MSFS Required Specs

[threexgreen 3,135]

I don't think so much about the machine specs they have defined since they are more or less what was to be expected, perhaps even lower than that. But bandwidth seems to raise a few questions for me.

So far they've made it look like bandwidth requirements would be substantially lower than what they've released here. I remember Jorg Neumann stating in a widely cited interview that 10 Mbps would suffice to achieve the best experience while even a connection as low as 3 Mbps would give you a good representation of the world. Obviously, this wasn't as formal an announcement as this one but you would think the head of the MSFS department at Microsoft would know what he's talking about, especially if he's going to disclose information publicly, so I'd be inclined to believe this to have some truth.

However, looking at this announcement the bandwidth requirements seem to be on a whole different level and the previously disclosed ideal connection of 10 Mbps is now barely above the minimum. I also seem to recall that the bandwidth used at the Global Preview Event (where people were free to fly wherever they wanted, making real time download necessary) was 25 Mbps. I would assume the goal was to present the best experience to the invitees, so based on that 25 Mbps appears to achieve that and likely provides a 'safety' margin too (since they probably wouldn't want to run the bare minimum at an event like that).

Perhaps the ideal bandwidth of 50 Mbps takes into account external factors such as simultaneous usage of your internet connection when other people in your household still want to get a good slice of bandwidth to watch movies for example while you're downloading the world onto your computer.

There is definitely speculation here on my part, but the difference between the rather low figures from a little time back and the ones announced here seems odd to me.

 

[goates 576]

10 minutes ago, threegreen said:

However, looking at this announcement the bandwidth requirements seem to be on a whole different level and the previously disclosed ideal connection of 10 Mbps is now barely above the minimum. I also seem to recall that the bandwidth used at the Global Preview Event (where people were free to fly wherever they wanted, making real time download necessary) was 25 Mbps. I would assume the goal was to present the best experience to the invitees, so based on that 25 Mbps appears to achieve that and likely provides a 'safety' margin too (since they probably wouldn't want to run the bare minimum at an event like that).

Perhaps the ideal bandwidth of 50 Mbps takes into account external factors such as simultaneous usage of your internet connection when other people in your household still want to get a good slice of bandwidth to watch movies for example while you're downloading the world onto your computer.

With the alpha testing program they have now had a chance to gather data from a decent sized pool and likely are accounting for external conditions, as you suggest. There certainly will be people trying to fly in the sim while someone else in the house is watching Netflix. Other issues could be fast connections with poor latency or just generally unreliable connections in general.

[Murmur 3,941]

Remember that during public previews, there were no available jets, only props.

Almost certainly a faster aircraft (like an airliner) would require a higher bandwidth for a given texture resolution.

[PWJT8D 446]

Day late to the party but I just read this entire thread. One thing I don't recall seeing was anybody mention addons. So these recommended specs are going to be just for the base simulator. With that said, we start throwing things at it like PMDG, FS Labs, FSDT or FlyTampa, weather, clouds... this.. that... We fill this thing up with addons like you know we will, the ideal specs just became the recommended and the recommended just became the minimum.. if a person at the minimum puts in some addons they may be in trouble.

Sure my specs aren't the best, they aren't terrible either. I have an i7-6700K and a GTX 1080 and it runs P3D on it's own great! Most sliders to the right. But add in the PMDG 777, ORBX everything, airports, the works from REX... now my sliders are in the middle. So just food for thought. It may not be a bad thing to go a little overkill on specs to compensate for all our addons we will have years down the road from now.

Also anyone that are rural and have difficulty with faster internet speeds, you'll be a prime candidate for SpaceX Starlink when that becomes available. 

[Dreamflight767 312]

Sorry.  I have to ask because I don't understand most of this stuff.  I currently have a:

-i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz

-16GB RAM

-GTX 1080Ti

-500GB SSD

-2x Samsung SSD 850 EVO at 1TB each.

Where do I fall on the chart MS released?

Thanks.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Dreamflight767

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

4 minutes ago, Dreamflight767 said:

Where do I fall on the chart MS released?

CPU, GPU and SSD are pretty much on par with the ideal specification, RAM is the recommended specification.

[Brandon01110 407]

7 hours ago, Baber20 said:

Rtx 3060 will be able to match rtx 2080 in terms of raw performance. So by next year, most of us will be way above their ideal specs.

usually  *80=*70 next gen specs......we will see

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brandon01110 407]

7 hours ago, Baber20 said:

Those ideal specs are nothing seeing that ryzen 4xxx and nvidia rtx 3xxx series is just around the corner.

6 months at least is a big corner.  One i'm looking to invest in though

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

2 minutes ago, Brandon01110 said:

usually  *80=*70 next gen specs......we will see

This was the case with Turing, though with Maxwell and Pascal the new X070 model matched the older X080 Ti model. With Ampere it is unlikely that they will be moving to a full node shrink with the consumer cards, so I have the feeling we will have a repeat of last generation's gains.

[Dreamflight767 312]

8 minutes ago, ChaoticBeauty said:

CPU, GPU and SSD are pretty much on par with the ideal specification, RAM is the recommended specification.

Very good.  Thank you kindly.

[Mace 1,902]

2 hours ago, threegreen said:

There is definitely speculation here on my part, but the difference between the rather low figures from a little time back and the ones announced here seems odd to me.

I'll speculate too  --  the reports of urban rendering issues might have been alleviated by increasing the connection speed (?) and perhaps that explains the higher bandwidth specs.  That, and, as someone mentioned, the introduction of faster aircraft into the sim cemented the need to increase the connection spec.   Hard to say without more insider knowledge as to how connection speed correlates to the amount of scenery /speed of aircraft. 

[ckyliu 1,749]

9 hours ago, B777ER said:

If MSFS cannot be run with a 9900k with all sliders right then they have an issue with the software.

If you CAN run with the sliders full right that is an issue; if you can max it on present hardware there is nowhere to go in future. I don't see why any game with a long life span like MFS should be maxable upon release. It just needs to play smooth whilst looking decent, not be fully maxed.

Edited April 23, 2020 by ckyliu

[B777ER 2,484]

17 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

If you CAN run with the sliders full right that is an issue; if you can max it on present hardware there is nowhere to go in future. I don't see why any game with a long life span like MFS should be maxable upon release. It just needs to play smooth whilst looking decent, not be fully maxed.

Your logic makes zero sense. You think development groups say, let's make this so it runs so-so on $5,000 computers so we can make the game last. Please...

[ckyliu 1,749]

@B777ER I never said make it run so-so on a $5000 PC, what I actually said in what you quoted was "It needs to play smooth whilst looking decent", my point was that the settings sliders don't need to be able to be maxed on current hardware - if this is important to you I will let you into a secret; you can go beyond the sliders by editing the settings cfg file yourself. The setting panel is a just UI friendly way to change the CFG and the sliders set an artificial limit on the value range that can be input.

Yes, many titles were historically built with the future in mind because you didn't always have the scope of pushing updates over the internet but you might want to sell expansion packs (DLC as it is now). GTA V is an example, came out 2013 and they're still selling DLC for it now. I seem to remember RCT3 expansions coming out a couple of years after the base game. MS/AS have already stated they intend to be in MFS for the longhaul, albeit these days they have the option of pushing updates down the internet which wasn't an option for the likes of FSX.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by ckyliu

[B777ER 2,484]

7 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

@B777ERI will let you into a secret; you can go beyond the sliders by editing the settings cfg file yourself. The setting panel is a just UI friendly way to change the CFG and the sliders set an artificial limit on the values that can be input.

Really? Please tell me more!