'Up above the streets and houses' Flight Simulator 2020.

[mobias]

Another huge update for this was released today. Other than fixing various bugs and refining things further there's a huge pack of Japan scenery. Haven' checked out the cities yet but Mount Fuji looks pretty good. Apparently they're aiming to improve one country a month with free scenery DLC. 

There's already a really healthy community of people making free scenery DLC for it though. It various in quality but its usually pretty decent. My favourite is the Niagra Falls which lights up at night and changes colour with spot lights, like it does in real life.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Quite like the look of this air passenger simulator thats currently in development. If you were doing a long haul flight in FS2020 it would be pretty cool to have his going on a second monitor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4CrH9DeGWE

Fucking hell.

I hope you can piss and shit can you? And vomit?

[poo]

Back on the Yukon trip. This stretch is so remote that there are no airstrips, so having to ditch on sandbanks in the river.

[batwings]

It's running a fair bit smoother on my system now following these updates. The CPU usage seems better optimised. Still can't fly around New York above 30fps but I prefer hopping between smaller airstrips out in the sticks anyway. Really miss the replay camera for rewatching landings though.

[mobias]

The latest Japan update has screwed things up considerably and Asobo have apologised and said they're working to fix things. In order to get that better optimisation there's been a downgrade in graphics, across all settings. Reflections in water and particularly effected and there's quite a few other gaphics downgrades, which may or may not bother you but a lot of players and furious. Asobo have said they're going to reverse the graphics downgrade with the next patch.

My game is so unstable now I've pretty much stopped playing it until they've fixed the latest bugs. It'll crash to desktop now during pretty most flights.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Literally just scrolling past this photo gave me a pang of motion sickness. Suffice to say I probably won't be playing this simulator in VR anytime soon.

[falafel]

Hilarious fact, if you accidentally unmap the Escape key then you can't get back to the main menu and have to alt-f4 out.

[batwings]

My game is so unstable now I've pretty much stopped playing it until they've fixed the latest bugs. It'll crash to desktop now during pretty most flights.

I haven't had any CTDs but several times I've had the autopilot and MFDs stop responding mid flight (Cessna Caravan).

[mobias]

A mate of mine who works as games programmer gave me a bit of a useful advise. Quite often random game crashes to desktop are caused by bottlenecking on the CPU. This tends to happen if you run games are low to medium settings as the graphics card thinks it doesn't need to work as much and as a result the CPU picks up more strain.

I tried putting all my settings up to high and even a couple on ultra and I've yet to have a single game crash. Crap FPS mind you but least the game is stable.

Anyway I've just bit the bullet and ordered an RTX 3080 so I don't have to worry about anything. Fuck knows when its going to arrive but its on pre-order from Overclockers for when they next have stock. FS2020 sure is costing me a lot of money.

[Zetetic]

Does that suggest there's something the matter with your CPU (or cooling, perhaps)?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Literally just scrolling past this photo gave me a pang of motion sickness. Suffice to say I probably won't be playing this simulator in VR anytime soon.

Maybe you are allergic to leather?

[mobias]

Does that suggest there's something the matter with your CPU (or cooling, perhaps)?

No its the way some games work at a coding level. Some games are worse than others for creating CPU bottlenecks. There's possibly other factors too though mind you. Like my motherboard may not be the fastest.   

[El Unicornio, mang]

Anyway I've just bit the bullet and ordered an RTX 3080 so I don't have to worry about anything. Fuck knows when its going to arrive but its on pre-order from Overclockers for when they next have stock. FS2020 sure is costing me a lot of money.

I didn't want to wait for the RTX 3080 on laptop (and it will be ridiculously expensive) but I needed an upgrade for work stuff so I got myself an Alienware with RTX 2080. It requires two power packs (330w and 180w) to run fully so just imaging how much power the 3080 will need...Got the cracked version of MFS (which is up to date with the latest patches, Japan stuff, etc and has full online functionality) as I quit my Xbox game pass thing since it's doubled in price and didn't want to pay 60 quid before testing how well it runs.

Did the Japan tour and got steady 60fps on high, mid 50s on Ultra (at full HD, don't have a 4k monitor). Tried it in NYC and it was more like 35-40 on Ultra. Generally seems fine though, no crashes or anything (except me crashing my plane a lot lol).

Interested to hear how you get on with that new card. Videos suggest about 20-25% improvement over the 2080 so should be very noticeable. I think a lot of people complaining about not being able to run it smoothly at Ultra/4k missed the point that those settings are intended for cards like the 3080 and beyond.

[mobias]

Yeah the the RTX 3080 sounds like a beast. Might be a while until I find out though. I'm currently 1067 on the Overclockers pre-order queue for a Gigabyte Eagle RTX3080. I'm paying slightly extra to get an overclocked card but its still one of the cheaper cards out there. There's well over 2000 people in the queue for the high end massively overclocked MSI 3080. Overclockers are selling about 10 different 3080's and all of them have between 750 and 2500 people in the queue for each card. Its a crazy situation. I get a weekly email telling my how much I've moved up the line. It didn't move at all for a few weeks then I shot up by 15 whole places. They're expecting the stock situation to get better at the end of this month and ramp up through November but I'll be surprised to get my card before Xmas TBH.

The power draw of the 3080 is big. Environmentally friendly it is not.  Nvidia recommend a 750W PSU but other people recommend a 850W or even a 1000W PSU to be on the safe side, especially if you're overclocking. I'll need to watch my electricity bills. Running a card like that is basically like having an oven on.

[mobias]

First proper fast jet 3rd party mod. Not badly priced either. However its not available yet within in the game market place. Should apparently be available in a couple of weeks though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0U2iAN3tA&t=821s

[El Unicornio, mang]

Sweet! Hoping for an F14 Tomcat one too so I can live out my Top Gun fantasies.

[mobias]

Sweet! Hoping for an F14 Tomcat one too so I can live out my Top Gun fantasies.

An F14 is in the works apparently. I don't think it'll be cheap though. My head, or rather my bank balance, is slowly coming to terms with just how expensive flight sim DLC is. I really want the 787 Dreamliner but its 60 quid.

[mobias]

I bought the fast jet this evening. Great fun. I'd totally recommend it if you've got the sim. I had to crank a lot of settings down though to get a decent frame rate, which you really need for low level flying otherwise its annoyingly juddery.

Flew over where I went on holiday in the highlands last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz0gSecCSAc&t=150s

[batwings]

I bought the fast jet this evening. Great fun. I'd totally recommend it if you've got the sim. I had to crank a lot of settings down though to get a decent frame rate, which you really need for low level flying otherwise its annoyingly juddery.

Flew over where I went on holiday in the highlands last year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz0gSecCSAc&t=150s

Does the HUD work?

[mobias]

Does the HUD work?

Not sure. Its possible I just don't know how to turn it on. Its meant to be a 'study' level plane meaning its meant to be as realistically modelled as possible. Which is probably why I can't seem to land it. I should probably practice more in a small Cessna before strapping myself into a fast jet.

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

I'm loving this game. 

Does anyone have a scooby how autopilot works in a 747?  I kind of got it to work by importing a flight plan and then pressing a few buttons on the top dash board thingy, seems to work OK but if I take back control (TM) I'm not able to re-engage the autopilot, not sure if it's a bug.

Also, what are you supposed to do after landing?  i can of just sit about on the runway?  Are you supposed to do shit in order to "finish" your flight?

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

Yeah the the RTX 3080 sounds like a beast. Might be a while until I find out though. I'm currently 1067 on the Overclockers pre-order queue for a Gigabyte Eagle RTX3080. I'm paying slightly extra to get an overclocked card but its still one of the cheaper cards out there. There's well over 2000 people in the queue for the high end massively overclocked MSI 3080. Overclockers are selling about 10 different 3080's and all of them have between 750 and 2500 people in the queue for each card. Its a crazy situation. I get a weekly email telling my how much I've moved up the line. It didn't move at all for a few weeks then I shot up by 15 whole places. They're expecting the stock situation to get better at the end of this month and ramp up through November but I'll be surprised to get my card before Xmas TBH.

The power draw of the 3080 is big. Environmentally friendly it is not.  Nvidia recommend a 750W PSU but other people recommend a 850W or even a 1000W PSU to be on the safe side, especially if you're overclocking. I'll need to watch my electricity bills. Running a card like that is basically like having an oven on.

I'm a bit put off by the 3080's power draw, I reckon it's just gonna end up getting too hot and frying the rest of my setup.  I'm only using a 1080ti, but found that i'm actually CPU bound on single-threaded performance, overclocking my cpu made a big difference to my fps.

[mobias]

Does anyone have a scooby how autopilot works in a 747?  I kind of got it to work by importing a flight plan and then pressing a few buttons on the top dash board thingy, seems to work OK but if I take back control (TM) I'm not able to re-engage the autopilot, not sure if it's a bug.

By the sounds of things the auto pilot function in most planes is still buggy as hell. I'm not bothering with auto pilot until there's been further updates.

Also, what are you supposed to do after landing?  i can of just sit about on the runway?  Are you supposed to do shit in order to "finish" your flight?

As yet there's not much to do after you land. There's a mod about to come out called Self Loading Cargo which makes flying in the sim a bit more involved from a gameplay point of view and gives you something to do over and above flying the plane. You have to look after the passengers, manage the flight crew and make sure everybody boards and disembarks safely and all luggage is taken off the plane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIHVccujXkk

Apparently Asobo themselves have got something similar in the pipeline for when the game launches on Xbox. I think the feeling is console gamers will want a more objective focussed flight sim experience.

I'm a bit put off by the 3080's power draw, I reckon it's just gonna end up getting too hot and frying the rest of my setup.  I'm only using a 1080ti, but found that i'm actually CPU bound on single-threaded performance, overclocking my cpu made a big difference to my fps.

As long as your PSU is powerful enough and you've got decent cooling you should be fine. The game is very heavy on the CPU, which is why I get so many crashes to desktop. Its more stable if I crank the graphics up and give my GPU more work to do but then I get terrible FPS. I can't seem to win with it. Its really quite a uniquely brutal game for my particular current set up.  My 3080 really can't arrive soon enough. I've kind of resigned myself to the fact I'll need to get a better CPU, and probably a new motherboard to go with it, next year at some point.

[mobias]

There's an F15 being released for the sim next month. Should be great fun.

[Mrs Wogans lemon drizzle]

By the sounds of things the auto pilot function in most planes is still buggy as hell. I'm not bothering with auto pilot until there's been further updates.

As yet there's not much to do after you land. There's a mod about to come out called Self Loading Cargo which makes flying in the sim a bit more involved from a gameplay point of view and gives you something to do over and above flying the plane. You have to look after the passengers, manage the flight crew and make sure everybody boards and disembarks safely and all luggage is taken off the plane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIHVccujXkk

Apparently Asobo themselves have got something similar in the pipeline for when the game launches on Xbox. I think the feeling is console gamers will want a more objective focussed flight sim experience.

As long as your PSU is powerful enough and you've got decent cooling you should be fine. The game is very heavy on the CPU, which is why I get so many crashes to desktop. Its more stable if I crank the graphics up and give my GPU more work to do but then I get terrible FPS. I can't seem to win with it. Its really quite a uniquely brutal game for my particular current set up.  My 3080 really can't arrive soon enough. I've kind of resigned myself to the fact I'll need to get a better CPU, and probably a new motherboard to go with it, next year at some point.

Cheers for the link, might have a look at that mod, at the moment I kind of get to where my parking spot is and have the air warden dude shaking shit stick things at me, but nothing happens, would be good if you at least got confirmation that your flight had successfully completed.

It is a brutal game, I'm sure my FPS has actually dropped since the last update, but still really enjoying it.

[mobias]

Cheers for the link, might have a look at that mod, at the moment I kind of get to where my parking spot is and have the air warden dude shaking shit stick things at me, but nothing happens, would be good if you at least got confirmation that your flight had successfully completed.

It is a brutal game, I'm sure my FPS has actually dropped since the last update, but still really enjoying it.

It definitely feels like it needs more gameplay type elements to add a bit more immersion and purpose to bits of it. I think that Loading Cargo mod is worth a look. People have had a look through the game code and there's apparently references to aircraft carriers, dog fighting and all sorts of other stuff. So you can see they have big plans for it over the coming years. 

Your FPS will probably have dropped because that latest patch added back into it various graphic effects they removed in a previous patch to improve performance. They've said going forward as people's hardware improves they're going to add further graphic effects. Contour trails are noticeably missing from the big jets. They've said they're going to be added at some point. 

[PlanktonSideburns]

forgot that dog fighting can mean planes trying to shoot eachother as well as watching two dogs kill eachother in a barn for a minuite

[mobias]

Asobo and Microsoft have released the SDK for this so I've been having a bit of fun trying to get to grips with it and creating my own bespoke scenery. I chose my home town of Edinburgh as my first my first proper project. Currently in the game Edinburgh doesn't have photo telemetry data so its all horrible generic buildings. Someone has made the software required to rip data from Google maps (which does have photo telemetry data for Edinburgh) and scan it and then port it into the game. Its not really for the faint hearted. Its taken me two weeks of tearing my hair out to recreate Edinburgh in the game but it does look fucking amazing once you get it right. I've even got the castle to light up at night and change colour, just like it does in real life. Its a huge chink of data though. I wanted it as high res and photo real as possible. Edinburgh is about 3GB worth. I'll upload it once its finished so anyone here who's playing FS can give it a go.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Time well spent by the look of that! Nice work.

[imitationleather]

That looks ruddy amazing. Any videos?