Microsoft Flight Simulator (PC, Xbox, Game Pass)

KingK wrote:Downloaded the 92Gb update on my X yesterday. Looking forward to seeing this in action next week.

One genuine question though.... what's the gameplay behind these titles like? I've never played one before and hope it's not just some aimless take off, fly over some fantastic looking landmarks, rivers and oceans and then land / crash? Or is it?

Edit: also, are the flight times real? Will it take me 24hrs to fly from UK to Australia for example

I think you get marks on landing and other flying stuff?

So it's like ice skating or ski jumping?

Howdy,

I'm hoping for a bit of advice, being only a switch owner and not having a gaming PC or XBox

I've been doing some house clearing work for a friend who's been a bit of a hoarder and been very stuck in a building full of stuff for years. In in order to spur him on, I've been talking about what kinds of things he'd like to do with the space we're creating. He is an absolute plane/flying fan (lots of the rooms are filled floor to ceiling with models etc) and I've suggested he gets a proper flight sim setup. He's really keen on the idea and with this vision in mind as a goal, we're making good progress on the clearing up.

I think he would spend up to £2000 on a setup, although I'm pretty sure he would add to that if it enhanced the experience. We can pick up monitors pretty cheap so I'm going to assume that's on top of the budget.

The dream would be a wide display setup (3 monitors maybe?) and control stick, pedals, etc, and then add switches etc and upgrade as we go.

I think a 1080p setup would be fine.

I don't think Xbox supports multiple monitors, so I guess that's out unless there is some way to do ultra widescreen?

What spec of PC would he need to support a setup as I've describes. Framerate is key, less than 50-60fps wouldn't work.

Is £2000 a realistic budget?

Which control accessories would you recommend?

Are companies that pre-build MS flight simulator PCs worth looking at?

Really appreciate any input! Thanks all!

KingK wrote:Downloaded the 92Gb update on my X yesterday. Looking forward to seeing this in action next week.

One genuine question though.... what's the gameplay behind these titles like? I've never played one before and hope it's not just some aimless take off, fly over some fantastic looking landmarks, rivers and oceans and then land / crash? Or is it?

Edit: also, are the flight times real? Will it take me 24hrs to fly from UK to Australia for example

Yup.

Lime wrote:Howdy,

I'm hoping for a bit of advice, being only a switch owner and not having a gaming PC or XBox

I've been doing some house clearing work for a friend who's been a bit of a hoarder and been very stuck in a building full of stuff for years. In in order to spur him on, I've been talking about what kinds of things he'd like to do with the space we're creating. He is an absolute plane/flying fan (lots of the rooms are filled floor to ceiling with models etc) and I've suggested he gets a proper flight sim setup. He's really keen on the idea and with this vision in mind as a goal, we're making good progress on the clearing up.

I think he would spend up to £2000 on a setup, although I'm pretty sure he would add to that if it enhanced the experience. We can pick up monitors pretty cheap so I'm going to assume that's on top of the budget.

The dream would be a wide display setup (3 monitors maybe?) and control stick, pedals, etc, and then add switches etc and upgrade as we go.

I think a 1080p setup would be fine.

I don't think Xbox supports multiple monitors, so I guess that's out unless there is some way to do ultra widescreen?

What spec of PC would he need to support a setup as I've describes. Framerate is key, less than 50-60fps wouldn't work.

Is £2000 a realistic budget?

Which control accessories would you recommend?

Are companies that pre-build MS flight simulator PCs worth looking at?

Really appreciate any input! Thanks all!

I'm certainly no expert on PCs. Bought one last March and that was my first one in over a decade. Spent about £800 and mainly planned to play strategy stuff like Planet Coaster and Kerbal Space Program, but it ran Flight Sim at very high settings, although not 4K and at 25-30 FPS. I imagine if you're not going to 4K, £2k would be more than enough to be able to run it on high settings at 60fps. I think I've seen at the moment, multi monitor support is a bit awkward? It can be done but it sounds like it involves jumping through some hoops.

I know quite a few new flight sets up just got announced to coincide with the console release, but most, maybe all of them work on PC too:

Lime wrote:Howdy,

I'm hoping for a bit of advice, being only a switch owner and not having a gaming PC or XBox

I've been doing some house clearing work for a friend who's been a bit of a hoarder and been very stuck in a building full of stuff for years. In in order to spur him on, I've been talking about what kinds of things he'd like to do with the space we're creating. He is an absolute plane/flying fan (lots of the rooms are filled floor to ceiling with models etc) and I've suggested he gets a proper flight sim setup. He's really keen on the idea and with this vision in mind as a goal, we're making good progress on the clearing up.

I think he would spend up to £2000 on a setup, although I'm pretty sure he would add to that if it enhanced the experience. We can pick up monitors pretty cheap so I'm going to assume that's on top of the budget.

The dream would be a wide display setup (3 monitors maybe?) and control stick, pedals, etc, and then add switches etc and upgrade as we go.

I think a 1080p setup would be fine.

I don't think Xbox supports multiple monitors, so I guess that's out unless there is some way to do ultra widescreen?

What spec of PC would he need to support a setup as I've describes. Framerate is key, less than 50-60fps wouldn't work.

Is £2000 a realistic budget?

Which control accessories would you recommend?

Are companies that pre-build MS flight simulator PCs worth looking at?

Really appreciate any input! Thanks all!

1080p doesn’t make it massively demanding. Unless you are driving 3x 1080p monitors! You could get an ultra wide + another for instrumentation etc? A 34 or 44” ultrasound wide works nice.

Not sure how the update has effected CPU usage but that was the killer for Flight sim. It was heavily dependent on single core and speed, so would push you to go Intel.

Graphics cards. Ideally you want a 3070 or above really.

3070s and 3080s are hard to get. You can get 3080Tis for £1100 but they are more expensive than 3080s for not much more performance.

You’d have to see what people used for 3 monitors and what performance they get. I reckon people with that set up will be rocking ultra high end PCs. So 3090s at £1500.

You might be better with prebuilt. For example:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/awd-td ... 2021-07-23

Sadly the Honeycombe stuff is very limited if not non-existant, so much so I received an email for my preorder saying the stopped production till latter in the year due to supply issues. I really want the Bravo throttle controls.

You don't need me to state that Xbox Series X comes out on top, with 4K resolution and better textures cementing this as a technical showcase for the generation. But Flight Simulator also maintains a high standard on the affordable console, historically doubted for its mixed results across the optimized titles to date. I can see the compromises to deliver this experience on $299 hardware, but there's no other way to achieve this level of quality on a budget. We'll have more on Microsoft Flight Simulator performance testing, and our impressions, over the coming days with our full review.

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsof ... x-hands-on

GrinWithoutaKat wrote:

Bertie wrote:

Thanks guys!

Looks like the 3 monitor thing is not yet properly supported, so an ultra widescreen could well be the answer.

My cousin may be selling his brand new Saitek X55 Rhino HOTAS Flight Stick / Throttle, would that be suitable for this?

I think I'm a way off properly sourcing this all, but when I do, I hope it's OK to ask a few more questions in here.

Thanks!

It goes live at 4pm (UK) on Tuesday. Looks like a simultaneous global switch on, so I’m expecting server issues. Downloading that offline pack might not be a bad idea, at least for now.

twitter.com/MSFSofficial/status/1418633700200173569

Lime wrote:

GrinWithoutaKat wrote:

Bertie wrote:

Thanks guys!

Looks like the 3 monitor thing is not yet properly supported, so an ultra widescreen could well be the answer.

My cousin may be selling his brand new Saitek X55 Rhino HOTAS Flight Stick / Throttle, would that be suitable for this?

I think I'm a way off properly sourcing this all, but when I do, I hope it's OK to ask a few more questions in here.

Thanks!

Very much so. It's more of a fighter plane style stick, but is more than suitable. Plus it has a split throttle so you can adjust left and right engine throttle independently if you wanted.

Victor Mildew wrote:Very much so. It's more of a fighter plane style stick, but is more than suitable. Plus it has a split throttle so you can adjust left and right engine throttle independently if you wanted.

Thank you! I will see if it appeals to him and try and set up a deal.

I predict the airspace over Luton will be cripplingly slow on day one as the entire world turns up to see the wonderful sights.

Xbox Reviews

Windows Central - 4.5 out of 5

One of the most demanding PC games makes a slick transition to Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. The full Microsoft Flight Simulator experience comes to the living room, serving as a true graphical showcase for its consoles.

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsof ... box-review

Press Start - 10

At the end of the day, if you’re wanting to play Microsoft Flight Simulator for the visuals alone (which I suspect is what will draw a lot of people in initially), then you’re going to absolutely love this game. Visually it is absolutely stunning. There’s nothing like coming out of a thunderstorm to see the sunlight, or coming above the clouds when taking off. Given most of the world is still in some form of lockdown right now, with the inability to fly anywhere in the world, it feels like Microsoft Flight Simulator is releasing at the perfect time. It’s going to provide so many people with the chance to fly over their hometown or just unwind by flying somewhere remote on the other side of the world.

https://press-start.com.au/reviews/xbox ... ore-hands/

Ars Technica

MSFS's beauty makes it must-play on Xbox Series X, even if only for a one-month free Xbox Game Pass trial. But while its console port is a technological triumph, it might still be too boring for a lot of players. Series S players should temper expectations with a bit less beauty.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/ ... ium=social

Attack of the Fanboy

All in all, Microsoft Flight Simulator is a great time on Xbox Series X. The console handles the game much better than I would have expected, especially given how heavy the hardware requirements are for a stable experience on PC. Of course, it’s not as good as the PC version is on a powerful PC, but it’s pretty close.

This is the version I would recommend to most people. It looks and runs great enough for casual players to be able to see the sights and explore the planet, but even dedicated flight sim veterans should be able to hook up a HOTAS or keyboard and mouse and dive deeper into the simulation side of things. This is a truly impressive port that shows the potential of not only the Xbox Series X, but also the cloud technology utilized in this game.

https://attackofthefanboy.com/articles/ ... l-on-xbox/

They look to have done a brilliant job on the performance.

As I predicted, the main issue is around the interface being a pad, without the ease of all those easily accessible controls that come with a keyboard and mouse.

I need to do back into this at some point, but I want to do it properly and refresh the basics. It is a reasonable commitment. I need to stop jumping around too many games!

Bertie wrote:As I predicted, the main issue is around the interface being a pad, without the ease of all those easily accessible controls that come with a keyboard and mouse.

Well you can actually plug a mouse and keyboard into the Series S/X and it will work straight away on this game, that said, in pretty much all the previews and reviews the pad interface works 'surprisingly well'.

I'm just looking forward to a lot of chill time but I will get into perfecting landings etc.

So very tempted to pull the trigger on a T Flight Hotas One right now. I mean, I'm getting the game for 'free' on gamepass so that takes £50 off the cost right?

Eurogamer gave it an Essential rating.

Photek wrote:

Bertie wrote:As I predicted, the main issue is around the interface being a pad, without the ease of all those easily accessible controls that come with a keyboard and mouse.

Well you can actually plug a mouse and keyboard into the Series S/X and it will work straight away on this game, that said, in pretty much all the previews and reviews the pad interface works 'surprisingly well'.

I'm just looking forward to a lot of chill time but I will get into perfecting landings etc.

When I booted it up after downloading, there was (momentarily) a Windows-style cursor arrow on-screen.

It boots up? it's not supposed to unlock till 4 tomorrow....