Sim Update 8 Beta Users, Has it been worth it?

Discussion Hub General Discussion
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I quickly opted in to the SU 7 Update Beta because there were a few things on my list I really wanted to try out, like Bush Trip fixes and weather improvements. SU8 is a strictly bug fix update, and to Asobo’s credit, the list of bug’s fixed is extremely long.

However, SU 8 has nearly nothing that was on my list, and a tiny fraction of the bugs fixed are important enough to have been flagged by the community. Here are the stats:

Not including SDK and Reno fixes, there are 219 individually listed bugs fixed in the SU8 Beta. Of that list, 8 were shown as identified from community input, so, by us. That is 3.6% of the bugs fixes are ones we deemed important enough to file and vote up for investigation. Of the 219 bugs, only 3 of them appeared to be bugs I have seen, and none of those were game-breakers.

So my question to those of you who have taken the Beta, has it been worth it, and why?

This also begs the question how Asobo comes up with their list of bugs to fix. I would trade in 216 of the 219 fixed bugs for 5 of the game breaker bugs that are talked about here every single day.

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I’m with you. I don’t have many bugs that really bother me, but there’s enough for me that I have to work around them. I did upgrade and I’m very happy with it, no CTDs for me so far and the game exit CTDs I was getting are now gone.

Bugs still in SU8 beta that still bug me:

  • Mouse is still being lost in game. Have to cycle my hat switch on my joystick to get it to come back. Annoying when trying to work in the cockpit.

  • AI aircraft still fly at about 300 feet AGL. I consider that immersion breaking.

  • Performance, while overall better is now highly variable (but still smoother than before). Now I’m getting better fps over photogrammetry than I am autogen. It was opposite in the prior update.

Positives for me:

  • I do think performance is better. Not more fps but smoother.

  • Marketplace layout is nice and easy to find things, but it only takes up about 40% of my monitor. Lots of wasted space.

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As an ex-QA professional in the gaming industry and, specifically, on flight simulators, I’m not understanding why I spent my morning going over and posting 10 Aircraft Systems bugs that were supposedly fixed or introduced in the SU8 Beta candidate.

Let me be clear, I am doing absolutely nothing out of the ordinary here. I’m just establishing a cold & dark scenario and running through Standard Operating Procedure for startup, clearance, take off, flight, and landing.

I’m not trying to do anything out of the ordinary or under unusual circumstances, where the potential for obscure bugs are more likely to crop up.

Basically, I’m doing the job I would do if I was in QA and I was verifying the bug fixes for the aircraft listed in the release notes.

My issue is that all of the bugs I’ve encountered should have been easy to identify by Asobo’s internal QA team. My question is given how easy these were to identify by me, why are they present in the public beta candidate? These easy-to-find bugs should have been addressed by the development team prior to releasing this beta to the public.

I’m not even testing on an Xbox, where it is a known issue that the development/testing environment is not identical to the retail Xbox environment. I’m using a PC, with no mods and no unusual installation/configuration options – just Windows 11, Razer software my PC requires, the sim, and Thrustmaster drivers & peripherals. That’s it.

The point of a public beta is to find bugs/issues that aren’t obvious or easy to discover by an internal QA team. It isn’t to get me, or anyone else on this forum, to do the basic QA job of the internal team.

This is a bad precedence, and it needs to stop.

So has it been worth it? I suppose for Asobo, it’s been totally worth it – they are getting free QA.

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There’s definitely a difference between a QA tester and a Beta tester, I’ll agree there. QA should be done before a change is even pushed. Look at the Fly By Wire GitHub channel on their Discord and one will see how QA should work.

The Beta should really be for us to test out all the fixes and confirm them. The really frustrating part for me is there are really zero key fixes on the list that I want to test. If SU8 (as it exists now) were never to release, I don’t think I’d care.

The promise of SU8 being just a bug fix excited a lot of people on the forum. Then the published list of fixes were 96% things no one complains about. Don’t fix things no one notices. Fix the 50 bugs that we have pushed to the top of the weekly dev update!

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It was pretty disheartening to see the release notes showed only 8 community bugs.

I’m not sure why only 8 were worthy of their attention.

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You make it sound like fixing a bug is like throwing a switch.
In complex systems fixing one bug may have a whole lot of side effects since a lot of stuff is interconnected.

So it’s often not about what’s worthy of s.o. intention but what can be achieved. Normally there are time tables and plans for stuff like that. You can expect them to have mapped out what they intend to fix in SU9, 10, 11 and 12 already.

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I didn’t make anything sound like anything.

You elected to read two sentences and extrapolate what you wanted from them.

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Since you only wrote two sentences there wasn’t much more to extrapolate from.
And interpreting what someone is saying and reacting on it, is basically what a discussion is all about.
It certainly came across to me that way, so if you meant something different by it, feel free to elaborate.

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I suppose SU8 is mainly a developers fix. I watched the SDK-Q&A and despite me not being a programmer at allll I could easily understand what Asobo is doing now and to what aims: fixing a lot of the developers side of things (for themselves too, mind you) so by SU9 onwards they can more easily do quality fixes again.

Also, as in the last development update stated, 2022 should be the year of the addon aircrafts and they need to be facilitated urgently.

And overall, for me personally, finally seeing AI-planes take off around me has been very much worth it. :partying_face:

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There is two things I will love the sim to work on AI and VR performance.

The AI was fixed with departing and landing. A lot of issues with airplanes taking the opposite runway so I can say they fixed part of it.

I have a midrange PC and VR is unplayable for me. Low FPS. I want to try on SU8 I haven’t have time to connect to it yet.

I fixed the AI issue by flying on Vatsim and using AIG so it is a win for me.
The VR not happy about it yet. But I guess i have to be patient. The rest not matter for me. I will say ATC , too. I tried it once and ask me to descend 20 miles from the airport. I only fly A320 for a virtual airline and waiting for the 737 so maybe that’s why.

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I’m certain they are spending time on the top bugs we’ve highlighted, but let me fall back on the numbers again. The 211 non-community bugs they fixed must have taken a lot of effort to close. Imagine all the testing, configuration management, merging, fix-on-fix, etc they had to do for those. Not trivial!

Now imagine they spent zero time on those and instead fixed 5 top bugs on the community list. I would be ecstatic.

Their effort is not in question in my mind. It is where they are investing that effort that baffles me.

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I didn’t notice any significant performance improvements. But I don’t expect that with a mid range PC AND VR you will ever be any happier. MSFS simply is too hungry. There’s unlikely to be a magic bullet to change that I’m afraid.

Also IFR flying has never been a priority since release.
MSFS sets itself apart from the competition in VFR. Therefore I don’t expect any significant improvements in IFR on short notice. P3D and Xplane will remain the top dogs in that field for quite a while. There’s too much other stuff to iron out first. DX12 integration, stability, aerodynamics and lots of other stuff like helicopters will come first.

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It’s sad but you are right 100 percent in all you posted.

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We have no idea whats going on in the background. Maybe some of the stuff had to be fixed in order to prepare the sim for other changes - like the expected changes in aerodynamics or some other feature on their agenda.
At some point I have to expect that they have a plan and know what they are doing even though I don’t understand it

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From a business standpoint it’s the sensible thing to do. Create a unique selling point (VFR flying) and push it. Add new features when needed. It is bad for the dedicated and knowledgeable IFR pilots but it’s difficult to please everyone. Also many of those mentioned above will already come from XP or P3D and gzve a fallback option.
It will take time but good IFR will happen

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I have a 5700 gpu and ryzen 5 3500 and I was able to play decent on medium. Now not even in low I get more than 20 fps. If I ever hit that. The only time I can fly is in a cessna and VFR. If I pick FBW 320 not good on VR…However in the sim I can reach 60 fps on medium and 30 fps on high/ultra on non-VR. I guess I have to update my PC to a better gpu and CPU but with no the right time since they are skyrocket on price.

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Yeah that’s harsh. :frowning:
I decided against VR because of that even though my PC has a bit more reserves. But I’m quite happy with eye tracking and a wide monitor. Also have the Saitek panels and like to feel the switches instead of clicking with the mouse. So VR probably won’t work for me anyway.

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Beta 8 is not worth it to me, particularly since you cannot do multiplayer unless all other players are also on Beta 8! Really.

I uninstlled and re-installed the prior base sim. A waste of time.

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Yep, I’m pretty sure they have a plan, and as they actually designed and built this sim I’m pretty sure they have a good idea of what they are doing - certainly I expect they have a much better plan thatn all the armchair experts on this forum do

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I wish they would let us in just a bit more. I would love to have an idea on how they rank and prioritize known bugs. Is everything just first in, first out? I would doubt that. So they must have a severity/priority.

I can only go off of the data we have, and based off SU8 beta, I have no idea why an obscure bug no one has ever seen makes the fix list.

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