Yesterday we saw Jorg Neumann (Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator), Sebastian Wloch (Asobo CEO and co-founder), and Martial Bossard (Executive Producer) together with Jayne (Senior Community Manager) run through a whole series of questions surrounding Microsoft Flight Simulator with particular attention paid to 2024. There was also some 2020 news too!

Watch the recording

Before I get into the summary, you can of course watch the whole thing yourself. I will gloss over some details and focus in on others but if you want a reasonably quick summary read on below!

A bit of 2020 news

The next update for MSFS 2020 is coming soon with an avionics focused update for the A310 and A320neo V2 as well as some long awaited updates for the ATR.

Developer Hans Hartmann was welcomed back to the stream to walk us through some updates. The aircraft will be getting a series of bug fixes together with six new variations on the aircraft. The two most notable are the previously reported ATR 42-600S (STOL) with more powerful engines and a revised tail for landing and takeoff at smaller runways. There’s also the ATR 72-600F (freighter) variant configured to move cargo pallets. The other versions are new Highline variations for both the 42-600 and 72-600. They expect to launch these in an October 10 update and they are are free update to owners of the ATR.

All new variants:

• ATR 42-600S (STOL)
• ATR 72-600F (Freighter)
• ATR 42-600 Highline configuration 2 and 3
• ATR 72-600 Highline configuration 2 and 3

The A310 and A320 focused updates weren’t given as much attention but hopefully we’re seeing some bug fixes and maybe some performance improvements on both of them. Both iniBuilds aircraft are heavier on the frame rates and the A310 has not benefited, yet, from some of the improvements made to the similar A300-600.

We also had another confirmation today that MSFS 2020 support continues with the sim getting access to future content updates like the next World Update. It’s unclear how long that will go on for but it sounds promising for folks who are not immediately jumping into the new sim.

Speaking of MSFS 2024…let’s talk about some of the answers we got today in a summary.

Tech

One of the first questions that they answered addressed a key question and source of anxiety in the community. Why does the “ideal spec” list 64 GB of RAM? The answer came in from Seb who let us know that the specification there makes the assumption that you’re running at maximum settings and may have other software running in the background. Seb’s setup is a 32GB system and he has no problems running the sim on that.

Meanwhile, we also learned that the min spec setup assumes a system running on low settings at 1080p while recommended bumps that up to 4K with high settings.

Another significant point is memory optimization. From what was said, the new sim is going to free up more memory than before and is more efficient at rendering only what is needed and not the rest. In the past apparently the sim would load in all levels of detail for a given object into memory and display as needed but now will load levels of detail only when necessary.

DirectX 12 will now be the standard (rather than 11) and it has progressed out of beta with some apparently significant improvements. The move to the new API will apparently also help bring in new features for better performance.

There was also some discussion about what some of the new streaming capabilities will be like. As we know, quite a bit more of the sim can be streamed but at the same time they have done a lot of work to ensure that only the things that are needed will be streamed in. Seb also addressed what might happen in the event of a loss of connection to the servers with whatever had been loaded up to that point continuing to work and after 30 seconds a warning would indicate a loss of connection.

You’ll be able to make decisions in the interface as well around what is loaded locally and what remains online with the example of an airplane purchase on the marketplace being used as an example. A purchase on there can now mean almost instant access to the product without it needing to be downloaded and installed first. You can just buy and play and the most necessary pieces will be streamed to you. Fascinating! I’m not sure how well this is going to work but it remains an interesting approach. I am glad too that options exist and you can still download it and fly it from local files.

Questions were asked about importing hardware profiles from MSFS 2020 into 2024 and the answer is no. The new system is very different from the old one and so there isn’t compatibility. Rebinding controls is a time honoured tradition going between sims at this point so not too surprising. One of the features not talked about in the Q&A but that I am still excited about is per aircraft profiles coming in 2024.

There were some questions regarding ATC improvements and there are reportedly some that are coming in 2024. They deferred the question to a future Q&A session where they bring in some of the people who have been working with that to better answer the question. They are aware of SayIntentions and BeyondATC and the things that those groups are trying to do with ATC support and haven’t gone that path yet for MSFS 2024 but it sounds like they are well aware that there is great potential out there.

The voices for ATC have been worked on as well. Languages can be enabled with the potential for French controllers to speak French (if you want, Martial says) for example, you’ll choose the avatar voice for your pilot and there are more voices for controllers than before. All using Microsoft technology.

Weather

Today’s update covered a whole bunch of different items around how weather is being managed in the new sim.

For one, the cloud rendering system has been overhauled and new lighting and visualization effects are going to change how clouds are rendered. That has been connected with an updated weather system which should give us some more impressive storms (I like the sounds of that!) and turbulence effects. Turbulence is connected to both the visualization and the weather system and show now have stronger impacts. Apparently this will also improve the thermals simulation which should be a great boon for glider operations.

Another thing that I think is incredibly cool is that weather will now have a 24-hour live functionality meaning that you can load up MSFS and experience the weather anywhere on the planet in the last 24 hours. The experience goes beyond weather with live ship and air traffic also matching the time that you input. This is great because it means that you can fly different parts of the world more easily or go and experience some interesting weather that happened over that period of time.

While there are a lot of improvements they did discuss a few limits as well. The new sim will enable the simulation of tornadoes, however, they are reportedly only a part of missions in the career mode for now. They have looked at ways of putting them into the live weather, however, tornado tracking is difficult in the real world and simulating locations in the virtual world is an even greater challenge.

Airport content

I know the question has been asked here on the blog and it has come up elsewhere too. Are we getting new airports with MSFS 2024? The answer comes from Jorg who let us know that the new sim will come with all of the custom crafted airports that shipped in 2020 plus the new ones added in world updates (all now streamed to you). There won’t be many new airports (the Grand Canyon airport was name dropped) but all of the old ones are seeing upgrades to make use of the latest technology. They have scenery maker Gaya, who have done most of the World Update series airports, going over everything adding new details and features and upgrading them.

So while there won’t be much new (at least until the next World Update), the airports we already have are seeing some updates and from the sounds of it these are substantial updates.

World update and new local legend

The next World Update is number 19 and it will be released for both Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024. It’s coming in December and it will cover Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. It will have four areas covered by TIN (photogrammetry), 7 airports, and 75 points of interest.

Getting a world update in South America and Brazil in particular has long been requested and after quite a bit of leg work by the MSFS team.

The accompanying Local Legend is the CAP-4 Paulistinha which was revealed in a previous Q&A. The aircraft has been created by iniBuilds.

Those are the things that stood out for me but you may have noticed some other items too. Let me know in the comments!