Update in Steam / Microsoft Store, not in MSFS launcher itself

Hello,

Please make MSFS updates in Steam, not in your Launcher. It extremely slow and unstable. Steam offer perfect service. All other games updates inside steam client itself.

Is that possible due to the fact that this game is also available on the XBox store and as a physical copy. I think the idea is that everything is done on the launcher therefore only one launcher is required for any variant.

Train Simulator Word is also available for PS and XBOX. And it updaes via Steam. So it’s possible.

The content in game doesn’t update through steam, it’s only the core launcher. I had to launch the game a second time before the actual content update was downloaded.

One thing I find really irritating about the MSFS set up is the fact that it uses its own updater to pull down patches.

As a Steam user (and one with a bad internet connection (20mbps/3.5mbps) I have to wait for MSFS to update before I can start any of my other games because Steam considers MSFS to be running while the update is happening.

Why not just use the Steam platform properly? Put the patch on the Steam servers and allow the Steam client to download it in the background while playing like every other game does.

Not everyone has a brilliant internet connection and it is pretty crappy having to wait (sometimes many hours) for MSFS to finish downloading a patch before I can start another game.

Not to mention that I can’t actually use the sim at all until the patch downloads. Just run a background thread at least.

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I can absolutely understand why you’d like to have that feature but i think we can be glad that MS decided to release the game on Steam. If I remember correctly this information came really close to the release date. So nobody really expected that we will be able to download the game on a different platform than the Microsoft Store.

Releasing products on different platforms automatically creates more work for the dev team. Steam requires diffent settings than the MS Store. So Asobo tried to keep it simple. They use the same method on both sides because this way they only have to do a minimum of changes with every patch that will come. The rest of the update will be done by the ingame downloader and i think Asobo wont change that way as the also wanna publish a xbox version of the sim.

I’m not sure I agree - by not using the Steam updater functionality you’re essentially removing the benefits it provides for its users. They might as well have simply sold via a single channel because it being on Steam is largely irrelevant from the point of view of an end-user - only the installation wrapper exists on Steam, the game content itself is pulled from Microsoft / Asobo servers and at that point Steam is out of the picture. Steam doesn’t know you’re updating - it thinks you’re playing. Some people including myself had over 70 hours of “gameplay” registered on Steam while it was first installing.

It’s frustrating to say the least.

The download client is:
-Slow (pauses download after each file)
-Only has servers in the us
-Runs in a 3d engine (use the gpu)
Please use a better service like the ones provided by the platforms the game is sold on (steam, Microsoft store etc…)
I have a gigabit ethernet connection and I can download with that speed from most services. That would mean to download the base game (about 150 GB) would take around 20 minutes. With the current launcher it takes about 6 hours just to download the base game. Updates and downloading other content are unnecessarily slow to.

2 Likes

Also, do something about the “wasted data”. i’m in the process of downloading MSFS (again) and I’ve noticed that for a download of 200gb of data, I have just 29gb of the sim downloaded.

It is very bizarre that they chose the method they have, when no other game/sim in history does it this way (that I’m aware of, feel free to correct me). Even Forza Horizon 4, another MS game, doesn’t do it this way… because it’s madness and makes no sense.

No game on Steam, Epic, etc do it this way either that I’m aware of.

It’s slow, unreliable, uses unnecassary system resources and just annoys their customers. Whichever developer or group of developer collectively thought this was a good idea is living on another planet. Who looks at the way that every other game (including those made by their own publisher?!?) does their installation and thinks… no, we’ll make the game run in order to install itself instead, and limit the servers, and leave it full of bugs.

Perhaps I’m in a ranty mood though, as I left my PC on last night to download all 152GB and it got stuck for whatever reason at 70GB. :unamused: :triumph:

It baffles me that we’re required to launch the game to download updates rather than having the game update in the background like FSX Steam Edition. Steam even has a content manager built in for DLC and addons.

I have a few friends who won’t play the sim anymore because they don’t want to have to sit through a 30min update when they decide to play.

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Even MS’s other games don’t do this - e.g. Forza Horizon 4 through MS Store.

There’s many reasons no other game handle installations this way but Asobo just decided to ignore them all and pick the most frustrating difficult option for everyone, including themselves.

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Still getting stuck? I was for a while, then read a tip to use my VPN set to a local server, and sincs then everything has installed without a hitch, and without massive amounts of wasted data, as well.

Voted for this… I bought the game on steam because my download speeds from Steam’s download servers often exceed the Gigabit internet connection offered in my area. I have like 300 titles on steam and MSFS 2020 is the ONLY one of them that doesn’t utilize the steam servers for downloads, and the only one capping me at a laughable 60Mbps. (megabit) where I’ve hit speeds of 120MBps (megabyte) for many years at this point. That’s right… you have customers in this day and age that can download at speeds 20 times faster than MSFS2020 servers seem to be capped at.

We’re downloading 171GB here… some of us could be done with it in 30 minutes, meanwhile, your download and program has been occupying resources on my computer and some of your bandwidth for like 4 hours now. and I’ve still got another 41GB to Go. That’s AFTER accidentally closing the game and uninstalling because I wasn’t sure the game had picked up where I left off like Steam’s downloads always do. So that was another 3 hours.

Devs, please upload your patch data to steam services and update the executable for steam to exclude any in game downloading and to utilize the steam UI. You’re paying for it with every purchase made via Steam ffs, might as well. I’m in the US. Australia has faster download speeds than your servers allow people to utilize these days. Catch up with 2021.

I can agree, It would be a massive benefit to be able to install content or updates via steam (in the background) as opposed to running the game for hours whilst it downloads. It’s one of the most frustrating features Asobo has implemented. I can appreciate how Marketplace content is different, but all those world updates are a nightmare, if anything please just get those done out of the application.

Why are we still not doing this? Please put the updates on Steam. The included update tool is incredibly slow, and there is little excuse for why it is being used for the PC version of the game. Please change this.

This would be a game-changer. I have been updating this game for a day now. My Internet is not the best, so it takes a very long time to install these updates. It would save a lot of time, especially when I’m practically wasting a whole day installing updates. I haven’t tried using a VPN yet. Does it make a difference at all? I am only allowed 10GB of data per month to use on my VPN. I’m glad I’m not the only one dealing with this; I thought it was just me.

Hi, (remark: I have 100 MByte/s Internet line,)
I have downloaded MSFS via Steam and needed to wait for 2 days until it has been updated. As I have installed it on an SSD formated with exFAT (just bought if for MSFS) and now I figured it out, that the community folder can’t be crerated with symbolic links :frowning: I moved it to my HDD (formated with NTFS) via STEAM and have thought that it moves everything.
What happened: I have to download all the updates again (which means, now waiting agian for 2 days). I have unlimited the download speed in MSFS and I am disappointed now, as I wanted to use MSFS over the 31st Dec/1st Jan year transition. :frowning:
Further comments: If you are not using MSFS regularly as I have not the time, you can’t just do it. You have to wait again for long time! :frowning:
Therefore, voting clearly for update via Steam.

BTW I have a 2 Gigabit internet connection, on steam I can get close to that speed, I could download the whole game in 15 minutes… But I always have to leave my computer on overnight when I want to download this game, because I live in Europe and my connection to their server in America is just not good enough… Even the updates take hours for me it’s an absolute joke… If they want to do it this way at least have servers world wide, or use some cloud service provider that hosts your download world wide not in one single location on the world…

I think the main reason Microsobo does it their way is to force users to update.