MSFS Required Specs

[SlowFlyer 78]

7 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Truth is that the specs give us hints (and I think until proven wrong that the 9800x is a hint) but not more. We don’t know how FS20 will use the hardware, and specially if more cores is better and if CPU overclockability will still be a factor to get a smooth experience.  

This is true. This is why I am going to wait before I upgrade, hopefully, in the fall/winter.

I am hoping that someone from the development team, in the (near) 🤞 future, will offer us some more detail as to why they would recommend the Intel "X" CPU over an Intel "K" CPU. Surely, they would have an idea/reason.

For us to get best possible specs for their software, it would be very helpful to get some reasons behind the specs.

Every week, I get more excited about MSFS. 

[Anthracite 131]

4 minutes ago, SlowFlyer said:

This is true. This is why I am going to wait before I upgrade, hopefully, in the fall/winter.

I am hoping that someone from the development team, in the (near) 🤞 future, will offer us some more detail as to why they would recommend the Intel "X" CPU over an Intel "K" CPU. Surely, they would have an idea/reason.

For us to get best possible specs for their software, it would be very helpful to get some reasons behind the specs.

Every week, I get more excited about MSFS. 

Hopefully it’s just a case of “that happened to be the processor used in one of our testing workstations”. I love how much discussion it has caused though - and it would really be nice to know the reason why they chose x. 

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

24 minutes ago, Anthracite said:

Hopefully it’s just a case of “that happened to be the processor used in one of our testing workstations”. I love how much discussion it has caused though - and it would really be nice to know the reason why they chose x. 

This is it probably, the Ryzen 7 PRO 2700X is a CPU aimed at enterprise users and not available for retail purchase (the Core i7-9800X is simply an HEDT CPU though). I don't think there should be any reason for concern, the equivalent consumers CPUs should do just as well.

[michal 44]

7 hours ago, Anthracite said:

It’s already been said that you do not need to subscribe to stream data. And you don’t need streaming to get the full experience, as has been said many times, you can cache an area you want to fly in. Obviously if you have a fast internet connection, you can stream that data on the fly, but even if you don’t, the engine will continually stream data and improve the rendering as the data becomes more complete.

Actually nothing of the sort was said, people repeat what they like to hear and not what was actually said. There is a good discussion on this very topic on the PMDG's forums, no need to repeat it.

Edited April 29, 2020 by michal

[ludekbrno 302]

31 minutes ago, michal said:

Actually nothing of the sort was said, people repeat what they like to hear and not what was actually said. There is a good discussion on this very topic on the PMDG's forums, no need to repeat it.

It's not true, MS/Asobo clearly declared, that GamePass isn't needed for on-line streaming.

[ca_metal 2,015]

1 hour ago, michal said:

Actually nothing of the sort was said, people repeat what they like to hear and not what was actually said. There is a good discussion on this very topic on the PMDG's forums, no need to repeat it.

This again?! Not a month ago we had a topic just about that. There’s an interview where they clearly stated if you buy the sim you will have access to the streaming service of the scenery. They’ve also stated there’s no need to subscribe to any of their services to get the access.

 

edit: here I quote the post with the translation of that part of the interview:

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by ca_metal

[Tuskin38 6,457]

11 hours ago, G-RFRY said:

and I'm still waiting for MS to tell us streaming will be free something that XBOX users do not get without game pass.  

The paid service to access online features for X-Box Console games is 'Xbox Live Gold' not 'Game Pass'. Game Pass is an entirely separate service, It's not required to play multiplayer or use any other online functionality for any game on either PC or X-Box. Game Pass is also not a streaming service, you still need to download and install the games to play them..

Every game you can play on 'Game Pass' you can also buy separately and still retain all online functionality without being subscribed to Game Pass.

https://www.xbox.com/en-CA/xbox-game-pass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Pass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Live#Xbox_Live_Gold

Just doing some simple internet research will answer these questions for you. I've also used both services in the past, so I have first hand experience on how they both work.

 

Also, Asobo has already stated in interviews you don't need Game Pass or any other service to use the streaming data:

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Tuskin38

[threexgreen 3,135]

People just won't let go of the subscription theory ... 😄

[Anthracite 131]

15 hours ago, michal said:

Actually nothing of the sort was said, people repeat what they like to hear and not what was actually said. There is a good discussion on this very topic on the PMDG's forums, no need to repeat it.

It has been said. I read every worthwhile post on this forum, it’s been discussed to death at this point. I’m not trying to hoodwink you. There are two known models - game pass gives access or you can purchase it outright. Much in the same way as all the other games on game pass. Sometimes you even get a discount on the purchase of games if you own gamepass. 
 

I own gamepass, I’ve owned it since I got some free months with my amd processor. It’s a negligible amount of money and I’ve enjoyed a few games on it. Mostly forza, but also age of empires and some platformer called “Ori” that I played with my daughter. So far I’ve spent less on the gamepass than it would have cost to buy just forza. I have no doubt it’s even more economical for people who play more of the library. 
 

I plan to buy msfs outright though.

[tripper721 5]

To those more knowledgeable than I when I comes to computer specs. In your opinion what will be the difference to installing the game on 150gb HDD vs 150gb SSD? I have the ability to do both, but curious if there are noticeable factors between the two? I'm assuming SSD will load faster, but just looking for more guidance. 

[ca_metal 2,015]

56 minutes ago, tripper721 said:

To those more knowledgeable than I when I comes to computer specs. In your opinion what will be the difference to installing the game on 150gb HDD vs 150gb SSD? I have the ability to do both, but curious if there are noticeable factors between the two? I'm assuming SSD will load faster, but just looking for more guidance. 

Faster loadings (when you are loading the flight) and that’s about it. 

Edited April 30, 2020 by ca_metal

[Anthracite 131]

1 hour ago, tripper721 said:

To those more knowledgeable than I when I comes to computer specs. In your opinion what will be the difference to installing the game on 150gb HDD vs 150gb SSD? I have the ability to do both, but curious if there are noticeable factors between the two? I'm assuming SSD will load faster, but just looking for more guidance. 

Loading times will be about 2-10x faster depending on the ssd and Hdd.

 

Also the ssd doesn’t make any noise. If you or someone else is sensitive to noise that’s golden.

[Darcanlos 89]

I can imagine that if you're streaming from the internet and you have a high download speed, you could very well have faster scenery loading with an SSD. If it's downloading data in realtime, it will most probably be compressed, so it would go first into the drive, decompressed, and then loaded into the game. I have symmetric 600Mbps connection, and an HDD I think does around 125Mbps if I'm not wrong. If so, an HDD could very well be slowing down the scenery load. An SSD I think can write and read at around 600Mbps and a NVMe SSD even faster (2000Mbps I think), so it could also cope with the internet bandwidth.

Just speculating here, as I have no idea how the streaming will work nor do I know too much about storage devices, but maybe someone with more knowledge can correct me if I'm wrong...

[in2tech 588]

Plus SSD's don't have moving parts like a usual HDD right? So it should last longer I would think. Although I have a 500 GB HDD that is about 8 years old and still rocking and rolling. I know one thing having the operating system on an SSD sure does make it boot up faster, duh 🙂 And I have most of my simulators and games on a 1 TB HDD, and it takes awhile to load the game, once it's loaded I'm fine. But in the future I believe they will all move over to an SSD 🙂 But that's just me! Also, sure the better the processor, graphics card, etc... the faster the load time?

My system is a little bit high in the CPU and a little low on the GPU, me not changing a thing, on my first gaming machine I bought last April 2019. I don't do scenery add on's, or even a lot of aircraft add on's. If I get around medium performance I am good. And I have fast internet too. Also, according to most game specs, my system is about recommended give or take bit either way, yet all the simulators and games I play run great for the settings I like. I think I will be fine, but won't know till it is released. Guess we will find out in the future? 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,930]

3 hours ago, tripper721 said:

To those more knowledgeable than I when I comes to computer specs. In your opinion what will be the difference to installing the game on 150gb HDD vs 150gb SSD? I have the ability to do both, but curious if there are noticeable factors between the two? I'm assuming SSD will load faster, but just looking for more guidance. 

Fragmentation will become an issue over time if updates are made to the core product. In layman’s terms on an SSD every bit of data can be retrieved at the same speed.

But on a mechanical HDD data is stored on a cylinder and one file could eventually be stored in three different places. It takes time for the head reading the data to find and read it. Now imagine that for thousands of files. Reading files and loading the sim will eventually become longer and longer. To solve that you have to run a defragmentation program. Time consuming.

No such problems exist with an SSD. Given they are no longer so expensive there is no excuse not to use them.