Before I commit...

[dcc]

I've been monitoring the progress of the new sim and slowly acquiring updated hardware to run it. (I still run FS9 and thoroughly enjoy it). Knowing that adjusting to it to the point of full satisfaction will take much time well after purchase, just as with past releases, I'm looking to gather some info before I take the plunge.

A few questions to those in the know:

- I'm trying to understand the deployment of the product asit seems to be constantly evolving. If I were to purchase and download it right now, would I get the most recent version with all fixes, patches, extras, etc, or would I get the very first version (from day one) and need to download and install each and every update in chronological order? Or are there "service packs" with cumulative updates, or ? ... I've seen the feature road maps and read about different things (and ways) people have had to download. I've even registered at the MSFS site, but it's still not clear to me how it's all rolling out, what I'll get the day I buy it, how often I'll need to download patches, whether it does so automatically or by request ("push" or "pull"), etc.

-I understand it is an entirely new program, with entirely different file structure (which is fine, and understandable). How customizable is it from the get-go? Can one edit text files to tweak flight dynamics? I've read about an SDK, and that it is still evolving too. I guess I'm interested in knowing a bit more about how much one can tweak now, out of the box, at this time. (I would imagine if the FS community embraces it long term this situation will evolve too)

- the visuals look stunning, no doubt. For those of you who have been around FS for decades and desire a simulation (not just a game) do you find yourself flying exclusively MSFS now, or do you still fly your older sims (FS9, FSX, Prepar3D, etc.) too? (In other words, do the stunning visuals spoil the older sims to the point that, even though you may have your favorite plane in the older sim, it's no longer satisfying because the new sim looks so good)

Thanks,

- dcc

(I haven't posted in a while, maybe some of you remember me )

[ryanbatc]

You would download the most up to date version, at the time of purchase.

There might be an initial file to install, and then once in the program it will download everything.

So far we can tweak flight dynamics from any of the standard planes. The Deluxe and Premium ones seem to be locked.

As a almost all GA flyer I've not seriously gone back to XP11 or P3D. I do miss my Realair and A2A aircraft plus my beloved Reality XP GNS and GTN avionics. The default MSFS avionics are a bit lite. Also, beware, there is a lot of glass cockpits in the new sim.

[Sundog]

You would download the most up to date version, at the time of purchase.

There might be an initial file to install, and then once in the program it will download everything.

So far we can tweak flight dynamics from any of the standard planes. The Deluxe and Premium ones seem to be locked.

As a almost all GA flyer I've not seriously gone back to XP11 or P3D. I do miss my Realair and A2A aircraft plus my beloved Reality XP GNS and GTN avionics. The default MSFS avionics are a bit lite. Also, beware, there is a lot of glass cockpits in the new sim.

Everything he said. Two things though;

First, be aware that when you install it you won't see anything happen for a few minutes. You might think your PC is locked up. It isn't, it's just not keeping you in the loop.

Second, you may think you'll fly this for the cool planes and go back to your old sim to fly the planes you like. I, personally, find that difficult, because the new sim looks so good (IMHO). Don't get me wrong, it's still far from perfect, yet, at the same time, much more advanced than anything before. I find it difficult to go back to P3Dv4 and fly the planes I like, because it seems so :::blah::: to me after flying this. You've been warned.

Do note that third party developers are doing what they can to get new product into the sim, even with a sketchy SDK that needs a lot more work. It's simply a matter of time until many of the planes we loved from the old sims migrate to this new one.

P.S. - Yes, I remember you, as I flew the wings off of your P-38s in FS9. The Milviz P-38 was really nice as well in P3D and I hope they update it for this sim. Welcome back David.

Ken

[DaleRFU]

I came from P3D where I pretty much flew Dinos Typhoon almost every time in VR. The new sim has neither the Typhoon or VR and is very much a GA flightsim at the moment....yet I just can't bring myself to go back to other platforms. I even fired up P3D in my beloved Typhoon and as I sat at the end of the runway I just didn't want to fly in P3D anymore which is a real shame because I managed to get it to a place that I really enjoyed, the new sim has just taken things to a new level in my opinion even if it is mainly GA based. I am hopeful that Dino will bring his Typhoon and many other aircraft to the new sim but time will tell.

i don't think you be disappointed especially coming from FS9. Just be prepared to wait for other aircraft to land on the scene.

[Tom Clayton]

(I haven't posted in a while, maybe some of you remember me )

You're joking, right? I still tell people the history of Glacier Girl when warbirds come up in conversations! Welcome back!!!

[wombat666]

How could us old hands forget David?
Loved all your Lightnings, especially the overlooked one: 'Night Lightning'.

[falcon409]

Great to see the "dcc" pop up again David. Welcome home, as it were. Like everyone else I was a huge fan of your airplanes and your P-38 was the very first download I did when I started flying in FS9. Great to see you back!

[jankees]

Me too, I loved your P-38's!
Don't be afraid to take the jump, I did too, and although I would never voluntary park the included aircraft in hangar if there were others available, I still love the sim. I looks sooo much better than FS9, FSX or any of the P3D's that I can almost forgive them the boring aircraft selection. I still have P3D, just in case, but I haven't started it once since my MSFS install...

[FlyingsCool]

Me, too, LOVED your P-38's, and was totally into the Glacier Girl thing when it was going down and followed it on its trip.

Make sure to NOT install it in the WinApps directory!

I Still haven't figured out exactly how to get everything to install where I'd really like (the SDK ended up on C, while I really wanted it on my D drive)

I highly, highly recommend installing it on an SSD drive with plenty of space.

I have two 1TB Rocket SSD's that are very fast (most don't have the throughput of these, be very careful checking the specs of the SSD's, as well as what your motherboard supports). I put an adapter in one of my PCi 16x4 or whatever is the biggest pipe one for one of them. My current motherboard's M2 slot does not support the max speed of my other SSD (C Drive), but it works fine and I'll update eventually.

So I set my PC up as OS and most programs on an SSD C in my MB M2 slot, MSFS in D:\MSFS2020 on the second SSD, then I have a 3TB and 10TB hard drives for other storage

(I also do some audio recording, the hard drives are fast enough for that).

So, to answer your most important question... yes, you can configure where it goes, and Asobo is very supportive of the addon community and there's lots we can edit now, and there will be more in the future.

The reason you do not want to put it in the WinnApps directory is that it ends up encrypted, and trying to edit and access files becomes dicey. It's much easier to manage if you install it outside of that location for perusing the install and editing files.

Essentially the file structure is two directories

Community is where all addons are installed
OneStore is for the main files. You want to avoid editing these files directly as much as possible, as that will screw with all the updates we're going to be getting (monthly +more for the time being).

In Onestore, each plane and every other asset pretty much gets its own directory structure, managed with layout.json files to tell the software what all the files are. There are a ton more file dependencies for every asset now. One comma really can mess with you

The system is very XML based, so pretty readable. It also still supports most FSX stuff to a large degree, especially scenery wise. But even in aircraft you'll recognize a ton. The gauge/panel system is now HTML based to a large degree, with 3D gauges pretty much required now. I haven't delved into the gauges a ton yet, so I can't say a whole lot about it. What was the aircraft.cfg has now been split up over several files now for easier organization.

Gotta go... hope that helps.

[FlyingsCool]

Oh,.. and, even though the A2A and military aircraft are some of my favorite planes to fly, I have not been tempted to go back. There's so much to learn and do here, it's just a ton of fun (not too mention I'm preparing to get back into the air again for real, so GA is where my head is at at the moment). This version is totally inspiring me to fly again, I get shocked all the time how real it looks for the area I fly in (North West Metro Boston into NH and Maine and south to the Cape and Islands and even to Long Island and NYC).

[modelr]

Hi David,
Welcome back! As others have said, this sim is just so good looking, and there is so much to see, I haven't fired up P3Dv5 since my first flight in MSFS, even thouvh I just bought the ORBX release of True Earth Southern California!

Would love to have your P-38s available in this sim. I still have all of them, including all texture releases on my FS9 hdd.

As for the new rig, It's turning out you don't need the top of the line equipment to enjoy this sim. Mine is middle of the road for today, and just running everything on default is much better than any of the other sims.

Sent from my SM-G935R4 using Tapatalk

[PRB]

Hey David!

Before this sim was released, I only had P3D installed on my computer. I understand liking the old sims. FS9 in particular. Had a lot of fun in that sim online...

I can tell you this: I sure can't wait for somebody to release an "old" plane for this sim. The truth is, if every flight sim ever released only had GA planes and airliners, I would never have been interested in flight sim in the slightest. Flying the classics, or pretending to, is what has always kept my attention in these sims. FS9 and FSX had some. DC-3s and such. P3D does too. This sim's default planes are pretty much all glass cockpit ships, with a couple of exceptions. A P-38 or DC-3 would be nice. Any Lockheed twin. Or a Beech 18. Heck, at this point I'd even settle for a P-51D! Don't tell anyone I said that!

[Odie]

Hey david,

Glad to see your post pop-up! Thought of you a couple of weeks ago when the Smithsonian Channel did a documentary on the P-38! Brought back good
memories of your stable of Lightnings!

Best,
Odie

[dcc]

Thanks all for the comments, suggestions and well wishes. After a pretty long break from FS and only flying occasionally, I've been "back" flying FS9 a lot since the announcement of the new sim. My updated rig is almost ready and I'm thinking of getting MSFS next month. My biggest "fear" (if one can call it that) is what others have said -- that the new sim is such a quantum leap that I will not want to go back. And without a P-38 (or any other vintage era plane) I'm not sure how satisfying the new sim can be after I've flown over my house a few times.

So, the last few months I've been enjoying some old payware general aviation and even regional jets in FS9 as I've prepared to move to the new sim. While not as fun as a Lightning, I can see the appeal and am beginning to enjoy "low and slow" as well as all the automatic systems of a modern jetliner.

I've gleaned a lot from this forum and others like it in preparing for MSFS. After reading how the sim actually does OK without the latest high-end system, I opted to just update my 5-year old system with a new graphics card, more memory and a new monitor.

Thanks again, and I imagine I'll be posting here more often.

- dcc

[dcc]

...

... hope that helps.

great info! It helped indeed!

- dcc

[Tom Clayton]

If you like low/slow, the base version has a Cuncrafters XCub and a Zlin Savage Cub. The XCub comes with a touchscreen Garmin G3X with full autopilot. A Pitts S2S and Extra are also standard. Here's a list of the planes included in each version...

https://www.polygon.com/microsoft-fl...deluxe-premium

[Tom Clayton]

And the initial "hand-crafted" airports. Once installed, you can go into the Marketplace and get the free Japan Update for even more hand-crafted airports, plus more.

https://www.windowscentral.com/micro...lator-airports

[dcc]

And the initial "hand-crafted" airports. Once installed, you can go into the Marketplace and get the free Japan Update for even more hand-crafted airports, plus more.

https://www.windowscentral.com/micro...lator-airports

Thanks!

Is there a menu, or place in the user interface where one can see if the software is up-to-date, like Windows 10 Update? It sounds like there's going to be a lot of updates, extras, to manage over time.

- dcc

[Tom Clayton]

There's a couple. In Windowed mode, the version you're running is in the top-left of the title bar. In full-screen, once you're logged in, click on your avatar and the version will be there. You can keep up with the updates here:

https://www.flightsimulator.com/

[dcc]

As a follow up to this post, I finally purchased MSFS and got it up and running this past week. I'm glad I heeded advice from the community on several accounts, from upgrading my 5yo PC (instead of opting for a new system) to being patient while it took over 8 hours to download and install. I ran into a few hiccups during installation but with all the posts out there I was able to quickly find solutions.

First impressions -- it has met my expectations, both the good and the bad. I'm happy it runs pretty well on my upgraded PC -- I'm also very happy I did not get an entirely new PC to run it, as I was saving up to before it was released. I was a little worried that the stunning visuals would cause me to discard good ol' faithful FS9, but so far, not so. I've found MSFS a great visual ride but with warts, and where FS9 lacks in the visuals, it makes up in customizability and being where I can still fly my P-38s. As long as MSFS user base grows and people stick with, it should improve and hopefully someone will make a decent set of P-38s some day

So I plan to fly both for the foreseeable future. I think I'll fly MSFS to explore new areas of the world, and FS9 when I want to fly my favorite planes, etc.

- dcc

[warchild]

Thanks all for the comments, suggestions and well wishes. After a pretty long break from FS and only flying occasionally, I've been "back" flying FS9 a lot since the announcement of the new sim. My updated rig is almost ready and I'm thinking of getting MSFS next month. My biggest "fear" (if one can call it that) is what others have said -- that the new sim is such a quantum leap that I will not want to go back. And without a P-38 (or any other vintage era plane) I'm not sure how satisfying the new sim can be after I've flown over my house a few times.
dcc

I dont know that it can be called a quantum leap. Yesssss, Microsoft played fast and fancy with its installer and put all the basic version ( 50 dollar version ) files in your app data folder, and yes, its downloading weather and scenery in the background and is pretty seamless there.. Once you actually into the aircraft folder though, its very much FSX with the aircraft.cfg file and air file split up into some small text files that do the exact same thing the cfg and air file used to do. Theyve added some entries in the flight model that arent actually documented elsewhere so no one ( not even some of the Asobo crew ) knows what they do or if they are needed ( which mostly, they arent ).

If there is any quantum leap, its in the user experience. Thanks too twelve years of hardware and network development the user experience is jaw dropingly amazing. Yes, the default aircraft still fly on rails, but they are at least controllable. The world is still doled out in ten meter squares, but they are really really nice ten meter squares ( and yes, you can see your house from there ) Your first look at this sim, doesnt show the sim. It shows where it could possibly go, and Asobo is taking it there as fast as it can.

Model conversion from FSX to FS2020 is fairly straight forward and can be done in as little as half an hour once you know what your doing ( I dont, but I only work with numbers ), and the biggest drawback so far that I see, is that Microsoft will not sell any armed aircraft through their store ( but third party dev's are quite welcome to make them and sell elsewhere ).. And thats it..

It's an extremely comfortable and friendly ( if still a little buggy ) sim and I think a lot of fun to fly in ( though usually I'm working and so not focusing on fun )..

I hope youll join us soon..
Pam


PS:: Yes, we desperately would love your P-38s in this sim..

[Tom Clayton]

They don't put armed aircraft into the Marketplace due to the ESRB "E" rating. But one thing I think would definitely sell there is something like a smooth-nosed Reno variant like White Lightning.

[dcc]

that's interesting that they won't have any armed a/c, I suppose I can understand that. Leaves out a lot of planes though.

I guess a F-4 or F-5 Photo Lightning, or a Reno racer like Tom said could make it.

- dcc

[FlyingsCool]

I haven't seen a complete definition of what "Armed Aircraft" means. I'm hoping what they mean is, they won't allow "armed aircraft", IOW, no shooting, no bombs, no missle, etc.. I don't see any reason why they can't allow the sale of, say, a Lockheed P-38...

Not to mention, the limitation ONLY has to do with what can be sold through the Microsoft Store. You could sell planes through Simmarket or any other source you choose, or, if it's a "free" plane, upload it here on SOH, and people could install it.

[Tom Clayton]

I think their definition is visible weapons - that's why I was hoping for something like White Lightning in the Marketplace, since that would be considered "official" content (or whatever...). But I do seem to remember that MS/Asobo had absolutely no issue with third party addons that depicted them.