5 hours ago, eslader said:

What the...

 

Yeah, newsflash, it's a game. I thought we'd get past that after we had to pretend we were student pilots to get around the p3d licensing.

 

The thing is, a game can be very realistic. It can also be an actual simulation but, sorry, unless you're a real pilot who only flies a plane you actually own in the sim and strictly for training purposes, guess what? You're a gamer. And that's OK. It's a fun game. It's a great game. It's even a game where you can learn things about how the real world works. It's a game with a very steep learning curve if you want to get the most out of it, but it is most definitely a game. Even under P3d, Lockheed tacitly admitted it was a game. A training system would not come with the Lockheed Constellation because hardly anyone flies that anymore. It wouldn't come with an F22 because if you're actually training to fly one of those things, you have access to better stuff than p3d. It wouldn't come with two submarines because it's supposed to be a flight trainer.

If even the makers of the Flight Sim offshoot that's supposed to be purely for training purposes are admitting that yes, people absolutely do use it as a game, then surely we simmers can admit that we're simming in a game too.

 

 

Sorry but it's both: technically a game but for the purpose of simulating. So it's clearly a flight simulator too. A flight simulator doesn't have to be used in a professional way to be called a simulator. There are simply different degrees of acuracy. I seriously never understood why some are forcing themselves into the "it's just a game". What does Bing Copilot tell us, when asked?

"Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024) is both a game and a flight simulator, depending on how you approach it. Some players treat it as a casual game, enjoying the stunning visuals and career mode, while others use it as a serious flight simulation tool to practice real-world aviation procedures"

This endless discussion really has to stop. The only correct answer is: it is both. Full stop.

Euro-Truck Simulator

Flixbus Simulator

MSFS Flight Simulator

Its better for our hobby , more players mean it will stay alive and not follow the FSX path and have no new sim for over 10 years.

Its the only way forward , reality is there is not enough hard core PC users alone to keep MSFS going due to high cost developing I bet most players are casual players on XBOX and with out them there would have never been a MSFS2024 XBOX has become the bread and butter not PC

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by jason74

Sorry I'm late to the party. I spend most of my time on the Daw forums, Studio One primarily, complaining about how useless their software is, how features in my preferred Daw of choice are either not available, quirky to implement, not patched in a timely fashion, and is prone to crashes. 

I purchased it, fire it up occasionally, get ticked off, and go back to my Daw of choice. I've complained incessantly that they won't refund me, purchased three times, but forum users keep arguing with me and say it works great. 

But I digress. Fs2024? Yes, yes, yes. 

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by OneOfMany

14 hours ago, Greazer said:

The are sitting at the terminal waiting for their sim to download from cloud servers, thinking this is actually normal.

As 2024 loads much quicker I struggle to see the issue you have with it.

If you give 2024 the same cache size that you were forced to give to 2020 (in the form of the packages folder), both work essentially the same way. Except that 2024 manages everything by itself and only loads content you use on demand (therefore saving you a ton of time and memory for the 80% which you anyway never use) while 2020 loaded everything (like every WU) upfront, which took for a full installation up to 15 hours.

Saying that one of these system architectures is for gamers and the other is for simmers is silly.

Many MS2024 users claim that they do not have any problems with streaming everything.......but others apparently do. This is yet another example of why I do not trust MSFS 2024. The thought of seeing blurry runway textures when landing is too awful to contemplate.

At least Asobo are intending to provide a local storage option with SU3.

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by Christopher Low

I don;t see many who already have it on PC jumping to Switch (small market). The other issue is with a console you're greatly limiting yourself in terms of what hardware can be used such as joysticks, throttle, HOTAS etc...

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by udidwht

I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of folk's issues is down to their ISP, or connection speed. I have 1gb FTTP , and apart from the initial launch 0f 2024, i have not had any issues loading the sim, nor scenery slowly emerging . I cannot remember the specs MS quoted, but would think at least 100mbps would be needed.

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by Simselli

2 hours ago, fsiscool said:

If you give 2024 the same cache size that you were forced to give to 2020 (in the form of the packages folder), both work essentially the same way.

So I could set rolling cache to some big value (let's say 50-100 GB), would it behave as if I had it on disk? The last time I tried FS2024 (in Week 1), I had a hard time loading the cockpit view of default aircraft; it took some time until it was clearly defined.

3 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

The thought of seeing blurry runway textures when landing is too awful to contemplate.

Not once, my runway textures were as blurry in 2024 as they are in 2020 every single time (because it apparently is lacking in that regard).

Edited April 23, 20251 yr by fsiscool

16 minutes ago, Luis Hernandez said:

So I could set rolling cache to some big value (let's say 50-100 GB), would it behave as if I had it on disk?

That's what I understood. The packages folder with all WUs actually is 1000GB or so iirc in 2020, so you could set set the cache size to that without loosing anything.

19 hours ago, Franz007 said:

Sorry but it's both: technically a game but for the purpose of simulating. So it's clearly a flight simulator too. A flight simulator doesn't have to be used in a professional way to be called a simulator. There are simply different degrees of acuracy. I seriously never understood why some are forcing themselves into the "it's just a game". What does Bing Copilot tell us, when asked?

"Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024) is both a game and a flight simulator, depending on how you approach it. Some players treat it as a casual game, enjoying the stunning visuals and career mode, while others use it as a serious flight simulation tool to practice real-world aviation procedures"

This endless discussion really has to stop. The only correct answer is: it is both. Full stop.

No need to be sorry, you're right too. It is a simulator, but it's not a full-fidelity one. It's the best civilian desktop flight simulator ever made, but we can still do stuff in the game that would get us killed if we tried it in a real airplane.

In other words, RDR2 is a Wild West outlaw simulator. Sims have various levels of fidelity. I personally think calling Euro/American Truck Simulator a simulator is a stretch, because those things don't drive anywhere close to the way a real semi does. And that's not even getting into the laughable simulators like Motel Manager Simulator or Drug Dealer Simulator.

So, yeah, MSFS is a sim, but almost none of us are using it *as a simulator*. We're not training in it. We're enjoying ourselves in it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually really cool that we can enjoy ourselves at the same time that we're learning things about aviation.

I just get tired of the hardcore simmers, of which I am one, running around playing stupid gatekeeping game. I don't care if it's released on Switch. Won't impact what I do at all. Whining about it being available on Switch is just taking a superiority stand for absolutely no good reason.

 

3 hours ago, eslader said:

No need to be sorry, you're right too. It is a simulator, but it's not a full-fidelity one. It's the best civilian desktop flight simulator ever made, but we can still do stuff in the game that would get us killed if we tried it in a real airplane.

In other words, RDR2 is a Wild West outlaw simulator. Sims have various levels of fidelity. I personally think calling Euro/American Truck Simulator a simulator is a stretch, because those things don't drive anywhere close to the way a real semi does. And that's not even getting into the laughable simulators like Motel Manager Simulator or Drug Dealer Simulator.

So, yeah, MSFS is a sim, but almost none of us are using it *as a simulator*. We're not training in it. We're enjoying ourselves in it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually really cool that we can enjoy ourselves at the same time that we're learning things about aviation.

I just get tired of the hardcore simmers, of which I am one, running around playing stupid gatekeeping game. I don't care if it's released on Switch. Won't impact what I do at all. Whining about it being available on Switch is just taking a superiority stand for absolutely no good reason.

 

I see your point. MSFS is undeniably a simulator, but like all simulations, it has its limitations. Full-fidelity flight simulators used for professional training are in a league of their own, and MSFS will never fully replicate that level of accuracy. However, I think it’s fair to say that just because most users aren’t using it explicitly for training doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate simulator.

It is a powerful educational tool that offers big realism - within the limits of consumer software. Pilots (both real and aspiring) use it to refine procedures, enhance situational awareness, and even practice navigation. While, yes, there are things we can do in MSFS that would get us killed in real life, that’s more of an indication of the user rather than the simulator itself. After all, even in certified full-motion simulators, you could theoretically crash a plane if you’re careless.

Calling it a “game” might apply for casual users who just want to explore and enjoy aviation, but the same logic could apply to professional-grade simulators when used outside strict training contexts.

Btw. I don‘t really have a clear opinion about game-consoles. I just wanted to give a feedback because in my opinion it has never been really comparable to any typical game and is indeed a category on its own.

If you lower the bar low enough then everything is everything. You have to have some kind of concrete definition for products whether hard or software or else retailers can sell you anything without consequences. 

But ahhhh... WHO gets to set the bar? Plus you have quality of product too. I could mix some sand and glue together into a cubic shape and call it a brick, legally. I just couldn't market it for people to build a house with, garden landscaping though it would be fine. 

It really has become arguing about how long a piece of string has to be before we can even call it string. 

On 4/24/2025 at 2:18 AM, Franz007 said:

Calling it a “game” might apply for casual users who just want to explore and enjoy aviation, but the same logic could apply to professional-grade simulators when used outside strict training contexts.

 

The same logic does apply. I had a friend who worked the sims for an airline. She'd invite me over to play in the sims after hours when she was testing stuff. A full motion level D 747 sim is awesome, but no one would think that I was training to fly a 747 in the thing. For me, it was a fantastic video game because that's how I was using it.

As I've said, yes, MSFS is a simulator, but it's also and arguably primarily a game because it was designed to be and is sold as an entertainment product. Kerbal Space Program is an orbital mechanics simulator, and a surprisingly good one, but no one denies that it is a game. Gran Turismo is a racing simulator that everyone understands is a game.

The snooty "it's a simulator, keep the unwashed gamer masses off of my simulator" garbage is what's objectionable, and that's coming from a guy who turned multiplayer off because the number of people plunking an airliner on TFFJ and blocking the runway forever while they tried to figure out how to turn it on got obnoxious.

If someone wants to play MSFS on a Switch, who cares? They're not going to delete our copy off of PC. We keep doing what we're doing, and a whole bunch of new gamers can do what they do on Switch, keep money flowing to the devs, and therefore keep the sim running for us. I fail to see the problem.

 

Edited April 25, 20251 yr by eslader