Nail, meet hammer.
I would call the current streaming model a partial success at best.
Jorg did say they were looking into making aircraft downloadable (SU2?) which will be a huge improvement. Hopefully Xbox users will have enough local storage to make that a reality for both platforms.
I know that scenery is a whole other thing due to the massive (petabyte) size of the world’s data set. Hopefully the RC can be used to cache scenery more efficiently as well.
OR they could release two completely different software…oh, never mind.
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I don’t buy the petabyte excuse, we did fine downloading scenery and planes in FS20.
Streaming 100% is a mad idea for high res 3D simulation and the technical devs know it.
2TB SSDs are about $160. Tom’s Hardware think 8TB SSDs will be common in 2029.
Eventually we will go back to selectively downloading scenery/planes.
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I buy it completely because from a business perspective, it is obviously best not to exceed the storage capability of your average customer. While hard-core simmers wouldn’t bat an eye at the need to buy more SSD space for $160 or more, that is likely not the case for the majority of MSFS users (especially on XBOX).
Except that the scenery modeling the entire world contains much more data in FS24.
The whole petabyte is kind of silly regardless. I don’t want to download the entire world - just the airports and LOD scenery along my flight path.
Predictive AI, along with a large and efficient cache is a means to accomplish that.
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That’s a fair point, and we don’t literally need an extra 2TB.
I already have space to download favourite airports and planes - so why not make it permanent? FS20 is also installed, so I could remove that to gain space.
AI yes. It’s easy to (automatically) download plane, start and destination airports based on the flight plan.
A 
to save permanently and a 1, 5 or 10 mile range/minimum scenery height option would be complete.
The cache can still function for occasional detail. To clear up space we could delete favourite airports and planes in My Library. Simple.
Hi, I wouldn’t call you computer-naive because you have spotted the balance point that would help everyone!
Some things permanently on disk, some things streamed into a cache. Each user chooses the balance point they are comfortable with.
As you hinted that balance can be improved as the the sim develops in the future.
But there’s some low hanging fruit, like permanent download reducing Azure server load permanently. Flights start quicker, no lockups landing.
For example EGLL and KJFK are very popular.
A permanent copy pays dividends on every flight, from Cessna to Airliner.
Yesterday I made a flight from LPFR FARO LEMD MADRID BARAJAS with the 737-8 max and I didn’t have any problems, only when making the trip to the gate when I landed, don’t jerk, it was raining cats and dogs and it was an incredible flight, I don’t understand why sometimes it goes well and sometimes the fps drops brutally and it jerks, yesterday was good configuration live traffic, real-time weather and 100 GB cache memory paltaform Xbox series x
Regarding the cost of storage, I have two 1TB hard disks sitting in a drawer unused. They were replaced by SSDS over the years.
So I could add 2TB of extra storage for free and I won’t be the only person with spare hard disks.
My records show 100 to 157MB/s speed read access, at least 10 times a streamed speed and a thousand times faster than launch day!.
The only platform that genuinely benifits from streaming are old Xbox’s with limited memory, which will get scrapped for newer models eventually.
I think the argument for downloaded textures is stronger than ever. Maybe the 80:20 rule, 80% downloaded and 20% streamed with latest updates, that can be permanently stored in My Library if the user chooses.
You are missing my point. This is about what the average MSFS user has or is willing to buy, not you or me. Also not the majority of people on this forum but the silent majority out there that is balancing the books.