The hate between PC users and Xbox users is unreal. Do PC users think us Xbox users have somehow taken something from them since MSFS was released on the Xbox?
2 Likes
This is great, all these arguments are keeping this thread open. If it keeps getting this much attention, perhaps Microsoft and Asobo might actually read it.
I don’t have my xbox x now, but this was my experience with it too. Other than the bugs like loss of mouse control, it ran generally quite smoothly with just occasional stutters over dense scenery. The wost case for me graphically was always London discovery trip where in game framerates seems to appear visually go to 15 (just from my own visual perspective). I ran it on a LG 48" OLED CX @ 60Hz, 4K. With HDMI2.1 cable into an HDMI 2.1 input. HDR on, VRR on. I didn’t try 120Hz as it just isn’t required for running FS.
If anyone is seeing stutters and are running with 120Hz it may be worth switching down to 60Hz as the graphics card on the XBox will be working hard to keep up with the 120 fps tv refresh rate and that may affect in game real fps which sits around 30ish.
The reason I mention this is that only just this week on PC I found that I could get a smoother stutter free performance by in game locking VSync to 30 fps & output freq to 60Hz. With FS, yes you seem to have to consider these things. I do know XBox in game graphics options are limited, but is there an option for VSync in either FS menus or XBox menus anywhere? I can’t remember.
Anyhow, it may be an idea for someone here to collect your various graphical settings in a spreadsheet for comparison. Specifically what xbox o/s graphical settings you are all using, as there were quite a few options from recollection. Also think of any rescales, so if for example XBox X is outputting at 4K (hardwired to do so?) Then you are switching down to 1080 say on TV or 1080 via xbox o/s settings, that’s yet more work for your GPU. Not saying it will cure things, but there are a lot of factors that seem to affect stutters (even on PC), refresh rates seem to be one of them, and there are as far as I am aware no recommendations from devs as to what graphical settings to have on your XBox o/s to run FS smoothly.
1 Like
Hey there.
I played yesterday, low flying for about 1hr in light aircraft, all live features on, apart from multiplayer.
Looked awesome and I didn’t experience a single stutter.
That’s not to say I haven’t experienced stutters, sure I get them occasionally, nothing that takes away my enjoyment, there was one session a week ago that was bad, can’t explain that as it was fine next day.
I hope you find a solution, for me the Xbox runs it fine, perhaps some scenery can cause frame drops like LA, which is high density area.
Hopefully next update will improve things for you, it contains a lot of bug fixes I believe and maybe performance improvements.
1 Like
The answer to this is yes, there are a number that do.
For instance, on the “Aerosoft Twin Otter Baby!” thread, they are blaming the Xbox for the aircraft not having a prop feathering animation, not having a trim wheel animation and not having a tablet for selecting aircraft-specific options/functions. They are angry that now the Xbox is to blame for their aircraft being “dumbed down”. Aerosoft themselves started this, claiming it is because the Xbox doesn’t have enough memory. Of course, this has lit off a number of users and they spreading this around on other threads, as well.
Frankly, I cannot understand what Aerosoft is doing development-wise. I haven’t seen this much disappointment in an aircraft release since I began my involvement on this thread in September of ‘21. Their claim of not enough memory makes no sense to me. I was flying the DC-6 on my PC yesterday and I had developer mode turned on. I could clearly see that the sim was using 2.275 CPU RAM and 2.335 GPU RAM. That is less than 5GB total for the most complex aircraft currently in the sim. PMDG was able to build the DC-6 to work on the Xbox Series S/X without eliminating features, so this blaming of the Xbox’s memory seems like an excuse for not optimizing their aircraft’s code. Given the other aspects of the aircraft that didn’t get the attention they needed prior to release, this doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility to me. Of course, now the damage is done and we have more vitriol aimed at the Xbox. It’s the reason for a dumbed down sim and now a dumbed down 3rd party aircraft.
8 Likes
precisely. also considering that we already have similar aircraft whit those animation already, it just doesn’t hold well as an excuse and it’s a behavior as old as the time itself; throw to the crowd an enemy to hide the real problem
not trying to magnifying a trivial game issue in any way, it’s just a common pattern that seems to emerge
3 Likes
It could also mean that Aerosoft wants to stay below a certain target value and doesn’t want to max it out. The PMDG approach could be more like a “we take all the memory we want”. I looked at the specs and the S is running on 10GB memory. You need to reserve some for the OS. The more addons you are using the more you are starting to fill up the memory. Imagine a Box user buying aircraft models, AI traffic, texture packs, high-def liveries, scenery and high-def airports.
The Box memory will run out pretty fast and you will be happy about a conservative Aerosoft approach.
This may very well be true, but I’d find it odd if they made their decision solely for the Series S crowd.
Usually, you’d want to shoot for the middle ground. None of the developers are going to be able to control how many add-ons any of us install, no matter what hardware we utilize. Gimping your product on purpose because you may run into memory issues on a low-end system where some people have a significant number of add-ons installed seems like a strange design decision.
Additionally, the memory of the Xbox isn’t going to be used from additional aircraft models. Only one can be loaded at a time. I’d say the same would be similar for scenery and airport packs — you can’t be everywhere at once, so only the relevant world data is going to be loaded for a specific geographical location.
You have other aircraft around you (AI traffic, static aircraft, multiplayer).
The quality and model variation density of those can be controlled.
The PC has sliders for changing those very things. I’d expect them to be dialed back for the S.
XBox doesn’t have any differentiation in marketplace releases between series X and S so the experience is identical apart from output resolution.
As a result I’m guessing devs have to aim their aircraft releases for the series S memory specs as default. You have to start with the lowest common denominator to make it work universally everywhere. I’m guessing you could argue that the series S ‘holds back’ the series X in that regard.
I do wonder how memory usage adds up with add ons and aircraft especially with the limited (10GB RAM/VRAM on series S) as well as the fact the RAM is one block of shared RAM/VRAM that is going on on the XBox platform.
I’m not sure anyone has the answers but the devs and there is sadly no ‘dev mode’ resource monitor that I know of to switch into on XBox.
I hear all of this, but I will reiterate that on my PC, I was only using 2.3GB of CPU RAM and 2.3GB of GPU RAM while flying the DC-6 yesterday. That isn’t too far off what the S’ limitations are.
I’d expect Asobo have dialed a number of sim elements way back on the S to make up for the memory deficiencies. The draw distance, for instance is significantly reduced in the S. There has to be other compromises made.
They knew going in that they were going to offer and allow people to download add-ons in an ever growing marketplace. They had to plan for that when developing the sim.
1 Like
I don’t understand how so many people are having so many different issues , I have add on aircraft & airports , and apart from the very occasional ctd the sim runs perfect on my X , famous last words right there lol.
2 Likes
Yes very true. There’s a reason they have hid all the graphical sliders on XBox. Didn’t stop me wishing that some had been available even just to to dial it back a bit. Even say to allow trying a 85% render scale for a smoother graphical experience.
I’ve been thinking there is still further optimization to be done. The sim only came out for Xbox, what, late July? They immediately jumped into developing Reno and are only, now, getting to bug fixes for the core of the sim that was released 1.5 years ago on PC! When and where have they found the time to optimize their code for the Xbox?
2 Likes
RAM one block… less on Xbox than PC. Xbox Series use and is optimized for DirectStorage and NVMe (the “Xbox Velocity Architecture”). But the full use of these technologies involves using native functionality and APIs… and since third-party editors prefer their custom code… The eternal problem that developers still think and code like 20 years ago…
On the other hand, I remain skeptical that no developer has access to one or two consoles to use it and test themself… If Asobo/MS could unlock console access for testing it would be great.
2 Likes
So much this.
When you look at the capabilities of the software released for a console generation at launch vs. what the capabilities are at the end of its lifecycle, it’s massively impressive.
The hardware didn’t change, the code improved. In fact, I’d wager that because consoles exist in a fixed hardware world, PC gaming has benefitted from the optimization skills acquired from having to get the maximum from a fixed piece of hardware.
1 Like
Very true! My Xbox simming experience as a whole has changed for the better over the last month, I no longer get ctd’s (some were 3rd party add-ons but not all) and my mouse issues have mostly gone away. I fly everyday and my flights have been very stable sim-wise which previously did not happen. So I do believe optimization is happening with more to come.
5 Likes
I think there was a lot of optimisation done ahead of release. I remember reading that some of the best programmers in M/S were involved in optimisation which led to XBox release and SU5 which let FS run faster on mid level PCs. There may well be more memory optimisation that can be done, but I doubt we will we ever be told about it. Some of the CTD ongoing fixes could really be memory optimisation tweaks, and you’d never really know.
2 Likes
No truer words have been said regarding what goes on with this sim and the issues we have with it!
2 Likes