You all probably know me better for being critic about pretty much every flight simulation platform I use, since FS4 🙂 so, don't expect anything changed on that front...

FS 2020 had been long (months) uninstalled from my rig, and I've been busy using Condorsoaring v2 and now v3... so the day FS 2024 was released I started trying to install it ... Took 3 days before I was finally able to start a session. In the meanwhile I kept polling the AVSIM forum, and youtube, for all references from other users which had already been able to test specific aircraft and features of this new sim, and prepared myself to adopt a rather open-minded approach to it.

The last 3 days allowed me to finally enjoy the best aspects of FS 2024, which at least for my eyes make it - for sure - a step fwd in the right direction from FS 2020. These include:

++ Even if some airports like LPPT (Lisbon Humberto Delgado) look weird at some spots, I'd say even more inconsistent with their real counterparts than in FS 2020, have got a nice retouch, in detail and quality of depiction. For instance my RL "FBO" - LPMN - and everything around it, look simply AMAZING !!! It's jaw-dropping to make a free flight departing from LPMN, and realize how even better than in FS2020 this simulator can actually contribute in a unique way for RL familiarization with area pilots fly or plan to fly over.  I honestly couldn't think, just 5 yrs ago, that such a level of realism, while at the same time having it running so extraordinarily smooth as silk as it runs, would be achievable already by this date, but it's here to stay !!! 

++ Weather depiction is another area where I can recognize progress. Not only high alt clouds, but also the way the various cloud formations are depicted is better than in FS 2020 ! I haven't had much chance to test the weather effects, including thermals, but I plan to. I really hope that one day (maybe now already?) thermals have a structure more consistent with RW thermals, and instead of being able to better profit from them flying straight ahead we can gain from using actual thermaling techniques, like circling to stay inside 🙂 ...

++ Flight Planner and the new EFB. These are still to be explored, although I already opened the Web Flight Planner and the EFB a few times and noticed they will surely be nice to use.

++ Performance: I have the exact same rig I built in 2021 for FS 2020, and FS 2024 runs smooth as silk in it, and I can surely push the graphics settings even more "to the right"... Streaming doesn't looks like having any negative impact at all, although I'll have to evaluate the amount of monthly traffic and see if it can get to levels which might cause any problems with my Internet Provider. I have a 200/20 Mbps link. So far no problems... 

On the not so positive side, I'd list:

-- The fact that while today when I was for the first time able to try 3 of the helicopters that come with the Standard Edition, I was able to recognize that they're a step fwd from my previous experience with helicopters in FS 2020, other aircraft lack some aerodynamic effects that I would expect them to exhibit. 

-- For instance the powerful Red Bull props, or even the P51D and the T-6, show practically no prop effects, torque, slipstream being the most noticeably lacking ones 😕

-- Today I picked the Canadair, took off from LPMN ( STOL procedure ) and after levelling I killed the left engine, whose prop didn't feather, but I didn't find any noticeable impact on directional stability (???) - I switched to outside view and tried to find a deflected rudder, maybe automatically placed in that position to overcome as much as possible the asymmetric thrust situation, even more being a critical engine failure, but found nothing... The rudder was standing still at it's neutral position/deflection 😕

-- The LS8 glider didn't change much from what I recall from FS 2020 too 😕

- I am still trying to find my way across the controller settings with the new design introduced by ASOBO.

While I can accept and even applaud the "Categories" approach, classifying aircraft among Airplanes, Gliders, Helicopters and Lighter than Air (well, all but the lighter than air are actually Airplanes too...), and the division of control classes into General, Airplane and Specific, it becomes a bit cumbersome when we start to deal with different subclasses every time we change aircraft. I know there are ways to bind assignments to ALL aircraft, and make them default, but I still struggle to get it the right way whenever I pick a new aircraft to fly 😕

- Loading an aircraft with Pax / Cargo / Fuel while trying to make a test flight in the new A321, was also a mess 😞

I started with the Online Flight Planner, then tried to use the EFB inside the sim, but it wasn't easy to get it right, not to mention the units of measure that I try to set in some way in the EFB defaults but then turn to other units at specific aircraft when trying to load them ....

I'll keep trying and looking for good tutorials / videos...

I have to get my hands on the airliners now 🙂

Edited November 24, 20241 yr by jcomm

Thanks for your impressions!

Would be interested in your opinion about the thermals tutorial in which you are told to circle. I think it worked good for me. But in free flight I find it a bit difficult to set weather conditions with such good thermals as in the tutorial.

1 minute ago, MarioDonick said:

Thanks for your impressions!

Would be interested in your opinion about the thermals tutorial in which you are told to circle. I think it worked good for me. But in free flight I find it a bit difficult to set weather conditions with such good thermals as in the tutorial.

Mario, do you mean the tutorial in FS 2024? I wasn't aware there was one  🙂  but I will check it and report back.

OFC I do not expect a general purpose flightsim like FS 2024 or X-plane 12 or Aerofly FS4, to implement soaring flight and weather physics as detailed as in Condorsoaring, but even from a didactic POV I look after consistency with RL.

In FS 2020 I couldn't find it in any way other than in some simplistic forms of ridge lift, so, I really want to find out if it got better in FS 2024 !

 

Just now, jcomm said:

Mario, do you mean the tutorial in FS 2024? I wasn't aware there was one  🙂  but I will check it and report back.

Yes, that one. Under Activities.

Thanks!

And it's somehow good to read you.

++ Performance: I have the exact same rig I built in 2021 for FS 2020, and FS 2024 runs smooth as silk in it, and I can surely push the graphics settings even more "to the right"..

Well my rig (see below , only now a 14900K) struggles...
Every change of movement results in 10 FPS

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/frames-not-stable-in-msfs2024-with-change-of-view/672802

2 minutes ago, altenae said:

++ Performance: I have the exact same rig I built in 2021 for FS 2020, and FS 2024 runs smooth as silk in it, and I can surely push the graphics settings even more "to the right"..

Well my rig (see below , only now a 14900K) struggles...
Every change of movement results in 10 FPS

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/frames-not-stable-in-msfs2024-with-change-of-view/672802

😞sorry to learn that ... Hope you can sort out what's causing it, and/or further updates can bring it to ac acceptable level !!!

I have not yet purchased msfs 2024 mostly because I like to wait until the dust settles on any new product. However, what is apparent to me is the fact that actual download speed is never mentioned during these conversations. My experience with internet speed is that when I do  a speed test I get one number. Yet when I am downloading something, my actual download speed is always lower. It's rare the time that I see both speeds being the same.

My point in all of this is that perhaps MS misjudged greatly how individual internet speed determines how msfs 2024 performs.  I understand that there's a cache to mitigate this, but a flight sim is not Netflix.

I hope this does not turn into what some old timers may still remember, MS Flight, which failed on terribly and forced MS to abandon its flight sim.