Split the World into Sections! Reduce Gigantic Download Data down to actual need - Users struggling with Hardware Space and Updates

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To manage the initial FS Download Quantity most users had to purchase external storage ware, so did i. it felt like spending triple amount of the actual game price of 100$. However, even this won’t do it, every major update urges me to re-think and let go FS for the sake of storage limits. Today i am no longer able to use FS because updates won’t work, unless i repurchase hardware and research for splitting methods. Technically i am suprised those geniuses at Microsoft have not given a dime on compression or download segmentation. Yes, lol. Disastrous Planning!

My Request is to split the World into Sections and let users download the Stakes they need.

I use 10% of the world i am flying around, so why would i download the whole 100% of the Earth ???
i will never ever need those 90%. Even if i did, i would download extra stakes later.

Every other Sim Platform does it.
Laminar’s X-Plane has 5-10 sectors if i remember correctly:

  1. USA, Mexico, Caribbean
  2. Canada, Alaska, Arctic
  3. South America
  4. Europe, Scandinavia
  5. Russia, China, Asia
  6. Africa
  7. Oceania

I would download 1., 3., and 7. as an example. So my data storage is dealing with 20% of what’s available. Not to mention how many advantages this brings to both the consumers and developer either way, found about 30 advantage points, and not a single disadvantage.

Can be down with Checkbox Menu or vector drawn flat eath scheme with dlickable sectors.

To implement this as fast as possible i would give it top preference, i mean really top!

Two menu actions should be offered immediately:

  1. For those who wish to reduce add menu bar icon, then clickable sectors. Taking out a sector would uninstall the sector. This option should have priority over downloading system updates (This criteria is extremely important).
  2. For new installs offer the sector choice menu upfront.
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I understand what you are saying but all I can say is that for me the storage requirements are not an issue on my dedicated 1tb SSD. The update process is an issue but that is an entirely different story.

I am guessing that FS2020 is taking up about 200 gb on my SSD. On X-Plane 11 with scenery and other addons it was taking up 1.2 tb drive space.

So, whilst I completely understand that you may have issues with this, I don’t have too many complaints with the current method.

Having said all this, it could conceivably help load up times (?) and could maybe benefit console users/gamers who are getting short of disk space. It could also I suppose shorten the sim update process if you are just interested in one geographical area :slightly_smiling_face:

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You could consider buying a 480GB SSD, they are really cheap now, around 50,-

This probably would be enough space for years to come.

Download time is a different story, though.

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The solution is obviously a larger drive. And if space is really an issue don’t download whatever world updates and aircraft not needed.

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Perhaps I’m missing something but does the OP believe they are downloading the entire Earths Bing data? That data is streamed as you use it, and not part of the install. The offline data is though, and will be tiny by comparison.

I’ve been looking for somewhere that states this categorically, but I am guessing that the folder “fs-base-cgl” contains the offline data? If so that is a “mere” 64GB.

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If i’m being totally honest for some reason I didn’t pick up on the obvious fact like you did that the scenery data is mainly streamed so thanks for making that point clear which I failed to do :slightly_smiling_face:

Anyway, FS2020 might have a few failings but for me storage space is not one of them but that is just my take on this one :slightly_smiling_face:

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For another sim I had downloaded a lot of high-res Ortho, and even generated a few of my own. They took up way more space than this entire sim does, and this still looks better for one reason. On that sim you couldn’t have both Ortho, and higher-res meshes, IIRC. You had to pick one or the other. Here you can enjoy both. There are even more accurate meshes available, which make the Alps look amazing, and they still work with the streamed data. It still has a smaller footprint than its rivals.

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I’m 99.5% sure that the sim you are referring to is X-Plane 11.

I did the same as you and I think I ended up with over 500gb of free/self generated ortho (level 17 or 18, I think). It took me ages but was a good learning process. If i’m honest though the end results weren’t that spectacular :slightly_smiling_face::slightly_smiling_face:

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stream yes, ssds already,
So whatever causes the still large amount of download data
is the issue of this Thread, not any of your stories.

Title is clear, Text is clear, Point is clear.

vote or don’t vote, but rescue me from that level of answers.

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what are you referring to exactly? The stuff you have installed on you hard drive (roughly 150GB) or the data that is constantly downloaded/streamed?

You can keep a little control on the amount on the hard drive. Simply uninstall everything you don’t want in the Content Manager. Stuff you have control over is: aircraft, liveries, hand-crafted airports and other stuff from world updates like landing challenges. Everything else is not on your hard drive and is only being streamed as needed.

But even if you uninstalled ALL stock aircraft, liveries, airports and landing challenges that would give you less than 20 GB. The flight tutorials are around 15 GB.

The rest is essential stuff that can’t be removed. But honestly for todays standards 150GB isn’t excessive considering. Battlefield 1 for example has around 85GB.
And I currently have about another 160 GB of add ons in my Community folder …

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Asobo have remarked on several occasions that the world data is well over 3Pb … heaven only knows what exactly it is now with the world updates that have taken place. So something like 3.1 to 3.8 million Gb of data or more I’d guess. That’s gigantic.

The full download of 130Gb is a tiny fraction … the sim core, aircraft, missions, handcrafted POI etc. etc. just enough to make it work. The magnificent world scenery we have is basically all streamed from one of those lovely clouds. That’s why in offline mode it looks like FSX :wink:

So splitting the world scenery has no real meaning in this achitecture. Now, could they come up with a much better way to manage dowwnloading and installation of updates … I couldn’t possibly comment…

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I moved this topic to Wishlist.

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now this is good guidance finally. thank you @Archer374.

as you concluded, i miss a clear understanding of the download architecture as we know them from other games. in my memories the classic structures of fsx and x-plane still dominates.

My situation is:
i downloaded the pro-version initially and then whenever an update was released, i updated it. There was more than enough space left on the ssd. however the initial installation was only allowed on the native c:/drive as you may remember, that is where windows is located.
To avoid uninstalling windows, and the fact that there was enough space on the native drive (including later add-ons) i transfered everything other than win and fs away to other ssds, which i purchased for that very reason. pretty messy now underknief my desk, thank you microsobo.

Can’t tell how angered i was about this tiletantic urge. I hated MFS from the first minute.

the big updates worked without problems, till the most recent which stopped somewhere in the final refering to lack of storage space.

i am aware now of the streaming process. i should have refered to the download quantity in general, not refering to global scenery stakes. Still wonder what causes this masses of download quantities if not for scenery. all i purchased from 3rd party was 2 airports.

i will need to go through the folders to compare to your statements, and will ask for guidance from there, if that’s ok. See below:

In all means my post remains active as a wish, installation process was a mess of a strategy. since time can not be reversed all i can ask for is them turning their spots on this issue and come with a more senseful customer friendly architecture to save their future (Current is no option for me), starting with the option of chosing any storage device attached and not just C:, allow splitting onto more than 1 device (explain what and how), guide what can be spared whithout touching purchased add-ons.

i mean 142 GB is considerable for something that is supposed to stream.

ok here my loads:

C:\Users\name\AppData\Local\Packages 142GB
(83273 files, 2904 folders)
scenery add-ons (packages) 12GB
other programs: Win10, small stuff.

builit-in SSD size is 256GB, still 5GB empty.

Initial space requested by Microsoft was 100GB if i remember correctly.

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And yet this has 6 votes. Boggles the mind. Didn’t you have to actually install these optional extras via content manager to have them installed in the first place? Even the world updates don’t install as part of the automatic updates.. You have to go and install them manually from memory.

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there were no optionals, not from what i remember.

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Hmmm, maybe it depended on when you bought the game and when the World Update was released I guess. If you bought the game after a World Update had been released it came auto installed perhaps.. Not sure on that one so you could be right there.

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i was among first buyers. we are speaking minutes here…
are you saying i should re-install from scratch?

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No, I’m not suggesting anything. I am just surprised you now have to uninstall stuff because I recall having to actually go and purposely install the World Updates manually (it was not automatic) from the content manager and if you didn’t do that, you didn’t have them even after a world update was released. ie I would have thought you already had that choice “not to install” but the fact you say you didn’t, well, that seems different from my experience/memory.

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i understand what you are saying.

mmh, kind of a dead end now, will try to re-start to update and see if there is and how i could potentially miss optionals.
However i expect same will happen, it will start updating until it stops with
the known issue.
stay tuned:)

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Did you try ortho with overlays? It’s a horrific mess..

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