OCTOBER 5TH, 2023 DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Posted by: Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

This week’s Screenshot Challenge winner is Twitter/X user BasedRaccoon! If you’re interested in participating in our weekly Screenshot Challenges, check out the details in the Community section below!

Last week on September 28th, we released Sim Update 13. Following this release, an unexpected issue occurred. This issue prevented many players from downloading/installing content and affected both in-game updates and Marketplace content installations. After internal analysis, we determined an issue with the update service was introduced sometime after the release of Aircraft & Avionics Update 02 in June. The issue went unnoticed until triggered by a significant spike in traffic to the update servers following the release of Sim Update 13. The update servers became over-saturated with update requests, failures started to mount, and this caused downloads and installs to slow down, loop, or fail to complete.

On September 29th at approximately 0600 UTC, we deployed a server-side fix to rectify the issue and additional server-side fixes over the next 24 hours. According to our telemetry, these fixes have successfully resolved the issue for the majority of users, though we understand some players who attempted to install the update on Thursday or Friday of last week may still be struggling to successfully update their simulator. You may need to delete one or more temporary files to “un-stick” the install. Instructions for all platforms (PC/MS Store, PC/Steam, and Xbox) can be found in this post.

We want to extend our sincerest apologies for this unfortunate issue following the release of Sim Update 13. We understand how frustrating and inconvenient this situation has been and understand the time and dedication each of you put into playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. Moving forward, we are committed to working towards better prevention of such incidents from occurring. We appreciate each and everyone’s patience and understanding as we worked through this issue.

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the performance and stability of Microsoft Flight Simulator, we recently announced a new public testing opportunity specifically targeted to reduce crashes on the Xbox platform. There is a new optional test build available now for players on Xbox Series X|S. This build does not contain any changes to the sim itself but does include enhanced error logging and reporting. This data is collected automatically from everyone who installs the test build and will be used to help the development team diagnose and resolve application crashes. If you are an Xbox player who would like to assist with this data collection, you can find instructions on how to download and install the test build on our forums here.

– MSFS Team

 

FEEDBACK SNAPSHOT

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Feedback Snapshot.

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Development Roadmap.

MARKETPLACE UPDATE

This week we have a special announcement from our friends at DC Designs!

This Friday, October 6th, DC Designs will be participating in the One Special Day fundraiser for SpecialEffect. This great cause provides custom-created games, computers and controllers to those with disabilities that would normally prevent them from being able to enjoy games. For this fundraiser, 100% of all proceeds on DC Designs’ aircraft will go to this charity.

If you’ve been eyeing any aircraft from DC Designs, they ask you to consider purchasing it on Friday, October 6th!

MARKETPLACE RELEASES

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Marketplace Update.

MARKETPLACE BACKLOG

Current Backlog: 553 Total

BACKLOG: NEW PRODUCTS

	Testing Status
Content Type	Initial Processing and Validation by MS	Handed off to 3P for Functional Testing	Functional Testing in Progress by 3P	Functional Testing Signed off by 3P	Total
Aircraft	82	11	2	2	97
Mission	38	15	4	1	58
Scenery	30	3	2	1	36
Livery	28	14	1	0	43
Airport	50	26	7	18	101
Other	41	15	1	13	70
Total	269	84	17	35	405

BACKLOG: UPDATED PRODUCTS

	Testing Status
Content Type	Initial Processing and Validation by MS	Handed off to 3P for Functional Testing	Functional Testing in Progress by 3P	Functional Testing Signed off by 3P	Total
Aircraft	18	8	9	1	36
Mission	0	0	0	0	0
Scenery	5	2	1	0	8
Livery	22	10	0	0	32
Airport	23	25	1	20	69
Other	0	3	0	0	3
Total	68	48	11	21	148

 

SDK & THIRD PARTY UPDATES

No updates this week.

 

 

COMMUNITY FLY-IN

The world’s oldest airline (still in operation) is KLM, the flag carrier of the Netherlands. KLM was founded 104 years ago on October 7, 1919. To commemorate this milestone in aviation history, our community fly-in this week will be an aerial tour of Holland. The flight plan was created by our regular panel member and Dutch citizen Pieter2427 who will be sharing lots of interesting facts and trivia as we fly across his beautiful home country!

Also joining us on our panel this week is Community Manager Chewwy94 who will be showcasing the Boeing 787 with KLM livery!

Event details are available here. All are welcome to participate!

COMMUNITY VIDEO

For this week’s Community Video, we join real-world airline pilot and flight simmer 737NGDriver as they highlight some of the new features that arrived in the Boeing aircraft for Sim Update 13.

737NGDriver runs through the new Simbrief integration, wind uplinks, and the new checklist features onboard the Boeing 747-8. All users can utilise these new features in this plane now!

If you’d like to learn more, we’ve created two tutorials showcasing the new Simbrief functionality in the Boeing aircraft, as well as how to correctly use the Electronic Flight Bag to calculate takeoff performance figures in the Boeing 787-10:

• Tutorial: Simbrief Integration for Boeing 747-8 and Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner – YouTube
• Tutorial: How to use the EFB in the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner – YouTube

SCREENSHOT CHALLENGE

You can submit your screenshot via Twitter with #MSFSchallenge or the Weekly Forum Post!

This week’s screenshot challenge: Wheels on the Ground

This past week’s Screenshot Challenge was “Country Roads“:

Weekly Screenshot Challenge Winner: BasedRaccoon (Twitter)

Screenshot by 2525ARW (Twitter)

Screenshot by AvionChibi (Twitter)

Screenshot by CpuGeta486 (Twitter)

Screenshot by HeKa48 (Forum)

Screenshot by HolmesCZ6127 (Forum)

Screenshot by ninwo_nintaroww (Twitter)

Screenshot by pommes_l (Twitter)

Screenshot by RufousJayes (Forum)

Screenshot by ukaka5656 (Twitter)

Screenshot by ZILLNIAZI17 (Forum)

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NEXT DEVELOPMENT BLOG UPDATE – October 12th, 2023

Sincerely,

Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

Edited October 6, 20232 yr by David Mills

What is the plane right below the Curtiss Jenny?

And second from the bottom?

Regarding bugs & wish lists it is interesting to see what features/improvements will implemented in MSFS 2024. OTH, this means that some will not make it into MSFS 2020.

2 hours ago, Nemo said:

Regarding bugs & wish lists it is interesting to see what features/improvements will implemented in MSFS 2024. OTH, this means that some will not make it into MSFS 2020.

Yes.  For a lot of people, I think this was one of the greatest fears when '24 was announced.

Although there are two things to mitigate this: -

1.  They said wherever they can, they will try to apply features and fixes retrospectively to 2020. (I wouldn't expect too much from that statement though).

2.  I think most people will be tempted to migrate to '24 anyway and take all of their addons with them.

I still wonder how the licensing will work for this for paid products.  I.e. will it be legal to use the product in both simulators if you want to keep both during the transition?

This is why I think 2024 should be an optional 'mega update' that is paid for (like Reno, but obviously a higher price) rather than a complete new program, as that would get around any licensing issues; I hope they are considering this way of doing it.

Edited October 6, 20232 yr by bobcat999

2 hours ago, Nemo said:

Regarding bugs & wish lists it is interesting to see what features/improvements will implemented in MSFS 2024. OTH, this means that some will not make it into MSFS 2020.

Yes.  For a lot of people, I think this was one of the greatest fears when '24 was announced.

Although there are two things to mitigate this: -

1.  They said wherever they can, they will try to apply features and fixes retrospectively to 2020. (I wouldn't expect too much from that statement though).

2.  I think most people will be tempted to migrate to '24 anyway and take all of their addons with them.

I still wonder how the licensing will work for this for paid products.  I.e. will it be legal to use the product in both simulators if you want to keep both during the transition?

This is why I think 2024 should be an optional 'mega update' that is paid for (like Reno) rather than a complete new program, as that would get around any licensing issues; I hope they are considering this way of doing it.

4 hours ago, Mace said:

What is the plane right below the Curtiss Jenny?

And second from the bottom?

It looks like the default Cub Crafters XCub.  It has an Asobo registration showing also (ASXGS) so it probably is.  Not a bad plane.  I like the 'nose-dragger' version.  

Edited October 6, 20232 yr by bobcat999

Still waiting for extra multi monitor features as it still shows Experimental for a long time…

Is support for Multi-Monitors and Multi-Screens not going to be implemented!!

I do not see it in the development plans.

Edited October 6, 20232 yr by nas123

I was hoping that fixing reflections would at least make it to 2024, but still not planned.  This suggests that 2024 will not use ray-tracing.

2 hours ago, Grindathotte said:

I was hoping that fixing reflections would at least make it to 2024, but still not planned.  This suggests that 2024 will not use ray-tracing.

Or maybe it does.  If they switched to ray tracing they wouldn't need to fix them.

They are certainly having a major performance push in '24.  In some cases they have said they see up to a 400% performance improvement.  So maybe they are making some headroom for ray tracing.  It would be about time.

Edited October 6, 20232 yr by bobcat999

On 10/6/2023 at 3:49 PM, bobcat999 said:

Or maybe it does.  If they switched to ray tracing they wouldn't need to fix them.

They are certainly having a major performance push in '24.  In some cases they have said they see up to a 400% performance improvement.  So maybe they are making some headroom for ray tracing.  It would be about time.

I hope so, but that's a minor gripe for me.  Since I fly helos in MSFS, the improvements in 2024 look amazing.  What I'd really like to see in the roadmap is the release date (wouldn't we all).

1 hour ago, Grindathotte said:

I hope so, but that's a minor gripe for me.  Since I fly helos in MSFS, the improvements in 2024 look amazing.  What I'd really like to see in the roadmap is the release date (wouldn't we all).

If my understanding is correct, the release date of MS2024 is directly tied to the release date of another product as well, possibly the next XBox upgrade.