Kristofski

Recently upgraded to 2024 from 2020 with the help of the community here; had some experiences on the weekend I wanted to share, get some feedback. Enjoying the upgrade so far, a mix of free flights and up to level 16 in career mode, there's certainly more to do without jumping right to 3rd party mods and add-ons. Quirks - I did encounter the ATC Taxi bug on the PPL mission, so that was a fun wasted hour of trying things before googling the issue and learning that this has been like that since the start. Pretty crazy that so many people have a bug on the very first mission (I guess second technically) and remains unresolved years later. No wonder the career mode gets a lot of hate - As per others with the bug, I just restarted and did it all over again, this time it worked. That was the only ATC/Quick Reply bug I have encountered so far. Also noticed that the "Fly Pattern Approach" before landing never actually matters even if the mission objectives tell you to, but you CANNOT reassign runways for career missions either. The ATC for Missions is certainly lacking - just press a button for canned dialog. Maybe it gets more varied when you have the instrument rating and are doing IFR routes. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like BATC/SI/P2ATC are useful for Career mode ATC handling, just for Free Flights. I'd love to be wrong about that though. Qualms - Controller mapping was interesting. Multiple assignments sometimes conflicted, and sometimes did not, when 2020 they worked fine. For some reason, my game will randomly unbind A1 on the yoke. As in the input stops working mid flight, and if I open up the options menu and just hit save and exit, it remembers the bind and works again without having to make any changes. That one is very frustrating as I'm using A1 to cycle Next Instrument view, and having it randomly unbind in the middle of flight is not great. When I switched from the Xbox Game Pass to the Steam Version, the game remembered by career progress and avatar settings, but not my logbook or controller mapping, quite randomly. Also, when did it become a requirement for all pilots to be clean shaven? No beard options in the Character Creator is just unacceptable LMAO Questions - Career Mode - I've been doing the full flights, but I've seen posts suggesting that you can increase the Sim Rate without losing points/$$ whereas the Skip To option will dock you points (and sometimes bug out causing you to crash). Is this using the Sim Rate Mod or the default Sim Rate in the game? Also in Career Mode - Companies is locked out, I assume until a higher level or rep is reached? There doesn't seem to be an unlock condition listed in game for that, unlike the specializations. Levelling up from C to B rep unlocks "Special Missions" which are supposed to be gold/yellow but I haven't seen any appear yet. These are not the same as the missions to unlock specializations, correct? I can see all of those are greyed out until I meet the requirements. Clearly should have gotten the Instrument Rating ASAP, instead of the high-performance rating and night ratings as I haven't seen a single night mission yet. It seems odd that you wouldn't need your instrument rating before the night rating anyway. Still trying to figure out what determines mission generation. Lastly, most of the technical/performance set up issues I got resolved from other threads and the game is running well; however, during the walkaround and sometimes in 3rd person view, I get the annoying "YOU DONT HAVE ENOUGH VRAM, LOWER YOUR GRAPHICS" message that I'd love to disable. I'm aware of the VRAM problem (and even with the message spamming me, its only noticeable when quickly moving the camera around in 3rd person) and I can and will be keeping the settings where they are, so if anyone knows how to turn that pop-up message off, please share!

Great Insights from everyone - ended up with the Standard edition as recommended; a lot extra planes did strike me as a try-once-and-never-again type of addition. Tried some of the unique ones from the Standard, like the Blimp or those small personal hover drone looking ones, all gimmicks for the curious. I don't think there's anyone out there rocking Blimp Sim regularly lol. The Chinook looked like a decent one, the extra Cessna models seem good but I don't think worth the price. You really do get a lot of toys in the standard edition.

Picking up 2024 before the current sale ends, but now I'm asking the lads what edition do you have and if the extra planes are worth the extra dough? Any standouts? Disappointments?

Was able to spend a couple hours last night trying the all the recommendations and here's what worked for me: Dynamic On, 30 Max FPS On 60 DLSS On TLOD 275 OLOD 150 I wanted TLOD and OLOD to be higher but alas, would get too much frame rate loss in 3rd person and walkaround. Cockpit view was better for framerate in every case. Most of the performance issues were in 3rd person, due to more rendering, draw distance, etc. Its also the only time the VRAM too low message would pop up. Without Max FPS, game looked better but would not run smoothly. Dynamic helps with framerate loss in flight, particularly approach and landing. I'd like to see better performance in 3rd person so I'll try more fiddling, but free flight, take off and landing at LOWI were all looking good. I agree that MSFS2024 looks better at lower altitudes/bush flying close to valleys and rivers. The color saturation/cartoonish vibe was completely solved with the NVCP and the recommended Digital Vibrance setting of 42% from the default 50. This was actually very easy to tune and 42 happened to be the right number, I wouldn't go lower than 40. It lowers the brightness of the candy red on medivac plane and the bright green tropical tree color which should not be in the swiss alps and is now a more accurate to a real life palette IMO I did grab some before and after print-screens but cannot seem to paste them here without a URL, so I'll take some more on the Steam version when I purchase it.... Yes, I'm converting. I think the new features and planes are worth it as long as it runs well on your PC. Glad that I was able to try it for 1$ first. Big thanks to everyone for the help.

Unfortunately (Embarrassingly) I still use an old 42 inch HDTV for my primary display (and an even older 32 inch Sony TV that I purchased one boxing day from SEARS back in the day for my secondary lol) I aged up from dual CRTs, to dual 19inch LCDs so the "big" TV was a huge upgrade originally, some 10 plus years ago now. I've had friends comment that upgrading to a recent gaming PC without getting some sort of curved gaming monitor is like putting ketchup on a steak 😄

Wow OK I had no idea this was even a thing - I've noticed it in other games as well, and never though it would be some NVidia thing, always assumed it was just a design choice by the developers. Will try tonight!

Jumping back in as one of the 'cartoonish' commenters - That's perhaps not the best word, its not looney toons its more Color Saturated I'd say, like the bright colors are brighter, almost unnaturally so they pop more, but that's not realistic, even if it looks good in screenshots and videos. 2020 looks more faded, weathered, dare I say greyed - but that matches reality, especially in overcast or rainy conditions. Like the Whites are really White, the Green of the trees is REALLY green, not the darker, muted green that you'd expect a non-tropical forest. Its like a filter has been applied to make the game 'pop' more. I'll try and grab some screenshots tonight. This is my experience anyway, and I assume there's setting to adjust to correct for this. Also - I have Dynamic Settings on, and set to 30, TLOD 200 and most of the rest of the settings between high and ultra. Framerate not really an issue. Going to try cranking up TLOD and OLOD. I wonder how monitor affects the color issue - I'm embarrassed to say I use an older Samsung 42" HDTV as a monitor 😐 I know refresh rate is lower than the current standard expectations, but it hasn't given me any issues in the past. I'm well aware everything looks better on newer screens.

Thank you all for your insights and answers - very helpful for fence sitters like me. I was able to get the game pass and install 2024 last night, still working on graphic settings and rebinding controls, haven't even tried to set up P2ATC yet, but so far, its running. Tried a quick free flight and some landing challenges to quickly see a few different regions and feel out the differences between the versions. More to try, more settings to adjust. The Plane Variety and Planes themselves are definitely an improvement to 2020. The Good News here I suppose is that Neofly still works with Free Flight and 2024. I can see myself trying the career mode but going back to Neofly if there are too many frustrations with the little things like not generating a mission from the airport you just landed at - you'd think that would be easy to code in. Especially since the EFB tablet is right there.

Following the advice in another post, I was able to get 2024 installed last night though the Xbox Game Pass 1$ 14-day trial (I highly recommend that to anyone wondering if 2024 will work on their system, as it is the cheapest way to try the game before committing to the full purchase). My experience is exactly as you describe. We have similar PCs, mine is a little worse actually with an RTX4070, and I noticed all the same things, the blurry 3rd person sweeping camera, the 'cartoonish' filter that seems applied to everything, and bad terrain with and without photogrammetry turned on. My Co-pilot model also looks uncanny and not great. Obviously I have a lot more settings to tweak to make the experience similar to 2020, nevermind better. It is odd that the newer game looks worse with the same graphics settings in the menu as 2020, but I understand there's a lot more going on under the hood, so I get it. The flights were smooth, and the FPS stable, I did feel like the planes looked better and some of the details on the 208 that were missing from 2020 were in 2024, which is nice to see. The planes and plane variety is certainly a big improvement. The more frustrating issue I had was mapping the controls - couldn't tell you why they felt the need to switch the default layout for the logitech yoke, but all the camera controls had to be rebound, which was annoying more than it was a roadblock to anything. Plenty of dialing in and tweaking setting to do this evening and into the weekend.

I'm seeing a lot of these comments elsewhere, on Reddit and Steam forums. That 2024 performs worse, at lower settings, than 2020. Its a big point of hesitation for me. I'll look into this. I was googling quickly and only saw the Xbox Console pass, so I'll have to try and find this 1$ deal. Unsure if its regional? I'm a Playstation/PC guy so I've never looked into Xbox and the cloud gaming very much. This is flight simulation we're talking about here 😉 I thought fretting over the little details is part of the experience LMAO UPDATE: I did find the 1$ 14-day trial, and will give that a try tonight. Its not really well advertised, but for others like me who might benefit, google "PC Xbox Game Pass Premium" as the 'essential' version does not include MSFS2024, you need the Premium Pass.

Or like the 25% of steam users from the past 3 months that have left negative reviews, I could end up regretting my decision to spend close to 100$ on software that doesn't run well enough on my system, or doesn't have enough bug-free features to justify the expense and time to make the switch. If the game was free, or 20-30$ it would be a no brainer, sure. But not everyone is flush with cash. I like to make informed purchase decisions, and asking questions is the best way to do that. I apologize if I'm wasting anyone's time.

Hey @Funky D Thanks for the detail and link to your previous post; A few points I wanted to touch on from that post to ask if its still an issue or not: So this is fixed now? I read that initially and was very concerned that something easy like that is still lingering 2 years later. How different is the weight and balance from 2020? I always used the in-game fuel/weight menu not the main menu one, as it works easier for tuning weights to match Neofly missions. Which brings me to my next question: I assume you need to go back to the world map every time between missions? Is there an in-game mission window? One of the nice things about Neofly and 2020 is that you can stay in parking or at a gate after a mission, shut down everything, but remain in the plane while selecting the next mission, setting up your route etc. You never need to back out to the main menu which is really nice for loading times and immersion. MY biggest fear! This happened to me a few times in my Neofly career where the plane bugged and 'crashed' and really set me back on the rental deposit lol. If I crash the plane, it feels bad but its my fault and I need to learn the hard way not to do space shuttle landings 😞 But if the game crashes the plane through no fault of my own, that's a really bad feeling and drains your endurance for continuing on (what if it happens again? you think) The example you give where you spawn in a building and automatically lose progress is just stunningly unacceptable to me, like, that should be a number 1 priority to fix if that's happening. You should not lose points, money, progress, XP etc if the game crashes to desktop, or otherwise bugs out. Are there save slots? Can you backup progression in anyway? You said Abort (Ctrl+Alt+Del) is better than landing in bad conditions or at poor runways for your aircraft - are you able to filter destinations? In Neofly, for example, I can select only 'Controlled Airports' with 'Hard Surface' and 'Lights' and it will stop spawning field strips and all the missions will generate at larger airports. Do you get such luxury with 2024 Career Mode? And is there a difficulty slider/settings to customize the career difficulty? Or does Asobo/Microsoft force Career mode at 100% realistic? Like, weather settings for example, Are you forced to fly in Live Weather after you get the IFR certification (I think I read that elsewhere)? Or can you still choose clear skies and progress?

Reporting back that I was able to make it work for LIRL/LIRA. I had no issues with the next few flights either as I was making my way north to LOWI. LOWI->EDNY was especially accurate with SID on the way out and STAR on the way in. Very complete experience. I did however come across a few ILS frequency mismatches however. I wasn't sure if that is related to the recent AIRAC update to 2604? I was able to update P2ATC to the current 2604 data and noticed that the ILS at CYTZ and CYKZ are no longer correct in P2ATC, despite being in the GPS in the game. I wish I copied the frequencies to be more accurate, but I think it was runway 8 at CYTZ and either 33 or 15 at CYKZ (which IRL is now closed, so maybe the Frequencies have been repurposed - tuning the ILS in P2ATC captures one of the ILS runways at CYYZ instead) A couple other instances where the ILS worked but was mis-labelled in the P2ATC UI. Fortunately, entering the approach in the Garmin auto-tunes the ILS frequency as well, so I don't have to worry about manually tuning, which is a big reason I use P2ATC in the first place. I'll see if I can note them as I come across them.

Well the weekend came and went and much more waffling took place lol watched many videos comparing versions and there definitely more Pros than Cons to 2024, but the large caveat is still the uncertainty of "will it run properly". Plenty of new Steam Reviews from recent sale purchasers still decrying the state of the game, with some of them listing system specs superior to mine, so that doesn't bode well. It does seem to be a case where YMMV depending on your set-up. Some reviews with controller issues, some with VR issues. I understand that, when things work perfectly, there's less inclination to post a review, so the reviews likely contain more negative experiences. Would have been nice to see some positive reviews from accounts with similar PC specs. Aside from the performance issues, I'd like to also ask about some of the feature upgrades - the biggest main difference between 2020 and 2024 to me seems to be the walkaround/outside the plane work that can be done. That's certainly a big plus, although I see a lot of reviews/comments that people skip that or dislike the walkaround pre-flight checks. I can see that getting repetitive maybe - I like the idea, and really like the get out of the plane stuff, it adds to the exploration/immersion. On the flip side, while the EFB is certainly better, the checklists do not seem to be well integrated - I watched a few 2024 videos for the 208 and the SR50 (IIRC) and there were checklist items that didn't apply the to plane which was odd, but easy enough for the streamer to skip over. Unsure how optional checklists are in career mode, which brings me to my next pain point - - Does 2024 Career mode feel good yet? So many mixed reviews, its hard to get a clear picture of the current state (many old posts refer to broken career mode, but how it is nowadays?). The number 1 criticism for Career Mode I keep coming across isnt so much related to the bugs/long flights CTD and killing your progress, random plane crashes when skipping phases etc. I see more posts saying the Career Mode is 'Too Unforgiving' with things like taxi speed/procedure, overspeed warning from gusts of wind causing loss of points, other dings that hurt your mission score and overall payment. Does Career Feel rewarding - good to progress for the effort put in? Is there a difficulty setting for career to make it more forgiving? How customizable is the difficulty? I can totally see there is more variety in 2024 - especially the mission types, and medivac and fire fighting, skydiving all look really fun and interesting. Neofly has those missions for 2020 but its awkward and not animated like in 2024. I find myself doing mainly cargo and passenger delivery in 2020 with Neofly and that is rewarding; there's no bugs, a clear progression system, A Save/Backup in case a bug/crash/glitch causes an issue. This weekend I flew into LOWI for the first time and back out, STAR and SID due to the live weather at the time and had such a wonderful experience, everything just clicked right and looked fantastic in 2020, it felt very peak for the game. Like it would be hard to get more out of it without upgrading to 2024. Hoping some people can speak for the 2024 career - specifically the mission types, if you find it rewarding/worthwhile to do the firefighting, medivac, field spraying (are there others?) or do you stick to the passenger/cargo type missions? Lastly - I would argue that helicopters are better in 2024. I only have 3 models in the standard edition of 2020 and they all suck. The crane helicopter looks like it could be fun. I assume the Blimp and Hot Air balloon are gimmicks as well

It does seem like a missing feature, give how many large airframes require two people to work well. Pilot Monitoring, checkrides, virtual instruction all of that would be possible if two people could work together. I also see a use case for Mil-Sim, gunners etc. We can dream! I'll look into VTOL VR - I've heard nothing but good things about it