MSFS - My Take

[dave2013 1,123]

I've had this for a couple weeks or so and have performed flights in the USA, Europe, and Africa.

My system is a 9700K cpu not overclocked, 2070 super video card, 32GB 3000MHz memory, 2560x1440 display.  I'm using the following graphics settings: frames locked at 30fps, TAA antialiasing, terrain LOD 150, object LOD 200, supersampling 4x4, anisotropic 8x.  Post processing sharpen, fringe, filmgrain, and vignette are turned off.  Also using process lasso to disable windows dynamic thread boosting.

Performance is excellent on my system.  Smooth scenery flow with no stuttering.  I had some low fps when taxiing around LFPG so turned down terrain LOD to 150 and that cured it.

I must say that I find the scenery stunning in many areas.  The sloped runways are more significant than I thought they'd be and really add to the realism at the airport.  Unfortunately, that's about all that I find stunning about MSFS so far.

The photogrammetry, while beautiful in some areas, is horrible in others.  A lot of work is needed to fix this issue.

The night lighting is fantastic IMO.

The 3D buildings and other objects in many cases are incorrect.  Hopefully this will get better over time as corrections are made and the AI scenery engine gets better at placing the right kind of 3D objects.  

The inflight menu is woefully inadequate.  I have to exit the flight entirely and return to the main menu to do many things that I should be able to do while flying.  Add to that the very long load times for the menus and flights and this just makes for a more frustrating experience.

I expected a much better flight planner.  It is very limited in its data and capabilities.  Hopefully the devs will improve this.

The live weather is not working well at all.  A fix is supposedly in the works.

AI traffic is not implemented well and is currently very limited as far as flight schedules, aircraft, and liveries.  Again, this is something that will likely improve over time, especially if freeware devs are able to create schedules, models, and liveries.

ATC is actually not bad, but unfortunately has not improved on what we've had for 15+ years with FS2004, FSX, and P3D.  Phraseology is inaccurate in a number of cases, and there is only a single voice included.  The use of TTS should make it easy to implement custom phraseology.

The flight dynamics, whether it's due to specific inaccurate aircraft flight models, or something inherent to the core flight dynamics engine, are just off.  Control surfaces are too sensitive (my joystick sensitivities are set to -100%).  Actually, they react too much when you reach a certain input threshold, i.e. there is very little effect until you reach a certain level of input and then the plane abruptly banks or pitches depending on what control surface you're moving.  Ground handling is not right either, likely due to the rudder effect being exaggerated.   It is possible that these new dynamics may indeed be more realistic, but because I'm used to the flight dynamics and ground handling of FSX/P3D they seem strange to me.   Issue solved - had control sensitivities set wrong.

I really like the included navigational data and terminal procedures which can be updated.

I've decided not to purchase it and will go back to P3Dv4 as IMO this sim is just not ready for prime time.

I'll monitor the updates, changes, and payware & freeware offerings and will return to MSFS down the road when it's more mature, probably 6 months or so from now.

Dave

Edited September 14, 2020 by dave2013

[jmdriskell 178]

Thanks for a honest evaluation.  I think I'll sit on my wallet for a while.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I agree with pretty much everything you have said, although my flight controls seem to be working OK.  I have my Yoke set to -40% sensitivity, and it feels about right..

The Community mods for the Bonanza make it a very nice airplane to fly and I am off to a group flight tomorrow over the Outer Banks with some flightsim buddies..

Have now flown dirt strips in Idaho in the Savage Cub, scenic flights in the Pacific Northwest in the C172, and along the California Coast in the C182, and looking forward to the MSFS update later this month.  Hopefully the G1000s will get an overhaul..

As for flightplanning.. suggest using LittleNavMap to build and save the plan in "pln" format. Load this plan at the main screen and you have it all loaded and set.  Departure, Destination etc..

Still flying P3D V5 every Saturday, but I am keeping MSFS installed 🙂

Edited September 14, 2020 by Bert Pieke

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

15 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Control surfaces are too sensitive (my joystick sensitivities are set to -100%).  Actually, they react too much when you reach a certain input threshold, i.e. there is very little effect until you reach a certain level of input and then the plane abruptly banks or pitches depending on what control surface you're moving.

Uh ok this is exactly what should happen with sensitivities set to -100%... You are basically putting your entire range of motion into a tiny frame where it will go full deflection. I suggest setting to something more reasonable, like -40 to -60. 

[Jude Bradley 659]

I'm on the fence too. XP11 is staying for sure, but whether to ditch P3D v5 and move to MS2020 is another thing, I don't have room for 3 sims. I did Alpha test and the joystick configuration UI was darned confusing. I was happy to remove it to get rid of that annoying starting music, but I think like others, I'll see how (or when/if) version 5.1 of Prepar3d is ever released. 

[Marco Manieri 194]

I also suggest reducing the sensitivity setting to 40ish.

I do agree on most of your points. I haven't yet checked any photogrammetry area so that is a potential flaw I still have not experienced.

My much older and less powerful system at 1080p also run much better than I expected with most high settings.

My final decision after the €1 GP month has instead been to buy it, standard edition.

Lighting, scenery and weather depiction (not accuracy to live) made me vote up for the enjoyment of VFR in the good default GAs I tried.

So once again, your points are all good and agreeable. Everyone should evaluate on its own, as you and I did

Edited September 14, 2020 by Marco Manieri
Mobile phone keyboard having its own opinions

[P_R_S 18]

55 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

ATC is actually not bad, but unfortunately has not improved on what we've had for 15+ years with FS2004, FSX, and P3D.  Phraseology is inaccurate in a number of cases, and there is only a single voice included.

Try to switch options->general->audio->vocal synthesis to "windows offline", still inaccurate phraseology, but you get more voices and regional accents too.

Edited September 14, 2020 by P_R_S

[dave2013 1,123]

Well, I'll be darned.  It's obvious to me now why I was getting this kind of control reaction.

I went back to the control sensitivities screen and now I see the graph above the control axes.  I had only set the sensitivity once a couple weeks ago and didn't even see those graphs with the reaction curves.  How I missed that I don't know.

-40% as several of you suggested is indeed about right.

Well, that's one issue solved.

Thanks.

Dave

Edited September 14, 2020 by dave2013

[BigDee 119]

Sensitivity is for me one thing, physics the other. Concerning the sensitivity, there was a nice post of a moderator in here (I don`t have the link) who did made a custom control (not for MSFS) and ended up using a math degree 4 curve for calculating the transitions for defined points, linear interpolation was not right. It should be a matter of one day for a large company to fix the sensitivity issues, but that`s not the case.

Number 2, on one hand PMDG and others have delayed to start developing on their planes, I don`t know the real reasons (no SDK yet)? but on the other hand there are already airplanes in the market place available. The free A320 does alsomake some good stepts.

But PMDG hasn`t even started yet.

I can quote this post:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/583428-msfs-is-not-ready-for-advance-ac-yet/?do=findComment&comment=4333125

 

Do they might refuse to start working on the current basis FS is offering?

 

For me it was about time to realize there is no such thing as the Flight Simulator with PMDG and PMDG like add-ons. It looks like it will take a year, but likely many years until this will be the case. Anyway, the Arcade like YouTube videos are entertaining for me. I like this new video a lot:

YouTube

 

[Elvensmith 165]

I think at this stage most of us are settling into a like/don't like certain aspects. Having managed to complete a short flight in the 747 yesterday it has grown on me.

The one thing I have to say about the scenery is that the North American or rather US in the mountains particularly just doesn't look quite right. Hard to describe but it kind of looks like a postcard or one of those scenes you used to see in old brochures. By contrast, in the UK flying over the Pennines the uplands and moors look stunningly realistic.

[nbhall68 106]

I found this to be a good objective post about your initial experiences, thank you for that.  Priorities and experiences differ...but I can't go back anymore.  The overall experience with MSFS 2020 is just too good in the ways that matter to me the most.  It's not perfect, but nothing ever is and it will get better with time.  I'd rather be out on the bleeding edge than hanging in there with the past.  It's more exciting to me.

 

[wthomas33065 994]

44 minutes ago, P_R_S said:

Try to switch options->general->audio->vocal synthesis to "windows offline", still inaccurate phraseology, but you get more voices and regional accents too.

Awesome find, although some of the voices are more robotic than the ones provided by Azure.  Hopefully they'll add more voices to the product via azure, or we can find some good voice packs we can install on our own in Windows 10.

 

[Ezra 29]

Sounds like an honest take on the current state of MSFS 2020. But then most of the community predicted this anyway. Nevertheless, I will remain in a holding pattern for now. Still enjoying DCS for the odd flight right now. P3Dv4.5 is shelved, even though I really liked it. Cheers.

[Nyxx 6,993]

Have curves in the controls is a blessing, anyone who gets into DCS knows the first thing you do is set your curves up. Apart from throttle and mixtures the ability to set curves is a wonderful thing. I even have them on brakes.

I even bought FSUIP for P3D to add brake curves for the FSL.

When you brake in a car it has a flat linear line?  No, you apply pressure and at the biting point you need more pressure. So having a nice curve so you first part of braking is less sensitive and then like the biting point IRL the brakes start to really grab. Same for airflow over the control services on a GA.

All this is done without question in DCS as you would have little to no chance to do A2A refuelling without curves. Also YouTube a real F-18 pilot trying out DCS and the first thing he says is the controls are way to sensitive as they did not add curves in to begin with to see what he thought, once set up, a different story.

So don’t use them if you feel no need but don’t put something down that adds fine control to everyone’s own needs and equipment needs. 

I wish P3D had it, that’s for sure.

I find it hard to believe even this ability gets but down and gets criticism by some people. 
 

Edited September 14, 2020 by Nyxx

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

1 hour ago, BigDee said:

Anyway, the Arcade like YouTube videos are entertaining for me. I like this new video a lot:

YouTube

 

Video is hilarious.. 😄