Just a heads up for anyone like me that is still sitting on the fence about buying MS Flight Sim, there is currently a 20% price reduction lasting for 4 days. I checked the discount deal is avalable both on the MS store and on Steam.

I am still undecided, its way more than I usually spend on my PC games. Any feedback for the very casual gamer welcomed  :)

 

 

 

Thanks, I passed this information along to a friend.  I have never seen MSFS on sale before, this is the first time I have seen this.

@geoffw123,

Thanks for the tip!

Edited October 20, 20214 yr by GearUp180

Yeah, got the email but I'm not buying this (or any other game for that matter) until high end video cards become <$1000 and available.

2 hours ago, geoffw123 said:

I am still undecided, its way more than I usually spend on my PC games. Any feedback for the very casual gamer welcomed  🙂

That makes the standard edition £48 or 66usd.

Absolute bargain!

And I thought everyone on this forum already bought FS2020...😶

2 hours ago, geoffw123 said:

Just a heads up for anyone like me that is still sitting on the fence about buying MS Flight Sim, there is currently a 20% price reduction lasting for 4 days. I checked the discount deal is avalable both on the MS store and on Steam.

I am still undecided, its way more than I usually spend on my PC games. Any feedback for the very casual gamer welcomed  🙂

 

 

 

If you like to fly airplanes exploring the virtual world, do it!

1 hour ago, VeryBumpy said:

Yeah, got the email but I'm not buying this (or any other game for that matter) until high end video cards become <$1000 and available.

Just curious, what kind of video card are you running right now?

2 hours ago, VeryBumpy said:

Yeah, got the email but I'm not buying this (or any other game for that matter) until high end video cards become <$1000 and available.

Not within the next 5 years then? 😏

Regards

bs

Does the discount apply to upgrades from standard to deluxe premium?

The one thing MSFS doesn't really need, is a super-duper video card. It's understandable that the legacy of having MS Flight Sim of old rely on the CPU rather than the GPU tends to make us think that we need a super computer to run a flight sim, but it's worth noting that in picking Asobo - a modern game developer - to make MSFS, Microsoft picked a company which was able to drag the MS franchise into the modern era wherein even a fairly modest PC can easily cope with it.

I'm sure most people will be aware that with FSX and preceding versions of Flight Simulator, the reliance on the CPU for the graphics meant that you needed a sledgehammer to crack a nut in computing terms, and even then you'd struggle for FPS despite the graphics not being anywhere near on par with modern games. As a result, we tended to find our flight sim PC which struggled with FPS in FSX etc, would run really modern PC games at a blistering pace, and this is what we see with MSFS thanks to a gaming studio being behind it, whereby it can hit really impressive frame rates with the sliders all to the right on even a fairly mediocre PC so long as one is happy with resolutions below 4K, where it still looks great anyway.

So if that notion of old is stopping anyone from taking the plunge, then trust me, it's a non-issue. Now in fairness, the one thing you do need for MSFS which is less of an issue for FSX or P3D, is a decent internet connection and a reasonably large SSD in order to cope with the streaming scenery and the install/patches, but this is something most people either do have or can get hold of without spending a fortune, especially compared to the arm and a leg GPUs we all had to keep buying for FSX and P3D just to get frame rates in double figures when the scenery add-ons started get a grip on things, whereas this is not an issue at all with MSFS, which as I say, runs at breakneck speed even on a potato.

Of course there are some aspects of MSFS which still need attention and it's still comparatively early days in regards to available add-ons, but don't let this put you off either, because development progress for it is going at a blistering pace. Consider that approximately a year after its release, it's already got a PMDG airliner available for it (the DC-6) and it has a PMDG 737 slated for release within a matter of months too. Contrast this with FSX, which came out in 2006, but it was fully five years after the main sim was released before PMDG got their 737 out for FSX, with the iFly 737 beating that only by a couple of months.

But if none of this convinces you, try this: Get hold of the XBox pass version (costs just a couple of quid to do that). Now take any GA aeroplane you like (either fancy payware or default) from FSX or P3D for a fly, and immediately following this, take any similar GA aeroplane in MSFS (either payware or default) for a fly. You will observe that the difference in having a convincing feeling of flight, not to mention the visuals, is like night and day between the two sims, with MSFS absolutely wiping the floor with FSX and P3D in this regard, and you won't have to take my word for it if you try that little test.

And at a discounted price, it's even more of a no-brainer to buy it, and it's worth remembering too that just because you have MSFS, it doesn't mean you can't still use FSX and P3D if you like (or XPlane if you are a weirdo), although I suspect you will be inclined not to want to after you see the difference.

 

Edited October 20, 20214 yr by Chock

1 hour ago, Chock said:

it can hit really impressive frame rates with the sliders all to the right on even a fairly mediocre PC so long as one is happy with resolutions below 4K, where it still looks great anyway.

For what it might be worth, please let me support this statement. I'm using a four-year-old rig with an i7-770K running a default speed, in conjunction with a GTX1080 driving an HD monitor. I fly the GA aircraft including the WT CJ4 and can run the ultra graphics preset locked at 30 fps in most geographic locations, where I would just back up to the high-end preset. I rarely see GPU utilization beyond 75% and GPU memory usage above 4K.

I assume that higher resolutions would require more powerful GPU cards, but I can confirm that MSFS does look great in HD.

SU6 appears to make better use of the GPU. At the ultra graphics preset, memory use has increased significantly and is now near the 8 GB capacity at airports like KLAX, but closer to 5 GB at small airports. GPU utilization is also somewhat higher. 

18 hours ago, MacSalisbury said:

Does the discount apply to upgrades from standard to deluxe premium?

Technically there are no upgrades. You pay full price for any edition above standard that you don't own already. But that full price is currently discounted 20%.

18 hours ago, Chock said:

The one thing MSFS doesn't really need, is a super-duper video card. It's understandable that the legacy of having MS Flight Sim of old rely on the CPU rather than the GPU tends to make us think that we need a super computer to run a flight sim, but it's worth noting that in picking Asobo - a modern game developer - to make MSFS, Microsoft picked a company which was able to drag the MS franchise into the modern era wherein even a fairly modest PC can easily cope with it.

I'm sure most people will be aware that with FSX and preceding versions of Flight Simulator, the reliance on the CPU for the graphics meant that you needed a sledgehammer to crack a nut in computing terms, and even then you'd struggle for FPS despite the graphics not being anywhere near on par with modern games. As a result, we tended to find our flight sim PC which struggled with FPS in FSX etc, would run really modern PC games at a blistering pace, and this is what we see with MSFS thanks to a gaming studio being behind it, whereby it can hit really impressive frame rates with the sliders all to the right on even a fairly mediocre PC so long as one is happy with resolutions below 4K, where it still looks great anyway.

So if that notion of old is stopping anyone from taking the plunge, then trust me, it's a non-issue. Now in fairness, the one thing you do need for MSFS which is less of an issue for FSX or P3D, is a decent internet connection and a reasonably large SSD in order to cope with the streaming scenery and the install/patches, but this is something most people either do have or can get hold of without spending a fortune, especially compared to the arm and a leg GPUs we all had to keep buying for FSX and P3D just to get frame rates in double figures when the scenery add-ons started get a grip on things, whereas this is not an issue at all with MSFS, which as I say, runs at breakneck speed even on a potato.

Of course there are some aspects of MSFS which still need attention and it's still comparatively early days in regards to available add-ons, but don't let this put you off either, because development progress for it is going at a blistering pace. Consider that approximately a year after its release, it's already got a PMDG airliner available for it (the DC-6) and it has a PMDG 737 slated for release within a matter of months too. Contrast this with FSX, which came out in 2006, but it was fully five years after the main sim was released before PMDG got their 737 out for FSX, with the iFly 737 beating that only by a couple of months.

But if none of this convinces you, try this: Get hold of the XBox pass version (costs just a couple of quid to do that). Now take any GA aeroplane you like (either fancy payware or default) from FSX or P3D for a fly, and immediately following this, take any similar GA aeroplane in MSFS (either payware or default) for a fly. You will observe that the difference in having a convincing feeling of flight, not to mention the visuals, is like night and day between the two sims, with MSFS absolutely wiping the floor with FSX and P3D in this regard, and you won't have to take my word for it if you try that little test.

And at a discounted price, it's even more of a no-brainer to buy it, and it's worth remembering too that just because you have MSFS, it doesn't mean you can't still use FSX and P3D if you like (or XPlane if you are a weirdo), although I suspect you will be inclined not to want to after you see the difference.

 

Because of this the thin but loud minority should watch out how far away their trees and lod must reach.

This sim relies on a wide user base and not only the so called "Study Simmers"