I really don’t understand this LOD issue. Does the sim really need to calculate every single polygon built into, let’s say the space needle, in order to render the skyline of Seattle you can view from a far away distance such as KSEA in Tacoma??? I remember back in X-Plane people making fun at the prospect of the sim seemingly attempting to render full autogen in pitch dark night, given its poor graphics performance in the pre-Vulkan era. Was that altogether a joke, or not? Because having to create a “mist” to cover up the inability to draw a skyline at a distance, in the times where graphic cards are capable of rendering reflections onto liquids in real time, sounds to me like the programmers got the concept wrong from the design phase on the sketchboard.
“These posts hurt the atmosphere of the forums, which drives some of our community away and may prevent others from joining.”
Maybe they should find and solve the root cause of this problem. While it is true some people will never be satisfied, the large number of complaints and negative atmosphere has a root cause. (Most) people don’t complain for fun.
Luckily I only had a couple CTDs since release of which a few were from overclocking my GPU, so far the software itself has been remarkably stable. But there is definitely something going wrong maybe on higher end systems? My system is pretty old and barely runs it at a stable frame rate at medium settings. As for the updates, its a big frustration for me. Starting up the sim to do a quick flight only to find out the sim is stuck on some small nav data update, downloading all the fs-base files, getting stuck in a loop, download speed dropping to 0 mbit/sec on a good internet connection, I have had all of those… I have to say, I don’t like Windows and all the crap it comes with so I always debloat everything after each Windows update including the Windows store, maybe that has something to do with it…
Asobo foremost needs to find the root causes of all these software related issues causing CTDs and update issues. Those cause most of the frustration, improve their quality assurance, make an open / closed beta system for updates? The last update breaking the flight model with lift produced by flap deployment is just unacceptable, anyone could have noticed this bug by just taking one short flight with any FS2020 aircraft, how do they test those things? How is it possible those bugs still exist after 2 extra weeks of “testing” and “polishing”? And even when the issue was acknowledged by Asobo, I mean mistakes like this should be avoided but well it happend, nothing to do about that anymore, their “fix” is for users to go through the .cfg files themselves and fix their error, I’m sorry but that is just unacceptable, that is an awful service to a customer who might not have clue how to even find the MSFS folder on their harddrive. Another big annoyance is the excessive icing effect, they should have fixed that one by now as it affects so many users or at least add an option to completely turn off the icing effect (both performance and visual).
I don’t find the user interface a very pleasant experience either, the camera system is overly complicated, why do you need to go to outside view before being able to switch to drone camera or fixed views? Going from drone camera or fixed view to cockpit view, weird things happen. Why do I need to press a custom view I saved twice to end up in the correct orientation and zoom if I just want to peak at something quickly and most importantly, why is it not possible to completely turn OFF camera motion! Flying IFR in turbulence there is nothing more annoying than trying to scroll something into the autopilot and end up zooming in or out… There are very little options in-game, for everything you need to return to the main menu, no flight analysis, no replay (work in process), no helicopters, gliders, classics, mainly a long laundry list of single engine prop planes as long as my arm. No low visibility / RVR capability for IFR approach simulation, no offset ILS approaches. In short the game / simulator in its current state has very limited options apart from staring out of the window and observe the amazing graphics.
And yet, I’m still here. I still use X-plane every once in a while for seriously recreating a flight from A to B, but I’m also addicted to the amazing graphics the simulator has to offer. I have been close to bin FS2020 on so many occasions but I just want it to succeed as I can’t quite enjoy X-plane anymore, the Microsoft / Asobo team have spoiled us with their nice graphics 
. As a real world airline pilot I’m more interested in accurate flight dynamics and IFR flying and in that area MSFS just has so many shortcomings that for me its just completely breaking the immersion, I find myself starting up MSFS only for VFR flying and to test things out when I read about a bug or to see if they’ve fixed certain things after a new update. Unfortunately the focus seems to be releasing new content and better graphics compared to delivering on the simulator promise and fixing the current flaws and bugs. Also during the developer Q&As, very little attention is given to technical aspects, its mainly about water masking, night lighting, new world updates etc. As frustrating as it is for me being more interested in having the core simulator fixed, I’m committed to FS2020 as I believe one day we will have great graphics and a true flight simulator, Xbox and VR in one.
I made a list with items important for accurate flight simulation, most items are pretty basic and imo a must for any true flight simulator. Voting is appreciated:
So lets stick together and keep pointing out where the issues are for the developers to fix and engage in healthy and constructive discussions, try to end the negativity. The current state of the sim is far from being a realistic simulator, but it will get there eventually considering the 10 year commitment of Microsoft and Asobo.
Commonly referred to as “roadsalt”, or just “salt”. In Zamunda, roads don’t break for you, rather you for broke them for them. I suspect we’re going to see just a small tidbit of them trying to article in crash Zamanda for you!
@PZL104, that’s funny! But I can only remember how to properly fly so many aircraft in my poor old noggin at once, so I tend not to do that. But thank you for reminding me to go edit my post, as I surely did not mean for him to START deleting unused stuff. It’s probably not going to cause issues, but I wouldn’t exactly call it a best practice, either. And as I explained, if it’s purely a space saving measure, it’s dirt cheap to just give MSFS it’s own SSD and not have to worry about it.
I have no idea how the game development world works but at this point I think it is time someone came out into the open and faced up to the fact that ASOBO needs some help with this title.
Much as I want to enjoy this sim, at the moment I can’t.
I haven’t had problems downloading/updating the sim, but I have great sympathy with the OP, and the many others still having similar problems. You only have to look down the topics in the Community General Discussion to see all the different problems being encountered. Perhaps you may expect this with software of this complexity, but I’ve had every version of MSFS since 98, and I don’t remember it ever being this bad before at this stage of the release.
I have tried to be constructive in my posts, either explicitly pointing out bugs in the sim, or trying to help simmers by suggesting workarounds, etc, and several have been appreciative of my help. But it seems even pointing out obvious bugs is now classed as being negative.
The facts are:
- Despite being several months after release, many basic problems are still not solved, or even being investigated. These have been described in the forums, and reported via Zendesk, and voted for in the bugs list, but without a solution. I have had to implement workarounds, or download third party software to get the sim to work.
- Every update seems to introduce major new bugs. Only once was the bug considered bad enough to release a hotfix, and once they issued a fix via FBW. The latest update was delayed because they’d found a major problem, but even so was released with a further major bug.
- The reaction to the latest bug I find very difficult to understand. Eventually, Mr. Asobo admits that he made a simple mistake in the release, which has caused the sim to be unusable for several of the planes. However, he is not going to hurry to fix it - instead, he gives vague instructions and says it’s our choice, we can try to fix it ourselves, or if we can’t (or don’t choose to), we’ll have to live with it till he gets a Round Tuit. I have the fix implemented, but to me there is certainly another change in the flight dynamics that this hasn’t fixed, and which has caused me several crashes. I’ve tried flying X-Plane recently to check it’s not me, and it isn’t. Perfect landings every time.
- Every time they say they are sorry, and they will learn by the experience, but they don’t.
Mr. Asobo is very proud of the World Updates (which have had a very mixed reception), and the VR upgrade (of benefit to a minority of the users). I would just say that personally I want them to get the basic sim with the basic aircraft and the basic scenery all working adequately. It’s no use buiding a beautiful house on flimsy foundations.
I have always tried to be constructive, but it doesn’t seem anyone listens. As I say, I can’t enjoy the sim at the moment, and haven’t even tried for several days - instead I have returned to X-Plane, and am enjoying the stability even at the expense of the scenery. I think I’ll even fire up FSX, for a bit of nostalgia. I may return to try FS2020 after next update (depending on what the verdict of the forum is), but till then, to those who can, have a happy flight.
I seem to remember that there is a limit on the # of polygons a setup can reneder / generate. But Im not a programmer, so my opions / rememberances are from 40 years of experience. And I remember one of the simulators back in the olden times had added the mist feature to speed up the sim, so you’d launch with clear weather, and look off to the distance to only see fog. It was quite the game killer for me at the time. But they havent actually added the mist in the game (only melted amragedon bldgs in photo*) the mist you were seeing should of been there. I see it all the time when I fly in the mountains.
But case in point I have noticed lately, now that you have snow on the ground, if you fly low 20’ or so the snow on the ground LOD must be set kind of low since you can watch it draw/fill and area as you approach it.
Thats, as I also wrote now sometimes, is probably the root of all evil we actually see with the sim 
I cant imagine to see MSFS2020 running well on an (actual) xbox without massive restrictions and with the goal of a “equal user experience” in mind this restrictions must go at the expense of the PC users.
Please teach me better. Please dont sacrifice this sim on the xbox altar (desperate prayer).
No no no no no you cannot say that.the sim is buggy and it affects everything including us. Asobo needs to step up on this if they need to keep loyal customers. The way its going, this sim is leaning towards an xbox graphics fancy game rather than hard-core simming, it sounds like for profit margin for gamers, and simmers left out in the cold…
@ExtraPilot6480 you made me feel better, insofar as I’m not the only one who writes complete books in their posts on this forum!
However, despite having written a complete book for a post, you conveyed very little information. You complained about problems and bugs that others have encountered (without specifying which ones you were referring to), but not whichever ones actually applied to you. Well, except the drag coefficient error from the last patch which is exceedingly easy to fix. I agree with you that they should have Hotfixed it, especially considering how fast they identified the problem, and how simple the fix actually is, but since they didn’t, just fix it yourself. Takes about 2.5 seconds per plane.
And then, you drop this bomb:
Without so much as offering a single example of what it is you are talking about. We can’t offer you any assistance if we don’t know what your problems are!
I see little to be gained by continuing to belabor my points. Enjoy X-Plane, you may just want to stay there given your general attitude.
@sehnsedahamses, they do not have that as a goal. They may say they do (but I don’t know if they’ve actually said that or not), but if the was a goal, there would be no Community folder on the PC version, as an XBox just can’t do those tricks, there would be no VR, as the available hardware for XBox is a fraction of the quality as what’s available for PC (and in many cases, is not available at all), and a lot of other things I could list, but I think I’ve made my point.
While I do think a lot of the short term things we’ve seen (like playing with LODs, etc.) are to prep for the XBox release, once that’s done, there’s no reason to keep it that way just to intentionally handcuff the PC version for some goal that they clearly don’t even have. Which is why once the XBox version is “in the can”, we’ll see those issues on our side go away.
Additionally, while I personally think you’ve gotta be nuts to even want to run MSFS on an XBox to begin with, from a business perspective, it’s a brilliant move by MS/Asobo to make it available. It dramatically increases their profitability on the title as a whole, and enables the XBox kiddos to subsidize us realism fanatics (often using mommy and daddy’s money to do so) in the form of continued development and enhancements for the PC version.
So I think worrying is pointless, as it’s not a valid issue to worry about. Though it also wouldn’t be completely wrong to say that for the moment, we’re all beta testers for the XBox version, and will be for at least a few more months. I would prefer not to be used in that role, but if we want our sim to be enhanced by their revenues, we need some teeth in the game, too.
But I do think this forum should, at least eventually, be divided into XBox and PC “sides”, as I don’t want to consistently hear about issues the XBox people might be having that simply don’t even apply to me. In fact, as soon as Uncle Sam gets around to buying me a new TV with their Covid relief money, I won’t even have a physical XBox at all, as the only thing I’m currently using it for is VOD apps that my oldish TV simply doesn’t have.
The “fix” you say I should apply, I’ve downloaded and installed from flightsim.to. Despite this, I regularly get crashes (i.e. unexpected encounters with the ground) when I do not expect them. No problems flying in X-Plane.
Check my posts and you will see some of the problems I’ve had, including originating the topic concerning the flaw in the shortcuts. You will also see how much I’ve tried to help others. (432 posts, 428 likes received, 2 solutions.) I did not write this post to repeat these problems (or repeat problems I have in common with others), just to express my belief that Mr. Asobo is not getting the basics right, instead diverting his effort elsewhere. Look at the number of items awaiting a solution, on backlog etc. As I said, there are often workarounds, but I’m just getting fed up with it.
You can disagree if you like, but being patronising doesn’t really help, and it certainly does me an injustice.
May you be right!
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