A brand new MS Flight Simulator is coming...

[Firebird]

Gents,

In case anybody was pondering on getting MSFS then rather than hunting around for cheap legit MS keys you can currently get all versions on Steam with 20% off.
So the 3 editions are, £47.99, £63.99 and £87.99 respectively.

Some of you might find this useful.

[flyboy]

I have already got 67GB of MS2020 add on files. There are some military airfields, navy bases, Ft Rucker, Ft Benning, and a submarine base. Most military aircraft are payware, a few liveries for default. I been working on a Southeastern setup of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana. Most of the files I found were on Flightsimulator.to. If I find a Military file, I have been keeping it. So far I have been impressed with what is available.

[Firebird]

I have been impressed about is the number and quality of the mil scenery available so far.
When you think back to the early days of FS9 and how long it took for scenery add-ons to start filtering through.

Of course I want more, but it is very encouraging.

[flyboy]

So far I found sceneries for the following US Military services:

US NAVY

A file to put carriers all over the world.
A working carrier with arrestor wires to fly the F18 on.
Three variations of Pearl Harbor. One has a "working" version where the ships move.
Sasebo Japan
Naval Station Norfolk
Naval Station San Diego
NAS North Island
NAS Miramar
Naval Station Grouton
NAS Merdian
Naval Station Puget Sound

US Air Force

Joint Base Elmendorf/Richardson
Mountain Home AFB
Joint Base Andrews/Camp Springs
Columbus AFB
Nellis AFB
Groom Lake/Area 51

Dare Range
Altus AFB
Warren Grove Range
Utah Test and Training Range

US Army

Ft Benning
Ft Rucker
Robert Gray AAF

So far that is what I have come across as I search for files to go in a Southeastern project.

Happy Flying....

Flyboy

[Firebird]

I also have from the same site :-

NAS Oceana
NAS Pensacola

Hill AFB
Langley AFB
Charleston AFB
Indian Springs AFB

Davison AAF
Wheeler-Sack AAF
Fort Drum

Westover ARB

[flyboy]

Thanks Steve, I got all of them a few minutes ago. I also downloaded the free F-22A and the C-17.

[flyboy]

Just read that Sim Update 10 will be delayed 2 weeks and that the next country of interest will be Canada. Yesterday was MSFS 2020 anniversary. DX12 is supposed to be released with Sim Update 10.

I am working on Alaska now. Very well covered as far as downloads for it. Lots of detailed bush fields, regional airports and landmarks.

[Firebird]

DX12 is definitely going to be more complete in SU10 but I don't think it is going to be fully optimised in that release. If you look at the development logs it says that it will implemented in SU10+.
What I think it will mean is that it will be usable in SU10 without being a complete drain on resources.

The reason given for the SU10 delay was performance issues. Whether that is down to DX12 issues or whether they have still not overcome the performance drop of SU9 is still unclear to me at this time.

[Firebird]

Well SU10 is out and I can safely say that the the fps has gotten better but I would give two caveats to that.
One, in my testing, at Northolt and static on the runway I am getting 12-15 fps (due to London and Heathrow). Now this is with an RTX3080. This is with either TAA or DLSS selected.
When I go back to the options and alter the Alising from DLSS to TAA, save, and then alter it back to DLSS and then return to Northolt the fps, on the runway, is at 32-38. This has happened every time I tried it. It also happens the same if I start with TAA and set TAA-DLSS-TAA.
What the hell. Just saving the cfg without altering the actual options double the fps!

I suggest others try it to see if they get a comparable increase.

The other one is weird. My GPU sits between 25-40% usage and my CPU at 25-30%. My frame limit is set to 72, on 144hz monitors, but it doesn't even try to use 100% GPU to try to reach the frame limit. It has to be the game that is limiting it as benchmarks push the GPU.

Something is very weird there.

[flyboy]

Steve, SU10 has gone well for me. I used the tweak settings off Flightsimulator.com and have got great frame rates and no CTDs.
I am using a vanilla set up with only the add-ons from the Microsoft Store.

I just downloaded a add-on called STORM from the store. It lets you fly into historical and real world hurricanes. I have been having a great time doing that with a C-130. The wind, rain and turbulence is very realistic.

Looking forward to the next world update which is Canada.

[flyboy]

Just a side note:

World Update for Canada suppose to be released 29th September.

I flew into Hurricane Ian last night and I bet there was 30 live AI flying in it. I was more worried about the traffic than I was the storm. LOL I checked this morning on FlightAware and it showed TEAL78 out of Kessler flying in it.

For those who like to fly in these storms here is the official plan for the day:

577
NOUS42 KNHC 261819
REPRPD
WEATHER RECONNAISSANCE FLIGHTS
CARCAH, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER, MIAMI, FL.
0220 PM EDT MON 26 SEPTEMBER 2022
SUBJECT: TROPICAL CYCLONE PLAN OF THE DAY (TCPOD)
VALID 27/1100Z TO 28/1100Z SEPTEMBER 2022
TCPOD NUMBER.....22-123

I. ATLANTIC REQUIREMENTS
1. HURRICANE IAN
FLIGHT ONE - TEAL 75 FLIGHT TWO - NOAA 49
A. 27/1600Z A. 28/0000Z
B. AFXXX 2209A IAN B. NOAA9 2309A IAN
C. 27/1500Z C. 27/1730Z
D. NA D. NA
E. 27/1600Z TO 27/2200Z E. NA
F. SFC TO 15,000 FT F. 41,000 TO 45,000 FT
G. BUOY DROP G. SYNOPTIC SURVEILLANCE

FLIGHT THREE - TEAL 72 FLIGHT FOUR - NOAA 43
A. 27/2330Z,28/0230Z,0530Z A. 28/0000Z
B. AFXXX 2409A IAN B. NOAA3 2509A IAN
C. 27/2100Z C. 27/2130Z
D. 24.4N 84.0W D. 24.5N 84.0W
E. 27/2300Z TO 28/0530Z E. 27/2130Z TO 28/0330Z
F. SFC TO 15,000 FT F. SFC TO 15,000 FT
G. FIX G. TAIL DOPPLER RADAR

FLIGHT FIVE - TEAL 73 FLIGHT SIX - TEAL 74
A. 28/0830Z,1130Z,1430Z A. 28/1200Z
B. AFXXX 2609A IAN B. AFXXX 2709A IAN
C. 28/0615Z C. 28/0730Z
D. 25.7N 83.9W D. NA
E. 28/0800Z TO 28/1430Z E. NA
F. SFC TO 15,000 FT F. 24,000 TO 33,000 FT
G. FIX G. SYNOPTIC SURVEILLANCE

FLIGHT SEVEN - NOAA 42
A. 28/1200Z
B. NOAA2 2809A IAN
C. 28/0800Z
D. 26.1N 83.8W
E. 28/0830Z TO 28/1230Z
F. SFC TO 15,000 FT
G. TAIL DOPPLER RADAR

2. SUCCEEDING DAY OUTLOOK:
A. CONTINUE 3-HRLY FIXES.
B. POSSIBLE NOAA 49 G-IV SYNOPTIC SURVEILLANCE MISSION AROUND
IAN FOR 29/0000Z, DEPARTING KEFD AT 28/1730Z.
C. NOAA 43 P-3 TAIL DOPPLER RADAR MISSION FOR 29/0000Z,
DEPARTING KEFD AT 28/2000Z.

II. PACIFIC REQUIREMENTS
1. NEGATIVE RECONNAISSANCE REQUIREMENTS.
2. OUTLOOK FOR SUCCEEDING DAY.....NEGATIVE.

$$
SEF

NNNN

Have fun and safe flying.

[Firebird]

This comes under the heading of a useful tip. Apologies if it seems long but I feel its important to explain why I did what i did.

With my test flying, for graphics purposes, I always use Northolt (EGWU). Due to its proximity to Heathrow and London. I have always had pretty abysmal framerates there even with an RTX 3080 card. On the runway in the default B350 i would get 11-12 fps.

I accidentally stumbled across something. I found that if at that point I presses Esc, to go to the menu followed by doing a 'Restart', rather than 'Resume', I got 27 fps. I tried it with other places and found it similar. So I posted to flightsimulator.com forums.
To my surprise i found I was seemingly the only one that had this issue/improvement work around, everyone else had better fps to start with.

To cut a long story short(er) after various cfg changes produced nothing I decided that as I had upgraded the graphics card and cpu AFTER my MSFS install I wondered if there was still a record of my original card still lying around buried deep in the bowels of MSFS and that was affecting the game.
So I reset the games data through the advanced options in the Apps menu and then proceeded to wipe out all traces of the game after an uninstall.

I then went through the painfully slow full reinstallation. Afterwards I retested EGWU. I got 35 fps, even more than the in game 'Restart' provided. A somewhat dramatic improvement.

So I have concluded that it may be worth flushing out everything and reinstalling after a hardware change. Something must stay somewhere about your config.

One other tip, trying to ensure that the Task Manager showed the true CPU utilisation rather than just plain 100% all the time I happened upon a tip to disable the HPET (High Precision Event Timer) through the Device Manager settings. Apparently this was useful 10+years ago for video apps but programmers have got better at multithreading and all this does now is throw in interrupts, i.e. slow down games. They reckon that disabling it gives you a 3-4 fps boost. I tried it and at EGWU on the runway with the B350 I got 40 fps.

[John Young]

I have an interesting problem since I updated MSFS and the SDK to the latest versions last week.

If I launch from a fresh boot up of the PC, I can reach the Welcome screen in 2.5 to 4 minutes and then into Developer Mode, or into the game. Closing down works fine.

If I close MSFS and launch it again, the sim now freezes at the Welcome screen and I can't do anything more. I can only close it in Task Manager.

I can now launch again and everything is fine. The next time the sim freezes again at the Welcome screen and I go around the launch process again.

In fact, it's quicker to re-start the PC before the second launch to ensure it's successful.

This is a real pain when developing, because I'm constantly launching the sim to test stuff for a few hours at a time in each design session.

The Drone Camera is also now problematical. It's always been necessary to increase the speed to maximum in order to keep up with the test AI aircraft and that has to be done every time because the settings are not saved. However, after the update, the camera doesn't hold the speed setting and I have to re-set it at least twice, for it to stick.

John

[TimC340]

Sounds like more of Asobo's flaky QA at work! Sadly, I have no insight to help, John, but it does sound like the program isn't clearing all of its routines when it shuts down and TM is effectively having to complete the process. Might be worth only closing the program with TM (after saving any changes) until you get a fix. No idea about the camera, I'm afraid.

I find I just can't be bothered to fire MSFS up these days!

[flyboy]

There are two different types of utilities on flightsimilator.to you might want to check out. Airflow and AIground. They correct most of the problems with AI behavior in MSFS.

Sent from my motorola edge (2021) using Tapatalk

[John Young]

I've installed both.

The "AIGround" program pauses the AI aircraft for about a minute and a half after pushback for better realism. The aircraft still pushes back with parked parts, like RBF ribbons and engine covers visible, but they disappear at the end of the pushback rather than waiting for the move forward after the minute and a half. However, during the pushback the engine covers flash on and off. It would be great if the author could create an option for the pushback to be killed altogether.

The really useful feature is that the taxi speed can be adjusted on straight sections of taxiways. However, on 90 degree turns, the aircraft now strays wildly from the yellow line:



The "Airflow"program improves separation and on the spot spinning when two AI aircraft are moving close together. I wasn't able to test that because I avoid the problem in my MSFS flight plans by not having two aircraft depart together. Similarly, I couldn't test the better separation characteristics in flight with "Airflow" for the same reason.

John

[TimC340]

I use those two programs in P3D. I wasn't aware the author had rewritten them for MSFS.

[flyboy]

I am going to play with the INI files to see if that makes a difference.

Sent from my motorola edge (2021) using Tapatalk

[TimC340]

SU11 may have broken lots of stuff (as is common with Asobo updates), but this is cool!

YouTube

[SeanG]

SU11 may have broken stuff, but it has drastically improved performance in my ‘potato’ PC

Sean