Game Discussions Microsoft Flight Simulator
- Thread starter Jenner
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The first thing I do when I start any flight is zooming out the view to minimum, I like seeing almost the entire cockpit without ever having to change view. Then I just lean a bit forward to read the smaller instruments and/or clicking/twisting nobs, and raise my head slightly to peek over when searching for the runway.
So how many of you that use TrackIR/Tobii also stretch your necks up to peek over the dashboard when trying to find the runway on approach?
Yep I fly with TrackIR every time. I also hit the "spacebar" a lot which raises the viewpoint up a bit so I can see over the dash easily, this helps a ton.
Yup, TrackIr is an essential for me. Especially in conditions like these.
When flying from an airport with an 'ø' in the name, check the weather first...
I love fog and low clouds, especially fog/low clouds over oceanic islands. It's my favorite approaches.
I've been trying to hunt for bad (live) weather, but the precipitation filter on the map doesn't seem to be working at all, tried several times to start at an airport in the rain (according to the precipitation filter) but when the game loads the weather is clear. I know that with the loading times being so long there's a chance that the weather might meanwhile change, but still
Still haven't seen a slightest bit of rain using live weather.
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I love fog and low clouds, especially fog/low clouds over oceanic islands. It's my favorite approaches.
I've been trying to hunt for bad (live) weather, but the precipitation filter on the map doesn't seem to be working at all, tried several times to start at an airport in the rain (according to the precipitation filter) but when the game loads the weather is clear. I know that with the loading times being so long there's a chance that the weather might meanwhile change, but still
MS confirmed live weather is badly broken, they are working on it.
I love fog and low clouds, especially fog/low clouds over oceanic islands. It's my favorite approaches.
I've been trying to hunt for bad (live) weather, but the precipitation filter on the map doesn't seem to be working at all, tried several times to start at an airport in the rain (according to the precipitation filter) but when the game loads the weather is clear. I know that with the loading times being so long there's a chance that the weather might meanwhile change, but still
If you are looking for bad live weather, try windy.com. Where MSFS live weather is working at all (seems to be for Europe at least) it seems to be close enough to what MSFS shows.
Is rolling cache something the game does automatically? Is it possible to increase it or even store it in ram?
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There's no point storing it in RAM, as the game will maximize RAM use anyway. You can however put it on any drive you want and make it bigger. In fact, I've been contemplating filling my last empty NVMe slot with a cheap 128 or 256 GB drive and dedicating it to FS' cache someday. In the meantime, I've set mine to 100 GB on my D drive (dedicated to games), which should allow me to store a whole lot of scenery.
You can also just turn it off. Based on my own tests and internet speed, it seems to be most helpful in areas with heavy photogrammetry. I also suspect it would be quite useful for high-speed runs in jets. So far I've just been flying slower GA planes, so I haven't tested it, but the faster you go, the more scenery data you have to load per second, so the rolling cache should really help with this.
According to the ingame dev mode overlay it only uses 8 out of 32 gigs of ram for me.
My computer is using almost all of the 16 GB RAM I have, along with over 20 GB of virtual memory (swap file). Not all* of this will be FS, but I'm confident that most is, because when I close FS, the vast majority of this memory usage goes away.
In fact, I had to increase my swap file (I choose to use a fixed-sized file) to prevent CTDs due to FS running out of memory, so I've got a 32 GB RAM upgrade on my wishlist!
* I used Windows Performance Monitor to measure memory usage.
My computer is using almost all of the 16 GB RAM I have, along with over 20 GB of virtual memory (swap file). Not all* of this will be FS, but I'm confident that most is, because when I close FS, the vast majority of this memory usage goes away.
In fact, I had to increase my swap file (I choose to use a fixed-sized file) to prevent CTDs due to FS running out of memory, so I've got a 32 GB RAM upgrade on my wishlist!
* I used Windows Performance Monitor to measure memory usage.
Im playing at 1080p not sure if this has something to do with it. I just upgraded the other day from DDR4 2800 16 gig to DDR4 3000 32 gig and even though the game is using the same amount of ram, things were running different. The ingame developer fps overlay that also shows ram, gpu and cpu usage always shows my gpu (Nvidia 1660ti) as my bottleneck, all my bars use to be green except gpu, which would show green / yellow constantly with red spikes. Now its mostly green with the occasional yellow spike. I have it locked to 30 fps and before it would fluctuate constantly from 27-30fps very quickly (I have it locked from nvidia control panel as I read in game vsync and lock is flawed and causes stutter) and with the new ram I was showing a constant 30 with the very occasional insta dip to 29 and back to 30. I was even able to turn up a few of my previous settings from medium to high and it's still right at the lock. Its weird how it only showing 7-8 gigs used of memory out of 32 though just like before. I'm not very good with the hardware stuff but I wouldn't think a 200mhz speed increase would do all that. I wonder if that ingame accounting of how much it's using is flawed and I could get a more accurate reading from a third party tool maybe.
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This would be my guess. You can just fire up Task Manager (built into Windows) and click the Performance tab and then click Memory. This will show how your memory is being used by ALL apps and processes, which is just as important as how much memory FS uses. The less swapping your computer needs to do, the better it will perform. You can also use the Processes tab to get specific stats on FS itself, along with anything else that might be competing for CPU, GPU, Memory, and Bandwidth.
Thanks for the tips Old Duck, I always forget about the task manager performance tab.
My computer is using almost all of the 16 GB RAM I have, along with over 20 GB of virtual memory (swap file). Not all* of this will be FS, but I'm confident that most is, because when I close FS, the vast majority of this memory usage goes away.
In fact, I had to increase my swap file (I choose to use a fixed-sized file) to prevent CTDs due to FS running out of memory, so I've got a 32 GB RAM upgrade on my wishlist!
* I used Windows Performance Monitor to measure memory usage.
My PC was using 95% of its 16 GB RAM on average running MSFS 2020 and continually slamming up against 100% of its quad-core i5 CPU. Got an 8-core i7 CPU and upped RAM to 32 GB (already have a GTX 1080 GPU and SSD), total cost around $250 USD. 16 GB seems to be the sweet spot for RAM, 32 total GB RAM added zero noticeable performance to MSFS 2020. The 8-core i7 CPU did the trick, now MSFS (and everything else) runs butter-smooth. o7
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I love fog and low clouds, especially fog/low clouds over oceanic islands. It's my favorite approaches.
I've been trying to hunt for bad (live) weather, but the precipitation filter on the map doesn't seem to be working at all, tried several times to start at an airport in the rain (according to the precipitation filter) but when the game loads the weather is clear. I know that with the loading times being so long there's a chance that the weather might meanwhile change, but still
Live weather has been a bit of a hit and miss for me as well, had a couple times where it was more or less spot on (from a purely visual point of view at least), others were it was widely off target (like having mostly clear skies when I was under an electrical storm). Last Sunday it was more or less right though, had a quick session when a small but violent front had just passed to the North and large clouds were coming from the West, and it generally reflected in game...then during the evening we had moderate low level cloud cover, and I flied through it pretty much the same in game. Night, clouds, low visibility at altitude, a perfect time to do a water landing in a tiny lake!
At least I arrived in time for the dinner party.
(Visuals during the night flight, and especially of the city glow from a distance, where nothing short of incredible...a shame for the water not getting lit by the plane though)
FSE + FS2020 lead to some pretty cool events so far! And I just messed up for the first time. Earlier today I took the next step in my plan of being a Carribean island hopper. After earning a fair bit of cash (and learning to fly a 208 Caravan plus all its systems) I bought my very own plane: a brand-new Robin DR-400 Cadet. According to the logs it had exactly zero minutes on the engine and airframe, it had just been collecting dust in some hangar at the Luis Eduardo Magalhaes airport, Mimoso Do Oeste, Brazil.
So I take it for a test-drive to Dianopolis, where I buy and refuel it. Great! But now I need to get it to Saba, my planned home base well over 2000 miles away. A sensible route would be eastwards towards the coast, then along the coast all the way till I can cross to Trinidad & Tobago. Instead I decide to head pretty much directly North-West, planning to make six stops along the way till I reach Suriname. My plane doesn't have GPS nor auto-pilot, but I did upgrade it with the full IFR suite. Unfortunately, the route I've chosen is through such desolate wastelands that there is no VOR-to-VOR navigation possible at all for most of the trip, and that is the fanciest gadget I have on-board.
Nevermind, we'll do it with VFR and a map on my phone. The next 118 miles to Tocatins are easy, I refuel again and pick up a passenger heading to Conceicao Do Araguia which is my next stop. So far so good. I take off again, enjoying the scenery and snapping some pics. Then the views become more and more beautiful, with hills in the distance glowing orange in the slowly sinking sun.
It is at this point I realize that while the view is great, there is no way I am going to get to my destination before sundown. Oops. I check for nearest airports and there are two: one at 25 NM, but behind me. I don't want to lose even more time so pick the 2nd closest, at 45NM also off-course, but not 180 degrees behind me. Turns out that I didn't have time for that either. And as I feared, whatever passes for an 'airport' here is not having any night-lights. :/
After circling the town a few times at very low altitude I finally spot what I think is the runaway:
I'm not at all convinced I am going to be able to locate this bit of dirt again if I don't take this shot, so this plane is going to get on the ground one way or the other:
Visibility is pretty much zero when touching down; if you think the lights in ED's space ships are mediocre you ain't seen this. Upon coming to a complete stop I am informed I have landed succesfully at Tocantinia airport. The passenger is ready to depart tomorrow, the plane is intact and while there is no refuel option here I have enough to get to Conceicao Do Araguaia. But in full daylight next time, that is for sure!
So I take it for a test-drive to Dianopolis, where I buy and refuel it. Great! But now I need to get it to Saba, my planned home base well over 2000 miles away. A sensible route would be eastwards towards the coast, then along the coast all the way till I can cross to Trinidad & Tobago. Instead I decide to head pretty much directly North-West, planning to make six stops along the way till I reach Suriname. My plane doesn't have GPS nor auto-pilot, but I did upgrade it with the full IFR suite. Unfortunately, the route I've chosen is through such desolate wastelands that there is no VOR-to-VOR navigation possible at all for most of the trip, and that is the fanciest gadget I have on-board.
Nevermind, we'll do it with VFR and a map on my phone. The next 118 miles to Tocatins are easy, I refuel again and pick up a passenger heading to Conceicao Do Araguia which is my next stop. So far so good. I take off again, enjoying the scenery and snapping some pics. Then the views become more and more beautiful, with hills in the distance glowing orange in the slowly sinking sun.
It is at this point I realize that while the view is great, there is no way I am going to get to my destination before sundown. Oops. I check for nearest airports and there are two: one at 25 NM, but behind me. I don't want to lose even more time so pick the 2nd closest, at 45NM also off-course, but not 180 degrees behind me. Turns out that I didn't have time for that either. And as I feared, whatever passes for an 'airport' here is not having any night-lights. :/
After circling the town a few times at very low altitude I finally spot what I think is the runaway:
I'm not at all convinced I am going to be able to locate this bit of dirt again if I don't take this shot, so this plane is going to get on the ground one way or the other:
Visibility is pretty much zero when touching down; if you think the lights in ED's space ships are mediocre you ain't seen this.
Upon coming to a complete stop I am informed I have landed succesfully at Tocantinia airport. The passenger is ready to depart tomorrow, the plane is intact and while there is no refuel option here I have enough to get to Conceicao Do Araguaia. But in full daylight next time, that is for sure!