Flight Simulator is one of those somewhat “legendary” licenses where each version constitutes a small event. However, the game is not for everyone. It is a simulation of piloting airplanes (and other aerial devices) with a strong emphasis on realism and authenticity. It is not easy to get to grips with and, as in “real life”, you have to know better where you are putting your feet.
The 2020 edition left its mark, with modeling that ended up practically covering the entire planet. But as always in this type of simulation, the level of detail depended on the area visited. Over the years, the Asobo studio, which manages its development, has added numerous (and voluminous) updates, responsible for providing the modeling of an ever-increasing number of cities and places. In addition, Flight Simulator 2020 has introduced simpler modes, for “digital tourists”. The question was therefore asked: what could we expect from a new version?
A level of detail multiplied by 4,000
The 2024 edition is intended to be much more realistic than the 2020 edition, which already represented a significant leap in this area. This realism lies both in the rendering of the scenery and in the physics applied to the piloted aircraft. In an interview with BFM in September, manager Jörg Neumann mentioned 10,000 points distributed across the fuselage of the plane to apply air movements.
The new game mainly seeks to make the virtual world more alive. In another interview, this time given to VentureBeat, we learn that this 2024 edition multiplies the level of detail of the environment by 4,000, thanks to artificial intelligence. The team claims to have created a “ complete digital twin » of the planet.
At RockPaperShotgun, Neumann explained yesterday that AI was used to create the textures. The data collected by the developers was divided into 28,000 “tiles”, labeled according to what they represented, including the “biome” (forest, desert, etc.) and the type of surface (gravel, short grass, bush, etc.). ).
Asobo and Microsoft also took advantage of the large community existing around the game. Jörg Neumann indicates that the team (800 full-time developers over four years) relied heavily on suggestions from the community.
« The whole process is healthier, I think. You can easily respond to people because you already have common ground. They told you about their problems. We can offer solutions. They give us their opinion on these solutions. During implementation, we drill down to what they actually need. I've been making games for 30 years. I've never done it this way, and it's better. I'll never go back “, declared the manager.
The interview covers several interesting points, such as satellite data being a poor basis for 3D, the role assigned to four full-time people to talk with governments, geographic institutes and drilling companies, or even the balance between realistic simulation and gamification.
But what interests us today is above all the studio's technical choice on how the game works.
30 GB upon installation… only?
One of the striking aspects of Flight Simulator 2024 is its relatively small footprint on storage: 30 GB. We are far from fairly recent games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield with their 120 GB, or even… Flight Simulator 2020 and its 130 GB in its original version, before the deluge of updates and their hundreds of GB. But these 30 GB are a sham.
If you're flying high, they'll be enough most of the time. But if you get closer to the ground, your computer will start downloading a larger and larger batch of data. Advantage for players: an increasing number of details, the regions having been considered as biomes, with soil texture, fauna, flora, etc. If we approach the savannah, for example, animals will appear and we will be able to fly over rhinos and giraffes. It is even possible to land and walk down to explore the area.
This is where we come back to AI operation. The model created by Asobo for Flight Simulator 2024 did not generate all the textures and details for the entire planet. When a player approaches an environment, requests are sent to the servers. In response, details and textures are sent to the player. When an area has been calculated, it is automatically shared with other people who approach it, so that the calculations are not redone.
The disadvantage, one suspects, lies in the flow. Even if the data is not saved to disk, the stream averages 5 GB per hour. This is a figure given by Jörg Neumann in several interviews, but the actual consumption depends on usage and remains to be measured by a large number of players. An operation which not only risks representing a big problem in countries where there is a monthly level of data consumed, but which has put Microsoft's servers under strain from the launch.
Crash on takeoff
The first hours of the game were indeed complicated. Launched last night, many players were unable to get their hands on their plane for a first round. The loading screen concentrates the criticism, since in most cases, it remains stuck at a certain percentage, without progressing any further.
Last night, around 7 p.m., Microsoft acknowledged the problem. “ We have become aware of user reports of long initial load times in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Due to the large number of users initializing the simulation simultaneously, we are experiencing a high number of server requests. We strive to resolve issues as soon as possible. For users whose initial load has exceeded 90% and is no longer progressing, we recommend a restart. Otherwise, we recommend waiting for the loading to proceed normally », indicated the company on X.
Below the tweet, we can read many angry reactions. If some approach these problems with humor (“delays on flights happen”), many point out that Flight Simulator 2020 had major problems at its launch, while others express their incomprehension in the face of the wait of millions of players .
The torrent of connections is probably due in part to a simultaneous launch on PC and Xbox consoles, especially since it is present in Game Pass. However, the initial loading was not the only difficulty. “ We have become aware of reports of missing aircraft from the My Library and Aircraft Selection screens in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This issue is related to server issues that we are currently working to resolve », Added the official account an hour later.
A little after midnight, the teams indicated that they were still working on the problem and pointed to an Xbox support page to check the status of the service. By now, everything would be back to normal. If we look at the latest comments on X, we can see that many are still reporting various issues, although the one with the loading screen seems to have been fixed.
