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

[Vincero]

its not always about making profit, see Bugatti Veyro , where VW was losing ~3M on every car they sold.

True (although the Veyron was a 'passion project' and anyway service costs for a Veyron are crazy so I don't think VW bean counters are too sad) and I'm not saying MS couldn't afford to do that with a product range (although fairly certain they probably lose money on every new gen Xbox console for a while), but I I don't see them doing that just for MSFS in general.

To be honest, and I really really hate to say it, but I'm surprised they never launched it (MSFS) with a subscription option. If Blizzard could charge a (being fair a fairly hefty for its time - even game pass was cheaper) subscription for World of Warcraft and have lots of people coming back for years with an ever changing updating software client, virtual world, etc., I think there would be a large amount of MSFS customers who'd go for it - they could always do a flat price version which just has fixed lower quality assets (i.e. the potato PC option) that easily fit locally and only uses that rather than stream data.

 

[[XC] Oj101]

I have 250Mbit/s up/down at home for roughly $35, totally uncapped and unshaped.

..and it's possible to get that up to 1Gbps symmetrical for as low as around $50/month. I'm not so sure about unshaped, though. Unthrottled, yes, for sure as that's completely standard regardless of FNO or ISP, but unshaped is generally reserved for business lines. Eg, can you get 60MB/s 24/7 on P2P?

Problem is we had this many years ago in the dial up/DSL era

Terrible flashbacks of dealing with OpenServe, so thanks for that

Fortunately, my home Internet provider doesn't have any data caps

Is it also completely unthrottled? In the DSL days, we had uncapped with a FUP/AUP set according to your line speed - eg 384Kbps might have a been throttled to 64Kbps after you use 50GB, while a 4Mbps line might be throttled to 512Kbps after using 200GB. These days with fibre, you get full, unthrottled line-speed regardless of usage. After downloading 100TB you'll still be getting your full 1Gbps linespeed (or as near-to as possible, in practice it's generally around 950Mbps).

 

[cvaldes]

Is it also completely unthrottled? In the DSL days, we had uncapped with a FUP/AUP set according to your line speed - eg 384Kbps might have a been throttled to 64Kbps after you use 50GB, while a 4Mbps line might be throttled to 512Kbps after using 200GB. These days with fibre, you get full, unthrottled line-speed regardless of usage. After downloading 100TB you'll still be getting your full 1Gbps linespeed (or as near-to as possible, in practice it's generally around 950Mbps).

My current home cable ISP also has uncapped data (Xfinity NOW from Comcast, $30 per month, taxes and fees included).

It's important to understand that broadband offerings vary wildly between providers and markets. Before Xfinity NOW, Comcast was capping data for some customers.

My previous ISP (a DSL provider) also had uncapped data but the network was a fraction of what the new service offers. In the 25+ years I've had broadband connectivity at home, sometimes it's capped, other times it is not.

You certainly don't need a huge boatload of broadband data for streaming 1080p gaming though.

 

[Uns1gn3d_C0d3]

My current home cable ISP also has uncapped data (Xfinity NOW from Comcast, $30 per month, taxes and fees included).

It's important to understand that broadband offerings vary wildly between providers and markets. Before Xfinity NOW, Comcast was capping data for some customers.

My previous ISP (a DSL provider) also had uncapped data but the network was a fraction of what the new service offers. In the 25+ years I've had broadband connectivity at home, sometimes it's capped, other times it is not.

You certainly don't need a huge boatload of broadband data for streaming 1080p gaming though.

$30!? What up/down speeds do you get?

 

[cvaldes]

$30!? What up/down speeds do you get?

Comcast markets the $30 plan as a 100 Mbps connection.

See for yourself:

Internet

This is now internet page.

www.xfinity.com

It is highly inadvisable to compare broadband plans between different countries. Every market is different. There are many other countries that have far faster consumer broadband offerings. For sure 3.3 Mbps per dollar is not going to be the rock bottom price if you are looking performance-per-dollar metrics.

In the plan details Comcast says the typical download speed is 115.59 Mbps and typical upload speed is 11.68 Mbps. Shockingly the cable company's claims are accurate. I just did an Ookla speedtest on my iPhone (nothing else in the house downloading anything) and my download speed is 119 Mbps and upload speed is 11.7 Mbps.

Anyhow back to the discussion topic.

Even my 100 Mbps connection would be saturated by Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024's peak bandwidth requirements. However, it should be able to handle a 4K cloud gaming stream.

MSFS 2024 is an ideal candidate for cloud gaming. No huge broadband requirements, serious storage requirements, no spendy GPU necessary. Hell, there's a GeForce NOW client for my LG smart TV. I don't even need a computer or videogame console for this.

 

[Vincero]

MSFS 2024 is an ideal candidate for cloud gaming. No huge broadband requirements, serious storage requirements, no spendy GPU necessary. Hell, there's a GeForce NOW client for my LG smart TV. I don't even need a computer or videogame console for this.

Nope you wouldn't.... but good luck connecting all this to it:

I kid of course, but the serious MSFS gamer... (are they really 'gaming' at this point?)... they'll probably think differently.

I do have a sneaky feeling that the game will probably have a few tiers of downloadable / streamable assets that will fit different user requirements - I mean if someone is playing on a 1080p single display with maybe a 3060/4060 class GPU will they really need the same level of detail textures, etc., vs someone playing on a triple-screen 4k rig with their 5090 TI Super Titan CEO Ultra edition?

 

[Zareek]

Is it also completely unthrottled? In the DSL days, we had uncapped with a FUP/AUP set according to your line speed - eg 384Kbps might have a been throttled to 64Kbps after you use 50GB, while a 4Mbps line might be throttled to 512Kbps after using 200GB. These days with fibre, you get full, unthrottled line-speed regardless of usage. After downloading 100TB you'll still be getting your full 1Gbps linespeed (or as near-to as possible, in practice it's generally around 950Mbps).

Yes, no throttling either. Uncapped and unthrottled AFAIK. I think we normally hit between 1 and 2 TB per month, and I've never noticed any throttling.

 

[Draconis]

I'm not so sure about unshaped, though. Unthrottled, yes, for sure as that's completely standard regardless of FNO or ISP, but unshaped is generally reserved for business lines. Eg, can you get 60MB/s 24/7 on P2P?

It's not definitive but I've never noticed any shaping when torrenting ISO.

Terrible flashbacks of dealing with OpenServe, so thanks for that

Sorry about that

 

[Waldorf]

@cvaldes
of course we can compare pricing (within 1st world countries), the same way we do for everthing else.
and its not so much anything making a "difference" (perf/cap/price) than regulations and consumer (protection) laws, easily seen when comparing places in europe to east/west coast (as in not in the middle of nowhere).

e.g. sat tv is free to receive in europe, short of ppv or premium channels for decades, how about murica?

 

[OkieDan]

Here's a list of internet prices for NATO countries sorted by $/mbps

I think the pricing in the US is just fine, relatively speaking. I personally pay $0.065/mbps, or $65 for gigabit FTTH.