That headline is utter nonsense Tom's Hardware used to be better than writing, designed to elicit reactions like this. If you have gigabit internet and download a 500MB file, would you rather the server serving you that file maximize your bandwidth to send it faster, or throttle at something lower?

If you've got 180Mbps to spare, then the servers will saturate that to send data when needed.  It's not literally using 180Mbps the entire time, nor is it saying "hey, this guy has fiber? Well let's come up with a bunch of additional stuff to send them!".  You can see the network utilization in that video drop to as low as 10-12Mbps at times.

I don't understand why people are fretting about this stuff!

One YouTuber and we have panic! This is a tech alpha release. Not the finished product.

I have no worries until I see what is released in November.

I rather just take into account what Microsoft has published as the idea spec 100mb. So I'm not going to run off and replace my current internet service for fiber-optic just because some guys said you need more, it is just BS.

100mb should be enough, I'm sure down the road the sim will get optimized even more and might end up requiring even less bandwidth,

I do feel for those who do have a data cap, that sucks bigtime.

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by CarlosF

I have 250 Mbps fiber right now but I will be getting 500 Mbps next week to be sure, it will only cost me $5 extra per month so it is no big deal, I like headroom 😎

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by Ixoye

This is highly misleading for the reasons mentioned by @Scottoest, but also because the article makes absolutely no mention of the caching and predownloading system, which will drastically reduce downloads. Of course, the writer would know about it if they bothered doing some research instead of just parroting a YouTuber. 

Funnily, other websites are now copying this article and taking it as gold, making exactly the same mistakes. 

Unfortunately, it's a widespread trend among gaming/tech journalists nowadays to just browse YouTube or Reddit, and parrot any content that feels engaging without an ounce of original research. And then other journalists parrot the first article without doing an ounce of original research, spreading the misinformation further. It's infuriating. 

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by Abriael

I flew over Philadelphia and it was totally smooth absolutely no stutters that I get in 2020 with my 4080. And my internet speed isn't great. 

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by Todd2

This is non sense. They are using the peak download speed and extrapolating to the per hour rate. I've tested the sim for this whole weekend, loading 10s of PG cities and didn't use the caching space (I think it was 16GB).

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by ca_metal

15 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

This is non sense. They are using the peak download speed and extrapolating to the per hour rate.

This. The 81 GB per hour number is pure clickbait. Consider that a 4k video stream uses around 3 GB per hour. Streaming scenery should use significantly less bandwidth as you're re-using much of that data for many, many frames.

As others have said, Tom's used to be above this style of "journalism".

Even if this is overstated, I still worry about 2024 being more intensive on downloads. Like many here in the US, I'm an Xfinity user (who doesn't really have any other choice for broadband) with a data cap, so I'm a little worried about the added traffic 2024 would cause. 

FYI: This is how Tom's Hardware has been for some time...

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/9ba5sm/rip_toms_hardware/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/9b8o7a/toms_hardware_is_censoring_and_banning_editors/

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.tomshardware.com

15 minutes ago, bahnzo said:

Even if this is overstated, I still worry about 2024 being more intensive on downloads. Like many here in the US, I'm an Xfinity user (who doesn't really have any other choice for broadband) with a data cap, so I'm a little worried about the added traffic 2024 would cause. 

It won't be more intensive on downloads, if anything it will be less. Because it only downloads what you need to use, after it downloads it gets cached, meaning if you need to use it again, you won't have to download it again. If you need to cache as much as possible, just set a larger cache space and you will be good. If you are really limited by your provider, you can always turn off some features like Photogrammetry (this is by far the feature that consumes data the most), or satellite imagery. But again, the article is misleading, don't worry that much. 

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by ca_metal

Turning off satellite imagery would defeat the entire purpose of the simulator.

56 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Turning off satellite imagery would defeat the entire purpose of the simulator.

It would, but what else someone with prohibitive caps can do? I said it as a last resort. I pointed out he can do other things first like using the caches (larger caches, so to avoid downloading the same scenery multiple times). It's no different for any other simulator, you can use the caches if you have lots of storage space. 

I don't have a cap, so I won't use the caches so much.

P.S.: That's not really the sim's design fault, it's an issue of bad providers capping their costumers. I don't "cache" anything anymore. Everything I watch (movies, series, news etc) or listen (music, podcasts etc) are streamed. I have 2 phones, 4 TVs, 3 computers, 2 alexas etc connected to my internet. It's weird to know some people are capped that hard by their providers. 

Edited October 15, 20241 yr by ca_metal

Obviously, it will be scenario dependent, but I was wondering how the install size could be so small.  Most world updates are pushing 10-20GBs.  Now we have to stream all that plus all the photogammetry.  I think if there is an option. I'll download it for the areas I fly in the most.  The real excellence of 2024 is the terrain and vegetation. Some of the shots I have seen of the Alps, Dolomiti and Northern Rockies are incredible. It also looks like they fixed water and trees going over photogrammetry bridges.  That makes me very happy. 

I unfortunately as an American have a data limit of 1.2TBs/month.  There is an unlimited plan but it's $199/mo.  Might need to hold on to FS2020 for a while til we know what's what.  I have hit the limit several months in a row.  My kids moved back in with me as adults and now the internet is getting used like crazy.  I might make them fund my addiction.

6 minutes ago, aniiran said:

My kids moved back in with me as adults and now the internet is getting used like crazy.  I might make them fund my addiction.

As grown-ups they absolutely should be paying their own way living at your home. I did this when I moved back home for 7 months in my mid-20s after returning from abroad.

It's good learning for them and it offsets the extra costs you incur.

Anyway, data caps are ridiculous in this day and age. I feel for anyone who has to deal with bad ISP policies.