6 hours ago, Noel said:

That's what the Esc key does.

Also, if you want to go into a low power state because you will be away from the flight for a prolonged period you can hit Esc then Load/Save I think it is.  Then, select Save to this PC, or something like that.  DO NOT actually save it!  Return in hours and just hit Cancel, and very quickly you will be able to resume the flight.  Let's your machine cool down a bit.

The Esc key doesn't stop time in my experience - it still ticks over while in the pseudo-pause state.

Yes, I am pretty sure that I noticed that time had passed after using the ESCAPE key to pause for an extended period. That makes even less sense than an "active pause" key.

I have left it on escape for 4 hours and come back exactly at where I left it.

Never had a problem. Everything the same. No changes.

 

I believe MSFS2024 has a "pause dinner" option for the serious simmers. 😁

Flying longhauls in the PMDG BBJ, I've simply given up even paying attention to time. Since I'll never be sure if I'll be available at TOD, that's right, might just be finishing my dinner, I use the pause at TOD feature and it does at least stop the fuel burn, unfortunately not the time though. So at least I can see if my fuel planning worked out. Of course one can also simply re-adjust the time if one wants, assuming one hasn't resumed a saved flight. The only "normal" pause that works for me is going into developer mode and pausing from there. Hope 2024 sorts this all out. So in a nutshell, hit escape, select developer mode from the options, and then just pause from there and everything, including time will stand still.

4 hours ago, DavidP said:

The Esc key doesn't stop time in my experience - it still ticks over while in the pseudo-pause state.

Nothing pseudo here.  I can leave the sim on an early dawn flight, come back 3h later, and it's still early dawn.  To validate this recall out I just now hit the escape key after TO from KTEX and the clock on the Longitude said 13:22:22.  I kept it paused for 15 secs hit Esc key to un-pause and same time appears:  13:22:22.

1 hour ago, Noel said:

Nothing pseudo here.  I can leave the sim on an early dawn flight, come back 3h later, and it's still early dawn.  To validate this recall out I just now hit the escape key after TO from KTEX and the clock on the Longitude said 13:22:22.  I kept it paused for 15 secs hit Esc key to un-pause and same time appears:  13:22:22.

Not for me. If I hit the Esc key everything pauses except time.  If it's 5pm, I Esc-Pause and I come back 3 hours later, it will be 8pm in the sim and the sun has gone down.

Now, I do use Live Weather, so that may have something to do with it (as the weather, in order to still be "live" at the unpause point has to remain at current world time).  I have gotten used to this.  If I know that I have to leave the sim for a while I simply note the sim clock time.  When I unpause, I quickly reset the clock time to that same point as I continue my flight.

3 hours ago, RandallR said:

Not for me. If I hit the Esc key everything pauses except time.  If it's 5pm, I Esc-Pause and I come back 3 hours later, it will be 8pm in the sim and the sun has gone down.

Weird, I wonder why the difference.  The Esc key press stops sim-time, and that's all that matters when you want to pause for say 2h and return to the exact time, I do it regularly.  I literally can have an early dawn flight with sun just coming up, pause for 2h, resume and that's where it's at, same place, sun just coming up.  But that is using my Esc then Load/Save > SAVE TO THIS PC which opens up the Save As dialogue and I leave it there w/o actually saving.  This lets the CPU chill and upon returning I just hit the cancel button at which point you can hit RESUME in sim.  You can see in this video with just a simple Esc key press only how pausing makes sim clock pause until resumed:

 

Edited September 3, 20241 yr by Noel

Unless it was changed in a recent SU, ESC never paused time. I’ll have to check that again. However, the other two drawbacks to ESC were…

• GPU stays very active
• Fuel consumption doesn’t stop. It only dramatically slows it (I did a test years ago and posted the results.)

As a result, I got into the habit of forcing a full pause by…

• hitting ESC
• save flight to PC
• leave the save window open. Cancel to return to the flight.

Other than a developer pause, this is the only way I know to fully stop time, fuel and gpu drain. 
 

1 minute ago, Danno said:

Unless it was changed in a recent SU, ESC never paused time. I’ll have to check that again. However, the other two drawbacks to ESC were…

• GPU stays very active
• Fuel consumption doesn’t stop. It only dramatically slows it (I did a test years ago and posted the results.)

As a result, I got into the habit of forcing a full pause by…

• hitting ESC
• save flight to PC
• leave the save window open. Cancel to return to the flight.

Other than a developer pause, this is the only way I know to fully stop time, fuel and gpu drain. 
 

Woah, what a strange report.  Did you see the video I posted that proves sim times stops?  Also, for any prolonged pauses follow what I said and GPU goes to ZERO and CPU to idle.  Read the note:  https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/648185-pausing-the-sim/?do=findComment&comment=5148966

 

 

Active pause is one of the most useful. For instance, hit the active pause button to jump out of the plane and into the drone. The plane stays suspended in the air and in time, as you fly around in the drone. You can also use active pause to adjust all the knobs on the dash and check the parking brake status, move the trim, etc. Using the ESC key would lock all those functions.

To park the drone back to where it began just hit the drone flight reset command key which is called: Reset Drone Target Offset. It works exactly like the Reset External View and the Reset Cockpit View commands. All 3 of these reset commands should be assigned by the user to the same button. That way in drone view, external view, and cockpit view, the reset button to push is the same one, and easy to remember.

50 minutes ago, Noel said:

Did you see the video I posted that proves sim times stops?  Also, for any prolonged pauses follow what I said and GPU goes to ZERO and CPU to idle.  Read the note:  https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/648185-pausing-the-sim/?do=findComment&comment=5148966

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Noel said:

But that is using my Esc then Load/Save > SAVE TO THIS PC which opens up the Save As dialogue and I leave it there w/o actually saving.

Never knew about this. And I always thought Esc stopped sim time…

2 hours ago, Noel said:

Did you see the video I posted that proves sim times stops?

No but I believe you. I’m just saying it wasn’t always like that. The first time I noticed was when MSFS was only a few months old. I paused it to have dinner… came back to unpause it and noticed the sun was going down. Someone on the official forum said it was due to using live traffic (whatever that meant). 

 

Just gave this another whirl. As has been described, Esc, then space bar (load/save), and then click on save to this pc, and then just leave it like that. It is indeed a decent way to pause the sim and it does actually work. Afterwards just cancel and resume, no need to actually save. But only hitting Esc doesn't pause the sim time at my end. The sun will set on you while you're suspended in mid flight. Anyway, today I've been both vacuuming the house and flying from Doha to Dublin, so I've had a bit of time to mess around with these things.

On a side note, I think active pause is a pretty cool idea actually. Just wish there were a very simple normal pause on top of that as well for pause at TOD purposes. After seeing the dev mode method work, then seeing the method described above work, and also seeing just only hitting Esc work for some, I don't buy that it was impossible to create a regular pause function in the sim because of active weather or live traffic. Previous sims had all that stuff too. Also I can't digest that notion that one should just use time compression. I want a pause function. Basically I want a good old sim from the early 2010's with the graphics of the late 2020's. Thanks. Your wish has been noted. Next please!

Edited September 4, 20241 yr by Antipodeslonghaul