Outside of the abysmal login queue and other things, here’s my take on the actual in game experience.

 

here are my PC specs…

9750x3d

32 GB of RAM

Msfs 2024 is on a m.2 drive.

300 Mbps internet speed into my home.

running a RTX 4080 at 4k.

 

The game runs well on my PC in most cases but it is harder on my PC as a whole. In almost all situations and especially with the airliners and at bigger airports, I was going over my 32GB of system RAM. Gonna have to upgrade that. Outside of that, the game runs smoothly for the most part. In the MAX at ORD, I couldn’t get more than 45-50 fps even with frame generation on. That was a surprise. 

 

I flew a lot of the planes and the helicopters (with the default helo assists on) and I did this in the USA around the NorCal Bay Area, Chicago area and Houston area.

The default planes I flew feel much better than I expected. I flew the 930 a ton in 2020 and the plane in 2024 feels much better. It has some weight to it and feels like an actual plane. I found that the elevator trim in a lot of the planes feels more realistic too. In 2020, it felt like the trim would stick and then zoom in the direction of my inputs on my HOTAS. This time around, it’s fluid and behaves what I would expect it to in an airplane. ground physics are done very well! I really appreciate that aspect of the sim. 
 

when the game streams the environment, it looks good. Nothing mind blowing. The rocks and stuff do add a very nice element of finishing to the experience. The atmosphere lighting looks really good. I was flying at the time of the day when the sun sets below the horizon. It was really convincing and beautiful. Ground terrain haven’t changed from 2020 which is trash in my opinion. I thought it would look better but who knows if that was a real expectation or an word not allowed one. But either way, I was expecting more. 
 I saw some different colored trees and some bare ones. That was really cool to see. This was down in Texas. The variety of trees makes a massive difference too.

 

career mode was fun. I jumped right into the PPL checkride. I got done with it m, got a a grade of A+ and then the game never even realized I did it. I’m kind of ticked about that because I flew the hell out of that traffic pattern! I’ll have to redo it to see if it sticks this time. 
 

online functionality……total trash. Not going to explain it as most people know the issues.

as of this morning 6:30 central time in the USA. GMT-6, I’ve had no issues getting right into the simulator.

Edited November 20, 20241 yr by ahsmatt7

How the heck you got your input devices properly configured? I already fail with this simple task because the GUI is made for lunatics, totally incomprehensible and messy, overly complicated submenues all over. 

2 minutes ago, AnkH said:

How the heck you got your input devices properly configured? I already fail with this simple task because the GUI is made for lunatics, totally incomprehensible and messy, overly complicated submenues all over. 

word not allowed, and I thought that the GUI in FS2020 was a convoluted mess.....

7 minutes ago, AnkH said:

How the heck you got your input devices properly configured? I already fail with this simple task because the GUI is made for lunatics, totally incomprehensible and messy, overly complicated submenues all over. 

Beer. lol and lots of it.

+1000, Chris.
First time in my whole life that I hate a flight simulator because of the dreadful GUI.
I very honestly think I'm gonna stop trying to understand the "logics" behind this piece of s... and stay with MSFS 2020.
Flying 90% of the time liners, I don't care the flowers and the bees on the hills.
☹️

12 minutes ago, AnkH said:

How the heck you got your input devices properly configured? I already fail with this simple task because the GUI is made for lunatics, totally incomprehensible and messy, overly complicated submenues all over. 

Yeah, they still can't seen to hire competent UI / UX developers. Always the same clunky, ugly mess that is so unintuitive . 

3 minutes ago, David Roch said:

+1000, Chris.
First time in my whole life that I hate a flight simulator because of the dreadful GUI.
I very honestly think I'm gonna stop trying to understand the "logics" behind this piece of s... and stay with MSFS 2020.
Flying 90% of the time liners, I don't care the flowers and the bees on the hills.
☹️

Exactly my point too. This GUI is a huge struggle to use. 

Also managing two community folders with add-ons wich are officially compatible, officially not compatible or somehow compatible on a trial and error bases. 

I think I leave 2024 as it is for months....and after most stuff is updated I retry. But maintaining two Sims parallel.....no...I see a lot of update and trials....which keep me of from just flying the sim. 

And 2020 is so stable and also beautiful for airliners flights. 

6 minutes ago, mpo910 said:

Exactly my point too. This GUI is a huge struggle to use. 

Also managing two community folders with add-ons wich are officially compatible, officially not compatible or somehow compatible on a trial and error bases. 

I think I leave 2024 as it is for months....and after most stuff is updated I retry. But maintaining two Sims parallel.....no...I see a lot of update and trials....which keep me of from just flying the sim. 

And 2020 is so stable and also beautiful for airliners flights. 

AB-SO-LU-TE-LY! 

That.
And very honestly, there is no drastic evolution between the 2 simulators, just some cosmetic improvements here and there.
Nothing that justifies tearing your hair out to set up basic functions and configure devices, especially when our efforts are punctuated by alerts concerning bandwidth and CTDs.

Long live MSFS 2020 !!!! 😄

BTW, our apology to Matt, the OP, who was so glad sharing his enthusiasm !!
(I will open another thread, sorry Matt!)

Edited November 20, 20241 yr by David Roch

The fact that Aboso doesn't have some way or tool to transfer all the controller settings into 2024 is an abysmal F*****up if you ask me. I am glad I didn't purchase 2024 and decided to stick with 2020. 

Edited November 20, 20241 yr by CarlosF

41 minutes ago, David Roch said:

BTW, our apology to Matt, the OP, who was so glad sharing his enthusiasm !!
(I will open another thread, sorry Matt!)

lol it’s all good. I could spend days writing all the bad stuff I don’t like about the sim. I figured I would keep the thread based on the nuts and bolts of the literal flying experience.

I agree with you on all your points though.

I purchased and installed this morning at 6:30 EST.  Installed and loaded in less than 10 minutes.  My first impressions are similar to OP.  I only flew the C-172 but it felt nice and the atmosphere looked better than 2020.  Trees also look nice.  I spent time trying to delete a bunch of default control buttons/bindings and setting up custom views. It's going to take a bit of work to get controllers set up how I have them in 2020.  

Edited November 20, 20241 yr by Flic1

Anyone else getting solid walls, that look like road cliffs, under road bridges and overpasses?

 

Looks terrible and I thought they fixed this