47 minutes ago, Artichoke said:

Although it's a stripped-down version, my first impressions are quite positive! There are multiple improvements even in this version:

1) The lighting is much better, both outside and inside the cockpit. The interior shadows are fantastic. Also, the clouds are fixed, but still far from recreating the diverse clouds of reality. One day, it may be possible!

2) The new ground detail is also much better, especially now that it changes based on the season. I did notice, however, that setting winter time would leave almost all of the trees a desaturated green. Perhaps it is overestimating how many evergreens are in my area.

3) The handling on the ground and in the air is great. I have many hours in different C172s and it feels quite good. As many have discussed before, there was a general lack of inertia, but far less of a problem now. When going fast in a C172, the controls are actually quite heavy since you're fighting the wind. Also similar to real life, when it's not very windy, you can more or less "let go" and the plane will generally follow where you put it, as long as you trimmed correctly. I have often had a problem in MS sims where the plane will continuously drift because of how precise a trim setting you need, whereas IRL it's more forgiving. I am flying the C172 without autopilot as I write this reply and have had no need to babysit the controls.

4) Performance is very smooth. There are no stutters at all (with dynamic settings on) and my previous performance issues and artifacts when using DLSS and FG have been fixed. I can't even use DX12 on MSFS2020 without serious problems, so I'm very glad about this.

My hope right now is that the final release will have more of the ground filled in with AI to mask low-res imagery.

Yes, I agree with all of that. Also the AI for which cars are traveling on which roads and highways is more advanced (looks more sensible and natural).

Flying low and slow (a good place is in the USA because of the highway infrastructure, which is extensive). In 2020 sometimes major highways had little automobile traffic and small residential cul de sacs had a constant parade of semi trucks going in and out of the little circle of residential houses. Not in 2024. It isn't perfect but much more real.

Scenery popping. Small features popping in and out of view is almost non existent in 2024. However, the scenery is downloaded from the cloud and so if you fly down low in a straight line (such as along an interstate highway in the USA), you will find the entire scenery in front of you suddenly snaps into being more dense. This is because you have crossed a scenery tile and the cloud loads another down to you locally. But it is fast (1/4 of a second). This might sound bad but it is far better than in 2020 where little details popped in and out all the time.  The whole effect of smoothness and lack of stutters and lack of tiny scenery pops in 2024 is an order of magnitude better than 2020. The slight pop/jitter when crossing a "tile" is nothing compared to the new overall smoothness and greater resolution of the scenery in 2024.

Be sure to reset the time to May or June to see the nice spring scenery. Everything looks better in the springtime!

 

I also believe that you will not need a new and better computer for 2024. If anything performance is better than 2020. I have render pereset at ultra everything and DLSS at quality, so both LODs at 200. My rig is not the best, but no stutters or shimmering buildings anywhere. Even in outside view when you spin the view around in a circle.

2 hours ago, Rimshot said:

Some of you may remember I occasionally complained about the QNH only being given in Hg, instead of Millibar where appropriate in MSFS2020. Well, that is fixed now! 🥳 The pronunciation is wrong, as ATC calls 1013 as 'one-thousand-thirteen' instead of 'one-zero-one-three', but we're getting there.

Just now I departed from Darrington (1S2). After climbing out ATC started rambling something about flight following and QNH 'one-thousand-thirteen'. What?? I'm in the *** US! (Units of measurements set to 'US System'). Sigh... The other way around now, lol.

Also, runway 'twenty eight' doesn't sound right to put it mildly. I know, I know. Tech Alpha and all...

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by Rimshot

I have noticed that I get random pauses of up to 5-10 seconds sometimes. I attributed this to files downloading which is crazy since I am on a 1gig fiber optic line. It's happened during the mission brief, just after take off. Can't say its happened during a landing yet. Anyone else get these?

they've added procedural cliffs to the side of, well cliffs. I guess to mask sat imagery stretching

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

mountain detail on the rocks

 

98% GPU load (RTX 4090 🤣 ) and fully exhausted CPU. talk about GPU/CPU limited. 

 

JFK at night

 

mountain flying

 

pebbles, yeah! to place them all meticulously took 500 developers 4 years!

 

Foreflight-like EFB

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guaranteed way to crash MSFS 2024 every time: select custom departure and arrival spots in New York. pc even shut off completely by itself, never seen that before.

just as well, time for a break - I hadn't had anything to eat for the last 10 hours.😆

 

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by turbomax

I contacted Zendesk with a 2024 bug report: Inside the JFK dining area, there was a fly in my soup.

Zendesk: "Don't worry, it won't eat much".

33 minutes ago, Fielder said:

I also believe that you will not need a new and better computer for 2024. If anything performance is better than 2020. I have render pereset at ultra everything and DLSS at quality, so both LODs at 200. My rig is not the best, but no stutters or shimmering buildings anywhere. Even in outside view when you spin the view around in a circle.

Not my case, with a rtx2070 super performance is abysmal, while I can get a very fluid experience in MSFS2020 (comparing with the default F-18 in both sims). I guess I will have to buy a new GPU if this is representative of the final version. 

From the screenshots/videos I've seen of the new lighting changes, it seems to suggest there'll be no need for Rex Atmos. Those that have that tool for the current Sim and are flying in this alpha, what are you thoughts on this? 

 

(Bearing in mind it may be different in the release day version of course)

What a night and day difference of loading times.   They are quite impressive. No time to make a coffee and sandwich now.   
 

aside from a number of forgivable crashes of instability given its a tech alpha, it’s a rather interesting positive experience to see all the changes. 
As so many have mentioned, the flight model feels so much more plausible. Especially takeoff and landings with a crosswind. Get ready to add more input to your controls.

Love the new lighting engine overall. Night lighting still needs some work but still better.

Performance wise, the computer has become one big heater.   No need for extra heating this winter.   That said, the sim deemed I could run everything on Ultra and indeed it does, and does well …over 100FPS but the system sounds like a jet engine.  Turn some unnecessary things down a notch, 1/2 refresh and in sim fps limit to 50 (Amd with gsync compatible monitor but with min 48hz) and have a solid 50fps even in heavy scenery. 
 

Haven’t done much career flights yet, but the first one, they are confusing left and right hand patterns.  Reversed. 
Other quirky stuff but I’m sure they have been noted and will be fixed for an RC.   
 

looking forward to Nov 19th, but I’m pretty sure I will hang on to 2020 for a bit until things become more stable after release. I expect it will go a lot quicker. 
 

 

I've finally managed to install FS2024. Automatically it set me to High, and looks like MSFS chose well. However, there are some things I didn't like:

1. Setting up controllers is a complete nightmare, specially when dealing with an 8-way hat switch. I can no longer pick up an input as in 2020. Also, these assingments must be done without loading a flight. If not, they will be ignored. This looks like an Alpha bug. I guess this will be fixed before release.

2. Ground texture quality is as bad as in FS2020, at least in Córdoba. At least it's more up to date.

3. Anything else is still the same (DLSS blurries, jetways with missing sections, flight loading anywhere but the runway I requested, view banks while turning). I had to revert to TAA.

4. Animations while loading: cool, but do I have to watch them every single time?

5. Looks like I'll still need FSUIPC for an actual pause: I paused the sim while I did some chores, and found my plane crashing.

 

BUT there are some things I liked:

1. I've definitely noticed an improvement in loading times, even considering all the 3D nonsense displayed during boot. I'm not sure if that improvement is due to the empty Community folder or an actual FS24 merit.

2. I definitely notice a performance improvement: default KJFK, taking off from 31L), with 50% road traffic and online AI traffic, and FPS locked with RTSS at 29. Some little stutters during the takeoff roll. During approach I noticed them when entering ground effect, and then at touchdown. I'm not sure if this is because my KJFK was downgraded to default (instead of handmade), or because of the sim itself.

3. Seasons: looks like tree leaves do respond to seasons, at last!

4. Definitely trim felt better. I was fearing trim didn't work, but looks like only the animation is broken. I tried to know if there was any assist enabled, but I'm sure I disabled them all.

5. More detail with PG. Too bad the buildings still look like melted down.

6. Ground detail: during the crash, I could se the ground in detail.

Edited October 12, 20241 yr by Luis Hernandez

4 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

Seasons: looks like tree leaves do respond to seasons..

the ground textures also change.

If you make an error assigning a command to a controller, then 2024 will popup a tiny notice near the bottom that reads "Conflict".

When I tried to assign rudder axis to the pedals, I accidentally also pushed the left toe brake as well as the rudder pedal. It popped up a tiny notice at the bottom of the screen that said Conflict and Resolve or something like that. Before I did the resolve the rudder pedals would do nothing in the sim.

Check for the word "Conflict" if a controller is not working.

Also, I had to recalibrate my Warthog throttle in Windows Control Panel in order for the 2024 sim to see all  the axis. This may be because I also installed Windows 11 24H2 the day before. Either the new Windows 11 or the new 2024 flightsim had messed up my Windows throttle calibrations to the point that I could not assign anything to the axis.

overall, the scenery is better in most places in 2024. Last night, other people reported in this thread of Los Angeles and Lake Tahoe city had lost the improvements Asobo had done in 2020 version. But I'm finding that most city textures are better in 2024 version, a lot.