I am a newb as far as MSFS is concerned. Yesterday I started a flight and let MSFS pilot do the flying on a trip from KSBA to Chino. About half way through the flight I had to attend to other business so I paused MSFS. I was away from my PC for some time. When I returned the sim was still paused but it was dark outside.  It appears that whilst the sim was paused the time of day marched on. Can anyone advise me on how to pause both the sim and time or is it a bug of MSFS? 

2 minutes ago, yellowjack said:

I am a newb as far as MSFS is concerned. Yesterday I started a flight and let MSFS pilot do the flying on a trip from KSBA to Chino. About half way through the flight I had to attend to other business so I paused MSFS. I was away from my PC for some time. When I returned the sim was still paused but it was dark outside.  It appears that whilst the sim was paused the time of day marched on. Can anyone advise me on how to pause both the sim and time or is it a bug of MSFS? 

I actually think it's intended and really cool. You can roll back the time of day with the slider after you unpause. 

5 minutes ago, yellowjack said:

I am a newb as far as MSFS is concerned. Yesterday I started a flight and let MSFS pilot do the flying on a trip from KSBA to Chino. About half way through the flight I had to attend to other business so I paused MSFS. I was away from my PC for some time. When I returned the sim was still paused but it was dark outside.  It appears that whilst the sim was paused the time of day marched on. Can anyone advise me on how to pause both the sim and time or is it a bug of MSFS? 

Go to the menu instead of using active pause. Resume when you return.

You possibly hit what MS calls „active pause“ which stops your flight but lets you interact with the panel while the world around you continues. But also if you use „real pause“ (ESC on my PC) when the options menu pops in then time moves on like mentioned by drumcode

2 hours ago, yellowjack said:

I am a newb as far as MSFS is concerned. Yesterday I started a flight and let MSFS pilot do the flying on a trip from KSBA to Chino. About half way through the flight I had to attend to other business so I paused MSFS. I was away from my PC for some time. When I returned the sim was still paused but it was dark outside.  It appears that whilst the sim was paused the time of day marched on. Can anyone advise me on how to pause both the sim and time or is it a bug of MSFS? 

John if you're going to be away a while simply first hit the Escape key, then hit the Spacebar, then choose Load in options window that pops up, but don't open any files, just leave it there are you hit the Load button option.  This will let your CPU/GPU go to a lowered powered state, and your flight will remain exactly where it was.  Simply hit Cancel on the Load screen, then Escape key, Resume and you're good to continue at the same place and time of day you left it at.  Just using the Esc key only does not let your hardware chill.

Good tip, but this needs to be incorporated into the game.

And yes, you have to hit the load button or it doesn't pause the CPU + GPU usage.

Edited September 17, 20214 yr by Alpine Scenery

Sometimes you you do not how long you will be away in my case I thought I would only be away for a couple of minutes but you know what happens and I was away much longer than expected. It seems silly to me that you can pause the game but time marches on and you cant just pause the game and include pausing time. One has to make nonsensical actions to actually pause the game not pausing the game time is illogical and unique to MSFS.   However, I thank the respondents for their info, the sacrifices we make for some pretty scenery is lamentable.  The real point here is that hitting the ESC key gives the impression that the game is paused but without poising the TOD and no indication that is the case which is illogical. The price we are prepared to make to get some pretty scenery is getting higher and higher.

Thanks again guys.

It is much easier than all of that.  Credit for this tip goes out to Bert Pieke.  He provided it back about 10 days after MSFS was released.  Back when using Active Pause for more than a minute or two resulted in a death spiral upon exit from Active Pause.  This may be in the MSFS Tips and Tricks area here but would be back on the earliest pages.

Go into Controls Options.  Select the Keyboard.  Find "Set Pause On" and assign it to a keyboard keystroke.  Then select "Set Pause Off" and assign it to a different keystroke.  I assigned the P key to on and the O key to off.  Those two keys are side-by-side.  Works great! 

You could instead use Ctrl +P for Set Pause Off. It is unassigned.  However be aware that Shift +P by default is assigned for Pushback.

See additional message traffic below.  What I stated above pauses action in the sim, but time continues to advance.

 

Edited September 17, 20214 yr by fppilot

21 minutes ago, fppilot said:

It is much easier than all of that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this stops time (and environment) from "marching on". It pretty much does what the Esc key does, except you're still sitting in the cockpit. I might be wrong though, it's been a while since I tried this.

28 minutes ago, gunther said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this stops time (and environment) from "marching on". It pretty much does what the Esc key does, except you're still sitting in the cockpit. I might be wrong though, it's been a while since I tried this.

Wow! Ok. I just checked and you are 100% correct.  Time does still advance.  Verified by the clock and by use of the GXi timer!  Yep, even the avionics timer continues onward!  Even worse, I would bet a fortune that it also influences flight time logged in MSFS.  I just checked the timer function. It can be separately stopped during a pause, but it cannot be resumed, only reset.  #$%&^*^%$^&$&(*

May be yet another example of MSFS neglecting to adopt what had been present for a couple of decades.  More NIHS.  Never had this issue in previous sims.  This one needs to be on the list of requests with support from votes!  But alas other logbook issues have been ignored to date.

Edited September 17, 20214 yr by fppilot

1 hour ago, yellowjack said:

The real point here is that hitting the ESC key gives the impression that the game is paused but without poising the TOD and no indication that is the case which is illogical.

John it's the Pause button, not the ESC key you're referring to.  You can quickly pause the game w/ one press and freeze your position in your flight plan simply by hitting the ESCkey--the other 'nonsensical actions' were just something someone discovered that lets your hardware cool a bit. The scenery engine, where it's come so far is astoundingly innovative and took huge effort to get it where it is today.   The other sims have been around for decades+ so of course they have the little things well taken care of.  Plus, and this is huge, MSFS does not depend on 3rd party content nearly to the degree the other mature sims do because so much ultra high quality content is already in the sim.  To reduce what they have achieved to 'pretty scenery' really misses the immersion value of not so much pretty, but real, that is the key difference to the other mature sims, the paint-by-numbers landclass based scenery sims.  Consider yourself fortunate to use this sim for the few dollars it cost to come aboard, and it's only getting better, and quickly at that.  To release something that performs so well on a full range of hardware is massive and unprecedented--the little things will get addressed in due time.

 

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

The other sims have been around for decades+ so of course they have the little things well taken care of. 

This is in no way any attempt to trash MSFS.  It is incredible in very many respects, and you correctly pointed some of those out.  Thank you for that.  Also please recognize that many of those little things are in this sim just as they were previously, literally unchanged.  Many others, readily available, are still missing after a year.  This pause/timing issue and the logbook functions are clearly among those.

All of my hours since SU5 and the hotfix have been in MSFS and given the NXi I am enjoying that.  Just time to address some lacking fundamentals.

Edited September 17, 20214 yr by fppilot

As mentioned above, press ESCAPE (Now you are in a passive pause) press RESUME (you're back in your flight).

According to my MSFS keyboard list the "ESC" key pauses the game. Would it have been to much to ask that the "Pause" key on the keyboard pause the game seems perfectly logical to me. I wonder how Xbox users pause the game?   

Is there a way to change the key settings in MSFS? 

Biggest thing likely at play... if you start a flight with "Live Weather and Time", the sim is going to try to provide what you requested.  If you pause a flight and come back three hours later, it's still trying to provide what you asked of it... live weather and time.  The plane is still where you left it, but live weather and time has still progressed three hours, and it will try to reflect that.  I don't know if this problem exists of you use preset weather and time, as I pretty much always use live weather, but otherwise it is not a problem at all, it is merely doing what you set it up to do.  

I do know that the logbook does *not* credit flight time while the sim is paused, it shows active air time, so that should be a non-issue, as well.