Just Dropped.  Blue skies to all and “beta safe”

-B

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-3-beta-1-5-8-0-release-notes-june-18th-2025/726580

Multiple active investigations are in progress for the performance issues reported on Sim Update 3, but we need your help!

We’re continuing to narrow down cause of the performance issues, and have added additional telemetry to the latest SU3 flighting update (1.5.8.0) to aid our investigation. Please note 1.5.8.0 may cause severe performance degradation around large airports and when restarting flights (most severe on Xbox Series X|S)  . However, the data and feedback you provide is critical to solving these issues.

If you no longer wish to participate in Sim Update 3 flighting, please follow the steps at the bottom of this message to opt-out.

Thanks so much for your continued support!

Reminder: If and when you notice too much VRAM being used, please take a screenshot with DFPS info enabled and send the report available in “Options > General > Experimental > Create a report”.

-The Microsoft Flight Simulator Team

To opt out of the Insider Program, navigate to https://www.flightsimulator.com/profile/, and at the bottom of the page select “Opt Out” under the Insider Program Opt Out section.

MS Store

If you have joined the Microsoft Flight Simulator Beta in the Xbox Insider Hub, you will still need to follow the same instructions to unenroll.

Open the ‘Xbox Insider Hub’ app.

Navigate to ‘Previews’ > ‘Microsoft Flight Simulator Beta’ .

Select ‘Manage’.

On the left side, select ‘Leave preview’.

Wait for the unenrollment to complete, restart your Xbox or PC, then launch the game.

PC Users: If not on a Custom path, you will have to reinstall the sim to restore the prior build.

Steam

Open your Steam Library

Right-click Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Click “Properties”

Click “Betas”

Select “None”

RELEASE NOTES Sim Update 3 Beta - 1.5.8.0

If you are playing on PC, outdated packages in your community folder may have an unexpected impact on the title’s performance and behavior.

If you suffer from stability issues or long loading times, move your community package(s) to another folder before relaunching the title.

New Content and Features

Added ForceFlare parameter to LightAttributes section of FX files

Stability & Performance

Improved avatar thumbnail generation time

Avoid freezes due to airport rendering

Fixed a crash on exit when an external view of a glass cockpit was open.

General Bug Fixes

Fixed controls infinite loading when going back from aircraft selector after selecting the same aircraft

Added gamepad R-Stick control to scroll in the in game panels

Aircraft

Boeing F/A-18E

Fixed aileron trim issue

Fixed boarding passenger available into ATC

Fixed floating light model of the left wing on last LODs

Cessna 172 Skyhawk

Fixed Copilot not spawning

Diamond DA62

Fixed unable to setup passenger before launch freeflight in the EFB

Aircraft Core Systems

Fixed inverted water rudder control at low speed on water

Failure / Wear & Tear

Improved drift damage calculation to ensure that the drift damage is light at low speed, but much higher at high speed. This should help prevent it from triggering during taxi, but still impact the tire wear rate on landings.

Aircraft Gameplay

ATC

Fixed a bug where ATC stopped following the route after an arrival/approach procedure was inserted for the first time.

Traffic

Fixed aircraft array randomly being filled with invalid variations (fixes some stutters at airports)

DevMode

General

Updated missions available through the Career tool

SDK

Samples

Updated Cabri G2 sample

Updated DA62 sample

WASM API

Fixed Wasm module with WasmSystems not reloading/recompiling when restarting

Edited June 18, 2025Jun 18 by btacon

The lightning / thundestorms is really good now!

Four flights now - two with empty community folder and two with dozens of high detail addons.  CTD on every flight after about 30-minutes.  No warning, just a blurb sound and then back to desktop. 

Taking off from KSJC Rwy30L and flying over San Francisco (highly detailed add ons) at 6,000' in FlySimware C414 - locked in at 60 FPS (with FG and in game cap of 30 FPS).  Scenery is spectacular, clouds look good, everything seems darn near perfect.

Except for the consistent CTD - sometimes at five minutes, and last flight lasted 45-minutes.

I am very pleased when the sim is running - I just wish I had enough time to get to my destination. 

nVidia 576.80 - used it a few times before the sim updated to 1.5.8.0 and had no CTD.

Updated missions available through the Career tool

I'm sorry, but I expect more regarding the career mode.

15 minutes ago, TacomaSailor said:

I am very pleased when the sim is running - I just wish I had enough time to get to my destination.

So sorry and do feel your pain but I commend you for humor instead of diatribe

Just made a 30 min flight with this new Beta. Nothing to notice so far.

1 hour ago, rob0203 said:

The lightning / thundestorms is really good now!

I hope they toned down the frequency of lightning/thunder in this latest update.  Flying yesterday in version 1.5.7 (where some small thunderstorms were present in real life), it felt like the biggest storms to ever hit NE Ohio were hitting.  Thunder/lightning was going every 3-5 seconds.  I actually prefer the absence of thunder/lightning in the sim to that completely overdone nonsense.  But yes, the effect is well rendered in the sim, so it does look good.

Two flights with iFly Max. Smooth, no CTD but is it my imagination or is has the lighting taken a downgrade. Can hardly see any external lighting at all.

1 hour ago, PlumCrazy said:

Thunder/lightning was going every 3-5 seconds. 

That's about 12 to 20 strikes per minute and an improvement from the possible 1000 spm when they first reintroduced lightning. I rather have that than none at all but that's just me

18 minutes ago, tamsini said:

Can hardly see any external lighting at all.

During the day? It's been like that since launch.

11 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

During the day? It's been like that since launch.

No, I tested at night.

1 hour ago, tamsini said:

No, I tested at night.

looking fine at night here

 

17 hours ago, Krakin said:

That's about 12 to 20 strikes per minute and an improvement from the possible 1000 spm when they first reintroduced lightning. I rather have that than none at all but that's just me

I was flying in my home area.  The actual storm produced maybe 1 lightning strike (that I noticed) in a 30 minute span.  So seeing 20 per minute with the constant noise of thunder in the sim seemed WAY overdone.  I hope Asobo finds a way to better match lightning frequency to real life, instead of making EVERY storm the storm of the century LOL.  In most aspects though, I am quite impressed with how accurately live weather in the sim matches reality.

Did a short freight hop from KSLC to KLAS in the PMDG 77F

Performance is improved with this build. I did notice a bit of the blurries in the mid distance but i suspect that it could be the fact that the servers were under pressure or the photogrametry was just bad.

By the way .. whats going on at KSLC ? That airport (if anyone wants to call it that) looks abysmal in the sim. Is there a go to freeware or payware version to do a wholesale upgrade of the airport ?

Anyways.. 

VRAM usage is still an issue unless you are lowering settings (I would like to play at stock ultra but that does not look like its going to be happening with the VRAM issues) However the frame rates are not dropping off and stuttering was kept to a minimum. The stuttering on finals seems to also have been substantially improved or actually solved.

This build appears to be a step forward performance wise. Looking forward to some more flying later this evening or tomorrow.