Following the release of Flight Simulator 2024’s Sim Update 2, I’ve thought long and hard about what criteria I have for when this sim has finally “arrived.” What I mean by that is a sim that has delivered on its promised features and generally works with few problems. The exact moment where the sim starts doing what I want it to do and fully replaces and supplants the positive feelings I’ve developed for its predecessor has both arrived and also not arrived yet. Its a flight simulator superposition! How is Sim Update 2 and what is “there”? More importantly, how far are we from getting to it? This editorial is some musings on how things are going and how we get “there” with this sim.

The mistake in my thinking

Following the difficult and initially disappointing release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 back in the fall of last year, I found myself stuck. I was not sure if I should wait for 2024 to mature and fly 2020 in the meantime or stick it out and really see how the sim progresses.

I’ve put hundreds of hours into the sim already and I’ve had mostly had fun time with it. But there are issues! Quite a bit of the sim was not working correctly at the start of its launch but it has been growing and maturing bit by bit. Third parties have been busy updating their content to work with the new sim which has helped immensely with my feeling of everything being there.

When Sim Update 2 arrived a few weeks ago, I admittedly started out with a fair bit of disappointment. Despite a lengthy list of updates, loading into the sim felt like the same old thing. Some things were great, somethings were ok, and a few things are irksome. I was sort of pinning my hopes that everything would be working correctly from here on in. But that may not be fair.

The difference with each of these updates is in the proportion of what was annoying and what was working. I’ve spent quite a bit of time going over things that weren’t working. Some of them, to be fair, still aren’t. One example? The PC-12NGX’s cabin pressure system is still seemingly buggy or just not working correctly (in Career mode it causes hypoxia and an end to your flight if you fly at higher altitudes). On the other side of the coin, there are hundreds of other annoying items from Sim Update 1 or before that are now gone. A meaningful step forward to be sure!

Some old aircraft, even a few that were still reportedly not listed as compatible, seemed to also be working better than before without serious issues getting in the way of having some fun with them. I recently did a flight with the Bonanza V35 (released as Famous Flyer III) and despite reportedly not being supported yet…it was just fine and seemingly working just as well as ever.

Performance with Sim Update 2 has also improved. In part because of some under the hood changes and in part because the sim now natively supports both nVidia and AMD frame generation technology. The AMD system is great in particular because even slightly older nVidia cards, not officially supported, can make use of the system. It has a few minor glitches but its doubled my frame rate in most instances!

After quite a bit of time with all of this, I came to the conclusion that while Sim Update 2 was not the magic bullet that suddenly makes this sim whole. At the same time, its a significant step on the path to finally replacing the experience I was having at the end of my time with 2020. That proportion of great, good, and irksome items has shifted in the right direction. There isn’t going to be a singular monolithic update that solves everything. This sim, most sims to be frank, are too big and too complicated to just be fixed with the snap of some fingers.

So my new thinking is that MSFS 2024 isn’t going to suddenly be “there.” But more and more I’m finding myself enjoying it without reservation or issue and that’s encouraging. More of it is now “there” and it will take another leap with Sim Update 3 and beyond. I’m sure!

There’s still quite a bit to do

One of the first things that greets me every time I start the sim is the UI (user interface). It was totally changed for 2024 and while there were things to be critical about with the 2020 interface, it often feels like 2024 has ultimately been a partial regression than an improvement. I don’t hate the new UI and there are good things about it but it also stumbles in a few places too.

For one, the UI still feels slow and sluggish after the first two sim updates. Sometimes its subtle and sometimes its not but everything from clicking on a menu and then waiting for it to appear to the loading in of aircraft and scenery just feels a little laboured.

I recently upgraded my internet connection from a 45 Mbps to a 1 Gbps connection but the change in download speeds has made negligible difference in how quickly things appear. That suggests to me that its less of a download issue and more of some sort of core technology problem.

There’s usability issues too. Some aircraft render but appear distant from the camera. Some of these are third party types but some of them are aircraft contracted with Microsoft. There are other issues that I’ve mentioned before like fewer searchable categories in the aircraft selection screen.

Then there’s the career mode. I’ve spent a bit more time with it myself but the problems with it have often pushed me more towards the free flight mode.

Anecdotally I’ve see many reports of there still being significant issues on forums. I’ve seen a few myself too! I’ve watched a friend try and complete a career experience only for the final landing marker to disappear into the centre of the virtual planet. His frustration was palpable and I don’t blame him.

I’ve never needed career mode to structure my flights but I know the feature is popular and Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, Jorg Neuman, has said in the last Q&A that its about half of people using career. This is a feature that is clearly desired and it needs to work a bit better than it is currently. Free flight, on the other hand, is really starting to hit its stride now and that’s great.

While the weather in Sim Update 2 (and the whole series in general) remains awe inspiring much of the time, I’m also aware that we’re still missing things like thunderstorms that actually work in live weather. Sim Update 3 beta reportedly addresses that but it does hurt a bit that its been 6 months and we’re still dealing with that.

There’s also the updated interface for the EFB in Sim Update 2. It’s better! But it still does some weird things that I just don’t get. Even after punching in some information for a flight plan and sending it off to ATC, it still positions the camera at a zeroed out location on the map grid near Africa. IFR selection is still on the second page when its kind of weird as a key decision point early in the process of creating a flight plan. And changing around the assigned plan still sometimes draws scattered plans on the screen with overlapping routes that don’t make sense to me sometimes. It’s better than before, but it still needs cleaning up.

This isn’t a comprehensive list of everything that bothers me or that is wrong with MSFS 2024 but I hope it is illustrative that there are still problems to be squashed.

Should this have been a 2025 release?

The longer this has all gone on, the more I feel deep down that this is a sim that launched just a little too early. We’ve heard a bit about the short testing cycle prior to launch and we can see the clear evidence of so many aircraft and other features just not working at launch that it feels like the product was launched before it was ready. I know there are often significant headwinds, to borrow an aviation term, in corporate culture that often results in games that are shipped before they are ready. I can’t tell you if this was one of those moments but it feels a bit like it was.

I don’t blame the developers or necessarily anyone specifically involved with Microsoft Flight Simulator. Countless Developer Q&As over the years have shown to me just how much love and attention have been put into this product by everyone involved. Not only have they put that care and attention in before but they are continuing to put it in now which gives me hope.

I always try and remember the humans behind the product and I think they have shown us, time and time again, their desire to offer up a seriously great experience. They’ve done it before and I think they will manage to do it again. Still, I think in retrospect that I wish they had the extra time to launch it without the turbulence.

Alas, it is here, it can’t be taken back, and it is moving forward!

Onwards from here

With all that I’ve written in mind and the need for me to shift my thinking, its clear to me that MSFS 2024 is not suddenly going to “arrive” and be what it was always meant to be.

Sim Update 2 was a big step forward for the sim and Sim Update 3 will probably further that goal. And somewhere along the line, these problems will be behind us and we’ll be in a place where I think 2020 was with great content coming from all quarters and fixes and features of sim updates largely adding to the experience rather than trying to plug the many bugs.

We should also be clear eyed. There will always be bugs! There will always be problems! But in perspective we can hope that the big ones are gone and they can focus in on making the smaller or more obscure ones less of an issue.

I fly Microsoft Flight Simulator a lot. It has taken over a good chunk of my siming time over the last several years and since 2024’s release I have flown it consistently. It is meeting the entertainment value that I’m asking for it more and more. More of my scenery purchases, more of my third party aircraft, and more of the great experiences I had in 2020 are making their way into 2024 now and that is making for an increasingly enjoyable experience. Onwards!