Ever since launch we’ve had these issues. They need to explain in detail how the sim works online, what server software they’re using and where they’re located. They need to be more open about all of this, as there’s been massive problems this weekend. But a lot of these issues are long standing problems, what’s going on and will things ever be improved? If it’s technically too difficult, give us a fully viable and improved offline mode with greater autogen and terrain.
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Itll get handled. I dont need to know how.
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You might not need to know, but thankfully you only speak for you. There’s a lot of disappointment, even outside these forums. You don’t know whether it will improve, either - it’s been a while since launch and not much has changed, raising the concern isn’t an issue.
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I’ve had it as bad as anyone this past go-around, but this is a bit of an overreaction. These particular issues are unique to the SU11 rollout and not issues that have been persistent. There have been issues that have lingered and they are many, but they are diverse and not related to the events of this past week, so lets be a little more reserved with our scope of disgust. Was this a fiasco? Yes. Generally does the sim behave when it comes to the online component? Yes, 99% of the time. And they don’t owe us any public explanation in detail as to how the sim works. As if that would be of help to you or anyone else outside of the developers. Its been since Friday. Maybe take a deep breath and continue to report the issues.
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This is pretty simple.
Microsoft handles the servers.
They lose money if they provide TOO MUCH overhead because server resources will go mostly unused.
So they allocate their hardware as needed.
A new game has more players than an old game. But sometimes, a new update leads to an unexpectedly large spike in players for a few days before settling back down to predictable numbers.
This year, Cyberpunk 2077 caught a second wind after a big update. Nobody predicted it would be as successful two years after release as it was. Luckily, it isn’t an online game so it caused minimal issues.
Last year, Forza Horizon 5 was more successful than anticipated and like MSFS, it lives in a persistently online state, so we saw quite similar issues as users spiked, and MS tried to keep up with server resource allocation.
MSFS is more of a MMORPG than sims that came before it, so a big spike in the user base can slow the allocated servers, and then MS has to decide if they should allocate more server strength to MSFS, or if they should just wait a few days for the user base to settle back down into more predictable numbers.
This means every time there is a SU, players spike, and a BIG SU like this last one with a dozen new planes brought a lot of returning players back for a few days just to try the new stuff! Also, a huge number of beta testers returning to the regular servers causes further spikes. Beta testers probably spend a significant amount of time in sim compared to non beta testers, so their return will noticeably impact the servers. Beta servers, with far fewer players, tend to run so smoothly during beta testing. They typically have all kinds of overhead, and beta testers don’t encounter these issues until the SU goes public and everyone returns to the main servers.
This is a common occurrence for all games reliant on MS server strength for smooth performance. The performance takes a hit for a few days after a major update. Then more servers get allocated and/or the user base reduces back down to a size the servers can handle with proper overhead.
The issue is like clockwork. MS doesn’t have unlimited servers although they DO have some epic capabilities, they need to move and allocate resources as needed. They have enough to cover all games and all players, but sometimes it isn’t allocated as evenly as folks would like. MSFS is SO server reliant, any slowdown is quite noticeable… but at least slowdowns after major updates are predictable.
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You are not required to be online, but in the options menu (General Options / Data) you can see what exactly is using online features. Multiplayer, Bing Maps (scenery), photogrammetry, etc. You can turn them off if you want. Flight Simulator streams a lot of data, and it’s everywhere in Azure data centers. You can choose the server closest to you, but issues will happen when it is overloaded with players who want to stream and download updates all at the same time.
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Yet, they supply a SDK, have support, and answer most questions when asked. 
Whether they “OWE” it or not, they certainly are doing a lot to share the workings of the sim, with the Sim Community, and the 3PDs
Most developers would be “unable to function” without information from MS/Asobo about the workings of the Sim.
Most, other Freeware & Payware “part time / Hobbist” developers would not be able to do much either without the constant flow of technical information from Asobo/MS.
As for the “Casual Simmer / Gamer”, who just wants to use/play with MSFS, and do not it care about how it works …
---- it’s becoming pretty clear, that it is such a complex thing, that without some technical computer knowledge, most PC users would be struggling to even run MSFS, let alone decide what hardware & software to purchase & use.
X-Box Users, have no choice… switch itON – it works or it doesn’t 
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We could eliminate a lot of the scenery server load if we had a proper way to cache the scenery. I really don’t understand why Asobo hasn’t prioritized this. Not only would it help the servers, it would save them money in the long run. Right now I can’t even use the manual cache, and when I could, it was way too tedious for it to be practical. One thing that would be nice is the ability to write to a manual cache as you fly, instead of the rolling cache.
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I don’t think they owe us an explanation for the occasional server problems. It’s the 40th anniversary extravaganza weekend. You can from the Steam numbers activity is currently very high.
Not saying it’s not frustrating, but it’s absolutely within expectations and one of the realities of this type of tech.
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Because it wouldn’t work. Folks who think they can save all their scenery on a SSD vastly underestimate the size of these scenery textures and meshes. Unless you want to restrict all flying to say, a medium sized Hawaiian island or less.
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What wouldn’t work? And what do you mean about restricting flying? We already have a manual cache (or did before they broke it in SU11). It just needs to be less tedious and perform better. If you cache a large area the interface itself slows to a crawl. I definitely have enough space to cache the areas I fly in most. I know this because I took the time in the past to manually cache it when that was possible.
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No great problems here. I guess it’s a bit like car traffic flows where there are peaks and troughs, constant monitoring, timing of traffic lights adjusted, intersections improved, new roads etc etc etc. There are civil engineers full-time employed as traffic engineers. I guess similar for computer data centres. Cheers.
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I leverage the SDK as much as anyone. The comment that was made about them having to explain themselves had nothing to do with any data developers would need. It was mere unprincipled insistence.
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You really want to try to download the internet 
You need to store at least 2PB!
( Byte – Wikipedia)
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Caching the areas you fly in most does not require downloading the entire internet… Have you not used the manual cache? It’s a feature we’ve had since launch…
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Why wouldn’t it work?
Because, like I said before, it takes up too much space. If it took less space, they would have made it easier to save large swaths of detailed terrain, but space is the issue. These textures and meshes live in the cloud because home computers cannot hold all the data required unless you restrict your flying to small areas like a city.
Don’t believe me? Save a high quality NYC (all five Burroughs) to your SSD and see for yourself. Or even better, O’ahu.
Try it.
No sense in debating something we can all try for ourselves. If it worked well, everyone would be doing it and insisting the interface was better for saving such data. We have had the ability to do this for two years now. Many have tried it. Most have learned the hard way why it is not a great idea if we are already have unlimited data and a decent, persistent online connection.
I still don’t understand your point… You’re saying that a feature that is already in the sim is not possible to implement? We have both a rolling and manual cache (or did before SU11) that allows you to set a size and cache scenery to your heart’s content. My point is that one of those features is completely broken as of SU11 and the other feature has not worked well for a while. Simply improving those features could save them a lot of bandwidth over the long run. If it wasn’t possible they wouldn’t have added these features in the first place. You’re downloading scenery as you fly. Why not cache as much of it as you can if you will be flying in that area repeatedly?
I have to agree with @DestroyedBeauty, as this seems to be a systemic problem that has been commented on more than twice, including by me, all over these forums.
My own case probably represents a more extreme situation since I am in Russia, and internet access is being affected by the political situation.
I suspect that @WellREDBarron is correct and MSFS can be likened to a MMO-RPG.
And if that’s the case, resources should be allocated as if it’s a real MMO. Games like Genshin Impact, Aion, Minecraft, and others I’ve seen played, don’t experience these problems. As far as I can determine, (I didn’t write the games and I don’t have source code ), most of these games are thin clients that primarily handle graphical display output and take user inputs and return them to the server.
The installer and on-system dataset for Genshin Impact is a tiny fraction of the size of a MSFS install. (But then again, the game world is a tiny fraction of the size of the entire world too.)
I strongly suspect that the problem isn’t confined to MSFS. Updating Windows is such a painful and time consuming process that special utilities like WSUS Offline Updater exist. So I suspect that Microsoft doesn’t place much emphasis on server up-time and availability.
The problem is compounded by the fact that the absence of, or troubles with, the connection to the associated servers cause tremendous disruption to the gameplay.
There’s a thread that was started by a gentleman in the UK who has been fighting excessively long scenerio startup times, as in in excess of thirty minutes to over an hour.
Update downloads are painful to the extreme, taking days in some cases.
If you have not enabled “offline mode”, the game won’t even run without a sufficiently rapid network connection.
NO!
These are not “occasional” problems! People experience these issues every day, and there’s a tremendous amount of angst all over these forums.
As I said in an earlier posting of my own that Microsoft isn’t some cash-strapped Open Source project, it’s a multinational corporation with pockets as deep as the best of them.
And yes, I place this entirely at the feet of Microsoft, as it’s their game, under their brand, using their servers, and they have an obligation to the people who purchased the game to provide an acceptable game-play experience.
- Is this a trivial task? No.
- Does it cost money? Absolutely!
- Are problems going to happen occasionally? Darn right!
However, these are not, nor should they be, excuses for a poor gaming experience.
I absolutely agree that this is something that Microsoft and Asobo should prioritize as it renders the simulator almost unplayable.
What say ye?
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And apparently you failed to understand when i said that I cached the areas I flew in most when the manual cache worked and space was not an issue… A lot of people used the manual cache when it worked, and people still use the rolling cache, despite it not working well. So I still don’t get your point. There is nothing impossible about it, and the areas I cached when the manual cache worked used a reasonable amount of space (based on the limit I set). Again, you’re acting like we don’t currently have a cache, when my point is the existing cache needs to be improved.
What is there to see? You can currently cache areas. It takes up hard drive space depending on the area. It uses less bandwidth in the long run. That’s the purpose of a cache. It’s practical, which is why they added it. It’s an existing feature that has been there since launch that a lot of people have used and needs to be fixed and improved. Simply being able to use the manual cache again would be a good start.
To be clear, I’m not saying we should have the ability to cache the whole world. I’m saying they should improve upon the current caching system, such as being able to write to a manual cache as you fly, like we can currently do with the rolling cache… The hard drive impact would be the exact same (based on the limit), except it would be more efficient because data would not be rolling out of the cache. It would take longer to fill out the manual cache as you fly than it would to draw out squares in the manual cache interface.
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This is clearly a communication breakdown because we are both beating our heads against the wall trying to make our points and it seems like we are both failing to grasp the other’s.
I keep telling you it can be done, and if it was an effective and efficient means of flying offline, more people would be doing it already (we have had the option since day one) and demand for a better way to save the data would have driven the devs to improve it.
Correct. We both know this. Now HOW MUCH SPACE IS REQUIRED for say, NYC, or O’ahu? It can be done. But only with small areas before it starts to devour all your HD or SSD space, AND YOU NEED near unlimited bandwidth to download and save it in the FIRST PLACE.
If this was meant to help folks with limited bandwidth, it kinda fails because of the bandwidth requirements to save such large files. And the SSD or HD space it requires.
Also, if the terrain mesh, photogrammetry, or satellite data changes, your cached data is useless because it has been changed in sim and no longer matches the data you need to fly with the current SU or WU.
Time and again, it proves to be more trouble than it is worth. But you are not the only person who thought it would work differently or better than it really does before you tried it.
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