Some MSFS 2024 users are not a fan of streaming and would like the option for a local install. Careful what you wish for. MSFS 2024 is making this an option. Luckily you have a choice as a local install will take 400 GB!

 

I have many multiples of that going spare but am more than happy to stream. One of the most positive aspects of MSFS2024 as far as I'm concerned. 

Just now, St Mawgan said:

I have many multiples of that going spare but am more than happy to stream. One of the most positive aspects of MSFS2024 as far as I'm concerned. 

Agreed. I think streaming makes good sense. But would a local install load faster, have better FPS? Would the reduction in latency from a local install substantially improve your gaming experience?

1 minute ago, alanw2005 said:

Agreed. I think streaming makes good sense. But would a local install load faster, have better FPS? Would the reduction in latency from a local install substantially improve your gaming experience?

That would be unlikely for me. MSFS2024 loads much faster than 2020 ever did with fantastic performance and better FPS than I could have ever imagined with 2020 installed on my ssd. I can see the attraction for those with poor broadband connection but I'm pretty blessed in that regard too so having it all downloaded would provide no benefits at all. If I would get full access to the few aircraft I had to buy from the marketplace I would have those but only to play with the cfg's. Streaming them is so painless anyway.  

14 minutes ago, St Mawgan said:

I have many multiples of that going spare but am more than happy to stream. One of the most positive aspects of MSFS2024 as far as I'm concerned. 

Also agree. In fact what would be the use case for downloading 400GB?  Aside from the false sense of security that some may have from knowing that the bits and bytes are on their physical computer, I am not sure what the advantage would be. I can't see it reducing loading times, certainly not significantly. 2020 has abhorrent load times, one of the reasons I could not go back to it.  Maybe it would help with blurriness in some cases? Those are so few and far between for me that this is not a use case but maybe for some? Perhaps for those with a very poor connection? I say very poor because I have an old fashioned copper connection and an average download speed for 35 to 45 Mbps and have no meaningful issues with stutters or buried textures.  To download 400 GB would take me a good 3 continuous days! No thanks! Streaming for me has been a breakthrough. Just this week I reset my system. It took 3 hours to reset Windows, reload and configure my productizing apps, reconnect my email, AND reinstall MSFS2024 and over 100 add on airports and aircraft, TDS, and Navigraph and configure it all. Welcome to the future!

I think I will download the hand crafted airports and the default planes I like to fly. That will, hopefully, ease some of the pop in and texture lag.

The rest of the sim? Nope.

I think I have bought three aircraft from the marketplace for MSFS2024 now which can only be streamed and never noticed any textures loading or temporary blurriness. If I ever did I would download them for sure, but have yet to experience it. 

"As many people as many opinons" ❤️ .. i'm very happy they added that feature because i disliked the 'all streaming' decision the made, just even the idea of streaming the same plane/scenery every time was a bad one for me because at the end of the 2024 journey you would have downloaded 400gb of the same single plane instead of taking once a few minute to download it and store it on your hardrive. Not sure how that can be perceived as a good idea by anyone but well we are all different.

That doesn't even force you to download everything like all those planes/liveries you'll never used can stay streamed. So having the option, like they did if i understood correctly, is just great, not forced to download everything 👍. But i wouldn't mind having 200GB on my HD instead of downloading the same stuff over and over and having delays and potential streaming issues on every sim session.

That being said i don't have SU3 beta so i'm not sure how it works, one thing i really hate with 2024 (never had that prob with 2020) is that on my machine sometimes textures on buildings (city / airports) takes a lot of time to be streamed and applied on the buildings, so i see sometimes completely white square building with no textures at all for a while, it's really disturbing for a game that is supposed to be a step-up from the previous previous. I hope that the non-streaming option will allow me to download the base textures that are used everytime all around the work and i really don't see why anyone would want to download them everytime, just makes no sense at all imho. But well it's microsoft/asobo so i'll see when SU3 is officially released if we have the same notion of 'make sense' (we don't always have 😁😁)

Just my useless 2cents to take part in the discussion 😜

🍻

Edited May 28, 20251 yr by Bad_T
typos

1 hour ago, BrammyH said:

I think I will download the hand crafted airports and the default planes I like to fly. That will, hopefully, ease some of the pop in and texture lag.

The rest of the sim? Nope.

Winner winner chicken dinner. That's the strategy to use!! And some cities you are flying to. Then delete after the flight?  I don't like to see the city being created before my eyes when flying into it. So if the city can be downloaded, I would go for that.

Edited May 28, 20251 yr by alanw2005

As soon as I have abandoned MSFS2020, I'll download these 400GB.

2 minutes ago, Bad_T said:

"As many people as many opinons" ❤️ .. i'm very happy they added that feature because i disliked the 'all streaming' decision the made, just even the idea of streaming the same plane/scenery every time was a bad one for me at at then end of the 2024 journey you would have downloaded 400gb of the same single plane instead of taking once a few minute to download it and store it on your hardrive. Not sure how that can be perceived as a good idea by anyone but well we are all different.

That doesn't even force you to download everything like all those planes/liveries you'll never used can stay streamed. So having the option, like they did if i understood correctly, is just great, not forced to download everything 👍. But i wouldn't mind having 200GB on my HD instead of downloading the same stuff over and over and having delays and potential streaming issues on every sim session.

That being said i don't have SU3 beta so i'm not sure how it works, one thing i really hate with 2024 (never had that prob with 2020) is that on my machine sometimes textures on buildings (city / airports) takes a lot of time to be streamed and applied on the buildings, so i see sometimes completely white square building with no textures at all for a while, it's really disturbing for a game that is supposed to be a step-up from the previous previous. I hope that the non-streaming option will allow me to download the base textures that are used everytime all around the work and i really don't see why anyone would want to download them everytime, just makes no sense at all imho. But well it's microsoft/asobo so i'll see when SU3 is officially if we have the same notion of made sense' (usually we don't 😁😁)

Just my useless 2cents to take part in the discussion 😜

🍻

You said most of what i stated when this topic was discussed last week so apart from completely agreeing with you 100% i will just add.. To each their own. I was not even remotely considering fully switching over to MSFS2024 until this feature was added.

I will add that the current implementation is (typical of Asobo) buggy and i had to re download the base package twice (once due to user error and another due to updates)  but for my personal preferences it is more than worth it. If you want that thin client experience go for it. Its just not for me.

56 minutes ago, Maxis said:

You said most of what i stated when this topic was discussed last week so apart from completely agreeing with you 100% i will just add.. To each their own. I was not even remotely considering fully switching over to MSFS2024 until this feature was added.

I will add that the current implementation is (typical of Asobo) buggy and i had to re download the base package twice (once due to user error and another due to updates)  but for my personal preferences it is more than worth it. If you want that thin client experience go for it. Its just not for me.

I'd agree with that, just repurchased it and it still seems like it has a way to go. Watching the terrain pop in 5 miles ahead of you (when it's a completely different colour to what was there before) is pretty poor.

Quite underwhelmed by my first few flights, hopefully a local install will help.

 

 

Nice, my 1 TB SSD for MSFS is bored out with this streaming word not allowed. Happy to be able to install as much as possible.

1 hour ago, Bad_T said:

"As many people as many opinons" ❤️ .. i'm very happy they added that feature because i disliked the 'all streaming' decision the made, just even the idea of streaming the same plane/scenery every time was a bad one for me because at the end of the 2024 journey you would have downloaded 400gb of the same single plane instead of taking once a few minute to download it and store it on your hardrive. Not sure how that can be perceived as a good idea by anyone but well we are all different.

That doesn't even force you to download everything like all those planes/liveries you'll never used can stay streamed. So having the option, like they did if i understood correctly, is just great, not forced to download everything 👍. But i wouldn't mind having 200GB on my HD instead of downloading the same stuff over and over and having delays and potential streaming issues on every sim session.

That being said i don't have SU3 beta so i'm not sure how it works, one thing i really hate with 2024 (never had that prob with 2020) is that on my machine sometimes textures on buildings (city / airports) takes a lot of time to be streamed and applied on the buildings, so i see sometimes completely white square building with no textures at all for a while, it's really disturbing for a game that is supposed to be a step-up from the previous previous. I hope that the non-streaming option will allow me to download the base textures that are used everytime all around the work and i really don't see why anyone would want to download them everytime, just makes no sense at all imho. But well it's microsoft/asobo so i'll see when SU3 is officially released if we have the same notion of 'make sense' (we don't always have 😁😁)

Just my useless 2cents to take part in the discussion 😜

🍻

Your 2 cents are never useless, my friend 👍

Choice is best for everyone.  I think it makes sense to at least download a few common addons.  Personally, I have no interest in using up all that drive space.  I have very good internet and haven't run into problems.

I'm not sure if people are aware, but the latest Call of Duty game does texture streaming.  Like it or not, it is where gaming is going as connections get better and install sizes explode.  People play COD at 120 fps+ and are even more likely to notice any stutter or blip in performance.  Most people don't even know it is doing that.  Last I checked, there's still no download option in COD.  People are playing COD a lot more on consoles, over wifi, etc.  

I wonder how many problems are really streaming or just performance.  I know they said 2024 would run just as well or better on the same hardware, but in my experience, that was not the case.  My old PC that ran 2020 fine basically struggled with 2024 until I upgraded.