Microsoft Flight Sim 2020/2024

[Mtnbiker1998]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 ...I really want to spend some time in Milviz's DHC-2...

The Beaver is one of my absolute favorites to fly in the game. Just makes me wish there were more Seaplane bases to visit! Be better if I could just spawn with the engine off on any body of water (or land for that matter, I hate doing Runway starts on airports that don't have parking spots!)

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, Mtnbiker1998 said:

The Beaver is one of my absolute favorites to fly in the game. Just makes me wish there were more Seaplane bases to visit! Be better if I could just spawn with the engine off on any body of water (or land for that matter, I hate doing Runway starts on airports that don't have parking spots!)

 

Pick up the (free) Return to Misty Moorings package - you'll have plenty of seaplane bases after that. ?

[ZachariasX]

10 hours ago, LukeFF said:

I really want to spend some time in Milviz's DHC-2 and the JPL C152 mod.

We're getting spoiled with some really great content. The JPC C152 mod is certainly a thing i will also have a closer look at. It is simply amazing how far the stock aircraft have come, even without a little 3rd party love. I mean, compare that to the FSX stock offerings... A2A really has a huge task if they this time again want to raise the bar.

 

The Beaver is also high on my list. But first I have to spend some more time in the 310R. That one  is beautifully made and looks gorgeous. But it is not really a plane I would want to own and operate myself. You know, there are some planes that just ooze confidence when you sit at the controls. But that little diva is none of that. More like a Tamagotchi that suddenly may decide to fall out of the sky should one not constantly pamper enough. But it keeps the flight (and certainly approaches) interesting.

[BOO]

6 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

That’s weird. Kippers and motorcycle racing are two of my favourite things, so I’ve spent quite a lot of time over The Island and I’ve never seen that before.

 

Another big update tomorrow afternoon so if you’re happy with your settings, make a note of ‘em now as the update process can often scramble stuff…?

It could be a result if all the faffing I’ve done but there’s a few identical reports around the webernet. 
 

last night I also encountered for the first time a persistent white flashing as uf the screen was briefly going in and out if full screen. That was resolved by turning off bloom. 
 

Perhaps an update and some overwriting is what’s needed. 

[Oyster_KAI]

On 4/24/2023 at 7:36 AM, LukeFF said:

Anyone planning on picking up the ATR 42 when it comes out this week? If it's as really "study-level" as it's claimed to be, it's going to be very tempting to pick up, for myself. 

I like this kind of mid sized twin prop airliner!
As a model with similar functions... I'm also looking forward to the DHC-8 Q400?

[LukeFF]

ATR is up for sale now. $19.99.

[Lusekofte]

Well I am coming home and reinstall this crappeticrap. Because I miss it

Edited April 25, 2023 by Lusekofte

[DBFlyguy]

World Update XIII is out now and trailer just dropped:

 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by DBFlyguy

[Mtnbiker1998]

Gonna Enjoy exploring all the new scenery for sure! Pearl Harbor seemed like a good place to start though, Real time and weather as of a few minutes ago

[BOO]

2 hours ago, LukeFF said:

ATR is up for sale now. $19.99.

now 35% off - a tenner in civilised currency. 

[ZachariasX]

SUXIII has landed!

 

 

PNG, here I come!!

[Lusekofte]

This time it seems like the install goes Smooth. During the night the pc had restarted itself. But it continued to update when I restarted at secure modus. 

[Props]

I did the regular pre-upgrade housekeeping and then flew a short hop in Oceania in my RV14A. Everything went very smoothly. I should mention too that my complete install is on my D ssd M.2 NVMe drive unlike the recommended C drive install and this is the 3rd update on that install path with no issues. I just might spend a few days exploring the island chains in my new F6F Hellcat as I work up on it and pretend there may be Zeros out and about....

[BOO]

Day 15. Andreas, Isle of Man – Caernarfon, Wales.  164 Nm, Real Time, Real Weather

 

PT 1

 

 

Today’s Leg is a flight down memory lane and one Im looking forward to. I mis-spent a very happy youthful summer in the Lake District as an instructor at a Sea Scouts camp in the late 80s. Ever since I’ve been welded to the place. It’ll be interesting to see what the sim makes of it.

 

 

The Monday morning weather at Andreas is bright and breezy with scattered clouds. The forecast says I can expect this until I reach Wales and its there Ive decided to terminate the leg as I know good weather is forecast for that region in the days ahead.

 

 

From the Isle of Man to the mainland its a short hop and its not too long before we are recharging our luminous dials over Seascale……

 

 

….and heading into heaven. Wasdale with Scafell looming over it.

 

 

My settings probably don’t do it justice but from the cockpit, its magnificent.

 

 

 

Passing though, we roughly follow the route of a 1,000,000,000 DoE-ers heading over the Langdales and onto Windermere beyond. The sim shines here and Im back there in my mind.

 

 

Thanks to Orbx’s Northern England add on all the things I expect are represented. And some very well so, such as Low Wray Castle. More unexpectedly, so is Low Wray Farm, my home during the summer of 1988.

 

 

The rest of Windermere looks like Windermere, albeit without as many boats – I am happy.  I am also very happy with the We Love VFR add-on. There is a radio/telecoms mast in Ambleside. Not very big and tucked a little out of the way behind the main car park. And its there! Never in all my visits have I ever thought seeing it would make me smile so much.

 

 

The Hills of the Southern Lakes are soon behind us and Morecambe Bay in front for our transit along the NW coast of the England.

 

 

Blackpool, in all its grim glory.

 

 

Its Airport where, in 1978 my dad took me to see my first Airshow. A seminal moment in my life.

 

 

Southport – not sure if its global warming but I can never remember even seeing the sea from the promenade. I mean, you could literally walk back to the IoM on the beach it was usually that far out.

 

 

Livepuelle. Its all there thanks to the Orbx add-on but more of that later.

 

 

As we leave Liverpool, something becomes apparent with the Add-ons. This image shows it quite well. Unlike the rest of the scenery, they go black. That’s not great Ill be honest and I expected a bit better. Its like the CloD of yore were you didn’t need to navigate to a target cos it was always this black blob in the distance. The We Love VFR stuff is fine by comparison.

 

Day 15. Andreas, Isle of Man – Caernarfon, Wales.  164 Nm, Real Time, Real Weather

 

PT 2

 

 

We continue, transiting the Northern coast of Wales. This, I think, is Rhyll. I wasn’t going any closer to find out just in case it was.   

 

 

More memories. The Great Orm and Llandudno. One of my parents’ favourite day trips and a nice place I think.

 

 

We work our way around the headland and up the Menai Strait.

 

 

Taking in the views of the mountains beyond (Im not getting into their new/old naming conventions of the ranges and National Parks – Beautiful Welsh Mountains – that’ll do)

 

 

As we approach Caernarfon, the weather, as predicted, takes a turn. This is the end of the leg.

 

 

Touching down on the centreline I swear I hear “Sev-EN” shouted over the headset.

 

 

Parking up, all that’s left is for me to do is apologise for being English (again) and book a BnB.

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by BOO

[LukeFF]

7 hours ago, ZachariasX said:

PNG, here I come!!

 

Yet another area I really want to explore. ? 

[Mtnbiker1998]

Enjoying the new WU, lots of pretty islands and interesting Airfields. plenty of options for you 'Round the World boys once you get there!! Definitely recommend French Polynesia

[CUJO_1970]

It just gets better and better-er.

 

I'm really going to need to rethink my HD situation as I'm at 654 gigs for MSFS alone right now.

[BOO]

2 hours ago, Mtnbiker1998 said:

Enjoying the new WU, lots of pretty islands and interesting Airfields. plenty of options for you 'Round the World boys once you get there!! Definitely recommend French Polynesia

 

 

I look forward to remote rural out of the way places. The big city PG thing just isnt working well for me at all. 

[Lusekofte]

Quote

PMDG Douglas DC-6 for Microsoft Flight Simulator

Please note this product requires a PC.  An Xbox version of this product is available only through MSFS Marketplace.

"The world's most renowned creator of aircraft simulations steps forward with a product for Microsoft's magnificent new simulation platform."

 

PMDG's debut product for Microsoft Flight Simulator, the magnificent, new, flight simulation engine created by Microsoft and Asobo Studios is finally available.  The PMDG Douglas DC-6 has been built from the ground up to capitalize on the vast strengths of this new simulation platform and brings to life the magestic DC-6 in a way never before possible.

I am very confused. I got the DC6 from the game itself. But they claim this is not the same Link PMDG

 

Same im Flightsim.to

[Lusekofte]

anyway good to fly again

[Lusekofte]

At the end of the flight just 1 k from touchdown behind 1 aircraft I got a the 3080 gpu encountered a problem and shut down the program. Does this mean I had too much going on for it or is it a hardware problem no heat or anything like that was the problem

[BOO]

40 minutes ago, Lusekofte said:

At the end of the flight just 1 k from touchdown behind 1 aircraft I got a the 3080 gpu encountered a problem and shut down the program. Does this mean I had too much going on for it or is it a hardware problem no heat or anything like that was the problem

I had many such issues. They all seem to have  stemmed from MSI afterburner/Nvidia inspector. Since uninstalling both Ive been able to fly for hours over high demand areas without issue. Every time the crash occurred the GPU memory clock went booloo. I think it had something to do with the power curves I had set. MSFS was the only sim that suffered in this way though. Not blaming the software but rather my ham fisted tinkering. 

 

Over the past couple of  days I also managed to totally screw up the photojiggermididdle as well . Seems the game likes responsible users. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by BOO

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

At the end of the flight just 1 k from touchdown behind 1 aircraft I got a the 3080 gpu encountered a problem and shut down the program. Does this mean I had too much going on for it or is it a hardware problem no heat or anything like that was the problem

 You got this message?

 

It is a frequent pain and I had it ever since WUXI came out. It most likely means that the game trys to allocate more RAM than available and not what the dialog box reads. It is by all means a bug in MSFS that may or may not be mended by:

- using the most current NVidia driver

- lowering the GFX settings to reduce VRAM usage

 

You can also delete your shader cache, sometimes that helps for varions idiosyncrasies of MSFS. You use the windows tool "Disc Cleanup" for that, just activate to include system files.

 

It's a pain. But it is rather obvious that in the coming years and sooner as we like (especially with Unreal Engine 5) 8 GB VRAM will not be enough to even play at 1440p. It seems that soon, 32 GB VRAM will be required for 4k gaming. In this sense, a 4090 doesn't have a lot of VRAM.

 

5 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

I am very confused. I got the DC6 from the game itself. But they claim this is not the same Link PMDG

 

Same im Flightsim.to

 

In principle, it is the same. But. PMDG first released it through their own store as the "PC version". Later, when they could hammer in their logic that XBox will be able to run it as well, then that version appeared in the marketplace. As the XBox is limited in what MS allows you to run on it, all external logic had to be reprogrammed by PMDG. To expand the functionality of the addons, MSFS finally introduced WASM for XBox that makes a lot more possible and should mend a lot of issues the DC-6 had to endure.

 

Unfortunately, the hammering the rather complex DC-6 module into a then WASM-free XBox didn't turn out that well and they had to pull the module from the marketplace. The native PC variant that you buy from PMDG ws never affected by all these screwups.

[BOO]

I have a question for greater minds than mine regarding the Photogrammetary. Ive managed to unscrew it to the extrent nothing looks post apocalyptic anymore.  My issue is the slow loading over the big cities. Its not by any means awful but, despite supposedly having an area cached in the manual user cache it can still be quite slow at loading in the details with lots of lod popping every pass. .

 

Is that just the way it is? (my D/L isnt great but acheives plus 60m/s) or is it something else? 

[Lusekofte]

13 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

Unfortunately, the hammering the rather complex DC-6 module into a then WASM-free XBox didn't turn out that well and they had to pull the module from the marketplace. The native PC variant that you buy from PMDG ws never affected by all these screwups.

Then I might buy it. I just love that plane but much do happen with it that I do not understand

[ZachariasX]

2 hours ago, BOO said:

Is that just the way it is? (my D/L isnt great but acheives plus 60m/s) or is it something else? 

DL speeds matter, but I hardly get more than 70 Mbit/s downlads in flight, whereas for installing and content download, Azure caps me at 200 Mbit/s. What helps is the manual cache. You have three levels there, the first one that basically just preloads some mesh geometry of the landscape, then in smaller tiles you get most of the landscape as such and the 3rd level is the details plus photogrammetry. (Or something like that...) It was a lot of headache and it still is, although now it kinda works. Then again, after each sim/world update, you might have to delete this scenery cache and download new, same as you should delete your rolling cache, as soon as Jörg has another go at the sim world.

 

The manual cache is of help if you have your rolling cache on and on the second flight over the same city, the buildings look nice from the start.

[DD_Arthur]

20 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

I'm really going to need to rethink my HD situation as I'm at 654 gigs for MSFS alone right now.

 

Holy cow with knobs on Batman!!

 

The Cote D'Azur by Cessna Cardinal.  I actually bought this thing at Christmas in a market place sale but this week has been the first time I've been able to play with it.

I'm in luuuurvvvv......

 

 

[BOO]

56 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

DL speeds matter, but I hardly get more than 70 Mbit/s downlads in flight, whereas for installing and content download, Azure caps me at 200 Mbit/s. What helps is the manual cache. You have three levels there, the first one that basically just preloads some mesh geometry of the landscape, then in smaller tiles you get most of the landscape as such and the 3rd level is the details plus photogrammetry. (Or something like that...) It was a lot of headache and it still is, although now it kinda works. Then again, after each sim/world update, you might have to delete this scenery cache and download new, same as you should delete your rolling cache, as soon as Jörg has another go at the sim world.

 

The manual cache is of help if you have your rolling cache on and on the second flight over the same city, the buildings look nice from the start.

I have both London and Paris set in the manual cache now as an experiment. there still a lot of popping though even after several restarts and fly bys

 

However - I now hav antother another more pressing ker-Numb-drum you may be able to advise me on....

 

Why are all my Little Nav Map flight plans now sending me to the North Pole?? ?

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, BOO said:

Why are all my Little Nav Map flight plans now sending me to the North Pole?? ?

The dev is rather diligent in bringing updates after Jörg had the programmers play with the MSFS code. I‘m sure he‘ll bring an update if there is a bug. On my end, I haven‘t had issues, but I mostly use it to get the frequencies for radio beacons and I rarely use flightplans. When I did, I did not experience issues and weird routes are generally my fault.

[BOO]

17 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

The dev is rather diligent in bringing updates after Jörg had the programmers play with the MSFS code. I‘m sure he‘ll bring an update if there is a bug. On my end, I haven‘t had issues, but I mostly use it to get the frequencies for radio beacons and I rarely use flightplans. When I did, I did not experience issues and weird routes are generally my fault.

I tried a few of the older plans and they also faulted. I did update the AIRAC so dunno if thats anything to do with it. 

 

Sadly I think me and Photogrammawhatsit are not destined to be happy bedfellows. No matter what Ive tried and re-tried the results are too variable and, even with a cache I think it spanks my systems bottom too hard. It irks knowing how good it can look but for now I shall satisfy my world endeavours with Autogen, which isnt too shoddy TBH. 

[LukeFF]

59 minutes ago, BOO said:

I tried a few of the older plans and they also faulted. I did update the AIRAC so dunno if thats anything to do with it. 

 

Sadly I think me and Photogrammawhatsit are not destined to be happy bedfellows. No matter what Ive tried and re-tried the results are too variable and, even with a cache I think it spanks my systems bottom too hard. It irks knowing how good it can look but for now I shall satisfy my world endeavours with Autogen, which isnt too shoddy TBH. 

 

That's really odd and a shame that it isn't working. I've come to really like all the information that the app provides. About the only thing that is hard to figure out sometimes is where one section on controlled airspace ends and another begins, so I rely more on Navigraph's flight planner for that feature (I try as much as possible to stay out of areas that real-world pilots would, even when it adds more time to my flight plan).

 

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

I mostly use it to get the frequencies for radio beacons and I rarely use flightplans. When I did, I did not experience issues and weird routes are generally my fault.

 

I have this vision in my mind of you having paper charts, protractors, and pencils strewn about your computer gaming area. ?

[Lusekofte]

I bought the pmdg dc 6 and of course there was a problem. Assist from ai by using iPad do not work. Setting it to ready for taxi start the engines but nothing in cockpit are turned on 

no click with mouse works only highlight the buttons and handles. 

[ZachariasX]

4 hours ago, LukeFF said:

I have this vision in my mind of you having paper charts, protractors, and pencils strewn about your computer gaming area. ?

I do sometimes use an iPad to take notes such as frequencies and headings. No cheating on the „GPS“ then during the flight. As for planning a flight in detail, as said, I rarely had issues with the program.

[BOO]

8 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

That's really odd and a shame that it isn't working. I've come to really like all the information that the app provides. About the only thing that is hard to figure out sometimes is where one section on controlled airspace ends and another begins, so I rely more on Navigraph's flight planner for that feature (I try as much as possible to stay out of areas that real-world pilots would, even when it adds more time to my flight plan).

 

 

I have this vision in my mind of you having paper charts, protractors, and pencils strewn about your computer gaming area. ?

Luke, are you having the same problem with exported flight plans? 

[LukeFF]

46 minutes ago, BOO said:

Luke, are you having the same problem with exported flight plans? 

 

No, but I just remembered one reason why it's happening: it's when custom waypoints are created in the flight plan. See here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/navigation-loading-custom-waypoints-from-pln-files-is-broken-on-some-systems/543444

[BOO]

21 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

No, but I just remembered one reason why it's happening: it's when custom waypoints are created in the flight plan. See here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/navigation-loading-custom-waypoints-from-pln-files-is-broken-on-some-systems/543444

I saw that as a possible cause and checked - no custom waypoints - just airfields and all airfields that MSFS has in its database. If its not happening to you then its me. Just got to work out what Ive done.  

[kestrel79]

How's the Oceana update? I just have the higher res USA stuff right now to save hard drive space. I like flying locally around boring Wisconsin

[AndyJWest]

27 minutes ago, kestrel79 said:

How's the Oceana update? I just have the higher res USA stuff right now to save hard drive space. I like flying locally around boring Wisconsin

 

I thought Boring was in Oregon? Twinned with Dull, Scotland, apparently. Predictably, neither has an airport, ruling out any possibility of creating an interesting flight plan between the two... 

[LukeFF]

55 minutes ago, kestrel79 said:

How's the Oceana update? I just have the higher res USA stuff right now to save hard drive space. I like flying locally around boring Wisconsin

 

For the most part it seems alright, though there are some areas that are lacking in detail, like Hawaii.

 

On a somewhat related note, MSFS has released a series of videos on how to operate the ATR. Sure would have been nice to have those on day 1, along with an actual manual (which is still missing in action).

 

 

[kestrel79]

Random question do we know what the former IL2 dev that went to Asobo is doing over there? I wonder if he's working on their flight model, certain aircraft or what. Would be cool to see what he's up to in his new position. I'm totally blanking on his name...