Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Uses up to 180 Mbit/s of Internet Bandwidth in Flight

[AleksandarK]

Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2024 is shaping up to be a pretty demanding title. From the very high-performance system needed for ideal system specifications, the game now uses up to 180 Mbit/s of internet bandwidth while the user is in flight and the terrain is loading. This is equivalent to as much as 81 GB per hour of internet data, which is a nightmare for users with a data cap. Data caps are often standard in US homes, with internet providers imposing their own rules on up to 1 TB of uncapped traffic, which considerably slows down after that. The new Flight Simulator 2024 may be a bit much for users who don't have powerful systems and data plans.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 requires 30 GB of storage for the game. The alpha version comes in at only 9 GB, meaning that it is pulling much of its resources from Microsoft's servers, thus requiring this massive bandwidth to operate smoothly. Microsoft recommends a 50 Mbit/s internet connection for the final game, meaning that the final 30 GB install will pack more textures, thus lowering the massive load on Microsoft's servers. Of course, the 180 Mbit/s is the peak load, and the lowest measured load is around 10 Mbit/s. The game typically runs below 50 Mb/s, but this peak value is quite noticeable.



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[ManiakDJ]

Hi,

Are you sure it is 180 MegaBytes per second not Megabits? 180MB/s is more than 1 Gbps LAN cat. 5e capability. Also 81 GB per hour is about 23 MB/s average or 184 Mb/s.

Kind regards

 

[LabRat 891]

Most of the western world cannot even get 100Mbps internet, let alone the 1440Mbps 'peak' mentioned here.
180MB/s is more than a gigabit LAN can provide; what are the devs smoking?

 

[bobsled]

Hi,

Are you sure it is 180 MegaBytes per second not Megabits? 180MB/s is more than 1 Gbps LAN cat. 5e capability. Also 81 GB per hour is about 23 MB/s average or 184 Mb/s.

Kind regards

Exactly. The original article uses Mb/s which means Megabits/second, not MB/s which is Megabytes/second.

 

[AleksandarK]

Thanks for pointing out, the wording was wrong. Its Megabits (Mb) not MegaBytes (MB)

 

[FoulOnWhite]

I posted this in games section, at about 7am, delete my post if you like.

 

[JWNoctis]

Another discussion: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...mb-s-of-net-bandwidth-while-in-flight.327691/

I will just say that FSX with top-line scenery addons looked almost as good without needing a gigabit Internet connection, but then that sounded a bit luddite.

 

[LittleBro]

That game is the SSD killer. That's roughly 2 TBW per 24 hours if everything gets cached onto a drive.
Better have some good NIC with CPU off-load capabilities.

 

[human_error]

Would use less bandwidth to stream the game from a cloud gaming service than to actually render locally. Absolutely nuts.

 

[Imouto]

Holy crap, that game is the SSD killer! That's roughly 2 TBW per 24 hours.
Better have some good NIC with CPU off-load capabilities.

Given the ultra-high RAM requirements I guess it's data streaming that doesn't even touch your storage.

 

[Space Lynx]

It's simple. If you have a data cap, don't buy this game. If you don't have a data cap, still don't buy this game, because at 81 gigabytes usage per hour, your ISP will eventually artificially throttle you, in America anyway. Other countries may have better laws for this, I don't know.

 

[JWNoctis]

Would use less bandwidth to stream the game from a cloud gaming service than to actually render locally. Absolutely nuts.

There might actually be a business case here; Dispense with the cloud gaming service altogether and remote stream from actual FPV drones in real life.

It would probably use less energy and infrastructure than either.

 

[chrcoluk]

At a guess it looks like it does some kind of partial install, and downloads/streams in remaining data as and when needed when playing the game, presumably once stored it isnt downloaded again so eventually if play enough of the game, it will all get cached locally?

Seems not well thought out though, some people have data caps, others have very slow internet, and some even both.

 

[Shihab]

Nice! So Microsoft, failing to make anyone even consider bing maps, opts to turn games into web mapping services. This might work!

It's simple. If you have a data cap, don't buy this game. If you don't have a data cap, still don't buy this game, because at 81 gigabytes usage per hour, your ISP will eventually artificially throttle you, in America anyway. Other countries may have better laws for this, I don't know.

Actual bandwidth consumption is -I'd wager- a function of the quality settings. Lesser config would fetch coarser tiles. 81GB/h is no more a requirement than running it at 4k with DXR.
Minimum requirement for the game demands a 10mb connection. Average consumption will definitely be lower than that.

At a guess it looks like it does some kind of partial install, and downloads/streams in remaining data as and when needed when playing the game, presumably once stored it isnt downloaded again so eventually if play enough of the game, it will all get cached locally?

Doubtful. At least, not to any useful extent.
A sane design would use a cache, yes. But when your scope is the whole globe, caching everything is practically impossible on a personal computer. At >80gb for a session? Unless the player flies the same route, newer data will surely be overwriting the older one continuously.

 

[LittleBro]

Given the ultra-high RAM requirements I guess it's data streaming that doesn't even touch your storage.

What ultra-high requirements? I see 32 GB of RAM and 50 GB of disk space as recommended.
Since the client is only 9 GB in size, what is that storage requirement then for?
Also, storage requirement does not scale with graphical settings, which tells me that's a crucial engine requirement.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 FAQ - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Top questions about the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator sequel.

www.flightsimulator.com

 

[AusWolf]

So is there no chance to play the game on my crappy 35 Mbps connection? Unfortunately, that's the highest speed I can get here.

Edit: Where is all that data going, though? It surely can't be very nice on your SSD longevity.

Edit 2: All things considered, it would be a nice option to download offline maps onto a HDD.

 

[Imouto]

What ultra-high requirements? I see 32 GB of RAM and 50 GB of disk space as recommended.
Since the client is only 9 GB in size, what is that storage requirement then for?
Also, storage requirement does not scale with graphical settings, which tells me that's a crucial engine requirement.

View attachment 367644

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 FAQ - Microsoft Flight Simulator

Top questions about the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator sequel.

www.flightsimulator.com

Requirements are really high with 64GB of RAM among the "ideal" specs. Even 32GB for the "recommeded" is far beyond 99.999999% games in the market.

The client is 9GB in the alpha right now. Final client will be ~30GB as stated in the news piece.

Also, even Microsoft calls it "data streaming" and shouldn't hammer your SSD. It doesn't make sense for it to set foot on your storage.

 

[LittleBro]

Requirements are really high with 64GB of RAM among the "ideal" specs. Even 32GB for the "recommeded" is far beyond 99.999999% games in the market.

The client is 9GB in the alpha right now. Final client will be ~30GB as stated in the news piece.

Also, even Microsoft calls it "data streaming" and shouldn't hammer your SSD. It doesn't make sense for it to set foot on your storage.

Search internet for "Manual cache" and "Rolling cache" regarding MSFS. Both are disk-bound caches and data streaming feature is already present in MSFS2020. I really doubt they changed it to use only RAM as a cache but I might be wrong.

 

[sephiroth117]

I believe we will be able to download once and persist those data on the ssd ?

otherwise it’s a huge implementation mistake

Things like weather data, traffic may be streamed continuously because they are lightweight but impossible for a game to use RAM-only cache AND be that bandwidth-intensive,.. it’d be a huge miscalculation from MS and Asobo

 

[Waldorf]

funny how many from US complain about game/maker, instead of net/mobile providers that charge you 2-10 times that of other 1st world countries.

 

[Toss]

Here in 3rd world country I got 2500 Mbps uncapped for 10$/month LUL

 

[Readlight]

Need at least maximum USB 2 speed. 25MB/s

Here in 3rd world country I got 2500 Mbps uncapped for 10$/month LUL

That's only in city centre, high level buildings.

 

[Imouto]

Search internet for "Manual cache" and "Rolling cache" regarding MSFS. Both are disk-bound caches and data streaming feature is already present in MSFS2020. I really doubt they changed it to use only RAM as a cache but I might be wrong.

Seeing all the complaints it gets I wouldn't be surprised and even more taking into account how it's optional.

 

[Space Lynx]

for a game like this though, part of the joy would be the graphics and flying around in real time, so its still a bit of a false promise. they should have made the download size like 300gb instead, or give us the option either way

 

[ymdhis]

Did the articles writer really mixed up the most basic unit of measurement in technology?