3 hours ago, eslader said:

3 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

Not sure I understand. If YouTube and Netflix can stream a GAZILLION videos I don't understand why it can't be done for MSFS.

It can, but it's a lot more resource intensive. Even if you watch a 4k movie on Netflix, that's just a 4k pre-rendered movie.

The vast majority of what MSFS loads from the servers is static content (i.e. existing data stored on the server, not data that needs to be computed on the fly based on the user's request). It's pretty similar to Netflix in this regard.

3 hours ago, eslader said:

MSFS has no idea which way you're going to turn the plane, or your head, so it has to be ready to render a 360 degree bubble of visual information

Which is why it downloads a 360-degree bubble of data around the plane.

3 hours ago, eslader said:

plus process the flight physics, clouds, winds, other airplanes, ground/sea vehicles, etc etc etc.

All of this processing happens locally on the PC. The only thing the server does is to supply data on what the weather is, where the airplanes and other vehicles are, and so on. (See also below.)

3 hours ago, eslader said:

If MSFS takes an extra 10 *miliseconds* to recognize and respond to your control input, you'll get justifiably furious.

The loop that processes control inputs and reacts to them does not go through the server. There are other gaming systems that do this (known as cloud gaming), but this isn't what MSFS does. All of the frame-to-frame computations are done locally on the PC that's running MSFS. If MSFS doesn't have all of the required data, for example if it's missing a terrain tile, it will fall back to a low-resolution or untextured version of that tile.

I don't think that what MSFS is doing is fundamentally harder than Netflix -- they simply haven't gotten their servers as stable or scalable as Netflix's yet.

(Edit: "Merely" serving static data, when it needs to be done at scale, is in fact a challenging task in its own right. In fact, there are entire companies that do nothing else.)

Edited January 7, 20251 yr by martinboehme

6 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

 

I might try Mt. Erebus tomorrow if I can figure out how to crash land there🤪

Ouch. Many New Zealanders across our small nation were either directly or indirectly affected by the Air NZ Erebus crash. Personally, I was involved in strategic airlift operations associated with recovering the loved ones we lost on that mountain that day. Some of my colleagues who were much closer to the carnage suffered mental health issues for some time afterwards.   So your comment which you edited,  "to add more grisly detail", hits a very raw nerve and bought back some very bad memories. Still, I know people make fun of these sort of things without ever meaning to hurt anyone and I have no doubt your comment was not intended to be taken as anything other than a piece of humour.

All good DD_Arthur but I felt compelled to comment because it is a timely reminder for everyone that this is a global forum and that while we may from time to time attempt to simulate accident events to both learn more about how it happened and to satisfy our own curiosity, we shouldn't make fun of real accident events since it is always possible that someone who was close to those events may be reading our forum. 

Please, I hold nothing against you personally DD_Arthur and enjoy your posts. 👍

Cheers

Terry

 

Edited January 7, 20251 yr by Lord Farringdon

2 hours ago, Rogen said:

Perhaps the list of developer logged bugs will be of reading interest...

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/tag/bug_logged

Cheers

Wow, That is pretty damning. 

2 hours ago, Rogen said:

Perhaps the list of developer logged bugs will be of reading interest...

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/tag/bug_logged

Cheers

What is interesting is the lack of responses to Devs when they offer help to fix the bugs, see this thread; 

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/t/bgl-ai-traffic-disabled/10395

That's pretty poor "support" for developers on their own marketplace.

9 hours ago, psolk said:

I do stand corrected!  Apologies.

No worries, Paul. No dig intended.

3 hours ago, Rogen said:

Perhaps the list of developer logged bugs will be of reading interest...

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/tag/bug_logged

Cheers

Indeed. Thanks for this, bookmarked it for future reference (handy for those "is it just me, or . . .?" moments)

9 hours ago, Mace said:

Gripping their xbox controller tight.  Exit light.  Enter night.  Take my hand, off to never never land.

Enjoy the flight game!

Msobo will be very happy about all the Fun. What more could it be.

I know, what about blowing things up, there's an idea!

4 hours ago, Lord Farringdon said:

Ouch.

You’ve obviously got the wrong end of the stick here but I’m happy to provide a pretext for you to post a whole wall of mawkish nonsense.

It’s all good!😉

5 hours ago, martinboehme said:

The vast majority of what MSFS loads from the servers is static content (i.e. existing data stored on the server, not data that needs to be computed on the fly based on the user's request). It's pretty similar to Netflix in this regard.

Which is why it downloads a 360-degree bubble of data around the plane.

All of this processing happens locally on the PC. The only thing the server does is to supply data on what the weather is, where the airplanes and other vehicles are, and so on. (See also below.)

The loop that processes control inputs and reacts to them does not go through the server. There are other gaming systems that do this (known as cloud gaming), but this isn't what MSFS does. All of the frame-to-frame computations are done locally on the PC that's running MSFS. If MSFS doesn't have all of the required data, for example if it's missing a terrain tile, it will fall back to a low-resolution or untextured version of that tile.

I don't think that what MSFS is doing is fundamentally harder than Netflix -- they simply haven't gotten their servers as stable or scalable as Netflix's yet.

(Edit: "Merely" serving static data, when it needs to be done at scale, is in fact a challenging task in its own right. In fact, there are entire companies that do nothing else.)

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that the processing is done on the server, but the server has to pump the data over for the processing to happen, and it has to do it very quickly. When you play a Netflix movie, the system always knows what the next 10 seconds is going to be, because the movie doesn't ever change. When you run MSFS, the system has no idea where you will be in 10 seconds, or what you will be looking at, so it's having to send enough data to cover anything you might conceivably do during the buffer time. That is definitely a heavier lift than what Netflix is doing which, as you noted, is already hard enough. Then you add in the (honestly dumb) idea that the system will send you whatever aircraft you're flying instead of just having all aircraft loaded on your machine all the time, and you're making it work even harder at certain times.

9 hours ago, bofhlusr said:

Not sure I understand. If YouTube and Netflix can stream a GAZILLION videos I don't understand why it can't be done for MSFS.

HD Video and even Live Video (unless RAW uncompressed) actually requires FAR less bandwidth per user than you would think.  I know there are some here running on 25-50Mbps connections but I can't comment to the consistent quality of the experience in MSFS whereas that would be fine for live streaming a 4K video.  

8 hours ago, Rogen said:

Perhaps the list of developer logged bugs will be of reading interest...

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/tag/bug_logged

Cheers

Many thanks for that link!

After reviewing that list of bugs I can now stop chasing "problems" I thought were my fault.  It seems I've been wasting time trying to fix things in my local sim that are fundamentally broken.

I can now allocate more of my very valuable "retirement time" to pickleball rather than debugging MSFS 2024. 

14 hours ago, Greazer said:

Only the flight gamers are going over to 2024.

Why should only gamers enjoy the excellent flight planner and the excellent free charts that you predicted? 😉

On 1/6/2025 at 7:52 AM, Bobsk8 said:

Their mistake was releasing a Alpha State program, that they knew was faulty, because they wanted the cash flow. period. 

Pretty much what Bob said. It was disgraceful and they did a LOT of damage to their reputation, and the good will in the community. Stupid. 

14 hours ago, Mace said:

Gripping their xbox controller tight.  Exit light.  Enter night.  Take my hand, off to never never land.

I see what you did there. 😅

Cloud gaming that is what is wrong