For those a bit newer to this topic and perhaps unaware, this problem was discussed in some detail during the November 2023 developer livestream. I had submitted a question about this problem and it was discussed in some detail. That said, the discussion did unfortunately boil down to Asobo needing to investigate it. I’ve neither read nor heard anything substantial about their investigation since it was raised last November.
During that livestream, Asobo did say that MSFS doesn’t use the system clock, but rather a hardware clock. In addition, because of how MSFS is coded, there are two or even three (or more) separate clocks running concurrently for different things. They alluded to the problem perhaps being related to the Xbox becoming bogged down while running MSFS and the resulting low framerate affecting the clocks.
On PC, in my experience the clocks keep time perfectly. So, I suspect the problem is related to how the clocks are affected by the heavy demand MSFS generally places on the Xbox hardware.
I do recommend reading the relevant portion of the transcript. It is titled “Time running slower on Xbox” under the Q&A Session 2 sub-section, and is available at this link:
As far as I know the XBox has no hardware clock like a PC does. This requires to calculate time by software which in turn can result the time calculation not accurate under heavy load.
The Xbox is architecturally pretty much identical to a Windows PC, and has a realtime hardware clock just like your PC. It remembers the time of day and shows a clock on the home screen.
The problem is definitely not that the Xbox hardware or operating system doesn’t know what time of day it is: it’s most likely a problem in how the game keeps track of time passing in the simulation – the slow per-core CPU performance on Xbox is likely exacerbating any timekeeping problems with frame pacing far over what most PC users see.
A320 (v2) moving from 120 to 60hz on display improves cockpit clock time lag from 70% to 90% accuracy for me on Xbox. Interestingly, the chrono in the cockpit is spot on for both hz.
Just want to chime in and say I’m experiencing this issue as well. It might have happened in the past as I have noticed the clock go out of sync before but it didn’t really cause any issues so I didn’t pay it much mind. I’m really noticing it with the 777-300. The really annoying part is that it seems like fuel flow is running at a real time rate so I’m almost running out of gas on my flights. I haven’t tested this with other aircraft but I’ve timed it a few times and sim minutes are taking anywhere between 1:15 and 1:20 in real time.
I cleared and turned off rolling cache, uninstalled two airports and 3 or 4 planes that I’d purchased and it did not help.
I’ve been doing some more investigating using the pmdg aircraft and what I’ve noticed flying with a friend. If I sit inside cockpit and use the map you can watch his plane literally walk away from yours
But viewing the aircraft outside they seem to match speed so the issue with sim rate lies inside the cockpit somewhere.
You using the 777 or the 737? I did a flight with the 737 the other day and didn’t experience any noticeable time lag. Happens in every 777 flight though.