It’s dumb. I’d much rather have a 500GB install. They might as well just make the game a streaming service. It also ensures an early death for the game and no functionality without an internet connection.
FS 2020 had an offline mode. I don’t see why this one wouldn’t have one as well. It’s either using procedurally generated or cached data.
You can not get the same visual fidelity and low latency with game streaming. I’ve tried nearly every service there is (going as far back as OnLive - remember that one?) and they are all extremely subpar, including Microsoft’s own game streaming service.
FS 2020 is available for streaming, by the way, and FS 2024 is likely going to be as well. You’re only getting the console version though. Officially, the resolution is “up to” 1080p, but due to extremely heavy compression, it looks far worse than that. It’s comparable to 720p at best, which means that nearly all fine detail is lost behind huge compression artifacts. On anything larger than a smartphone screen, it looks horrible. That’s on top of connection issues and waiting times that are still plaguing this service.
I don’t think requiring online functionality is the death knell of a game in the year 2024. Personally, I’m excited. Their servers were so damn slow to download on initial install and I hated MSFS2020 taking up a quarter of my game drive.
I 100% disagree. Any game that requires connection to a remote server for single player functionality is dead to me. And any suggestion otherwise I take personal offense to.
This makes your local game dependent on someone else’s server. That someone else, at any time, can shut down that server with zero consequences. They can change the terms of the deal, with zero consequences. Their servers may unintentionally go down or experience other technical issues, depriving you of the product you paid for, with zero consequences. Also you simply cannot use it away from an internet connection.
You are at the mercy of the provider, who has absolutely no legal obligations to you.
Their servers were so damn slow to download on initial install
And you can’t see why that would be a massive problem while trying to livestream your game from their server?
Only the installs were slow. Terrain streaming worked just fine right from the start (I played it from day one) - and once it’s cached on your machine, they can shut down the servers all they want, it’s still on your machine.
More than that, actually. I measured well over 250 over large cities. Others have reported more than 300.
That’s not how cache works.
In this case, it does. The cache for this simulator is a disk cache - and it’s completely configurable. You can manually designate its size and which parts of the world it’ll permanently contain. There’s also a default rolling cache (also on SSD - this program doesn’t even support hard drives), which does get overwritten over time.
The CDN to download the initial files were slow, the in game streaming was fine.
Yes, ownership sucks these days, but I don’t know how they’d technically pull this off as well without using a remote server. As a philosophy, if we’re purchasing games the only real choice is GoG, anything else ends up with us locked into some server-based licensing system.
It’s dumb. I’d much rather have a 500GB install. They might as well just make the game a streaming service. It also ensures an early death for the game and no functionality without an internet connection.
How are you going to fit two petabytes of data into a 500 gigabyte install?
No one said anything about 2PB.
That’s how big this game world is.
Where did that number come from?
It’s mentioned here: https://www.flightsimulator.com/msfs2024-preorder-now-available/
Ah well, that does make more sense then. I hope they have an offline mode as well.
Also it seems like they’d be better off making it a game streaming service entirely and that would remove the need for all that bandwidth…
FS 2020 had an offline mode. I don’t see why this one wouldn’t have one as well. It’s either using procedurally generated or cached data.
You can not get the same visual fidelity and low latency with game streaming. I’ve tried nearly every service there is (going as far back as OnLive - remember that one?) and they are all extremely subpar, including Microsoft’s own game streaming service.
FS 2020 is available for streaming, by the way, and FS 2024 is likely going to be as well. You’re only getting the console version though. Officially, the resolution is “up to” 1080p, but due to extremely heavy compression, it looks far worse than that. It’s comparable to 720p at best, which means that nearly all fine detail is lost behind huge compression artifacts. On anything larger than a smartphone screen, it looks horrible. That’s on top of connection issues and waiting times that are still plaguing this service.
But…that’s what you’re doing? Streaming the game at 180mbps…
You’re just keeping some of the data local (presumably “the game” itself and probably plane models and cabins) and streaming the terrain data.
That sounds like a great reason not to buy this game.
I don’t think requiring online functionality is the death knell of a game in the year 2024. Personally, I’m excited. Their servers were so damn slow to download on initial install and I hated MSFS2020 taking up a quarter of my game drive.
I 100% disagree. Any game that requires connection to a remote server for single player functionality is dead to me. And any suggestion otherwise I take personal offense to.
This makes your local game dependent on someone else’s server. That someone else, at any time, can shut down that server with zero consequences. They can change the terms of the deal, with zero consequences. Their servers may unintentionally go down or experience other technical issues, depriving you of the product you paid for, with zero consequences. Also you simply cannot use it away from an internet connection.
You are at the mercy of the provider, who has absolutely no legal obligations to you.
And you can’t see why that would be a massive problem while trying to livestream your game from their server?
Only the installs were slow. Terrain streaming worked just fine right from the start (I played it from day one) - and once it’s cached on your machine, they can shut down the servers all they want, it’s still on your machine.
Were you streaming at 180mbps?
That’s not how cache works.
More than that, actually. I measured well over 250 over large cities. Others have reported more than 300.
In this case, it does. The cache for this simulator is a disk cache - and it’s completely configurable. You can manually designate its size and which parts of the world it’ll permanently contain. There’s also a default rolling cache (also on SSD - this program doesn’t even support hard drives), which does get overwritten over time.
Interesting that they’re able to maintain such speeds for streaming map data but not downloads…
It doesn’t, in any case. Cache is, by definition, temporary.
The CDN to download the initial files were slow, the in game streaming was fine.
Yes, ownership sucks these days, but I don’t know how they’d technically pull this off as well without using a remote server. As a philosophy, if we’re purchasing games the only real choice is GoG, anything else ends up with us locked into some server-based licensing system.