I have been flying around with AI planes disabled because I thought that the hit on performance would be too much for my Jurassic PC. However, I was getting bored of the empty airports, so I activated the AI planes today and conducted a few test flights. To my surprise, the performance hit is nowhere near as much as I had expected. Whilst I have not hit the really big airports/locations yet (and I am expecting these to be a real challenge), I am still impressed with how my PC is handling it all. Bear in mind here that I am running the AI @ 100% (and I have a huge global database of AIG flightplans and models installed). I do not do half measures where AI planes are concerned. It is all or nothing for me.

The largest airport that I have tested so far is Aerosoft EBBR Brussels, and there were around 90 aircraft in the area at the time. Performance was very respectable for such a detailed airport. To my surprise, the number of AI planes in the area of EGBE Coventry (the highly detailed freeware version) was nearly 300, although I do not think that any of them were at Coventry itself. I assume that there were quite a few at the default EGBB Birmingham, but I do not know how many AI parking spots there are at that airport.

I will need to test all of my airports before coming to a final verdict, but so far the results are very encouraging.

Now to the negative comments. The AI system is definitely not as good (or convincing) as that in P3Dv4. I saw a landing plane at BIKF Keflavik "bounce" halfway through its rollout (presumably due to a change in elevation of the ground beneath it). I also watched an A350 on the taxiway at EBBR Brussels, and it seems that the AI planes deal with slopes by performing a number of "steps", rather than following the slope smoothly. This was not particularly bad, but I just thought that I would mention it. I also noticed that the take offs of the AI planes are not as realistic as those in P3D. The planes in P3D rotate on the runway, and then become airborne. However, the AI planes in MSFS seem to lift off the ground when still level with it, and then rotate up and away.

It would be nice to think that each of those issues could be addressed in MSFS 2024, but we will have to wait and see.

One more thing that I noticed. One of the airline call signs (Ryanair) was read out as the individual letters, rather than the airline name. However, it was then read back as "Ryanair" (I cannot remember which way around this was). For the record, it was Ryanair 9336 departing EGGD Bristol early morning on 10th April 2025 (just in case Kai can isolate the source of the problem)

Edited November 2, 20241 yr by Christopher Low

Ya all these issues you mentioned are the real pain points of msfs AI.. Which ATC are you using? I use Fshud and it does a really good job 90% of the time.. But the call signs are not pronounced correctly if they are 2 words... E.g. Southwest Airlines is called south...... West...... Airlines... It's on their road map to fix this..

 

The other AI issues you mentioned are more serious.. The fundamental AI engine in msfs is a huge downgrade from the near perfect AI we have had in past sims.. The flight model, their takeoff and landing physics etc.. Not good for AI plane spotters..  Also nav lights don't work at times during night flights.. At times they do.. Random issues like that..

Have you reduced the AI texture sizes to help with performance?

I wish they had given us an AI traffic roadmap in msfs 2024.. This is a big area of concern..

The fshud does a good job of controlling and spacing the AI.. If you use the native AI traffic engine, it behaves very chaotic and has too many shenanigans..

I cant downgrade from PSXT after getting used to actual IFR separation. I've always hoped that maybe MSFS2024 will fix the ai engine to include something something similar, but I'm thinking it'll be a refreshed but much flashier version of MSFS2020.

4 hours ago, cowpatz said:

Have you reduced the AI texture sizes to help with performance?

I have not done anything with the textures, and I am using the default AI traffic engine.

Edited November 3, 20241 yr by Christopher Low

I'll wait with buying MSFS2024 to see what AI planes will bring. If it's not better then the rubbish AI planes behavior in 2020 i'm not cashing out on 2024, not even for the cheapest version.

Wow, the AI system was really earning its money at Heathrow. I saw planes departing on 09L/09R/27L, and landing on 27L/27R On a side note, I hate not being able to see the wheels on the AI planes until they are really close

P3D is laughing at MSFS in this department.

On 11/3/2024 at 12:29 PM, Christopher Low said:

On a side note, I hate not being able to see the wheels on the AI planes until they are really close

And it could get even worse in MS2024, affecting other airport/scenery elements - lots of apprehension on the dev support forum regarding the new, much stricter LOD requirements of the new sim. 

Edited November 8, 20241 yr by irocx

On 11/3/2024 at 12:56 PM, Lange_666 said:

I'll wait with buying MSFS2024 to see what AI planes will bring. If it's not better then the rubbish AI planes behavior in 2020 i'm not cashing out on 2024, not even for the cheapest version.

That's just silly IMO, there's a lot more to the sim than AI aircraft.

Yep but nothing that I can't already do in 2020.
Seriously, I have enough of the AI planes landing while you get clearance for take-off, run through you on run- and taxiways, disappear or pop-up all of a sudden, not exiting the runway and just keep taxiing forever through city's etc, etc... the list is very long.
I'm 100% sure that if Asobo would implement a crash on collisions with AI aircraft, the forum would be filled with complaints. Now all that matters in 2020 is eye-candy but there is a lot more to flightsimming than just nice scenery.
Even 3rd party add-ons can't make it work decently which means that there is something fundamentally wrong with the AI implementation in the first place.
If they can't make that work decently in 2024 then I'm not really interested.
 

6 hours ago, irocx said:

And it could get even worse in MS2024, affecting other airport/scenery elements - lots of apprehension on the dev support forum regarding the new, much stricter LOD requirements of the new sim. 

I've been following that support forum closely, seems they're onto some LOD issues but after all this time it's concerning that they still don't seem capable of structuring LODs correctly. This has been going on years now, fingers crossed they eventually get it right across the board with this area but my hopes are not high.

6 hours ago, irocx said:

And it could get even worse in MS2024, affecting other airport/scenery elements - lots of apprehension on the dev support forum regarding the new, much stricter LOD requirements of the new sim. 

Sounds about right for Asobo. 

Edited November 8, 20241 yr by UAL4life

On 11/2/2024 at 8:30 PM, Christopher Low said:

Now to the negative comments. The AI system is definitely not as good (or convincing) as that in P3Dv4. [...]

I've been using AIFlow (and AiGround) with really really nice results that improves a lot of areas for the AI in the sim. https://flightsim.to/file/42731/aiflow

There's no configuration necessary, except I would increase the takeoff target time to 35s.

It's as simple as opening the configurator, setting the takeoff target, go to the last page, apply the settings then launch AIFlow and AIGround, you can close the configurator. There's nothing else you need to do, both programs will handle the rest.

Let me know if that improves the AI a bit.