series X
Same. SU3 is absolutely the worst in terms of visual and performance, unless you fly only around generic airports and AI-gen cities. What were they thinking? Terrible update on Xbox. PC users are facing issues too Iām told with players going from a rock solid 80-100 fps to 30-40 fps with stutters and pauses, along with lots of visual degradation especially during takeoff (no cold start) and on approach. Performance is really bad around Tokyo, NYC, LA, etc.
My Xbox, which is hardwired to my hub, gets 500mb download and 80mb upload speeds. I bought it a month ago exclusively for MSFS, and all content is downloaded and installed. I usually fly a PC-24 or Longitude in Europe. Nothing major so I donāt understand why Iām having issues. I mean what even is the point of downloading hundreds of gigs of data and it seems to do nothing
So in theory at least, you should be getting a much better experience than me. Note of course that I keep photogrammetry off as my internet just canāt handle that. I also only have standard edition so donāt have those aircraft to try unfortunately. But you could always give the A20N a go to see how that gets on
Itās definitely the most interesting part, I mean, how the developers managed to downgrade the sim visually and to deteriorate the performance at the same time.
Loading times have increased significantly since installing assets. Iām okay with this, but itās worth noting nonetheless. Edit: loading times are still way faster than FS20.
While the sim is smooth and stable (FSRFG FTW), Iām definitely seeing the reduced quality in ground textures that others are complaining about.
The marketplace and library are a pain in the butt to navigate. Whoever designed the interface needs to go back to school.
The initial loading process does not respect the music volume setting. Iāve turned music off, yet the music plays during launch. The music stops once the title screen is presented.
Overall, Iām happy with SU3, and Iāve begun taking inventory of my addons from FS20 and migrating or updating for FS24.
The music setting is the same in 2020. Until you are past the press any button to start page, it uses default settings. Then once you get to the checking for updates page, it loads you settings and reduces the music volume. But I have mine turned down rather than off so maybe with it completely off it behaves differently?
One thing I have noticed, my Xbox controller assigned buttons keep getting randomly deleted by the sim. But itās not a total wipe - itāll be one or 2 per day at random
With respect, but I donāt find that very fair. Bugs aside, and this is clearly a bug, i donāt think we can hold it against them that the simulated world doesnāt match the actual real world each and every time. We cannot expect them to have a 100% correct perfect representation for every square inch of the literal whole of the world.
What we do have right now is already astounding in its own right, and I donāt think anything like this has ever been attempted before, to this level.
Of the many things we can rightly complain about with this sim and its current state, this feels like itās not one of them, imo
I finally got to fly the Cessna Longitude my first time! It was a total mess, thoughāthe stuttering was insane on approach. ATC tried to make me fly over the airport at FL45, but I managed to cancel IFR and land it. Canāt believe I didnāt crash
I am still baffled how they managed to introduce these stutters after SU1 only for them to say āWe donāt really know why thatās happeningā now.
Base FPS seem to be 40% lower than what I was experiencing in SU1
Stutters at 3rd party airports are still not resolved (Was working flawlessly in SU1)
Photoimagery bleeding through 3rd party addon ground textures is still not resolved
The list of things that have become worse since the launch of the sim is almost endless. The sim is just not enjoyable in itās current state. I donāt see the point in tweaking stuff, playing around with settings to get a somewhat stable sim when it just worked before. Somewhere deep down in the code there is a huge bottleneck that is causing these problems and I really want them to be solved. The issues are real and annoying, not made up like some people say.
I get that some people are not experiencing these issues. Maybe youāre just flying VFR with default aircraft. However, a ājust live with it, I dont have that problemā doesnāt help anyone.
And what amazes me the most is that the sim either works great for some people or not at all for others. There still doesnt seem to be anything inbetween.
