I'm thinking of going the SU5 beta route. I read about some improvents and I can't wait to check it out.

Is there a reason not to do it?

21 minutes ago, CFIJose said:

 

Is there a reason not to do it?

Some addons don't work with the beta version (Most of the ones I have seem to work fine - pretty much most of the high fidelity or mid fidelity GA stuff - i dont have any airliners right now - edit Fenix works fine).

Expect some CTD's or weird things occasionally.

Sometimes your controller profiles get reset, or in my case my profile assignments got reset... so I had to click the little arrow to re-assign each controller binding per plane.  That only happened with SU5 so far

Otherwise yeah, mostly there's some cool stuff like having obstacle lighting for nighttime stuff which looks great.  Performance to me is a little nicer than SU4.  Although I also use DLSS 310.5 and MSFS auto FPS.

SU5 so far has been a lot of under the hood bug fixes, not a lot of new features.  I believe there are variables for tilt and stuff with the wx radar.  But it's early stages so far.

They also tweak and fix some aircraft bugs that don't always make the beta changelogs.  So don't be surprised if something is fixed but not mentioned.  Asobo typically releases the entire changelog once the latest SU is final.

Edited April 6Apr 6 by ryanbatc

I've been using Beta 5 since release, and all has been fine so far with pay ware aircraft and addons. There was a issue with ATC in the beginning but that's been resolved. Give it aa try.

25 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

Some addons don't work with the beta version (Most of the ones I have seem to work fine - pretty much most of the high fidelity or mid fidelity GA stuff - i dont have any airliners right now - edit Fenix works fine).

Expect some CTD's or weird things occasionally.

Sometimes your controller profiles get reset, or in my case my profile assignments got reset... so I had to click the little arrow to re-assign each controller binding per plane.  That only happened with SU5 so far

Otherwise yeah, mostly there's some cool stuff like having obstacle lighting for nighttime stuff which looks great.  Performance to me is a little nicer than SU4.  Although I also use DLSS 310.5 and MSFS auto FPS.

SU5 so far has been a lot of under the hood bug fixes, not a lot of new features.  I believe there are variables for tilt and stuff with the wx radar.  But it's early stages so far.

They also tweak and fix some aircraft bugs that don't always make the beta changelogs.  So don't be surprised if something is fixed but not mentioned.  Asobo typically releases the entire changelog once the latest SU is final.

You are the reason why I wanted to try it out. I was a little nervous about having to re-install if I did not stay in beta.

I think I read that ATC has been improved a little bit?

Last question, how do I get the beta version?

14 minutes ago, CFIJose said:

You are the reason why I wanted to try it out. I was a little nervous about having to re-install if I did not stay in beta.

I think I read that ATC has been improved a little bit?

Last question, how do I get the beta version?

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/read-first-welcome-to-the-sim-update-5-beta/591232

19 hours ago, CFIJose said:

Is there a reason not to do it?

Yes.  You’ll not get any “official” support from 3rd party vendors.  Each Beta release could break any add-on at anytime during the Beta Cycle.  If you don’t mind that, go for it, but you may find yourself spending more time reporting bugs or finding work arounds than actual flying.

I would NOT look at Beta software as a solution to an existing problem, it can and often does produce less obvious problems down the road and shifting out of Beta and back to Official releases has no guarantee that you may have some residual problems that are not initially obvious but may surface later on.

But don’t take the “re-install” lightly, Beta software can sometimes require a complete wipe and re-install, so if that’s a concern then I’d recommend you avoid it.  I know when I was doing A LOT of testing for Lockheed Martin’s P3D, I had multiple versions installed on multiple computers and sometimes I had to regression test back several Beta version to expose an issue in the latest Beta version.  I always kept and “official” release active on another computer as a baseline to compare Beta changes.

Having said that, I’d encourage all to participate in Beta if you have the time and can accept a complete re-install as needed.

Edited April 7Apr 7 by SayAgain

17 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

edit Fenix works fine

Not quite true. Under SU5 beta the windscreens of all Fenix planes are covered with reddish splotches, much like your car may appear after a large flock of well fed geese pass overhead.  Fenix has acknowledged the issue and stated they do not plan on addressing this until Post SU5 beta.  Blue skies,

-B

20 minutes ago, btacon said:

Not quite true. Under SU5 beta the windscreens of all Fenix planes are covered with reddish splotches, much like your car may appear after a large flock of well fed geese pass overhead.  Fenix has acknowledged the issue and stated they do not plan on addressing this until Post SU5 beta.  Blue skies,

-B

Oh interesting I must have missed that

1 hour ago, SayAgain said:

But don’t take the “re-install” lightly, Beta software can sometimes require a complete wipe and re-install, so if that’s a concern then I’d recommend you avoid it.

My "C" drive, where msfs v2024 is located, is fully backed up with an image that takes less than 10 minutes to restore. If I do decide to try SU5, I can withdraw if I do not like the results, then just restore my drive.

Does anyone know how long before SU5 is released?

Finally, finally the EFB can be used properly in VR! It was always a pain to have the oversized panel somewhere, unable to resize it. For this alone it was worth it for me to join the Beta again.

1 hour ago, CFIJose said:

My "C" drive, where msfs v2024 is located, is fully backed up with an image that takes less than 10 minutes to restore. If I do decide to try SU5, I can withdraw if I do not like the results, then just restore my drive

That would be a “maybe” … depends what (if anything) gets written the Windows registry and if that’s included in your backup along with all the other “hidden” folders that might contain related data … and since MSFS also save’s some of your data on a server that could get out of sync.  Not trying to scare you off, just something you need to be aware of when taking on the role of Beta user.

11 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

That would be a “maybe” … depends what (if anything) gets written the Windows registry and if that’s included in your backup along with all the other “hidden” folders that might contain related data … and since MSFS also save’s some of your data on a server that could get out of sync.  Not trying to scare you off, just something you need to be aware of when taking on the role of Beta user.

This is only for educational purposes. Have you ever restored a drive before?

I've done it too many times. The system returns to its original state. Then you can update the sim normally.

Pros..

Beta access to fixes that may affect you or fixes you were waiting on. (current example being the night time fix of the jaggies on AMD 90XX series gpus in my personal case)

Or early access to test and validate  critical features ( VR users appear to benefit most in this current beta) 

and the opportunity to provide feedback.

 

Cons.

Potential for Bad builds pushed (windowless autogen buildings), multi monitor framegen broken, etc

Potential for bad performing builds  1.7.15 & 16 comes to mind in this cycle. 

 

Personally in my opinion unless there is something that is a must have (Like that AMD GPU fix or VR fixes)  and you want to test and validate it i would skip. This cycle of service update does not appear to be introducing any major new features and the last two builds were pretty terrible performance wise. I even saw the guy that coded the TLOD adjusting app post about how bad the performance was. The latest build corrected the performance a bit though so there's that.

I could not run MSFS 2024 without being on the Insider Previews... Would never be able to resist trying the continuous updates until the next stable version, but that applies to preety much every software I use, including my soaring navigators :-)

Can anyone confirm the weather radar tilt, please.