Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Thread

physichull · 11 Aug 2020 at 09:15

phil-k said:
With the Orbx 40% discount I wonder if you had to have bought something in the past or just registered

You have to have bought something, so if you bought East Midlands airport on Orbx for X Plane 11, you will get a 40% discount on buying East Midlands airport on Orbx for FS2020, and so on.

phil-k · 11 Aug 2020 at 10:09

physichull said:
You have to have bought something, so if you bought East Midlands airport on Orbx for X Plane 11, you will get a 40% discount on buying East Midlands airport on Orbx for FS2020, and so on.

So you only get the discount if you buy the same add on for FS2020 that you have bought previously on Orbx not for any add on you buy

physichull · 11 Aug 2020 at 11:38

phil-k said:
So you only get the discount if you buy the same add on for FS2020 that you have bought previously on Orbx not for any add on you buy

Correct.

ryhoper1 · 12 Aug 2020 at 04:03

Have any other games had a minimum recommended or required internet speed?

That's a new one on me

sgavan · 12 Aug 2020 at 05:00

ryhoper1 said:
Have any other games had a minimum recommended or required internet speed?

That's a new one on me

I think there#s others but this is because it streams bing maps for extra detail

physichull · 12 Aug 2020 at 08:45

I've only got a fairly basic internet package of 20 Mbps, but I heard a while back that you could pre-load scenery for an area. Can anyone shed any light on this as I've seen scant information in the youtube reviews about all this?

phil-k · 12 Aug 2020 at 08:59

physichull said:
I've only got a fairly basic internet package of 20 Mbps, but I heard a while back that you could pre-load scenery for an area. Can anyone shed any light on this as I've seen scant information in the youtube reviews about all this?

Yes I have read that too

Morfinel · 12 Aug 2020 at 09:35

physichull said:
I've only got a fairly basic internet package of 20 Mbps, but I heard a while back that you could pre-load scenery for an area. Can anyone shed any light on this as I've seen scant information in the youtube reviews about all this?

20 Mbps is enough I think even in bigger city I was on 10 Mbps but I suspect this depends on graphics settings

Vern1961 · 12 Aug 2020 at 10:05

AFAIK you can run with the default mapping data the sim installs, only needs the Bing data if you crave the extra detail.

Re the default jets, hopefully these are slightly better than those in FS9 and FSX with crude cockpits and hoover jet sounds, at least Just Flight quality.

andy_mk3 · 12 Aug 2020 at 10:10

physichull said:
I've only got a fairly basic internet package of 20 Mbps, but I heard a while back that you could pre-load scenery for an area. Can anyone shed any light on this as I've seen scant information in the youtube reviews about all this?

You can set how much hard drive space to allocate for caching, say you allocate 50GB, it will download scenery the first time you fly somewhere, but then it will keep that data for when you fly there again.

I have a 30mb connection and it's never once caused an issue in the Alpha, apart from the initial flight loading taking a minute longer I don't think you would ever notice.

robfosters · 12 Aug 2020 at 10:42

What’s the point in buying OrbX’s Innsbruck handcrafted airport when the default one is also handcrafted?

picnic · 12 Aug 2020 at 11:42

We'll have to wait and see but the current Orbx offering does the city of Innsbruck in addition to the airfield so it might have benefits.

phil-k · 12 Aug 2020 at 12:10

Orbx offering of London looks excellent and its not too expensive, I imagine its only in the vicinity of the Thames though

physichull · 12 Aug 2020 at 12:11

no idea what said:
You can set how much hard drive space to allocate for caching, say you allocate 50GB, it will download scenery the first time you fly somewhere, but then it will keep that data for when you fly there again.

I have a 30mb connection and it's never once caused an issue in the Alpha, apart from the initial flight loading taking a minute longer I don't think you would ever notice.

Apologies, I'm going to repeat this back to you a bit, but just so I understand correctly:

So when I start my first flight, it spends a few minutes downloading all the satellite data for within say a 10 square mile radius, then as I fly, it downloads more as you fly in whatever direction, then that is cached, up to your cache size limit that you can pre-define?

If you don't download satellite photo data, what is the default scenery? Autogen fields? Or is it a more basic, less detailed satellite image?

robfosters said:
What’s the point in buying OrbX’s Innsbruck handcrafted airport when the default one is also handcrafted?

Quite. Though I do know Orbx also added buildings to the surrounding area, particularly the blocks of flats as you approach the runway, useful in low visibility conditions. There is also a spired church on the route that indicates when you should make the final turn, again Orbx haven't got this in yet, but they may consider adding it into their scenery pack. I don't know what the MS hand crafted one includes, it might just be the airport.

physichull · 12 Aug 2020 at 12:19

phil-k said:
Orbx offering of London looks excellent and its not too expensive, I imagine its only in the vicinity of the Thames though

From recollection of the TrueEarth stuff, they included quite a log of landmarks such as football stadiums, Wembley, Emirates stadium etc. but I'd imagine more will be known closer to the time. They usually give a fairly detailed breakdown of the models included. I got the Barton Aerodrome one for X-Plane, not because I fly from that airfield, but because I often landed at Manchester and was nice to see the Trafford Centre, football and rugby grounds too.

andy_mk3 · 12 Aug 2020 at 13:26

physichull said:
Apologies, I'm going to repeat this back to you a bit, but just so I understand correctly:

So when I start my first flight, it spends a few minutes downloading all the satellite data for within say a 10 square mile radius, then as I fly, it downloads more as you fly in whatever direction, then that is cached, up to your cache size limit that you can pre-define?

If you don't download satellite photo data, what is the default scenery? Autogen fields? Or is it a more basic, less detailed satellite image?

That's exactly it yep. I've not actually seen it in offline mode. There's bound to be a Youtube video on it though I'm sure. It's fully autogen offline though.

Zeeflyboy · 12 Aug 2020 at 13:52

Vern1961 said:
AFAIK you can run with the default mapping data the sim installs, only needs the Bing data if you crave the extra detail.

Re the default jets, hopefully these are slightly better than those in FS9 and FSX with crude cockpits and hoover jet sounds, at least Just Flight quality.

For the Jets, cockpits and sounds are both incredibly good. In fact I was surprised how accurate the neo sounds as the leap engines have quite a unique audio signature. It’s very well captured.

Systems, modes and control feel are currently the weak link.

Cavallino · 12 Aug 2020 at 15:20

For our expert simmers out there... I noticed some planes use a joystick, others a yoke.

So when you you want to fly a plane with a yoke, do you switch from a joystick to yoke and vice versa?
Or do you just use whatever you have at hand?

Amraam · 12 Aug 2020 at 15:48

Cavallino said:
For our expert simmers out there... I noticed some planes use a joystick, others a yoke.

So when you you want to fly a plane with a yoke, do you switch from a joystick to yoke and vice versa?
Or do you just use whatever you have at hand?

I've got a force sensing HOTAS Cougar. Using that to fly a 3 axis microlight is going to be... interesting.

Hodders · 12 Aug 2020 at 16:47

Really looking forward to this - Just added an extra 16GB of ram. Now have 32GB.

That is 1600x more than the first hard disk I ever owned (ST506 20MB drive in my Acorn Achrimedes!)

**** Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Thread ****

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Thread