Hello,

I have been flying FSX for many years now but I think the time has come for me to get serious about a move to MSFS. But before I take the plunge I think I need a little advice.

I dont foresee any hardware issues as I will upgrade just about everything with MSFS in mind.

I am however somewhat confused about MSFS scenery.

Some while back I understood that MSFS 'streams' scenery 'as you fly'.  If this is true then I will have problems with my internet download speeds - which although not too bad at all - are still likely cause some problems.  I dont live in a big city but I cant imagine that everybody flying MSFS has super fast internet. So is 'streaming' still the case or is it possible to download MSFS scenery ? Ideally of course I would like to download scenery for the areas in which I fly - which is what I do right now - OrbX plus other stuff.

I appreciate the huge size of the downloads but I can cope with that for sure.

Any help would be good,

thanks,

M

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, mikeody said:

Hello,

I have been flying FSX for many years now but I think the time has come for me to get serious about a move to MSFS. But before I take the plunge I think I need a little advice.

I dont foresee any hardware issues as I will upgrade just about everything with MSFS in mind.

I am however somewhat confused about MSFS scenery.

Some while back I understood that MSFS 'streams' scenery 'as you fly'.  If this is true then I will have problems with my internet download speeds - which although not too bad at all - are still likely cause some problems.  I dont live in a big city but I cant imagine that everybody flying MSFS has super fast internet. So is 'streaming' still the case or is it possible to download MSFS scenery ? Ideally of course I would like to download scenery for the areas in which I fly - which is what I do right now - OrbX plus other stuff.

I appreciate the huge size of the downloads but I can cope with that for sure.

Any help would be good,

No way to respond with value as you made no mention of your current MBPS speed, or of MBPS speeds available to you through your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or alternative providers.  Please help us help you by providing minimum critical information.

Thanks,

Just done test.

Download 25.9 Mbps

Upload 4.7 Mbps

M

15 minutes ago, mikeody said:

Thanks,

Just done test.

Download 25.9 Mbps

Upload 4.7 Mbps

M

That is what I have.. and it does the job 😉

I have a little faster speed than you -- likely around 40 -- and I have never experienced any meaningful issues with streaming. 

plus MSFS gives you the option to cache some downloaded scenery if you fly in one area primarily, never used this myself though since I have some 100gb net download speed

3 hours ago, DAD said:

plus MSFS gives you the option to cache some downloaded scenery if you fly in one area primarily, never used this myself though since I have some 100gb net download speed

+1 on that. If you often fly similar routes it's not too bad. Having said that - I find that even with a decent cache, photogrammetry buildings are sometimes slow to appear (or never). These "melted" objects can be a bit of an immersion killer. .

As has been covered many times in countless threads - it's not necessarily your local Internet speed that causes grief - more often it's server overload. I suppose it's the price we have to pay - to have the whole world covered in such [amazing] detail.

You'll be fine. 

You also have the really good option of turning the photogrammetry OFF and flying without it. You still would leave the BING data on, because that is the good satellite imagery for the globe in MSFS, but the MSFS autogen that you would see without the photogrammetry on is actually very good, not to be considered the same as previous sims. And, without photogrammetry you still see all the POI's from all the scenery updates, and all the added features from third party scenery and airports. Try both methods, Photogrammetry OFF and ON and eventually you will decide which one you like better. I just wanted you to know BOTH are viable options since I did not see anyone else mention that yet 🙂 

You can also precache areas with the Rolling Cache and Manual Cache functions, so that your are less reliant on your internet connection. Go Google the topic to find out more information.

27 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

You can also precache areas with the Rolling Cache and Manual Cache functions, so that your are less reliant on your internet connection. Go Google the topic to find out more information.

Which is true... but not really necessary 🙂

Suggest just starting the sim and get a feel for it first..

Also take note that photogrammetry only comes into play with a limited number of specific cities. Streaming Bing data is something you don't want to do without: it is what makes the entire world look like the er... entire world. Photogrammetry you CAN do without as it is an addition. Look at it as if it's an addon for specific cities. (And a bad looking addon too imho: I have photogrammetry turned OFF.)

13 hours ago, mikeody said:

Thanks,

Just done test.

Download 25.9 Mbps

Upload 4.7 Mbps

M

I signed up for 40Mbps but I have Centurylink which means I have 20-30 on a good day. 😉  

 

Every once in awhile I see scenery loading issues caused by bandwidth, but it's not very often, and it's usually when my wife is doing something like streaming a 4k movie in the other room.

 

To all the guys who responded - thanks.

Although I  live in Australia I do 99% of my FSX flying in the UK so some sort of cached scenery approach sounds like a real possibility. The download figures I quoted are fairly constant so I am now more optimisitic than I was before.

As someone suggested I will do some research in the direction of cached scenery..

Thanks again,

M