msfs2020 – Kev's Development Toolbox

November 21, 2024November 23, 2024

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020: UK scenery updates – comparing 2020-2021 compared to now after World Update XVII (July 2024)

With the recent UK scenery updates (July 2024), other than the newly updated photogrammetry areas I was wondering if there had been any other updates that have been sneaked in and not mentioned in the release notes.

I took a number of screenshots of melty scenery back in 2020 shortly after the release that I was going to share but just remained in my screenshots folder. Let’s go back and see if there’s been any changes.

August 2020: Flying west near the mouth of the Thames estuary, there were some interesting water formations in the Thames:

August 2020: London before the recent updates, looking rather sparse:

… but after World Update XVII London is now looking incredible, and the water level glitches are fixed (actually I think they were fixed a while ago, not just in this most recent World Update):

September 2020: McLaren’s headquarters near Woking decided they needed to expand and build houses on their roof:

… looking good after recent updates:

August 2020: rather sparse looking Colchester Castle in Essex:

November 2021: Colchester Castle with some updates, but still being rendered as if it is an office building:

… September 2024: looks like the castle model has slightly more detail again, but still not great, it still is rendered with office building textures. This really deserves it’s own POI model:

October 2020: similarly even sparser Needles at the Isle of Wight:

May 2021: some of favorite melted scenery I’ve found so far in game is around Southampton docks, like these melted tractors and trucks:

and similar looking melted cars:

May 2021: Southampton docks melted ships:

… September 2024: I couldn’t find this same ship again, but this one in 2024 is even better:

May 2021: one of my favorites, a melted car park structure near Southampton docks:

and more melted farm equipment:

Parked cars draped over the side of a building:

… September 2024: still here, still melty:

May 2021: trees growing on cruise ships at Southampton docks:

… in Sept 2024, this same ship is oddly looking worse, like it’s taken on some water:

May 2021: Cardington Airfield hangers rendered as just large stock scenery buildings:

… updated recently in World Update XVII in July 2024:

May 2021: the rather impressive Milford Proving Ground in Bedfordshire:

August 11, 2021November 23, 2024

Atoll locations in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (part 1)

I’ve been doing some sightseeing in Microsoft Flight Simulator, flying over some of the major atoll locations around the world, and other famous Pacific island locations (e.g. Wake Island, featured in many Battlefield and other games)

The Maldives has many atolls spread across a whole archipelago of islands

VRMO Kooddoo – North eastern rim of the Huvadhu Atoll, Maldives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kooddoo

This airport doesn’t appear to be in MSFS.

Kadhdhoo, Maldives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadhdhoo

Thimarafushi – Thaa Atoll, Maldives

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thimarafushi_(Thaa_Atoll)

https://skyvector.com/airport/VRNT/Thimarafushi-Airport

This is an odd one – in MSFS the island with the airport is just rendered as a large blocky beach:

Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia – Chuuk International Airport PTKK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuuk_International_Airport

This is a view from approx 8000ft, the southeast rim of the atoll and looking back towards larger islands in the center:

I’ll follow up with another similar post soon.

July 31, 2021November 23, 2024

Disk already full on new custom build PC specifically for Microsoft Flight Simulator: how-to move your packages folder to a different disk

In less than 10 months the disk on my new custom PC I built specifically for play Microsoft Flight Simulator is already full:

I put a 500GB m.2 NVMe drive in this machine, so while 500GB is not massive, it’s surprising that the updates, patches and scenery cache so far has already filled the entire disk. This main NVMe was a Corsair Gen 4 m.2, so was slightly more pricey than alternatives but faster than the other Gen 3 m.2 sticks at the time. I have since added a second 1GB m.2 stick, a cheaper but not as fast Sabrent Rocket.

Rather than reinstalling MS Flight Sim from scratch (which would have required another multiday download from Steam), I moved the packages folder from C: to D: – steps to do this are described here.

In summary for Steam installs, edit the UserCFG.opt file in this location:

C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator

… and change this line:

InstalledPackagesPath "C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages"

… to point to any new location. You can move the existing content of this folder to the new location, and when you restart, any new updates or add-ons will go to this new location.

July 30, 2021November 23, 2024

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Update 5 : First Impressions

Update 5 for Microsoft Flight Simulator was released on on 7/27/21 this week, and my first impressions (after waiting 2 days for my download to complete) are … WOW.

It’s smooth, buttery smooth. In 1080p with a Ryzen 5 3600XT and a RTX 2060 I was previously getting around 30 fps at best, and dipping below that in heavy city areas like New York. After the update with the same settings I’m now getting around 60fps, but the even without the increase in fps, the sim is noticeably smoother with less stutters that I used to notice before.

There’s plenty of other updates and changes:

the world map now shows satellite imagery and place names on the map which makes it much easier to find interesting places to fly (unlike the plain grey non-descript map we had before)
while the game load time seems about the same, the load time from creating a flight from the map and arriving on the runway ready to fly has definitely been improved (it seems at least twice as fast as it was)
particle effects have been added for water, dirt and snow landings. For float planes, you now get a somewhat realistic wake behind your plane when you land or taxi on water. This is a massive improvement over none at all that we had before
there’s a number of ski and float plane options added for the stock planes
seaplane harbors have been added to the map, so you can start a flight from a harbor or see the locations of harbors on the VFR map
more POI markers on the maps and in game as you’re flying

I’m sure there’s plenty more to find, but these are the major changes I’ve seen so far.

Am I happy with the update so far? Yes, definitely. I’ve had one crash to desktop (CTD) so far after just flying for an hour, which is far more that I’ve experienced before. Posts in the forums suggest a lot of CTDs right now, so hopefully there’ll be more fixes to come. Right now though I’m enjoying being able to take off and land from water and have it look somewhat realistic, and feature we had on most of the MS FS versions.

As a comparison, shortly after launch I was comparing taxiing on water near the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in FSX: