I’d agree if it weren’t for several very highly-detailed airports - all with extensive internal modelling - performing flawlessly with the highest fidelity airliner. As I pointed out earlier, some devs appear to have nailed Xbox optimisation and, for obvious commercial reasons, don’t want to share the secret (understandably).
That doesn’t, of course, preclude the need for more than 16gb shared between CPU and GPU.
Drzewieki Design’s KDCA is has a pretty low performance impact relative to its detail, but other than that I have yet to come across other airports or creators like this. It’s a moot point anyway because I believe you.
Read my point as a generalization, not an exceptionless rule; barring a few exceptions, there’s a correlation between scenery detail and CTDs, black avionics, and stutters. On the other hand, I haven’t observed any alleviation of those issues at times when the servers aren’t as stressed, so I’m inclined to believe that the issue is client-side. I don’t think we disagree about that, but I’m just reiterating my point since that was supposed to be the key takeaway from my last response.
Yes, agreed. I doubt the servers or one’s internet connection speed/integrity have any impact on the frequency of black screens/CTDs. I at one time thought the opposite but it’s quite clearly memory-related with the Xbox.
I have only a small fraction of what’s available in the MP so those ‘few exceptions’ might be greater in number than we think. Conversely, I may have, by pure chance, stumbled upon the best of the bunch already. The encouraging thing is, we know intricate but stable airports are possible, if the dev has the know-how.
Another bizarre thing is with my xbox x I have never had an issue with feelthee klas or kbos ‘yet’ but I read others have, LVFR also for me at kfll and ksan have worked well. I cannot get Gatwick to work, or southend a tiny airport. Also after aau2, mks Lisbon worked for me where before it didn’t, and Milan that used to work before aau2 now doesn’t so what can anyone make of that. It’s inconsistently consistent.
There are so many variables when it comes to memory that it’s impossible to get the same result every time, unless the scenery in question is super-stable and simply doesn’t ever CTD. Pyreegue airports are among those I consider 100% stable, yet I have had ONE CTD at EGAA (although that was following a black screens departure from elsewhere).
I guess it could also depend on any memory conflicts between third-party scenery, going on ‘behind the scenes’, so-to-speak; and whether (and if so, how) MS’s own updates affect the sim’s stability.
I sometimes wonder how costly it would be for MS to release a special MSFS version of the Xbox, with increased memory. Even an extra 4gb would make a difference!
We can only hope that FS2024 has more efficient optimisation, given that the recommended hardware requirements aren’t set to be increased.
What also seem to go against this reasoning is that PC don’t seem to be as affected as we are on XBOX far as I can hear, which puts it back to memory and the console being pushed to its limits.
Tested CYYC Calgary by FSIMSTUDIOS
CTD at load every single time.
If you want to fly a base Cessna, it will load but any third party aircraft I tried was CTD
Avoid this airport on Xbox, wishing I did.
Looking at the size of the file 4.7GB might have something to do with it.
Vancouver CYVR in comparison is only 195 MB
So the file size might be something we need to discuss as well.
Yes, definitely file size is an issue. All airports I bought ( all of them well functioning on the PMDG 737 ) are max around 1Gb. I am sure most large hubs could do with an XBOX version that takes away all the unnecessary frills, like inside terminals and check in desks with animation that make them a stutter fest on XBOX. Another issue about large airports generally is that they are busy places and if you fly with live traffic on the amount of aircraft around you is very taxing on the console.
So, apart from a few add on airports that folks are finding to be CTD-fests (and the very few that are larger than, say, 1.5 GB), do folks find live traffic as the deal breaker? Given generally good results in the -700 with known/quality airports, I have stopped flying with live traffic, preferring only live weather. What are others finding now that there is some consensus on the airports that seem to work most of the time?
I agree with the live traffic causing black screens and ctds when using the 737 on Xbox Series X with 3rd party airports and when turned off they work without any issues.
Live traffic I think is one of those wild card items. Because so much depends on the internet connection speed you are getting and amount of traffic. It will certainly add to the data needed to download in realtime so yes it can be an issue.
Though I have had my screens go black and then come back once it had loaded everything.
Certainly for best results I think with this aircraft turning off live traffic is probably a wise move. At least for now. FS2024 hopefully will streamline some of this for us.
My opinion of course
I think you and most of the readers already knew this, but in the interest of making the most accurate possible statements I want to point out that the file size itself isn’t the problem. Higher scenery file sizes tend to be from high numbers of detailed meshes and textures within the file, which is only a problem if the Xbox can’t manage all of those resource intensive objects.
This is to say that devs should be able to configure LOD on objects at their airports with respect for the Xbox’s sensitive limitations so that they don’t need to completely cut out details from their airports. However, the problem is that in order to cater to the limitations of the Xbox, devs would probably have to employ so much LOD that you’d rarely see most of the higher quality objects, to the point that it isn’t worth even including the higher quality object. Some scenery devs seem to have struck a good balance between LOD and visual fidelity, but I can imagine why that’s difficult.
I think MSFS just sucks at managing the Xbox’s hardware resources; I don’t anticipate this still being an issue in MSFS 2024. In the meantime, I also don’t anticipate that enough scenery devs will care to take the necessary steps (because if they were going to, they would have already) to make their high quality airports usable on Xbox, so we might be stuck with these issues for a while unless there are massive strides made in one of the coming sim updates.
You seem much more knowledgeable than I am as far as the tech goes but is there an example of a large airport say over 3 or 4GB that works well on XBOX? Maybe there is, I am just curious as most of them seem to be crawling on very low FPS on console. Cheers
Must admit, low fps isn’t something I’ve ever really suffered on Series X. Just the nuisance memory outages.
I’m not sure how or if download size directly relates to airport size but Drzewiecki’s NRT must be pretty big yet runs fine most of the time.
I’ve heard of a few seldom examples of airports with large file sizes that work well but I can’t name them since I don’t own any. You’re definitely right to say that file size is correlated with CTDs and other related bugs, but it’s probably an indirect causal correlation.
I agree with @JakTrax78 that I haven’t experienced low FPS from sceneries aside from stuttering when moving the camera. I only seem to get consistently low frame rates from cloud coverage.
Adding KPDX Portland International (Flightbeam 704mb) to the good list. A flawless flight this morning to Denver with live weather, no traffic.
Let us know if it’s consistently flawless.
737 - 800 Xbox X
I have the heathrow add on scenery EGLL and it loads perfectly. (great start) im still studying this aircraft so i just wanted a Short, Cold and dark full flight to LFPG.
I used sim brief on this short flight for input practice.
After a successful start up,take off ,cruise and landing i taxi off 26r and boom she goes blank screens. I did go outside view quick and then it CTD. (Paris is not an addon)
So i tried the flight in reverse.
This time i was offline (no multiplayer) turned fauna and car traffic to zero. Turned all AI traffic off. She ran a perfect flight.
My bandwidth was low at 40mbps and was still perfect. Couple of stutters at Heathrow but as to expected with that Internet speed.
I bought the FSIMSTUDIOS CYYC but it was CTD every time on Xbox. I actually posted this in another thread related to that airport and the vendor replied back that it was indeed relate to the graphics.
It’s great that the dev is addressing this issue.
I have spent a good deal of today trying to trigger black screens/CTDs at Orbx’s Tivat and Skiathos, and JF’s Lanzarote. It’s absolutely impossible - which is superb news for us Xbox simmers!
It is so encouraging that there are reasonably sized, highly-detailed airports out there that are 100% stable with even the most demanding aircraft.
Apparently there’s an imminent MP sale so hopefully I can buy wisely and expand the list of flawless airports…
By the way, I’m increasingly finding that, with the majority of my third-party airports, it’s drone usage that causes the memory overloads. I reckon I’ve decreased the number of CTDs I get by about 90%, simply by sticking to flightdeck or exterior views. Even some of the worst offenders are relatively well-behaved if I lay off the drone.