OS Neutral Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

[Huntn]

All I can say is Holy Crap! No wait, I can say more... I used to do this for a living, got into military flight sims for a while, and then got tired of it as far as a simulation, but now that I've been retired for 10 freaking years, this is looking well kinda amazing... Would I spend $70 for it? 🤔

2020 Thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...tor-2020.2247402/?post=28714388#post-28714388

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2537590/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator_2024/

 

[MacsRgr8]

My word... that looks amazing.... almost incredible!
Is that on an Xbox X? Or an ultra high-end PC...?

I love X-Plane 12 (and that also means I can use my Mac Studio for it...) and that looks pretty decent.
But, not the eye-candy of what we see here....

 

[Cirillo Gherardo]

If the actual game is anything like that then wow.

 

[avro707]

If the actual game is anything like that then wow.

I don’t see why that’s such a shock.

It’s going to be like that and the leftovers of historical Flight Sim products are being dropped finally. That is the big change and about time.

This should run better on the computers we already have.

 

[Huntn]

My word... that looks amazing.... almost incredible!
Is that on an Xbox X? Or an ultra high-end PC...?

I love X-Plane 12 (and that also means I can use my Mac Studio for it...) and that looks pretty decent.
But, not the eye-candy of what we see here....

I believe it is both Xbox and PC.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I've been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator since the early 90's and I can confirm, the game looks amazing. It all started for me with MSFS 4.0 with non textured polygon graphics. I was floored when MSFS 5.0 was released. I scoured for every leaked pic on Genie Online (before the internet days).

Each version got more refined and the graphics got better. The culmination was Flight Simulator X that was released IIRC in 2006. I dreamed one day to have realistic graphics. When MSFS 2020 was released I was in heaven. It was beyond my wildest dreams to have a game look almost true to life.

What's even more amazing is that the Asobo team that made Flight Simulator 2020 wasn't known for flight sims. Initially Microsoft Flight Simulator was created by Bruce Artwick and let me tell you that every flight sim he made required several generations forward of PC power to make them look good and run smooth.

Asobo outdid Bruce Artwick and for the most part the game looked great even on it's lower settings. I play MSFS 2020 on a 10th gen i9 with an RTX 3030 and i'm able to get 60FPS in 4K on very high settings with DLSS enabled.

Also the game looks eerily close on the Series X in 4K. It's hard for me to tell them apart unless I had them side by side. I trust Asobo when it comes to what we can expect and I expect them to deliver again.

 

[Romain_H]

Will be interestimg to see how flight mechanics compare to X-Plane. Visually it appears top notch; in years prior, X-Plane was just better as a flight sim

 

[Big Bad D]

That takes me back… Bruce Artwick’s Sublogic Flight Simulator 2 on the Amiga in 1986.

Now X-Plane really is the definitive flight simulator for real flight characteristics, but Microsoft Flight Simulator is graphically more impressive.

 

[avro707]

Asobo outdid Bruce Artwick and for the most part the game looked great even on it's lower settings. I play MSFS 2020 on a 10th gen i9 with an RTX 3030 and i'm able to get 60FPS in 4K on very high settings with DLSS enabled.

The problem with old versions (like from the closed Aces Studio) was that it never made use of multiple CPU cores properly. Early versions of FSX (pre release) ran like a slideshow at high detail even with a powerful computer. They tried to improve it but overall couldn’t do much.

So you had people building these 4.8ghz machines on the edge of nuclear meltdown in order to get acceptable performance.

Unfortunately even FS2020 had that problem to a degree.

It appears now that this drawback and the leftovers of legacy flight sim products have gone. If you have a 16 core CPU, it will use it. That’s the latest info, whether it is true remains to be tested.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

That takes me back… Bruce Artwick’s Sublogic Flight Simulator 2 on the Amiga in 1986.

Now X-Plane really is the definitive flight simulator for real flight characteristics, but Microsoft Flight Simulator is graphically more impressive.

I purchased Sublogic for my Gateway 2000 with a 486DX CPU. I also bought a Soundblaster card to go along with it.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I will try flight simulator 2024 on gamepass but will unlikely buy it.

The decision to stream textures and assets from the cloud is smart in theory but will in practice not be great. If your Internet connection is disturpted or the family members are using exhausting the bandwidth, there is a risk that gameplay will stop. There is a rolling cache but even if you use it, the game still needs to stream some stuff from the cloud. Basically you need a stable Internet connection at all times.

Another concern is that this is a big step towards renting game. I imagine that in 3-5 years the server for the game will be shut down, requiring you to buy the sequel.

It's positive that the new game has more assets and textures for surfaces on the ground. However I mainly fly airlines and rarely do bush trips and will therefore not benefit that much.

I would not be surprised if the next Forza game use cloud content streaming too.

 

[Romain_H]

cloud content streaming

100 % no go, agreed

 

[Macalicious2011]

100 % no go, agreed

Microsoft will likely propose cloud assets/texture to other gaming studious. It's a genius way to sell Azure compute and storage.
😁

I have 900mbit download and upload speed. However my isp provider isn't as reliable as my previous one bt. Therefore I get the occasional micro disruptions.

FS2020 will likely be discontinued in 12-24 months. It will be a good one to buy and keep incase all future fs editions use cloud streaming and are subscription only titles.

How FS2024 could win be over:
-Flawless air traffic control.
-In cockpit flight plans and GPS that nefdtr the need for third party add ons.
-Better cpu optimisation. I have a 4070ti super and 5800x3d but feel like fs2020 does not squeeze max performance out of my hardware.

 

[dimme]

XPlane flyer here with only Macs in the house so it's a no go for me. I am happy with XPlane but the eye candy in MSFS is top notch. I fly mostly around my home area so I made custom orthos and invested in SSD storage for XPlane, so I'm happy. It does seem that MS is turning MSFS2024 into more of a game that a SIM with it's missions and such. I am curious about the amount of bandwidth MSFS uses if it needs to stream all that content. Does anyone have any numbers on how much data they use?

 

[avro707]

MS is turning MSFS2024 into more of a game that a SIM with it's missions and such

There has been some discussion about that, but the "career mode" doesn't appear to be replacing your ability to do flights in whatever you want and wherever you want.

So you can fly your PMDG Boeing 777 from USA to Australia without having to go through career mode to "earn" it.

 

[Ben J.]

Anyone know of a flight sim app that will let me just click a few buttons to get in the air? Like I could with MFS on mac in the nineties. Any kind of "Amateur mode"? I am not a pilot. I can't even get a plane to take off in the x-plane demo, or I would have bought it. I enjoyed very much the simple but "realistic" minimalistic experience of MFS 4. But I don't want to play a game. Sorry for the off topic.

 

[Macalicious2011]

XPlane flyer here with only Macs in the house so it's a no go for me. I am happy with XPlane but the eye candy in MSFS is top notch. I fly mostly around my home area so I made custom orthos and invested in SSD storage for XPlane, so I'm happy. It does seem that MS is turning MSFS2024 into more of a game that a SIM with it's missions and such. I am curious about the amount of bandwidth MSFS uses if it needs to stream all that content. Does anyone have any numbers on how much data they use?

FS2024 has approximately 2 petabytes of data stored in the cloud. From what I heard, the base install is 20-50GB. The game only stream textures that are visible.

E.g if you are flying 50,000ft in the sky, it will stream lower resolution textures of the ground but as you get close it stream higher quality textures. Furthermore if you fly the same route every time, some of those textures will be in the rolling cache. If you fly to different destinations each time, entirely new textures will be loaded, possibly resetting the cache depending on how large you have set it to.

From the looks of it, the biggest visually difference between FS2020 and FS2024 is high quality detail and textures for foliage, animals, ships, trees, flowers, sand and water etc. It looks Forza Horizon 5 grade! We are talking about hundred of gigabytes of data for country and bio specific trees and bushes. However, building density and quality has not taken a big leap. This is why I question the value of visual upgrade if you mainly fly airliners and don’t spend a lot of time close to the ground.


This is technical that only MS with Azure can pull off and subsidise. I’m 99% certain that the next Forza game will utilise it too, and that Xbox will use it for other titles. The best potential use case for this is mobile devices. iPad and iOS games are only getting large. When have gone from under 1GB to 30-50GB for titles like Genshin Impact.

Not many people have a spare 50-100GB for installing 2-3 big titles. It’s also extremely unlikely that iPhones with have 512-1TB base storage soon. A solution could be to have an Xbox store/launcher with games sharing a 10-20GB rolling cache.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Anyone know of a flight sim app that will let me just click a few buttons to get in the air? Like I could with MFS on mac in the nineties. Any kind of "Amateur mode"? I am not a pilot. I can't even get a plane to take off in the x-plane demo, or I would have bought it. I enjoyed very much the simple but "realistic" minimalistic experience of MFS 4. But I don't want to play a game. Sorry for the off topic.

Ever tried Aerofly?

 

[Ben J.]

Ever tried Aerofly?

Thanks, that looks wonderful.

Looks like what I'm looking for, and it seems to be well updated and mac arm supported. Too bad it's limited on the available regions, but no problem.

Looks like it's available both on applestore and via Steam. I have no experience with Steam. My instinct is to buy it from App Store - even though I might be missing a few $ discount compared to Steam. Pretty sure there's no way to demo.

I'll take any input anyone might have, as I'm itching to buy and install this. Am I missing out on anything by not going with Steam?

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Thanks, that looks wonderful.

Looks like what I'm looking for, and it seems to be well updated and mac arm supported. Too bad it's limited on the available regions, but no problem.

Looks like it's available both on applestore and via Steam. I have no experience with Steam. My instinct is to buy it from App Store - even though I might be missing a few $ discount compared to Steam. Pretty sure there's no way to demo.

I'll take any input anyone might have, as I'm itching to buy and install this. Am I missing out on anything by not going with Steam?

Microsoft Flight Simulator has a beginners mode that is essentially training wheels for those that have never played a flight sim. Set it to easy and it makes almost an arcade flight game. Team Asobo went out of their way to make the game very inclusive for everyone, from NO flight sim experience to hardcore pilots.

I tried Aerofly 4 via Steam and refunded the game. Tiny and limited US geographical area map.

 

[Ben J.]

Microsoft Flight Simulator has a beginners mode that is essentially training wheels for those that have never played a flight sim. Set it to easy and it makes almost an arcade flight game. Team Asobo went out of their way to make the game very inclusive for everyone, from NO flight sim experience to hardcore pilots.

I tried Aerofly 4 via Steam and refunded the game. Tiny and limited US geographical area map.

Thanks for your input.
MSFS isn't native mac, is it. I'll have to install Steam or Paralells or Bootcamp, and I'd like to avoid that. And I'm not too bothered if Aerofly isn't covering all the world with high detail landscapes. It still lets you fly globally, and as I understand it, covers Europe quite well, which would be my first priority in this regard. And I'm happy to fly in the western states to enjoy the best scenery graphics if I want that.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Thanks for your input.
MSFS isn't native mac, is it. I'll have to install Steam or Paralells or Bootcamp, and I'd like to avoid that. And I'm not too bothered if Aerofly isn't covering all the world with high detail landscapes. It still lets you fly globally, and as I understand it, covers Europe quite well, which would be my first priority in this regard. And I'm happy to fly in the western states to enjoy the best scenery graphics if I want that.

Microsoft was trying to get their Game Pass App on the Mac App Store but Apple wasn't willing to deal with Microsoft. There's a MR thread on that in the News Section. If that were possible, you could stream the game from the Cloud on your Mac but until Apple decides to put Game Pass on their Store, it's a non starter.

If you have an XBOX Series X/S you can play it on there as it's available for both systems. In 4K on the Series X, it's really tough to tell the difference between the console and a mid level PC gaming rig.

I would try Aerofly 4 via Steam as you have a 2 hr trial. From what i've seen, Aerofly 4 covers small geographical sections of the USA. I could be wrong but I think it's a US centric game. When I flew out of the mapped zone it was flat geography with no texture. I asked the developer why it did not cover the entire USA like X-Plane or Microsoft Flight Simulator and their response was they target small areas to fly and they plan on adding more in the future. I live in the south eastern part of the US and flying over my State was disappointing because there wasn't any detail, textures, landmarks, roads, cities etc.

 

[avro707]

Microsoft was trying to get their Game Pass App on the Mac App Store but Apple wasn't willing to deal with Microsoft. There's a MR thread on that in the News Section. If that were possible, you could stream the game from the Cloud on your Mac but until Apple decides to put Game Pass on their Store, it's a non starter.

I doubt that would have been as good an experience as a properly native Flight Simulator, especially using a VR headset which is an amazing experience.

Sit inside one of the advanced airliners (like the 777 of PMDG or the 737, even the Fly By Wire A320) and you really have an impression of really being there. It's way more natural to operate them in that way instead of using a normal computer screen.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I doubt that would have been as good an experience as a properly native Flight Simulator, especially using a VR headset which is an amazing experience.

Sit inside one of the advanced airliners (like the 777 of PMDG or the 737, even the Fly By Wire A320) and you really have an impression of really being there. It's way more natural to operate them in that way instead of using a normal computer screen.

I don't doubt that but that is a small segment of Microsoft Flight Sim players. I tried MSFS in the Cloud and it was a decent experience. I prefer it on my Gaming Rig or XBOX Series X.

 

[Macalicious2011]

Thanks for your input.
MSFS isn't native mac, is it. I'll have to install Steam or Paralells or Bootcamp, and I'd like to avoid that. And I'm not too bothered if Aerofly isn't covering all the world with high detail landscapes. It still lets you fly globally, and as I understand it, covers Europe quite well, which would be my first priority in this regard. And I'm happy to fly in the western states to enjoy the best scenery graphics if I want that.

If I were you, I would buy used S. It's the best democratisation of flight simulator. You can find a used one for £150/$170. 10-15 years that sum would be spent on just RAM or a HDD for a flight sim capable PC.

It's well worth it for the ease of use, dead silent operation and quick resume. No need to boot up mac, then parallel, noisy Mac and fiddling with settings.

The console is small that it will barely be noticable where you put it. If you get bored or tired of the game, you can sell the console and get your money back.