Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

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wwa752
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Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by wwa752 »

Well, its been a few flights for me in MSFS2020 and I wanted to see how everyone is doing with the sim. No issues with frame rates or anything; it actually runs better than FSX:Steam or P3dv4 did on my system. My biggest issues so far are the lack of voice communication when using the sim ATC (I'll hear ATC talk maybe 2/10 times and my response maybe 6/10 times, even with Azure on), the lack of procedures for approaches on some of the G1000 panels, and some of the flight dynamics. It seems drag really doesn't exist with some of the models (looking at you Grand Caravan), or the aircraft are hyper sensitive to control inputs (I'm at nearly -80 on most of my axis settings and it still barrel rolls of a grain of dust lands on my joystick). Had minor issues with MeteoBlue crashing last night and all my altimeter settings being stuck at 29.92, but thats just server demand and not the sim's fault itself.

That said....once these quirks get ironed out and everyone learns the new keyboard commands it should be a great sim platform to build on for years to come. Hope everyone else is enjoying it!

-Ian
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by WWA2660 »

I'm giving it a try. Vpilot causes MSFS to stutter a lot and that makes it unusable for a VATSIM pilot. I'm sure that vpilot and Microsoft will sort this out. It now makes me think that the MSFS VATSIM partnership video on Youtube was faked.

The visuals are great around KSEA, I did some pattern work there.I do not like the defaults for the Saitek yoke so will likely just reprogram those settings.

There is no EzDok for this sim so I will have to do something about that too.

For now, I'm flying X-Plane 11.50RC1 with Vulcan turned on. I'll come back to MSFS and iterate fixes as I have time.

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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by WWA3290 Paul L Steele »

It took forever to download all of it but I got it finished last night. I did some test flights with one of the Diamond's around Charlotte to see how the scenery looks and I could navigate my way around using the highways I drive every day so that is good and the way the buildings are generated looks a lot better than FSX and a 100 times better than the FS9 I have been stuck using for a time now. I tried flying around Charlotte with X Plane 11 and while the airport was right on target once in the air there is nothing there without buying add on scenery so this FS looks a lot better than the X Plane out of the box for now. I did a flight around Bermuda, a place I have been blessed to visit on cruises twice and where the old FS9 and FSX just had the airport and nothing else this did the trick and was very much like what I saw when I was there. With the small GA aircraft I was flying I liked how you could fly in a sort of slot view with the instruments where you could see them in a HUD mode allowing me to look around where I was. I need to learn how to program it to use the joystick and keyboard if possible and how to do the autopilots for long flights but I am looking forward to seeing where this goes. I bought an Asis Predator laptop with a ton of RAM and an RTX graphics card so that is running well too. Let's see where this goes when we get more add on aircraft but since I fly B744's as much or more than most aircraft on the long flights I like to do I should be in good shape here as well.
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by wwa659 »

yes, it took forever to download, over 13 hours. It also took up a huge chunk of my HDD C-drive now only has a few gigs free and that is causing other performance issues across the entire system. It would not let me pick another location to download, I tried and to change the drive it was going to but it would not accept any of my inputs on that screen.

I have not tried a flight yet but plan on setting up all of the controls after work and see how it goes
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by Mark Kusiak »

I edited the subject line for clarity.
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by WWA3290 Paul L Steele »

Sean that was why I took the dive and got a new laptop just for this. I was going to buy me another .45 but this won out. The FS is all that is on it right now and I had read somewhere they were talking maybe 300 GB when all was said and done. My desktop does not have that much room so I guess I will see for now how my 1 TB SSD drive works. It is good so far.
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by wwa3631 »

Since i am a bit sceptic i have take the safe way here and got myself a one month subscription to Game Pass for PC ( 1 Euro)
Install went prettly flawless in about 4-5 hours.

As mentioned already often the graphics of MSFS 2020 are stunnig. Indeed just flying VFR in a C172 and being able to really follow the roads from the airport to your home is great fun. Was easy to find my home location.
Of course the house doesn't look like the real thing but, as already mentioned here (and elsewhere) the fact that you are able to relate the visuals to reality is something new that P3D has not been able to achieve.

That's for the good news.
THe bad news for me is.
ATC still sucks. ATC voice is sometimes missing (something to do with Azure sound i believe by reading the fora)
ATC directions suck. Having tried now twice a EHAM-EGLL trip. FL380 at REDFA with the A320Neo. Yeah right forget it (max FL on this trip is 240).
Directions toward final airport suck. Other planes are continuously >10.000 feet above their assigned altitude.
Auto pilot behaviour for a320 is buggy. Same for the G1000. (Vnav not possible and if armed will cause excessive nose up/down behaviour)

Since i am flying Boeings mainly (PMDG 737 and QW 787) i am having trouble operating the FMC of the bus. I believe this is not just my lack of understanding btw but also a poorly implemented FMC.
AT landing yesterday with AT and AP off the Bus still throttled up screwing up my landing. Where the hell does that behaviour come from?
Trimming planes (be it the Katana/Diamond/C172 or A320 is almost impossible
My X-52 is recognized but no assignments put to it (all have to set it myself)

Frame rate on my 3700x with R9 Fury are acceptable at HIgh setting. (a new video card would however improve much, but i am waiting for the new 3xxx series from Nvidia)


So, for my WWE flying, i will stick with P3D for the time being.
I do hope (and also believe given the hype around MSFS 2020) that this product will mature in the upcoming months.
And it needs to.
But i wil fire up MSFS2020 now and then to just do a sightseeing tour of some interesting landmarks around the world.
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Software: Win10, Prepar3d V5.1, FS2020,PMDG 737Ngx, QW 787, FS2Crew, PFPX, Avlasoft EFB, Active Sky P3d,VOXAtc

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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by WWA3382 »

I got into the Beta about 2 weeks before the release, so I didn't really do much except a couple of their designed tests in it, but I am actually pretty happy with a couple of the menu tweaks they made in the release version. I have done a couple of flights in the full release and haven't been really disappointed, but then again, I didn't have any massive expectations either for the default aircraft so the issues with trimming isn't really bothering me since I doubt I'll be flying default planes for very long. The scenery and new flight model are what drew me to it more than anything so once I get a couple of my favorite add-on airplanes into MSFS, I'm sure I'll be primarily flying the new sim.

I've not seen the stutter problem with vPilot. I did a couple of quick tests yesterday night and it seemed fine. I'm going to fly the "New Generation FNO" tomorrow on VATSIM with MSFS20 out of New Orleans and fly to the Houston Area so I think that'll give me a good stress test to see. I wonder if the stutters have to do with bandwidth limitations? I'm on a near Gigabyte connection, so I never see any bandwidth issues, so it's hard for me to help.

As for the Airbus - it's a simplified Airbus FMS, but the buttons are familiar and seem to work just fine. The plane seems "heavy" and flies with a higher body angle than I'd expect at many airspeeds, but other than that, it seems to be reasonable enough for a basic flight model. No FBW though so you do actually have to trim it which is a little annoying, but not unexpected again.

I think there were a few issues that cropped up in the last BETA that weren't able to get fixed for release so I expect some of the twitchiness in pitch to go away because it was a report that many had with the final build but by the time it happened, a rollback didn't fix it and they didn't have time to figure out what happened to cause the issue.
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by wwa659 »

Besides the 15 hours to download, I also had issues trying to do a custom install and was forced to install the bulk to the Appdata location on my C Drive, which just killed the overall performance of my system because there was not any room left on the hard drive after the 100 gigs install. So after two full days of downloading/installing and then moving files to where I wanted them allowed me to check out the sim. I have a little more knowledge and may try to do a clean install next week before I get any addons. If I do I will create the folders where I want the install and try to install there instead of on C Drive. At least I have read that works when you cant point it where you want.

Overall I am impressed and like what I saw, to borrow a phrase from an old Memorex commercial "is it live or is it sim". My hometown airport in Higginsville Missouri was very well represented although not the correct color or in some cases the building type was off, there was a building where a building should be. Higginsville is small enough you really should use an ultralight to tour the town, but the 152 did the job, I was able to Id various locations in my home town and yes even my house. but in a neighboring town where the college has a major aviation program, I got the opposite end of the spectrum. there was not a building to be seen at the airport. WHAT THE blank! ok, that maybe my fault from moving files around.

The 152 is the only aircraft I checked out so far as that is the airframe I got my PPl in but I believe the flight dynamics are spot on, I have watched Mike Bergmans AKA "Moostaffa" Twitch stream with him flying the 172 that seemed to be well modeled also. but the airliners only seam to be basic with very little system depth compared to the GA aircraft.
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Re: Soooo, everyone's thoughts?--Initial MSFS2020

Post by WWA299 »

I had the same download anxiety with all the time needed. I have a few 1 GIG SSD's and put it on the one I'd had FSX on, so I haven't had any problems with computer slowing down. I was going to try a WWA flight with the 747, after trying to fly around my home town. I couldn't find a clock in the cockpit to keep t/o and land times. Seemed strange, but maybe I'm missing a key stroke to get it. ???? The one weird thing I saw with the 747 was that both times I got it on the runway and started my takeoff, the program told me I'd hit an object and crashed. The first time I was on the approach apron prior to touchdown area, so I thought it crashed because I'd run over a runway light. ??? But the second time I was on the runway proper, and it still crashed after running up the engines and starting my takeoff run. Going to try some of the other A/C and see how enroute works out.
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