Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 announced.

For those that ordered from CDKeys the keys are up now if you go to your orders page, just obtained mine and activated it via the MS Store.
I have bought a couple of keys from CDkeys that were ok but they were both very low priced older DLCs for games so no great loss if there were problems. I am not sure if I would want to risk buying a high priced game like MSFS from them. I see gamesplanet is also selling keys at a smaller discount. They claim to source their keys direct and I assume just sell at a reduced margin which is a bit more believable but I am still a bit dubious..
 
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I have bought a couple of keys from CDkeys that were ok but they were both very low priced older DLCs for games so no great loss if there were problems. I am not sure if I would want to risk buying a high priced game like MSFS from them. I see gamesplanet is also selling keys at a smaller discount. They claim to source their keys direct and I assume just sell at a reduced margin which is a bit more believable but I am still a bit dubious..

I’ve only once had a key not work from CDkeys, and they happily refunded me on that.
It’s the only cheap key seller that I’m currently confident to buy from
 
I purchased the Aviator edition from CDKeys. I activated the code on my MS account with no issues and it's now in my library alongside FS2020. I've now downloaded the pre-install too. Looking forward to Tuesday.
 
It seems a lot of people do trust them and the discount is attractive for msfs. I have over £100 in MS points atm that I could use to get msfs from the MSstore. In effect that gives me about a 25% discount compared to using the points elsewhere. I could also buy msfs from cdkeys and have the point to spend on addons. I am going to wait and see what the price of upgrades from one version to another are this time and what the reviews of some of the included aircraft are before I decide what version to get.
 
This is a good video that showcases the 30 extra aircraft in the aviator edition.
A few of those get reasonable reviews and obviously the ATR is in a different category but many of them have outstanding bugs and are lower end aircraft. I couldn't see myself using most of them much if at all. I am still undecided whether to just get the standard edition and save the money to buy a few good third party aircraft rather than have a hanger full of low spec aircraft I only fly once. Although getting them all inc the ATR is attractive. Again I think I am going to wait and see if they have had any updates for 2024.
 
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My lad wants a flight stick for Christmas. What’s a decent one for upto 300?

Don’t need rudders on the floor, we have the saitek yoke and the rudders which I assume I can use with a stick…?

We have a 5800x3d and 3080 on a 1440p screen.

Will it run?
 
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A few of those get reasonable reviews and obviously the ATR is in a different category but many of them have outstanding bugs and are lower end aircraft. I couldn't see myself using most of them much if at all. I am still undecided whether to just get the standard edition and save the money to buy a few good third party aircraft rather than have a hanger full of low spec aircraft I only fly once. Although getting them all inc the ATR is attractive. Again I think I am going to wait and see if they have had any updates for 2024.

I was considering the Premium Deluxe as the minimum as you also get the full 160 hand crafted airports, also the Boeing 787-10 if you like airliners. I also wanted the Cirrus SR22 in this version. Purchasing via CDKeys, the price difference for the Aviator edition was around £43 extra, so I decided to go for it as there are a few aircraft there that interested me too, including the Boeing 707, ATR 42/72 and Beechcraft Bonanza V35. I am also a massive aviation fan, so really appreciated many of these historic aircraft and I have no doubt that I will fly them too. Granted some will be better than others.
 
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I have to admit I've been trying to choose an Edition and the CD Keys prices are really good; I've already got the ATR 42/72 which is the main one that I like from the Aviator pack.
That said its "only" £43 quid more, maybe I should just go for it; I easily got the value out of my MSFS 2020 purchase!
 
My lad wants a flight stick for Christmas. What’s a decent one for upto 300?

Don’t need rudders on the floor, we have the saitek yoke and the rudders which I assume I can use with a stick…?

We have a 5800x3d and 3080 on a 1440p screen.

Will it run?

Yes, you can use your Saitek rudder pedals with a stick of your choice. I have the Thrustmaster Airbus TCA stick which is a popular and good value option. I have been using mine for a few years now without issue. However with a budget of up to 300, there will no doubt be better options available. Also consider a throttle quadrant. Some sticks have basic throttles integrated, however as you already have rudder pedals it will be nice to have a separate throttle quadrant for the other hand to provide the most realistic flying experience. Hopefully others here will have more stick recommendations.

Regarding your system. The 5800X3D has been an excellent performer with FS2020 and is still one of the best processors for the game, and the 3080 is perfectly capable of driving a mixture of ultra and high settings at 1440p. Flight sims have always been generally more CPU bound anyway (with the exception of 4K which certainly stretches the GPU as much).

We will have a better idea of real world performance on existing hardware from Tuesday. However, many tech alpha users have reported similar performance to FS2020. I would say that your system will be absolutely fine with FS2024, just tweak the graphics settings to get a performance level that you are happy with.
 
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I have to admit I've been trying to choose an Edition and the CD Keys prices are really good; I've already got the ATR 42/72 which is the main one that I like from the Aviator pack.
That said its "only" £43 quid more, maybe I should just go for it; I easily got the value out of my MSFS 2020 purchase!

This is exactly what I was thinking. Had the CDKeys pricing not been available, I would have most likely gone for the Premium Deluxe edition as I would have found it hard to justify the extra £70 for Aviator. However, at ‘only’ an extra £43 it suddenly becomes much better value!
 
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