[Official] Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Information & Discussion Thread

[Andrew]

Ayyy

 

 

 

I was also testing the service ceiling with the F/A-18 over New Zealand with this new update after I heard about the F22 having seemingly no issues flying at 58,000ft and it having an official service ceiling of 50,000ft. The F/A-18 supposed to have a service ceiling of 45,000ft  but it can go up to 60,000ft fine. It's just not the most efficient way of flying.

[J7SC_Orion]

50 minutes ago, Andrew said:

Ayyy

 

 

 

I was also testing the service ceiling with the F/A-18 over New Zealand with this new update after I heard about the F22 having seemingly no issues flying at 58,000ft and it having an official service ceiling of 50,000ft. The F/A-18 supposed to have a service ceiling of 45,000ft  but it can go up to 60,000ft fine. It's just not the most efficient way of flying.

  

Noice ! ...I have tried to get the F18 on real physics flight model above 50,000 feet and it started to get tricky (I also recall reading that 75K feet was a built-in limit in earlier versions of FS2020 for any plane).

 

But as posted before, there's this little flight I did...275K feet...very cold up there 

 

[Andrew]

I think the limiter has always been 275K. I do remember not long after it came out, I found out how to switch on the dev settings. I did that then took a Cessna 152 up to the height limit with simulation damage off to see what would happen. Turns out the 152 doesn't like being that high up.

[J7SC_Orion]

8 hours ago, Andrew said:

I think the limiter has always been 275K. I do remember not long after it came out, I found out how to switch on the dev settings. I did that then took a Cessna 152 up to the height limit with simulation damage off to see what would happen. Turns out the 152 doesn't like being that high up.

 

...Cessna 152 at 275k feet ? I hope you had an oxygen mask and a thick coat !

 

FYI #1 - Another FS 2020 fan recommends > this Boeing Thrustmaster setup; kind of pricy though, even at $100 off. I am quite happy with the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro and the XBox controller (I use both at the same time).

 

 

 

FYI #2  ...another patch today. At first I wasn't sure what it was about when I went for a quick Alpenglow flight near here in the trusty Beaver. Then I noticed 'her'...I think you can have a conversation with your passenger - I wonder if that is Chat GPT (since FS2020 is incorporating Bing anyways) 

 

 

 

[Andrew]

I've seen that Thrustmaster Boeing 787 yoke a while ago and it does seem pretty good, I just don't think it's worth it for me. Not now anyway. I might get it at some point in the future.

 

In plane related news, there's quite a few planes coming out this year that I'm interested in. There's the FBW A380 which looks as good as the top payware mods but it's free. The Boeing 757 from Blue Bird, it's supposed to come with a study level version as well as an easy "hop in and fly" version for people who don't care about realism.The PMDG 777 is also coming out later this year and finally the MD-11 rom TFDI. This is going to be an expensive year for me.

[J7SC_Orion]

4 hours ago, Andrew said:

I've seen that Thrustmaster Boeing 787 yoke a while ago and it does seem pretty good, I just don't think it's worth it for me. Not now anyway. I might get it at some point in the future.

 

In plane related news, there's quite a few planes coming out this year that I'm interested in. There's the FBW A380 which looks as good as the top payware mods but it's free. The Boeing 757 from Blue Bird, it's supposed to come with a study level version as well as an easy "hop in and fly" version for people who don't care about realism.The PMDG 777 is also coming out later this year and finally the MD-11 rom TFDI. This is going to be an expensive year for me.

  

 

I am looking forward to try out the FBW A380...and will try to stay within the speed limit this time. That said, when I took that 747 'for a ride' per pics and your comments before, it was fun to 'feel' the dynamics of that big bird at the limit.

 

No speed limit problems with the Volocopter - hovering above / landing at Grouse mountain ski lodge (we had a ton of snow last night)...

 

 

 

[Andrew]

A330-900NEO

 

[Andrew]

Fast as heck, boii

 

[J7SC_Orion]

7 hours ago, Andrew said:

Fast as heck, boii

 

   

Noice -  & according to relativity, you aged more slowly than the rest of us during that flight ! 

 

A couple of smaller pics (1/10th of the original 4k .png size): Volocopter in a loop (almost made it too  , almost)

 

 

Gibraltar in two different planes

 

 

 

Magical flight in the Icon A5 through the Grand Canyon at night...

 

 

 

[J7SC_Orion]

...a business partner of ours is skiing in Banff - normally, a days drive from here but faster with FS 2020 

 

originals are 4K/png, converted to 1440/ jpg

 

sunrise in Banff:

 

 

 

...later that day, same region

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Andrew]

Why is VR so difficult for Asobo to implement properly?

 

I've just spent the last 2 hours trying to get VR to work properly. The issues I had are:

 

The controller doesn't work, but I have audio and good fps

The controller does work, but now audio doesn't work and good fps

The controller and audio both work, but now it's running at 5fps.

 

One guy in his spare time made VR work flawlessly with Assetto Corsa and he did it for free. Asobo has the financial backing of a $1,860,000,000,000 company and I'm still having the same issues with VR now that I was having over 2 years and 9 updates.

[J7SC_Orion]

16 hours ago, Andrew said:

Why is VR so difficult for Asobo to implement properly?

 

I've just spent the last 2 hours trying to get VR to work properly. The issues I had are:

 

The controller doesn't work, but I have audio and good fps

The controller does work, but now audio doesn't work and good fps

The controller and audio both work, but now it's running at 5fps.

 

One guy in his spare time made VR work flawlessly with Assetto Corsa and he did it for free. Asobo has the financial backing of a $1,860,000,000,000 company and I'm still having the same issues with VR now that I was having over 2 years and 9 updates.

 

Just out of interest, which VR set are you using ? In general, I have heard/read several times that VR on FS 2020 is a bit of a mess...for now, I just sit close to a 48 inch OLED as 'ersatz VR'

[Andrew]

4 hours ago, J7SC_Orion said:

 

Just out of interest, which VR set are you using ? In general, I have heard/read several times that VR on FS 2020 is a bit of a mess...for now, I just sit close to a 48 inch OLED as 'ersatz VR'

Valve Index.

[J7SC_Orion]

16 hours ago, Andrew said:

Valve Index.

 

Thanks ! 
Is the Valve Index usable even if the app is a non-Valve sourced one ? For example, my FS2020 is directly from the Microsoft / XBox store.

 

---

...early morning trip to my fav area in the whole world (now cloaked in the winter dress) - the Broughton Archipelago  (4K .png originals)

 

 

 

[Andrew]

10 hours ago, J7SC_Orion said:

 

Thanks ! 
Is the Valve Index usable even if the app is a non-Valve sourced one ? For example, my FS2020 is directly from the Microsoft / XBox store.

 

I'm not sure, I have the Steam version. I would assume it should work without issues.

I use my Index with Assetto Corsa using a third party launcher so that doesn't go through Steam and I've never had issues with it. I've also used it with FSX before FS2020 released.

[Andrew]

I'm not doing anything today, so I thought I'd follow the flights that this plane did yesterday because it's something I've wanted to try for a while but didn't have the time as it literally is a full time job work day. However I failed immediately and didn't look at the departure times so I'm currently 5 hours ahead of schedule. I suppose I could just throw in one or two more flights from today, otherwise I'll just be sitting here with MSFS running in the background not doing anything for 5 hours.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, the kind of important features broke because of the poor implementation of pause/unpause in MSFS. One of the features is autopilot doesn't work anymore so for the last flight after taking some screenshots and accidentally pressing the pause button, I had to manually fly from Stuttgart to London. Which is pretty handy because that's the last flight that IRL plane did yesterday. I'm going to put these screenshots in the screenshots of your game thread.

 

In the end, it was just under 7 hours. For some reason FS isn't counting my takeoffs anymore, only landings. Anyway, flight ended up being:

Lisbon (LPPT) --> London (EGLL) --> Aberdeen (EGPD) --> London (EGLL) --> Stuttgart (EDDS) --> London (EGLL)

 

 

I did spot a smiley face while leaving Lisbon.

 

 

It wasn't too long after takeoff from runway 3 on the INB04N departure. It's about 1.4NM north of the end of the runway.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Andrew

[Andrew]

Someone kindly gifted the PMDG 737-900 to me.

 

 

This sure is one longboi.

[J7SC_Orion]

16 hours ago, Andrew said:

Someone kindly gifted the PMDG 737-900 to me.

 

 

This sure is one longboi.

   

...yes, it sure is long...almost looks a bit out of proportion re. wing placement so far back; reminds me of the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series. Nice screenshot though, also re. ground vehicles

 

Addendum @Andrew -  some airport shots from Schiphol and Paderborn (bottom)

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by J7SC_Orion

[J7SC_Orion]

...a quick comparison of both FS2020 setups (separate rooms)...the 3090 is part of a Threadripper / 3x GPU setup and w-cooling loop that also does productivity, though for FS2020, only the RTX 3090 is used. Note the max VRAM usage at 4K displayed on the sheet for the 3090.

 

Needless to add that the 4090 is way faster, then again the 3090 'only' has to do 4K/60 HDR with its monitor while the 4090 maxes 4K/120 HDR monitor (plus headroom to spare). That actually works out great in both setups / no e-waste .

 

Both cards have a max-OC that is a bit higher, but that little bit extra is not really noticeable in FS2020.

 

Edited March 19, 2023 by J7SC_Orion

[Sir Beregond]

12 hours ago, J7SC_Orion said:

...a quick comparison of both FS2020 setups (separate rooms)...the 3090 is part of a Threadripper / 3x GPU setup and w-cooling loop that also does productivity, though for FS2020, only the RTX 3090 is used. Note the max VRAM usage at 4K displayed on the sheet for the 3090.

 

Needless to add that the 4090 is way faster, then again the 3090 'only' has to do 4K/60 HDR with its monitor while the 4090 maxes 4K/120 HDR monitor (plus headroom to spare). That actually works out great in both setups / no e-waste .

 

Both cards have a max-OC that is a bit higher, but that little bit extra is not really noticeable in FS2020.

 

Man that 556W though. This 350W-400W 3080 Ti already acts like a space heater.

 

My goal is to see what the 50-series ends up being at this stage for 4k120 and power draw.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Sir Beregond

[J7SC_Orion]

11 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

Man that 556W though. This 350W-400W 3080 Ti already acts like a space heater.

 

My goal is to see what the 50-series ends up being at this stage for 4k120 and power draw.

 

...yeah, while there was a bit more headroom with both cards, that was already pushing it with the Galax vBios on the 4090 (I've seen > 671W with that in other apps such as ROG Furmark). FYI, for FS2020, my 'normal' setting is 80% PL with no voltage slider boost for a mild OC to 3060 MHz - that works out to just over 410 W.

[Andrew]

Sim update 12 just released and as far as I can tell, it doesn't really mean much for PC players. It's huge news for console players though. WASM is finally available on Xbox.

 

There are quite a few bug fixes with a few planes as well as bugs in the game itself. The weather and live traffic has been improved quite a lot so that's great news if you use those things. However, the default ATC is kind of annoying now. I've not seen other people report this, but my ATC has been "communicating" with live aircraft and obviously they aren't replying because they're real planes flown by real people. So if this is an issue for you, it's probably best to switch it off until there's a hotfix.

[J7SC_Orion]

2 hours ago, Andrew said:

Sim update 12 just released and as far as I can tell, it doesn't really mean much for PC players. It's huge news for console players though. WASM is finally available on Xbox.

 

There are quite a few bug fixes with a few planes as well as bugs in the game itself. The weather and live traffic has been improved quite a lot so that's great news if you use those things. However, the default ATC is kind of annoying now. I've not seen other people report this, but my ATC has been "communicating" with live aircraft and obviously they aren't replying because they're real planes flown by real people. So if this is an issue for you, it's probably best to switch it off until there's a hotfix.

 

...oh dear; I was planning a quick FS 2020 session after dinner, given a complex work project for AI spec'cing and such. The last thing I want to do later tonight is install new FS2020 patches and troubleshoot, especially as I cannot really put off FS2020 patch downloads and installs unless staying local.

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by J7SC_Orion

[Andrew]

The update is fine, just as long as you don't use the default ATC. I've not had any other issues and I have noticed performance is slightly better. I'm now getting 2-3fps more than I did before. Haven't changed any settings, so that's good.

[J7SC_Orion]

1 minute ago, Andrew said:

The update is fine, just as long as you don't use the default ATC. I've not had any other issues and I have noticed performance is slightly better. I'm now getting 2-3fps more than I did before. Haven't changed any settings, so that's good.

 

...FPS aren't an issue one way or another, but sometimes, one of the two setups (the older Threadripper) needs a whole new fresh FS2020 install if the patch install goes wrong on that unique setup with 3x different-gen GPUs (even according to Microsoft / XBox service), and all the while at it also blocks my other more modern FS 2020 system with a single GPU from even signing in, since XBox 'is waiting for the other one to complete'