I have been on a fairly long break from the sim, probably since early SU13 days. I have been reading some positive feedback on the SU15 beta, such as the very smooth frame rate and reduction in black avionics and CTD, but also some worrying comments every now and then talking about reduced LOD.
But if you take a step back and compare the SU15 beta to let’s say SU13, would you say it’s a huge leap forward on Xbox X, making the sim even more worth coming back to after a long break? Im very curious to hear your opinion from those who participate in this beta.
More of an incremental improvement - in a series of incremental improvements, in my opinion.
I think they have managed to really improve memory handling (the big limitation), and in the process find bugs with WASM that otherwise might have been missed. There is a lot of improvement in stability and smooth flight that does seem to come at some expense of LOD (which really would be better named “draw distance” - where quite a few details don’t come in to view until you are much closer than before). If forced to chose between LOD and smooth flight (and I’d hate to have to choose), I would choose smooth flight.
Besides those under-the-hood improvements, as WASM matures, more detailed / complex planes are starting to come to Xbox. I am looking forward to PMDG 737 having updated navdata, to the PMDG 777 which I think is in the works, and Inibuilds A320neo being finished.
Related, is how much work is going in to improving the base Bing map imagery - to get rid of those horrible bands on the landscape from satellite and aerial imagery. This work will be ongoing (2 years, Jorg said in the Dev Q&A) and should apply to 2020 and 2024, so that may help with how the world looks even if LOD is lower.
So for me, not a game changer, but the pace of incremental improvment is keeping me pretty engaged. Once specs and performance of MSFS2024 are known, I will likely migrate to a PC in order to have multiple surround screens and a dedicated home cockpit.
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It’s probably not possible at this point, but Asobo could have considered a toggle preference of some sort between LOD and target frame rate (or something). I’m not a programmer so I’m not sure how you would implement such a choice. Regardless, Xbox memory limitations force a compromise on MSFS 2020. What’s interesting is that in the MSFS 2024 announcement, there was mention that more processing would be done in the cloud to reduce the local hardware requirements (so that will be a different kind of compromise, but hopefully for the better).
I can tell you with a 7800/4080s CPU is sleeping down at 27% even at ultra 4K. I imagine the multicore CPU of the Xbox is in the same underutilized scenario. And playing in XBSX or PC the same fps spikes happen when certain CPU intensive objects drop in that the CPUs of with could easily handle it. FSX is still hidden in the underbelly of 2020. If 2024 can light up all the cores on any modern CPU it should be a big change. A powerful PC can of course be ‘better’, and can just bulldoze through many limitations; but the exact same things happen on both it and XB. It still chugs when a little low res traffic plane drops in or flipping quick view to the side in a city., the GPU has to wait for it.
Any utilized AAA title on 120 4k on xbsx can demonstrate clearly that it’s capable of punching out mass pixels, and even in big mp games like battlefield that are CPU heavy. A full server never spikes the fps no matter what the chaos. But on 2020 a wee origami default airliner does. Have you ever seen BFV falter a single frame when the friggin zeppelin gets taken out?
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That’s a bit of an overstatement…
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I’ve never had so much fun since the games launch. No BS no CTDs and great LOD with the latest beta build
IMO this is the one until 2024
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Personally for me the sim has improved quite a bit, I don’t listen to those who complain all the time, because even tomorrow all the problems with the sim would still be solved they would find some minor nonsense out of place. This sim is improving quite a lot, they are trying to please us but we show that we are an ungrateful community, I haven’t had sim crashes for months and months, everything runs super smooth, I use addons, complex planes, world update etc. everything runs perfectly now.
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In a way, yes it’s a game changer. Performance has never been this good. I was stunned when I took a 787 to Heathrow and landed so effortlessly I didn’t even realize where I was landing at. Especially that not long before the SU15 beta I tried the same and the sim stuttered so badly that it was unplayable, I was on the verge of giving up airliner flights altogether.
I never had issues with black screens before so that’s not a factor for me, but still the performance improvement makes it a game changer alone. Also: there is no such reduction in scenery detail as some might hyperbolically suggest. It depends on the aircraft you use, for sure, but airliners fly high and if you want sightseeing you probably use simpler aircraft and so the world is as beautiful as ever. (On Series X at least. I have no experience with Series S.) I have many screenshots from older builds and the beta and there’s no general difference.
On the other hand, it’s probably not a game changer if you already left the game for long. If you had a reason to do that then it’s possible that SU15 won’t change much. It’s not like previous builds were so bad. Performance and stability are much better now, the new additions like the A320neo v2 and the G3X are awesome and little things like the Cirrus SR22 fixes are very welcome. But I’m not sure it’s enough to “bring back” players who for any reason already “quit”. I think it’s safe to say that something like MSFS 2024 will be a much bigger change. But that SU15 is by far the best form of MSFS on Xbox is also true.
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Yeah, and is still a beta!
what about black avionics? I experienced lot of it recently on su14.
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Why not give the beta a try and see for yourself?
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Well, with light aircraft and not so complex sceneries, yes, everything looks ok now, with acceptable LOD and great stability. LOD definitely decreases everytime I use some big airport, even Asobo ones, where I never had a single ctd or bs before. Just completed an EGLL (Asobo)-EGPH (Pyreegue) with LVFR A320 and at EGPH taxyway textures look low-res at short distance and some ground vehicles look like white boxes. And no, never had memory problems with this beautiful airport.
Stability has never been so good, I agree, but the sim never looked so ugly.
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The problem thas built up over the years is you spend most of your time trying to get around a bunch of bugs and errors in the sim (just the embarrassing mouse bug that still exists). Which game/sim has had problems with the integration of mouse and keyboard since the release on the Xbox over two years ago. Microsoft/Asobo definitely don’t fix bugs the next day. LOD/TLOD and performance have continuously decrease over the years, why they ignored it consistently (two years ago I was able to complete one out of four flights without BS/CTD). The fact is the sim, especially on the Xbox was and is a pure test object and not a finished game intended for public. Most of the people here who are satisfied have not been with it for a long time and only know the current, comprehensive state (performance alright ) as some have already suggested, the visuals reminds of fsx or even older. Its definitely not a game changer.
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Not a game changer for me, yes I am getting fewer crashes and black screens but the experience is so inconsistent! with frequent FS98 like ground textures and bad LOD with plenty of objects popping and not loading properly at most airports. Some days ( very few) it seems really good but the quality drops so much most of the time . I am really intrigued, imho something is not quite right still , servers? , sw issues? , i dont know , i dont think it’s just the xbox memory limitations.
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For me personally, it’s definitely a game changer. Not have to be worried about black screens, CTD, extreme stuttering to the point that it was unplayable. It’s so worth it. Those were THE main issues, and they have done a really great job of tackling those issues. It took them well over 2 years!
I notice ATC improvements as wel.
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I still get a crash when moving the map around in PMDG 737s EFB. I’m guessing this is up to PMDG to fix.
This game is of course very dependent of a persons internet connection and if that is not on its best behaviour or something else is taking bandwith away on your own router, like three people surfing on there phones or the tv is on or youtube, then things are going to look worse that time.
And seems nobody talks about this!
And then its the time of day and day of the week too and the load that is on the MS servers at that time also!
On the weekends its clearly worse to play this game on the cloud for me, and if I start anything else in my household that is taking some internetspeed then I see that instantly!
This together with the fact that all xboxes HDs are packed differently and will take more or less time and for that reason that all xboxes will be unequal in the place its placed and will therefor be hotter/colder and less good at performing because of heat.
So look at what you can do for your xbox to make it run this as good as posssible.
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Failures setting time registering is still broken in su15beta. Although it works on i.e. payware c310r planes the stock setting is broken, failures occure instantly at the beginning of flight. Very sad.
Yes, I personally think it will be a game changer. I have had no black avionics, CTD’s or ATC dropping out like before SU15. Hoping others will benefit from SU15 as well.
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There are definitely some improvements in ATC and AI aircraft and performance is better but the real game changer for me is the inclusion of a free complex A320N for Xbox. Like all Inibuilds a/c it needs to be operated correctly or it can bite you and that is a major part of the appeal. It’ll take time to learn for some people and that is a good thing. For those not willing to make that investment the default A320 is still available though.
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