Der Zeitgeist

I totally agree about the freeware developers. In my experience, a lot of freeware devs are really committed to providing regular updates and bug fixes to keep their product working perfectly at all times. They have some real passion projects going on, compared to some payware devs where you have to beg even for simple fixes and problems often get blamed on Asobo. I can only imagine the mayhem breaking out on the OrbX forums next week when some of their airports become even more broken than they normally are.

In my experience, these errors are mostly made by native speakers of a language who never had to learn it from the ground up. We have similar problems in the German language.

The same naive hope for the magic "unicorn build" Asobo has hidden away that will solve all problems for release we saw one year ago. 😄

Oh god, yes. If I see another couple of "did you notice x", "is it just me or y" or "anyone else z" I'm going to tear my hair out. This, plus the general laziness of people who don't bother if the same thread already exists several times and simply open another one on the same topic is what makes this forum most annoying to me.

You overestimate the influence of the testers on these kinds of decisions.

Narrator: "They didn’t." 😄 Joking aside, I will treat this update essentially as a completely new release. Remove all mods and addons, and just see what is there.

As far as it is currently known from some people "reporting" from their own beta tests, there should be some sizable improvements for anyone running relatively powerful multicore CPUs that are currently seeing their performance limited by the main thread in MSFS while simultaneously having their GPU running well below 100% utilisation.

I think the entire premise (MS deciding to switch to a subscription model at some point) is absurd. It seems to me this is simply a continuation of the classic Avsim discussions we had right after the MSFS announcement in 2019, where people went crazy with baseless speculation about ortho & weather streaming and how MS would never be able to provide this without a subscription model (mostly because the old Avsim guard was mostly unfamiliar with the wider gaming world and didn't know the first thing about online gaming and XBox GamePass, in particular). The goal of MSFS on the XBox platform (PC&console) is a massive expansion of the flight sim user base. Live ortho and weather streaming is one of the main selling points for MSFS (especially for people new to the genre), and they would be crazy to change anything about that.

I just had a closer look at that system integrator @Bdub22mentioned, https://jetlinesystems.com/ . It has the typical red flags of other prebuilt gaming PC system sellers I already mentioned in other threads. Putting in power supplies that might look good on paper (750W) but are only gold rated and don't even say what type they are exactly (could be really cheap ones). Putting in low-grade AIO watercooling solutions with only one 120mm fan because the customers think that's awesome when a cheaper but high-quality air-cooler would be the better solution at a lower price point. Not specifying the exact RAM configuration (only says 32 GB Corsair 3200) It's always the same story, be careful when buying prebuilt systems that look good on paper, people!

The question is if your CPU is even clocking that high (up to 5.1) considering your low-grade watercooling and 750W power supply. Like someone else said, I would suggest checking system stability with some tool like Prime95 or AIDA64 and check your temperatures, voltages, things like that.

The overhead panel is fine, too. Just need to switch on the dome lights.

This is how it should look with all lights on. Pretty much all the switches are easily visible.

You need to look higher and further back. There are dome lights up there.

I'm sure it will be entertaining to watch. 😄

I'm not holding my breath on that PC24 being anything close to study-level. The real jet has a Honeywell glass cockpit, and I can't imagine IRIS replicating that to an acceptable level. Also, what the devs wrote in that Facebook thread about navdata and Navigraph doesn't seem encouraging:

No, but let's open another couple of threads about the same thing while we're at it.

Announcement here: https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10159147785032416&id=56985552415&__tn__=*s*s-R

If I don't have a particular goal in mind, I often check out the current community events that are mentioned on the official forums or the MSFS Discord. There are all kinds of events there, from virtual airshows, formation flying, guided tours through a certain region from a flightsimmer who lives there, or even flights teaching you about historical events, like this flight from Malta to Sicily that is happening tonight and that will give a guided tour on the locations of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in World War 2. https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/the-bush-divers-invitational-sicily/418880

Only if we can do this!

I was referring specifically to the price of @Maxis' 6800XT that you referred to earlier. And as I said before, my overall point wasn't about GPU pricing anyway, but about the relative value you get per $/€/... from a prebuilt system compared to a self-built one.

That depends on the update and what specific changes it brings. The World Updates often brought with them some incompatibilities with scenery updates (both payware and freeware) that cover the same area (like a payware scenery for London, and then the sim itself updates the London scenery). I generally try to wait before I buy larger payware scenery for a particular region when I know that a World Update will be upcoming for the same region.

If you go for 128 GB, maybe you could even run several MSFS instances at the same time and let the AI fly your own custom traffic. 😄

Sure, the GPU is pricy (though not 2000$-pricy). My main point was that trying to get such a configuration as a prebuilt system for a reasonable price is almost impossible.

Exactly. There's so many great resources available to properly configure or even self-build a great gaming PC at a reasonable cost. I mean, just look at your own system description. It's a perfect, beautifully balanced configuration, and it probably cost half of what someone had to pay for a crappy Alienware prebuilt "gaming PC".

😋