Version 1.18.15.0 of Microsoft Flight Simulator is out. This is the hotfix that we had news about just a few days ago is out. Asobo has already issued one hotfix for Update 5 and now we have our second hotfix. Here are some of the things that they have fixed and tip on something to watch out for.

Problems fixed, known issue

Let’s cut straight to the chase, the latest hotfix is aimed at solving some significant problems with Update 5. This probably won’t solve all of them but hopefully it resolved some key problems that many people are having.

Included in the update are fixes for ground level of detail at high altitudes, fixes to cloud visuals, and fixes to missing volumetric lights. There are some other more technical fixes and one that should resolve Aerosoft CRJ problems.

Here’s the full list:

• Fixed ground level of detail (low resolution) when flying at airliner altitudes
• Fixed “washed out / oil painted” clouds and the overall luminosity under cloud coverage
• Fixed missing volumetric lights
• Fixed abnormal temperature spikes over airports when the Metar data was not updating often enough
• Aligned pressure altitude simvar and pitot static altitude calculations to prevent wrong altitude information for external Live ATC services
• GPU stats are now displayed in the debug window when the dev mode is activated on PC
• Disabled aggressive compilation optimization for WASM (signed-zeroes, NoInf and NoNaN but keep fast-math)

It’s unclear if this will solve some of the other problems too such as the frequent crash to desktop problems that the sim is having. More on that in the next section.

Clear that Community folder

Asobo has been writing this on the last several patches but this is something that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Rename, move, or otherwise rename your Community folder if you’ve put things in there and are having problems. One of the biggest problems that people are having with Update 5 is that their mods and modules are not fully compatible with the sim.

The way that the whole thing works is both good and bad. The contents of the folder are processed in some way before the sim fully starts up. Crashes and hangups during start-up can be the result of those modifications rather than the core components of the sim.

The feature of this folder is that it’s easy to modify your sim to your hearts content without having to know too much about modifications themselves. The downside is that this is also the Achilles heel of the sim and it can cause all kinds of problems.

So, on the latest patch (and most patches previously), this is what Asobo has said:

If you are playing on PC, some packages in your community folder may not have been updated and, as a result, may have an unexpected impact on the title’s performance and behavior.

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

MSFS Release Notes

This all said, even with a relatively clean Community folder, you can still have problems. I’m seeing crash to desktop problems whenever I fly the Carenado C170. My review of that has been delayed until that gets worked out. Is it Carenado’s problem? Asobo’s? I’m not sure. But if you are having problems… clear that folder out and see it if helps.