Following their recent preview event, Microsoft and Asobo have hosted another of their monthly developer live streams, this time focusing on the highly anticipated Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

The lengthy hour and forty-eight-minute livestream covered various MSFS 2020 and FS24 topics and answered many of the community’s most burning questions about the upcoming sim, so we’ve compiled it all in one place!

MSFS 2020

The live stream started with a section about Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, addressed criticisms of the newly released Boeing 707-320C by Aeroplane Heaven, stating: "The Aeroplane Heaven guys, they tried really hard," and acknowledging, "I know the INS is not what people want, but we will continue working on this and listen to the feedback." Additionally, Neumann announced the release date for AAU3 on October 1st and the release date of the highly-requested update for the ATR-42/72 series developed by Hans Hartmann, released on October 10th.

FS24 Q&A

We’ve divided this into sections, summarizing the answers for each question for ease of reading.

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Technical Questions

Q: Why is 64 GB the ‘ideal’ amount of RAM, and does more RAM help performance?‍

Sebastian Wloch, Asobo CEO and Co-Founder explains that 64 GB was chosen for users who want to “push every option to max detail” and do other things like recording or streaming, but the average user will only want 32 GB of RAM.

He added later that FS24 will have an adaptive detail feature that automatically scales the sim's detail to hit a specific FPS target, but the user can disable it if they choose to. 

‍Q: On Xbox, can we expect the same performance and memory related stability issues in FS24 as in 2020? What optimizations have been made to make the new level of fidelity possible on Xbox consoles?‍

Wloch states that various improvements to the Xbox platform have allowed them to access 2.5 GB more RAM, which he says “really helps in terms of stability and performance”, in addition to the performance improvements baked into the new sim. 

Executive Producer Martial Bossard adds that the new sim will no longer support DirectX 11 because FS24’s new rendering pipeline utilizes many of the new features of DirectX 12. 

‍Q: MSFS2024's reliance on online access for far more assets presumably means that a server outage is likely to affect far more users than the current server outages do. At present a lot of assets are stored on our systems whereas this will no longer be the case in MSFS2024, How feasible will it be to play offline in the future if at all?‍

Wloch starts by saying that most of the data was already being streamed in MSFS 2020, but they’ve added to that total, including Marketplace content. However, the user can decide if they want to stream or download content from the Marketplace. He continues to say that if the network is interrupted for up to a few minutes, users will not notice that much, but beyond that point, he states that “you need to be online at some point to fly”.

World and Weather Questions

Q: Will cloud and weather depiction be improved in MSFS 2024?

Wloch mentioned many things in his answer, including the addition of cirrus clouds, redone lighting, weather systems like tornadoes, and translating the effects of the weather to the environment, such as trees, grass, and water. However, tornadoes will only be in missions because they do not have a reliable live data source for them.

Q: Will there be a working weather radar?

Bossard’s answer was very brief, saying that the feature is “still on the backlog”.

Q: Will autogen buildings be getting a refresh in the new sim?

Bossard says that work is still in progress on autogen buildings, but any change will come after the launch.

Q: Will MSFS 2024 receive World Updates and City Updates? If so, will they also be released day-and-date for MSFS 2020?

Neumann gives a quick answer: “Check”.

Wloch and Neumann mentioned a few other small features in this section, including adding a “historical world” for 24 hours, weather, and working windshield wipers.

Peripherals and Settings Questions

Q: Can I import all my settings/preferences/keybinds/etc. from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 or will I need to set up all of that again?

Bossard has some bad news: “Unfortunately, you would have to set [it] up again, because the way we are doing things is so different,...there is no way to translate one to the other”.

‍Q: Will there be VR support in MSFS 2024? Will it be improved over the current implementation? Will it be available from Day 1?

Bossard confirms that VR will be supported from Day 1 and that they have made improvements to render thread performance. However, users can expect the same performance difference between 3D and VR as MSFS 2020.

Core Features Questions

‍Q: What you have made abundantly clear is that Al Aircraft traffic will be much better representing their real-life counterparts and that is really great. But I have questions to that point: Will we see an improved behavior from these Al vehicles (i.e. planes no longer driving through one another or ground vehicles not stopping when an airplane passes)?‍

Bossard says they “have tried to improve and to have better ground services”, but he acknowledges that “sometimes we have some weird things there”. He mentions the possibility of community improvement of ground services through the World Hub.

Q: What improvements can we expect for the default ATC? Will you be utilizing Al similar to addons like SayIntentions and BeyondATC?

Neumann stated that “there are some” improvements to the default ATC system made by Asobo and WorkingTitle. He also mentions that the team looked at options like SayIntentions.ai but is not planning it for launch. Neumann does leave the door open for something akin to those products in the future, saying, “it’s good ideas that they [BeyondATC and SayIntentions] have”.

Career Mode Questions

Q: You said that if we crash our own plane in Career mode then it's lost. What happens if there's an internet outage or software crash in the middle of a mission? How does the sim handle such a situation? Will we lose a plane because of that?

Bossard clarified that the damage is “the result of the physic [sic]” and that they are “only handling that kind of situation when we are computing the forces and the effects of the crash”.

Q: Do you have to go through all the trainings and check-rides to get to career missions or can you skip any part of it?‍

Bossard confirms that “you can skip it.

Q: Can we use 3rd party planes / helicopters in career mode if the features they have are compatible with the mission tasks?

“Yes, but…under conditions”, says Bossard. He then explains that Marketplace aircraft have systems that check whether they have the right features to comply with specific missions.

General Questions

Q: Which items from the Feedback Snapshot and Development Roadmap will be implemented in MSFS 2020 and which items will be deferred to MSFS 2024

Neumann says that there is not a concrete list as of yet, but “there are goals to bring back certain features when possible to [MSFS] 2020”, but will separate the list “in the coming weeks”.

Q: Is it expected to let freeware developers join the Marketplace?

Neumann answered “probably, yes”, adding that “we just worked through some stuff with our…lawyers, so there will be some news here soon”.

‍Q: Will the SDK open up to allow more types of products to be developed i.e. Chaseplane for camera views, weather software like Active Sky, and tools such as AutoFPS?

Neumann explains that “this is not really an SDK question only”, and since they are 8 weeks out from releasing FS24, they would first have to make “everything tidy, and then we’ll talk about some of these things again”.

Marketplace and Ownership Questions

Q: What about add-ons purchased from third-party stores (Orbx, simMarket, Aerosoft, PMDG, etc.)? Will they be transferable?

Neumann confirms that MSFS 2020 content can be copied “over to the community folder.” Notably, he did not provide a disclaimer about compatibility issues with some addons, but Microsoft and Asobo have repeatedly indicated this may be the case.

Q: Can we buy Premium Deluxe planes separately in 2024?

“Yes. I heard that loud and clear last time, and we did that,” Neumann says, acknowledging the community’s feedback. 

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Upcoming Q&A Sessions

Unlike in the past, where there was usually only one Q&A session each month during the developer livestreams, Microsoft has announced that they will hold many more sessions covering specific topics during the ramp-up to the release. You can find the schedule below:

Conclusion

This developer stream has revealed quite a lot about the upcoming simulator, but despite that, Microsoft and Asobo still have more to show. Throughout all these exciting new developments, Threshold will keep you up-to-date with the newest, so stay tuned for that and for more high-quality flight simulation news and reviews!