I have, for decades now, been very critical of cross-platform releases ruining PC versions as the developers almost always develop for the lowest common denominator, which is almost always the console version. The hallmarks of this are shown in a number of ways:
No FOV slider
UI designed to work with a TV at distance, and a controller
Enforced mouse acceleration
Out of those three above we have two of them. It’s sad to see that history repeats itself, and the console version will most likely be a ball, and chain around our ankles for years to come…unless, and until Asobo comes good on their word, and improves the PC version with unique features to cater for the much wider array of hardware that high end PCs can have.
The sim has been constrained over months to work on the console, like a tightly fitted corset! Until Asobo cut those cords, we’ll have to grit our teeth, and take shorter breaths.
Preset Ultra settings set the sliders to max 200, to get beyond that you can set a higher value in the file, if you use Ultra preset, change in that section, if you use a Custom setting, change in that section of the file, but if you change something in the game later, the file will revert back to default.
I have both versions running on a mid-level gaming PC and Xbox Series X.
The Xbox version’s one and only Graphics option is to enable HDR10, which my monitor doesn’t have anyway.
My PC can only run MSFS on Medium graphics, but the Xbox seems to be running on Ultra and performs much better than anything I could afford on PC.
Yep. I just backed up the UserCfg.Opt file, set the Terrain, and Objects LOD to 3.000000
Trees and Buildings are definitely loading in at a distance now, also… The ground textures do look a lot sharper. I think i will stick with that for now. (Both Terrain LOD , and Objects LOD in game have gone to full 200, i kept the render scale to 100).
I agree, which is why I added the high end PC disclaimer. For some the XBox version will be something of an upgrade, graphically at least. For others, a downgrade.
Connect your PC to a TV and a Gamepad and you have the same experience.
It’s not the console that is affecting the UI and input options, it’s the wider accessibility with more peripherals that some of us would use in “our” way of simming.
By no means does it mean that people shouldn’t be able to use a gamepad to fly and now more comfortably navigate the menus. Let’s not discard people just because they don’t have a Joystick but still want a playable sim. Most of the time in an airliner you’re not even touching the stick/yoke anyway.
But anyway, I think most of the concerns are on the graphics, not really on the input side. And there I can only repeat what others have said: The XBox Series is more capable than a lot of PCs people use to run the sim. And ALL of them will benefit from optimizations.
I’m pretty sure Asobo will add options and find ways to bring back graphical fidelity to those who have more resources, but for now the focus was to make the performance stable and finish this release in time.
I haven’t done much comparison yet because of problems with the PC version (no CTD’s, stutters or popping in on Xbox so far though!) but I haven’t found an FPS counter yet on Xbox because there doesn’t seem to be a Developer mode, qu’elle surprise LOL.
True, and that would be my complaint. The UI would never look like this if it was not destined for a console release. I never use a controller if I can help it, I dislike the things. There are many things about the UI that niggle, and hooking my PC up to a TV won’t change that.
Totally valid opinion, but you have to accept that there are others. And bringing the sim to as many players/simmers as possible was a big goal since release.
When sitting in the cockpit, we didn’t sacrifice much in terms of UI/input except for the big and buggy tooltips maybe (and the menu handle and the Eye-icon). You can have the same experience as before if you adjust the settings.
For such a big intrusive change I think they should have included a prompt after first launch which asks you which way of cockpit interaction you wish instead of defaulting to the Locked mode. That would have saved a lot of frustration.
And on the graphics side, we’ll all benefit from this in long term. Earlier I sometimes had to set cockpit refresh rate to medium, making the PFDs stuttery. And now look at how beautiful the G1000 NXi looks with all its details and buttery smooth animations! That gives SO much headroom for future airliner development, to have this CPU bottleneck eliminated.
I do have to wonder how long we would have had to wait for those improvements if the sim had never been intended for a console release in the first place. The fingerprints are visible everywhere.
Which reminds me, can anyone with the console version comment on whether the screen where we were asked to press any key to continue has made its return?
We might have had other issues fixed in the meantime (which is also a thing I hope they now get back to, which will benefit all of us), but might have to struggle more and more with mid-higher range PCs to keep steady frames. Framedrops at bigger airports and photogrammetry have been a big topic as well.
Luckily we don’t have to make the choice, it has been done for us.
Let’s focus on reporting issues and voting them, now that Asobo has more resources to fix them (once they add some work on the visuals to calm people down)
I have found out that Lod 200 seems to be the sweet spot, higher settings will draw further out, but you will also see the pop-in more clearly because the rendering takes longer time, so I gave up editing the file myself.
Yes, there are many more things to address besides. Crosswind simulation springs to mind. Oh, how I wish they would rework that, though I know it’s a kludge to get around their simulation of static friction, or rather the lack of it.
I don’t know if everyone aware but there was announcement of the new X Plane version and I dare to say that some of those features are FAR more superior to what we have today in MFS. I am afraid if we will now be anchored by the Console comptability we would never be able even dream to fly over forests like that. Hard to believe that soon X Plane will be visually superior to MFS.
yeah, i started at 5.0 in the cfg - noticed a huge improvement, but noticeable FPS hit… so I kept backing it down until it felt as fluid as it did after the update, but kept decent quality of distance/sharpness…
Kinda wondering about 150 on the slider = 0.7 in the cfg though… that seems wrong. I’d expect 100 = 1.0
