So in this interview, Seb talks about how it's not that difficult to add a new graphical feature, but it's very hard to make sure MSFS performs equally, or better, than before the new graphical feature was added. Pretty much, what Seb says is that Asobo spends a lot of time on optimization and making the code run faster, when they add a new graphical feature. While Seb doesn't assign percentages on the time spent on optimization and the time spend on adding a new graphical feature, I would guess when Asobo adds a new graphical feature, they probably spend 10% or 20% of their time adding the new graphical feature, and 80% or 90% of their time on optimization (just a guess only).

This is where XBox comes in. MSFS needs to run on XBox Series S, the weaker of the two XBoxes. This article suggests the closest CPU to the XBox Series S is an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X while this Reddit thread suggests the closest GPU equivalent is a GTX 1650.  And the XBox Series S has about 10 GB of RAM.  So pretty much, the MSFS team has to get MSFS to run well enough on computer with an AMD Ryzen 7 2700x, GTX 1650, with 10 GB of RAM.  That's a huge constraint!

Well, they have gotten it to run on the XBox Series S.  But of course, they had to do a lot of optimization with the code.  Because of all their work on optimizing MSFS, if you have a powerful computer, you can run MSFS at over 200 FPS at 4K:

Now what other flight simulator out there, can run with all that ortho, in a comparable location to the video above, at 4K, at 200 FPS?  This is one reason why I think MSFS is a huge technological achievement for performance. Not only does MSFS have the best graphics, it also has the best performance.

Edited August 12, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

Well, the perf in MSFS comes at a cost, which is the level of detail radius, which is easily the worst of the sims between XP and P3D. 

Yeah ...im not seeing the optimization for Xbox series S as an advantage (especially for PC users) apart from the increased revenue that keeps the lights on and serves as an entry into simming the requirement to try to optimize as much as possible to fit the Xbox series S is more of a handicap in my view than something to be seen as a positive (Yes unpopular subjective opinion). For me i see the need to optimize for the series S affecting the graphical quality of PC users. Yes there are sliders that "mitigate this" and i am very aware of the standard statement that accommodating the series S does not affect PC users but some of these optimizations have been jarring (SU5, Object LOD) and drastic and i cannot but have this feeling that somehow Asobo is trying to work within a rubber band with Xbox series S users  pulling at the back and 7800x3d/14900K + RTX4090/7900XTX  users pushing at the front.

Somehow i'm thinking that in the case of the Series S they move their experience to a mostly streaming one (This is going to happen in MS2024 anyway in some way i guess since they want to move to something akin to a client solution) . I literally have a Series X which is the higher end Xbox and would not consider using it unless i had no access to a PC or was a brand new simmer. Again.. make no mistake the sim should be on Xbox for the reasons above. It serves as a very good point of entry for new players .. but once that simming bug hits the PC setup just provides more possibilities. So this is not a bash at the Xbox because obviously having them is a net positive for the overall business case. I just feel that Asobo accommodating the Series S does not necessarily result in a plus in certain specific areas like graphical fidelity for the PC user because it has to be accommodated and Asobo has to play that balancing act.

Adding to that .. Yes the sim runs great when you have a single engine flying over an island with not much traffic and with all the tricks turned on ... We all know its going to run great. Can we see the benchmarks coming into KORD/KJFK/ATL with the full complement of AI traffic with the 747-8 ? with native frames ?

Edited August 12, 20241 yr by Maxis

"I would guess" Says it all about the nonsense of this post.

You expect the clickbait YouTube video adds any credence to your claim???

 

42 minutes ago, Maxis said:

Can we see the benchmarks coming into KORD/KJFK/ATL with the full complement of AI traffic with the 747-8 ? with native frames ?

That’s a great point and the biggest limitation of the sim. Fly in a remote area in the default Caravan, and 100fps is within reach without frame gen. Final approach to a busy hub in an airliner with added AI traffic, and we’re lucky to get 30 fps.

We can only hope that 2024 will bring some improvements in terms of multithreading capability, as the limitation right now does not seem to be on the hardware side of things. Example: with a high-end system, less than 20% total CPU use, 60-70% GPU and less than 10Gb RAM in your examples ie the good old mainthread is still a major bottleneck.

Then again, it seems that hardware capabilities has always lagged behind software with every iteration of flight simulator for as long as I can remember. As for Xbox, I agree that optimizations in the attempt to squeeze the sim onto Series S keeps the cash flowing, but IMO it does not bring any tangible benefits for PC users. 

Edited August 12, 20241 yr by Cpt_Piett

Performance downgrade with SU14, clouds graphical quality reduced with SU5, constant messing with LODs, face it MSFS2020 has been one giant Beta whilst Asobo find their feet trying to merge code for PC & Xbox which has proven to be very difficult and as a subsequence "we" have suffered in various ways.

I just hope "we" don't suffer with yo-yo performance issues after Sim Updates, that LODs remain balanced, that no graphical features get reduced with the next sim otherwise it'll all be for nothing.

As much as I can see why they've created the Sim for both PC and Xbox, I'd much prefer a separate code base for PC.

The beta for the latest sim update gave better performance than the released update because Asobo decided to remove a major tech that they had included in the beta. I forget the name of it. That tech made MSFS to not work on Xbox reliably but I had no problems with it in the beta on my PC. The very last beta and release did not give the improved fps that earlier betas did.

I'm getting 165 fps with LSFG, DLSS balanced, render preset high end. But monitor is 1440p, not 4K.

EDIT: I can't get anywhere near that performance in TAA (and it stutters at some airports with TAA).

Edited August 12, 20241 yr by Fielder

1 hour ago, tpete61 said:

"I would guess" Says it all about the nonsense of this post.

You expect the clickbait YouTube video adds any credence to your claim???

 

Your reply is pretty nonsensical.

Making the sim fit in to such a relatively low spec has got to have some knock-on effects. And I personally don't feel that what that translates to is excellent performance. But it does explain why it feels like the LODs have diminished, and there seems to be an awful lot of "things only popping up when I'm within a few hundred feet" going on of late.

But, we can debate/argue as much as we like about what may or may not be going on under the covers, bottom line is that MaSobo is going to do whatever they're going to do and we just have to live with it. If the Xbox market is necessary to keep the MSFS ball rolling along, so be it. If I'm worried about anything that might happen with 2024 it's the thin-client / more streaming aspect that concerns me. Here in the uk the servers seem to really struggle most weekends already.

16 minutes ago, andy1252 said:

Making the sim fit in to such a relatively low spec has got to have some knock-on effects. And I personally don't feel that what that translates to is excellent performance. But it does explain why it feels like the LODs have diminished, and there seems to be an awful lot of "things only popping up when I'm within a few hundred feet" going on of late.

But, we can debate/argue as much as we like about what may or may not be going on under the covers, bottom line is that MaSobo is going to do whatever they're going to do and we just have to live with it. If the Xbox market is necessary to keep the MSFS ball rolling along, so be it. If I'm worried about anything that might happen with 2024 it's the thin-client / more streaming aspect that concerns me. Here in the uk the servers seem to really struggle most weekends already.

Many ISPs have data caps, I am sure that will cause some MS2024 users  to have to pay an additional fee for unlimited data, if they are not already with MSFS 2020. 

Edited August 12, 20241 yr by Bobsk8

While Xbox is good for the PC as a revenue steam, imo it's not good for graphical quality.  I recall the early tech alpha of MSFS for PC - many things like LOD and cloud quality were far better they are now.  Thankfully one can still tweak this stuff and increase range via useropt cfg 

Basically they should drop support for the lower end Xbox to be honest...it's not powerful enough to run this sim

4 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Many ISPs have data caps, I am sure that will cause some MS2024 users  to have to pay an additional fee for unlimited data, if they are not already with MSFS 2020. 

Hi Bob, I'm on an unlimited gigabit full fibre connection, and it still struggles to stay smooth most weekends.

 

7 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

Basically they should drop support for the lower end Xbox to be honest...it's not powerful enough to run this sim

No idea what their sales figures are like for the two different boxes, but that would seem like a sensible approach unless the S series outsells the X version by something like 10-1, in which case I understand their approach. Don't like it, but understand it. I too miss the earlier (pre SU5 I seem to recall) iterations of MSFS, I have plenty of saved screenies from back then and they still seem more attractive than recent ones. Can't do precise comparisons as I went HDR post SU5, but certainly feels that way.

11 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Your reply is pretty nonsensical.

Unfortunately, @tpete61 has a habit of doing this. Here is @tpete61 in another thread, questioning why I asked for the source where Asobo claimed 60% of their employees got a pilot license during the development of MSFS and claiming it was a "discussion about rumors."  I had to point out to @tpete61 that somebody earlier in the thread actually pointed out the source where 60% of Asobo employees got a pilot license during the making of MSFS, and that it was from a Polygon article.  So it was based on an actual article source, and that somebody earlier in the thread had pointed this out, but that @tpete61 missed the earlier comment in the thread that pointed it out. By the time @tpete61 had entered that thread, it was clearly not a "discussion about rumors" anymore, with the actual source about the claim given.

@tpete61 then doubled down and claimed, the wiki page or the article  "doesn't reference any factual basis to make the claim that "AROUND" 60% of the team obtained a pilots license since working on the game."  It appeared that @tpete61 didn't bother to check the article at all, even though it was pointed out to him/her that the original source was from that article.

After @tpete61 doubled down, I had to point out the again where the source came from, that it came from a Polygon article where Polygon interviewed Jorg.

Edited August 13, 20241 yr by abrams_tank

13 hours ago, tpete61 said:

"I would guess" Says it all about the nonsense of this post.

You expect the clickbait YouTube video adds any credence to your claim???

 

You can just put me on your ignore list if you don't like what I write. This is not your first encounter with me where you start attacking me personally.  As I pointed out, you did the same thing in the thread where I was merely asking for the source where 60% of Asobo had obtained their pilot license while developing MSFS. According to you, I shouldn't even have asked that question because it had "no factual basis" and then you said "Why have a discussion about rumors????"

The irony is, it wasn't rumors, it was based on a Polygon article. And somebody else in the thread had pointed out it was a Polygon article before you even made your first comment in that thread. Had you read through the thread, you would have seen somebody answered my question and pointed out what the source was, and that it wasn't based on rumors at all.

So feel free to add me on your ignore list.

MSFS has been ruined thanks to Xbox. You can say what you want but it is wishful thinking.