Microsoft Flight Sim 2020

[Lusekofte]

7 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

 

18 minutes ago, CanadaOne said:

 

I didn't see that there was time acceleration. Where is it, please and SVP? 

 

I like the old "slew" in FSX. 

 

Needs keys assigned. Shouldn't be hard to find. https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/about-time-acceleration/161841

 

As for slew', that seems maybe a little too much likecheating to me,

 

Slew is a bit too much for me. 
Thanks for tc advise. I will not use it on this world trip tho. I just set the route in Scotland. A bunch of 15 to 30 minutes legs I will fly using cub and 152. I’m going to spend 3 days just in Scotland

[Monostripezebra]

I haven´t really got so much time for around the world.. but just doing circuits around the patch can also be mad fun.

 

[Lusekofte]

8 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

haven´t really got so much time

This is the reason I stopped flying GB and DCS.  
I flown my longest leg from Norway to Shetland. This is a perfect 20 min of fun sim. 
I laugh of the this is a game not sim FB rant. I mean who bloody care what it is. 
of course it is going to be improved

[SAS_Storebror]

1 hour ago, 216th_LuseKofte said:

of course it is going to be improved

 

Absolutely. Same to the 3rd party content.

For instance, ORBX immediately fixed the low-res objects issue with the London Landmarks pack, so this warning...  

On 8/21/2020 at 1:14 AM, Bullets said:

Don't buy the London Pack!!!

...is obsolete meanwhile.

Unfortunately M$ didn't manage to update their Marketplace item either: M$ is still on v1.00 (where London has issues), ORBX has v1.02 released.

Solution: Request refund from M$ and download/install directly from ORBX.

 

Mike

[CanadaOne]

11 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

 

Needs keys assigned. Shouldn't be hard to find. https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/about-time-acceleration/161841

 

As for 'slew', that seems maybe a little too much like cheating to me, though functionally it isn't that different I suppose. Should best be used sparingly in my opinion, ideally just to annoy the "it isn't a game it's a simulation" digital-puritanism crowd, who seem to be filling the forums with endless whining about other people enjoying themselves. 

 

You mean... snowflakes? 

 

Oh by god, yes, let us annoy them. 

[Lusekofte]

2 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

download/install directly from ORBX.

Did not know about this site. Thanks. 
I will have to hire you on a professional basis. Your advises have saved me several $ already. 
Btw. On my second leg in Scotland I am pretty sure a animal of some sort crossed the grass strip while I was landing on it

[AndyJWest]

When flying from an airport with an 'ø' in the name, check the weather first...

 

 

[Feathered_IV]

I thought that was a Storch at first!

[AndyJWest]

11 minutes ago, Feathered_IV said:

I thought that was a Storch at first!

 

It's basically a Storch on steroids. With big wheels for added land-anywhereness.

 

I'm beginning to get the hang of hovering it into the wind now. Other than obvious matters like checking visibility and wind direction first, the main things to beware of seem to be not trying to remain stationary when not headed into wind (easily done if you are used to a helicopter, or the DCS Harrier) and getting caught out by wind shear on landing. The wind drops noticeably as you descend the last few feet, and you need to anticipate with power,  and expect to start moving forwards. The tipping on one wing thing is just down to not being aligned with the wind, and I've yet to succeed in getting it upright again without breaking it.

[Lusekofte]

What have you done with the dashboard. Is it not lacking garmin?

4 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

basically a Storch on steroids

 

[AndyJWest]

4 minutes ago, 216th_LuseKofte said:

What have you done with the dashboard. Is it not lacking garmin?

 

 

What the dashboard is lacking most in that video is lighting, though to be fair, it wasn't exactly VFR conditions. But no, as far as I'm aware the MSFS version of the Zlin Shock Ultra isn't supposed to have fancy avionics, beyond the digital engine display, though some of the real ones seem to have at least a bracket to hold a portable GPS system. Personally, if I had the real thing I'd just add a clip to hang a good old-fashioned paper map from, and find a compass that was easier to read. And If I got lost, I'd land and ask for directions.

[Lusekofte]

Just now, AndyJWest said:

 

What the dashboard is lacking most in that video is lighting, though to be fair, it wasn't exactly VFR conditions. But no, as far as I'm aware the MSFS version of the Zlin Shock Ultra isn't supposed to have fancy avionics, beyond the digital engine display, though some of the real ones seem to have at least a bracket to hold a portable GPS system. Personally, if I had the real thing I'd just add a clip to hang a good old-fashioned paper map from, and find a compass that was easier to read. And If I got lost, I'd land and ask for directions.

I would really like both cub be without garmin  The newest one is a bit faster 

[AndyJWest]

Decided to take a look at the Gobi Desert. ?

[CanadaOne]

You're going to have trouble catching up to the yaks in that thing. 

[AndyJWest]

I'm hunting camels, not yaks... ?

[ZachariasX]

5 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

Decided to take a look at the Gobi Desert.

Good you brought a boat.

[Lusekofte]

6 hours ago, AndyJWest said:

I'm hunting camels, not yaks... ?

You have a interesting choice of planes. Boat over Gobi and Cub over Atlantic

Leg two over Scotland. After encountering wildlife in one grass strip I landed on a farm strip to see if it happened again. 
instrument and google map gps app. Make me not miss VR at all

[Dutch2]

Like to know, any date on when the FS2020-VR update will be introduced? 

[Lusekofte]

Just now, Dutch2 said:

Like to know, any date on when the FS2020-VR update will be introduced? 

*I suspect it will be pretty soon , for Reverb that is

[LizLemon]

3 hours ago, Dutch2 said:

Like to know, any date on when the FS2020-VR update will be introduced? 

 

October has been tossed around but I don't think that is officially confirmed.

[AndyJWest]

@ZachariasX @216th_LuseKofte

 

Flying an amphibian over the Gobi isn't entirely nuts, though I must admit I chose it for laughs - there appears to be some sort of lake at the eastern end of the Gobi, though I suspect from looking at maps and satellite imagery that it may be seasonal, and probably not very deep. Not that I got that far, since it'd have taken a couple of hours, and the terrain isn't exactly inspiring.

 

And I suppose that if I was flying over it in real life in a single engined aircraft, a seaplane might even be a sensible choice compared to anything with fixed landing gear, which would probably dig in and flip over if you had to make an emergency landing.

[ZachariasX]

4 minutes ago, AndyJWest said:

Flying an amphibian over the Gobi isn't entirely nuts

You didn‘t (virtually) die out there I suppose. Thus, you bringing a boat is definitely a viable possibility. People have done worse while not bringing a boat and consequently didn‘t come back.

 

But taking that boat and flying in... uuhm... that... that direction for about 3 hours to land on the lake(s), that would probably pushing chances a bit.

 

It‘s just that your screeny looks so funny because it is almost photo real. Wherever you took off, you had to fly there first with *that*.

[AndyJWest]

A bit of Googling tells me that if I want to land in the lake I thought was there, I'll most likely have to time-travel, or at least pick the right time of year. Lop Nur used to be there, but the usual consequences of drawing off river water for irrigation in an arid environment have resulted in it drying up, most of the time.  And even when it was there, finding it may have been difficult. See Wikipedia:

Quote

The lake was referred to as the "Wandering Lake" in the early 20th century due to the Tarim River changing its course, causing its terminal lake to alter its location between the Lop Nur dried basin, the Kara-Koshun dried basin and the Taitema Lake basin. This shift of the terminal lake caused some confusion amongst the early explorers as to the exact location of Lop Nur. Imperial maps from the Qing Dynasty showed Lop Nur to be located in similar position to the present Lop Nur dried basin, but the Russian geographer Nikolay Przhevalsky instead found the terminal lake at Kara-Koshun in 1867. Sven Hedin visited the area in 1900-1901 and suggested that the Tarim river periodically changed its course to and fro between its southbound and northbound direction, resulting in a shift in the position of the terminal lake.

 

I find navigation hard enough, even without the geography moving around under me...

[Lusekofte]

Well I finally made it to westciast of Scotland. Then I discovered I flown just north of Loch Ness so I flew back east and rented a Icon to search for Nessie, I figured it might be a joker modelling it. 
No joy so I am back east after landing in Ingress. Still not sure if I go back east or take a southern route , then go east for Wales. I guess I buy London pack from Orbx so I can take a London by night flight

[Ace_Pilto]

On 9/7/2020 at 8:42 AM, AndyJWest said:

 

Yeah, I know the feeling. I intended to fly from Casablanca to Madeira today. 464 nm straight out into the Atlantic, in an XCub that cruises at less than 110 kt 

 

You must really like looking at water.

 

I've been getting very inconsistent performance. Seems like MSFS2020 has a particularly feminine temperament. Some days everything runs butter smooth, other I get stuttering and crashing. I find my self wondering, did I run over Bill Gate's dog or something? 

 

Anyone else had this inconsistent performance? Can't wait for the next patch.

 

Also, for those looking to enhance their experience. I've come up with the idea of using the iHeartRadio site to tune in to radio stations local to the area I'm flying over to get a bit of local flavour. 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Ace_Pilto

[ZachariasX]

58 minutes ago, Ace_Pilto said:

Anyone else had this inconsistent performance? Can't wait for the next patch.

I do get that, but only to a slight degree. It is usually coupled with terrain loading. The manual cache only fetches some altitude info and photoscenery, all other stuff is always downloaded on the fly and when I spawn in dense places for the firt time, there's some stutter, but after a minute or so when the terrain is loaded, it's all smooth. I do have a fast fiber connection, so it shouldn't really be a problem on my end.

[Ace_Pilto]

I think you might be onto it. I haven't got my head around their caching system yet. Using rolling cache probably isn't helping matters but I'm not really sure about how to set up the manual cache.

[Lusekofte]

I have no issue with performance.  In fact I start thinking my 1080 TI got a couple of years more lifespan. But I am not sure, so far I have kept Norwegian minimum altitude restrictions. 
I am in a period of being law abiding citizen 

[Ace_Pilto]

I have a 1660TI, it cranks out the frames but the way MSFS handles lod detail changes is causing all kinds of trouble for me at times. Then the next day I launch it and everything is 75FPS without a hitch. I must have run over Bill Gate's dog in a past life.

[Lusekofte]

As I said, being used to DCS , I am immune to notice smaller issues. I simply have not noticed any issues. Except from buying a Skylane from official markedplace and not being able to install it. It is likely I just missed out on issues simular to yours. 

[CanadaOne]

2 hours ago, Ace_Pilto said:

I think you might be onto it. I haven't got my head around their caching system yet. Using rolling cache probably isn't helping matters but I'm not really sure about how to set up the manual cache.

 

It's pretty easy. I know that because I can do it.

 

But, one guy did a video saying it helps almost, but not really, but maybe some.

 

 

[LizLemon]

1 hour ago, CanadaOne said:

 

It's pretty easy. I know that because I can do it.

 

But, one guy did a video saying it helps almost, but not really, but maybe some.

 

 

 

This isn't really surprising. Rolling cache is going to be storing whatever area you recent flew over. Manual cache doesnt improve loading times much, if any, because most of loading time is going to be 'preparing' the scene on the GPU. It'd probably help for someone on a slow internet connection, like can't stream 1080p netflix slow.

[SAS_Storebror]

1 hour ago, CanadaOne said:

one guy did a video saying it helps almost, but not really

 

Maybe instead of watching FPS - which are not supposed to change from enabling the rolling cache, why should they? - and load times - which ones is he talking about exactly? - he should have monitored network traffic vs. disc usage.

I can clearly say that with rolling cache enabled (mine is set to 128GB) you only load the same city's textures once from the internet.

If you revisit the same city again, the data will be loaded from your rolling cache, not from the inet.

And if your cache is located on a fast medium - mine is on an NVMe SSD - and your inet connection isn't of backbone quality - mine is 100MBit/s down - then you can clearly tell the difference of time it takes for the game to (re-)load textures from SSD vs. inet when you enter a rural area.

 

Mike

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by SAS_Storebror

[CanadaOne]

You may well be right. 

 

For my part, I don't know. I'll let you smart people figure it out and then tell me. 

 

I have FS20 on a (mostly) dedicated 1TB NVME and have a 60+Mbit connection. All in all I find it runs very well.

[ZachariasX]

16 minutes ago, SAS_Storebror said:

I can clearly say that with rolling cache enabled (mine is set to 128GB) you only load the same city's textures once from the internet.

It would actually be nice if MS was a bit more forthcoming about what is cached where and when. Rolling cache and manual cache store different things.

 

Also, managing the cache is an utter pain in the neck. I set my manual cache first to 300 GB, only to discover that there is reatively little scenery that you can cache in the first place. From Switzerland down to Naples, you just get about 2 GB of data. Funny enough, there is no way of making that cache smaller or deleting it within the game, you have to delete the (300 GB in my case) file in Windows Explorer. Next time you start your sim, you will not have any manual cache and you can recreate it by newly selecting "manual cache" and setting a size.

 

The way this cache is implemented is also insane. Whatever little you cache, it seems to have to write the whole g*d d*mn file again. With 300 GB, you are way outside of the SLC cache of any recent SDD. If you have 50 GB of that cache, you can expect that 250 GB is written at about 100 MB/s in the M/TLC part. That is when you can get up from your seat and visit family you haven't seen in a long time. When you're back, *maybe* the cache is updated. Having manual cache set larger than your SLC buffer is hell.

 

The rolling cache has the advantage that this process is only done once and the game can fill that bucket while flying and I see no other hassle. If you need more space and you have to make that file smaller, the only way to do so is also deleting the file manually. Upon next startup, the file will be recreated at a small size, allowing you again to set a size.

 

It is incredibly cumbersome to use large files for cache, as selecting regions is painfully slow. Also download is also incredibly slow. Caching an area it does seemingly at the speed it allows for download while flying. And that is *up to* about 50 Mbit/s. Fetching Europes photoscenery is 14'400 Baud modem feeling.

 

 

[SAS_Storebror]

16 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

With 300 GB, you are way outside of the SLC cache of any recent SDD. If you have 50 GB of that cache, you can expect that 250 GB is written at about 100 MB/s in the M/TLC part. That is when you can get up from your seat and visit family you haven't seen in a long time. When you're back, *maybe* the cache is updated.

...or you're a lucky guy like me and have an SSD where the cache is sufficiently large (~150 GB in my case) and the SSD still does 500MB/s beyond that:

 

But I totally agree, the cache mechanism in FS 2020 could either be improved, or M$ simply forgot to tell us how to use it right.

 

Mike

[ZachariasX]

1 minute ago, SAS_Storebror said:

..or you're a lucky guy like me and have an SSD where the cache is sufficiently large (~150 GB in my case) and the SSD still does 500MB/s beyond that:

It's a good one. I would have gone for such, but I am restriced to Intel goods to make use of SSD's on the X299 platform. Striping SSD's increases the cache proportionally, that helps. Still, if it wasn't for the marginal real world per core advantage of very selected CPU's in Intels offerings compared to AMD, they would be not just dead, but Dodo-dead. Where it is not sub par, it is intentionally broken. It is whining at a very high level, but still. C'mon.

[Lusekofte]

I bought the most expencive ssd I could find at the time. It got pro on the end. Bith 500 gb + one 1 t ordinary disk. 
I guess that is what ignorant stupid persons do. It might also explain why I have no problem

[ZachariasX]

25 minutes ago, 216th_LuseKofte said:

I bought the most expencive ssd I could find at the time. It got pro on the end. Bith 500 gb + one 1 t ordinary disk. 
I guess that is what ignorant stupid persons do. It might also explain why I have no problem

The space I allocated for FS2020 alone when i set up the game initially was half your total SSD space. My lesson learned is that escalating the cache size is better done with care and gradually. Much less problems.

[Lusekofte]

Following Google map plugin and what I fly over Edinburgh is pretty good replicated for a untrained eye. Anyone from there that can say something