30 minutes ago, flightsim1818 said:

I am sure the MSFS2024 has major potential but they HAVE to fix the bugs before they rush it through the doors. The bigger it gets, the harder it will be to address the bugs before release. At least with their current test plans and staffing.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your points, though I think this is steering from the original point I initially replied to you with.

25 minutes ago, SierraHotel BSc said:

There is only one reason 22 Petabytes, which (at my current internet speed) would take about a year to download 🙃🤪

This here is the reason. That's 22,000 terabytes. I always wonder what people mean when they say "SSDs" and hardrives are cheap. They seem to underestimate how much textures and mesh data and whatnot is needed to deliver scenery for the entire world. Even if you only wanted one region, it would still be a massive amount of data. For just the aircraft and airports, there is probably a case for more offline elements. but that won't really change the big picture of streaming.

Delivering a potato for offline flying would be easy to do, but I don't think that's what people are after when they demand an offline version. 

30 minutes ago, TuomasV said:

Delivering a potato for offline flying would be easy to do, but I don't think that's what people are after when they demand an offline version. 

2020 had this and it would drop back to, as you say, potato mode if the connection was lost for a certain period of time. But you're right it looked like FSX and was horrible to look at.

 

2 hours ago, flightsim1818 said:

It becomes a more compromised streamlined version of simulation where flying accurracy and airliner performance in the sim is not prio 1.

None of that degraded vs MSFS 2020. These things either stayed the same or improved. But they are not worse than before. 

 

Generally, streaming has a few disadvantages, which will be addressed shortly to the level MSFS 2020 was, but there are also advantages.

And, as these still seem widely to be unknown/ignored, let me repost them from another thread (because they basically answer the question asked in the thread title):

• Minimizes storage size considerably. The base sim with all the world updates would be 1.4TB. MSFS 2024 would have by far the largest local installation in the entire game industry.
• Installation time 20 minutes vs 25 hours. With the 2020 architecture, the sim would have launched Nov 19 but not a single user would have taken off to his first flight at the same day anymore. Basically, Asobo has fixed the CDN issues quicker than most users would have downloaded their base installation.
• You have all world updates from the first minute without any manual step by the user.
• The user gets updates for each package without any manual step (remember how in 2020, everybody at least once complaint: I don't see the new world update! Standard response: you need to install it in content manager!)
• Avoids dead data. During my entire career in MSFS 2020, probably 80% of the installed data was not accessed a single time, because I simply did not go there. In MSFS 2024, I and MS spare the effort and bandwith to mess with that data (I because I never download it and MS because they can spare the bandwidth too).
• Data is just downloaded as needed. Significantly reduced bandwith overall.
• Payware addons (MP) are available instantly without any manual step by the user.
• Keeping track of the latest version of every addon is greatly simplified (user efforts actually become zero). <- This is significant, because I am pretty sure, that of all my payware addons which ship via other channels, I am most of the time missing the newest updates because keeping the overview is tiresome.
• Seb mentioned, that the inbuilt cache could also be considered as an intelligent and automatic download manager, because if you set it large enough, it will basically download and locally store the data for your entire sim experience automatically if you just fly in your typical area, on your prefered routes with your prefered addons. After a while, the incremental package downloads during every sim session will become smaller and smaller.
• MS pays infrastructure (storage), you would have to pay otherwise, so there is a cost advantage for the user. The SSD that can store the full standard edition costs roughly the same as the standard edition itself. I have really a hard time to understand, why anybody (with a decent internet connection) would prefer to buy that from his own pocket rather than letting MS pay it.

45 minutes ago, jymp said:

Seems.....?, indications are MS is slowly but surely pushing towards Xbox only, hope not but this 24' version of FS is more gamey than ever, the streaming thing,  new version of Xbox coming in the future.....? hmmmm

No. With Microsoft continuously losing out to Sony's Playstation, Xbox Cloud Gaming is the future Microsoft is betting on. The ability to game on any device without having the user spend either thousands on PC hardware or hundreds on Xbox console to navigate the barrier to entry to Xbox game platform.

And as already pointed out, no 'hardcore' flight simulator features have been removed from the title.
In fact, more have been added: 

 

Quote

• Enhanced physics system allows 10,000+ rigid-body surfaces that enable the simulation of any shape of aircraft. Soft body physics supports cloth, ropes, balloons, and more. Improved ground and water handling further enhance realism.
• New, highly accurate aircraft systems including electrical, pneumatic, fuel and hydraulic systems, payload and passenger systems, and avionics like the Universal UNS-1 FMS and Honeywell Primus Epic 2.
• Plan your flights with a ground-breaking flight planner which supports both IFR and VFR map layers, IFR charts, route planning, fuel and payload planning, vertical profile planning, and ETOPS planning. It also provides airport information including weather and NOTAMS and is available native in the sim, on mobile devices or web browsers for flight planning outside the simulator.

Tell me how these elements appeal more to Xbox gamers than flight simmers.

Just because 'gamey' missions have been added and a new, Xbox-friendly UI has been implemented, does not make MSFS24 any less of a flight simulator than MSFS20.

Streaming is fine for those that want to brew a coffee while the sim is loading.

19 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

No. With Microsoft continuously losing out to Sony's Playstation, Xbox Cloud Gaming is the future Microsoft is betting on. The ability to game on any device without having the user spend either thousands on PC hardware or hundreds on Xbox console to navigate the barrier to entry to Xbox game platform.

And as already pointed out, no 'hardcore' flight simulator features have been removed from the title.
In fact, more have been added: 

 

Tell me how these elements appeal more to Xbox gamers than flight simmers.

Just because 'gamey' missions have been added and a new, Xbox-friendly UI has been implemented, does not make MSFS24 any less of a flight simulator than MSFS20.

Does it seem to work? One does wonder how FS2024 would behave from a performance perspective if they didn't focus on streaming or a zillion other features and rendered dolphins. Bottom line is that they have added this to meet a bigger market since they don't believe true simmers will generate enough money. Fair enough but the size of the game is now so big that the releases are nothing but epic disasters.

If everything worked fine on release day (just some minor bugs) then sure! But that is not the case. Extremely far from it.

One day there may be a streaming $Fee for area, regional or world wide data?

4 hours ago, crimplene said:

I can understand that installing Aircrafts locally should be an option but streaming is an absolute must.

Indeed it is secondary to that 4000x polygon data.  You'd be looking at terabytes of scenery data to download in the event of a reinstall which happens now and again.  For the small quotient of folks that might want that it would hardly be worth making that an option.  That being said we understand they are looking at what non-scenery elements can be stored locally to help in that area.  Just needs more work now that reality is fully here, i.e. no longer in tech alpha stage where real streaming demand wasn't duplicated, but has to now accommodate all folks using either/both sims.  Don't forget:  we're still only 3 weeks out from initial launch which is the day when real demand presented itself for MS/A to grapple with. 

Some pastes from the article on Toms re data being streamed:

Just launching Flight Simulator 2024 the first time downloaded about 730 MB of data — not horrible for a fast connection but also not something everyone could just ignore. The second launch only downloaded about 70 MB (and was also faster). Uploads were 18 MB for the first launch and about 3 MB on the second launch. It’s not clear what data is being uploaded, but it’s a small fraction of the total network use. As expected, data use over time should decrease.

Loading into the Iceland landing challenge, the first time we launched the game downloaded just over 700 MB of data, presumably maps and textures and such. The second time it only used about 92 MB, and the third launch only needed 50 MB. Data uploads were again a small fraction of the network traffic: 12 MB for the first run, 4 MB on the second, and 2 MB on the third.

Finally, we have the long-term data use. The first run we stopped after 25 minutes, and that pulled down the majority of the data in the first couple of minutes. During that time, MSFS24 used a bit more than 1GB of data. The second run lasted over five hours, and the initial part didn’t need much more in the way of new information. However, after a while, you can see the data spikes that start to appear, and those are likely as the engine loads new sections of the map in bursts.

It’s a somewhat consistent increase in data downloaded, pulling anywhere from around 250 to 575 MB per hour. The average over the last four hours was around 365 MB per hour. Note that a 50 Mbps network connection could download up to 22,500 MB per hour, so really, the higher speed recommended by Microsoft is to help get the desired data in a faster burst rather than because it’s consistently using that much bandwidth.

Edited December 11, 20241 yr by Noel

2 hours ago, vonmar said:

One day there may be a streaming $Fee for area, regional or world wide data?

Now you're talking...........the unseen and unquestioned Asobo/MS agenda.

3 hours ago, F737MAX said:

Tell me how these elements appeal more to Xbox gamers than flight simmers.

Just because 'gamey' missions have been added and a new, Xbox-friendly UI has been implemented, does not make MSFS24 any less of a flight simulator than MSFS20.

Its designed to work on a XBOX that was released 4 years ago (2020) and really don't take advantage of new P.C. hardware that people invest serious money in 2024 and into 2025. Mission's and taking pictures in MS2024 version of the GAME was released for money and make it gamey to attract new casuals, PERIOD but not ready for prime time for a serious flight simmer. Some of us folks who are still stuck on MS2020 because of incompatibility of 3rd party aircraft don't even work on the new version yet and I believe that they are manipulating the current 2020 users (servers) to upgrade 2024 or we will frustrate you more. I not going down like that. I will quit simming or find another sim and choose to use. MS2024 was their worst release ever by far in the MSFS franchise. No more to say.

I'm out.

12 minutes ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

No more to say.

Inshallah

21 minutes ago, JBDB-MD80 said:

Its designed to work on a XBOX that was released 4 years ago (2020) and really don't take advantage of new P.C. hardware that people invest serious money in 2024 and into 2025. Mission's and taking pictures in MS2024 version of the GAME was released for money and make it gamey to attract new casuals, PERIOD but not ready for prime time for a serious flight simmer. Some of us folks who are still stuck on MS2020 because of incompatibility of 3rd party aircraft don't even work on the new version yet and I believe that they are manipulating the current 2020 users (servers) to upgrade 2024 or we will frustrate you more. I not going down like that. I will quit simming or find another sim and choose to use. MS2024 was their worst release ever by far in the MSFS franchise. No more to say.

I'm out.

I was railroad simming when I took a break from Flight simming years ago. It was basically trouble free, and you could still use it when your internet was down. 

18 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

Inshallah

I don't understand your gibberish. But whatever.

11 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I was railroad simming when I took a break from Flight simming years ago. It was basically trouble free, and you could still use it when your internet was down. 

Good point Bob but I still have FSX installed on a old P.C. if I am desperate to fly. I'm not touching 2024 anytime soon though.