Xbox stability: scenery performance using the PMDG 737 as the test subject

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806

FSimStudios’ CYVR isn’t available for Xbox (yet).

I just bought Juneau again and while not perfect, it works better than last time! Pre-SU13 it would just CTD within seconds of spawning or arriving there.

EDIT

I went on and bought all Northern Sky’s Alaskan stuff. Sitka seems pretty stable but the rest suffer, by varying degrees. They black screen pretty easily and will CTD if you keep pushing with the drone. They are, however, mostly fine if you stick to the cockpit and use exterior view sparingly.

I have contacted the dev (he seems to be a one-man-band) and he’s well aware of the Xbox issues and is planning to rework them to reduce VRAM usage. So far he’s been releasing the full PC versions for Xbox, unchanged — which explains the enormous file sizes and abundance of very high-res textures.

807

Away from my xbox but i believe it is the FSDT which from memory is the only available option on xbox.

808

Ok, so I owe folks some updates here now that the final day of sale madness has blown over. At the final hour I took the plunge and bought 2 from BMWorld/Amsim, KMEM and KSAN, which replaces the LVFR SAN I was not too happy with, hopefully this one is an improvement. Flew the -700 out of MEM to PHL this afternoon and it went smoothly save for some slight hesitation into PHL (Flightsim studio) with the USA Modern Cities 1 installed. This leads into my next follow up owed…

Yesterday flew out of my new to me KBOS (Flytampa) to KPHL twice, first in the 414AW then in the new MU-2. A few restarts and BS getting out of Boston in these but that cleared up once airborne. Then a night flight to Halifax NS in the -700 which ran without BS getting out of Boston. So far, so good. Now let it be said that in addition to LVFR Airport Static Aircraft, I have RKBridger’s add ons in both areas, BOS & PHL. Similar to Bridges around Newark, those may have to go, but for now I am keeping them and living with a restart or a little stuttering. The main point is that as far as BOS & PHL goes, I am keeping the Samscene3D cities installed so glad to clear up that bit of early feedback from me above!

More to come when I can get some flights in, oh, and maybe a drive in my new C8 Corvette! Around JFK or LHR? LOL!

And after much deliberation I decided to pass on some Canadian airports discussed and just live with what I had from before the sale. So no Calgary or Victoria for me this time around. Thanks all for the discussion, reviews and reports on your purchases. Now for some good flying and sight seeing too, cheers!

809

Good to hear on KMEM; I also went for it amongst some others. Had the drone out for a while looking around and caused no issues. Came back to the sim on quick resume hours later, continued to look around with the drone and try to test it for a crash - all screens still remained in the 737 which is promising. Yet to try a full flight with it however.

I’ll post some brief info on some others I got in the sale once I’ve used them more in case it helps anyone.

810

In an exact repeat of yesterday, both Ketchikan and Sitka were fine circa 1500, even with live weather and some pretty extensive drone use. However come 1700 - and with live weather now off - they start crashing! At this point I’m absolutely convinced server loads are a part of the problem…

811

PC users with gigabit internet connections are getting crashes when zooming the world map, and a workaround is to slow down the internet connection, which strongly indicates actual bugs in the network or data handling code in MSFS itself. Some sort of race condition, and if it’s deep enough I wouldn’t be surprised if some conditions during flight could also trigger a similar result.

812

A quick message on some of the airports I got in the sale now I’ve had some time - tested with live traffic/weather off, 32GB rolling cache & drone/external views and a flight departing and arriving back:

LFRS Nantes Atlantique (Jetstream Designs)
Incredible piece of scenery. It’s been said before in this thread but it runs superbly on Xbox. Textures and detail are great, and all fits into an approx 400MB download. Reminds me of a smaller KMSP by Flightbeam, it runs and looks that good.

EGNV Durham/Teesside Intl (Fly X Simulations)
Small airport but looks great and runs perfectly. Textures and accuracy to real life is great.

KMEM Memphis Intl (BMWorld/Amsim)
Wasn’t sure what to expect here but pleasantly surprised. Airport design looks great. No issues on performance, no BS or CTD but frames can drop here and there in external view - nothing major however.

KDCA Washington & KEWR Newark (both Drzewiecki Design)
Grouped these together as I get just about the same feeling from both. No BS or CTDs which I think has already been confirmed by this thread. Only thing I’ve experienced is stutters here and there (especially KEWR) and quite a lot of flickering at KDCA. Altogether I would still recommend.

LEVC Valencia (BM World)
Went for this as apart from LVFR’s Barcelona, I don’t have any other addon airports in the region which don’t get black screens… happy to report Valencia runs great with no stability issues. Modelling/textures are at a good level but nothing outstanding, all in all though a great upgrade from default.

LGAV Athens International (FlyTampa)
Now, I’d seen mixed reviews on this one but decided to give it a chance with the sale. Sadly, it’s the worst performing out of all of this group, which is a massive shame as it looks incredible (as you’d expect from FlyTampa). Black screens but no CTD, initially from the drone test flying around at speed. Then tried a flight departing and circling back downwind to land again. All went fine until taxiing back to a gate. Tried again just staying at the gate using only cockpit/external views; lasted approx 10 minutes before black screens came again.

Although it won’t be a popular one in the grand scheme of things, I’d wholeheartedly recommend Nantes by Jetstream Designs out of all of the above. The small file size with the brilliant detail shows to me (as have Flightbeam with KMSP) that optimisation/compression of files can be done to help with stability without losing detail. I wonder if MS would take a look at what some of the developers are doing and make recommendations to other devs when deploying to Xbox/marketplace, as I fully believe the file sizes must have something to do with stability.

Hope this helps someone in the future!

813

Something must have changed because LEBL always used to black screen and usually CTD on me.

A Spanish recommendation from me is BMW Bilbao LEBB. It’s only small, but looks really nice, and has fantastic approach and departures, over the hills one way and the harbour the other. I don’t think it ever CTD on me on xbox.

Also take a heli or drone cam and check out the photogrammetry in Bilbao, some of the best. Unfortunately of course the same can’t be said of the cranes in the docks, but that’s always the case.

814

Barcelona used to be the same for me prior to whatever MS tweaked over the past few months, since then I’ve had no issues.

Good to know Bilbao worked as I was thinking about it.

815

Never had any issues with LVFR’s LEBL… even before SU13.

816

Elephant in the marketplace room this week? Any thoughts on having to pay for an add-on upgrade? I have not been to that airport since sometime last year when I must have bough it on sale. Mixed feelings about paying for a v.2: Boycott what may be the start of a new trend or buy it to complete my initial purchase? Anyone been there and like it?

817

London City, I presume?

I did look at a couple of reviews and it doesn’t look great. Seems to be quite lifeless; the only thing that looked good was the Tate & Lyle factory!

Winnipeg and Palmerston North look more interesting.

818

Very impressed so far with FSimStudios’ Winnipeg. Just flew in for the first time, the entire landing and taxi to gate done in external view. I then used the drone for 30 minutes, after which everything in the cockpit remained active.

It has a very ‘Flightbeam’ feel to it.

I admit, I’ve never really rated FSimStudios, particularly since Calgary runs so awfully on Xbox. But Winnipeg seems excellent; although I’ll be doing a little more testing before posting a conclusive review.

819

Performance since SU14 has been so poor, even in areas with zero addon scenery, that Ive decided to do a complete reinstall to see if that helps. The sim is so very slow and chugs along, it is almost like watching a slideshow, the FPS is so poor. And Im used to slower FPS on xbox. The latest update is simply unacceptable.

I will first see if a new “clean” version of the sim works any better (no world updates, added scenery, etc.). Then I will decide whether to reinstall my addon scenery and aircraft. That will take absolutely forever given the slow download speeds in the content manager.

Wish me luck!

820

I did a clean install and my performance is much better. I’ve done that for the last few SUs and it’s seemed to work for me.

821

In addition to a complete reinstall, one thing I have done in the past which has helped was moving MSFS from xbox internal storage to the 1TB external storage card (or vice versa), which I gather is more like addressing any disc/file fragmentation issues rather than sim file contents. It takes a while to complete but is much faster/easier than a complete reinstall, so it may be something to try first if one has the 1TB card.

822

I finished a complete re-install. The performance was just as poor with zero world updates installed as with all of the world updates installed (a theory Jaktrax has argued for in the past, and one in which I firmly believe). However, taking the advice from the thread on the slow simrate/clock, I’ve set my Xbox refresh rate to 60hz and that produced a dramatic improvement in performance. I don’t know why that would be the case–it was pointed out to me previously that MSFS is limited to 30FPS no matter what the Xbox setting is. Still, I can’t deny the improved performance at 60hz. Now I’ll begin to reinstall my lengthy list of add-ons…

823

Interesting about xbox output settings: Mine is set to 60Hz but it is also a Freesync TV with Game Mode, so it has a variable refresh rate in response to the Xbox game output. Could be why I’m not having any more problems in Su14 than Su13 (or 12 for that matter)?

824

Has anyone tried Limesim EDDB recently with su14?

825

Just got MK’s new LEMG, a surprising MSFS omission till now. The less-than-300mb download had me conflicted (low file size typically = great stability but more basic detail) but my initial impressions are very positive indeed. It’s an airport I’m extremely familiar with and they’ve captured its essence perfectly, even down to the correct window tint in the old terminal!

I’ll refrain from writing a full review for the moment (last one for Marseille was based on the first night’s experience, during which it performed almost flawlessly; yet subsequent flights have been marred by black screens) but the small download size alone makes me very confident.

EDIT

Initial landing (from Gibraltar) and taxi in done in exterior view. Then drone for 30 minutes, including several minutes inside the terminal. Off again to do a circuit of the airfield, before again landing and taxiing in in exterior view. Another 20 minutes with the drone, and everything still good in the ATR cockpit. Similar (but thus far more limited) experience with the 737.

I’m now pretty confident this airport is rock solid on console. Only two other sceneries of late I’ve been unable to trigger black screens at: Flightbeam KMSP and FSimStudios CYWG.

I’ll do some further testing this weekend but, certainly for me, this puts MK firmly in the top tier of developers.