I'm in the "chill out and wait" camp. They have already assured us that all market place add-ons will work in the new sim and I am very confident that if a payware mod, not in the MP, does not work, that the developers will make the necessary changes. Long story short, why worry about it, in the end the sim will be better and life will go on...

My whole job is working in a code base that has been rolling forward for over ten years. There's no such thing as "we can't do that in the code base", only "we don't think it's worth the money to do that in the old code base" and "we have contractual obligations related to the old code base that we can skirt by moving to a new one". If I had to guess, 2024 is going to remove the Legacy FM, which would break some of the aircraft that got ported to 2020 from FSX. Multi-crew and the newer streaming tech probably also breaks a lot of third-party stuff. Easier to just launch a new version than deal with the fallout of that.

The "limitation" of FS2020 is that they can't charge me for updates that fix problems. That's why it needs a whole new installment.

I just really hope FS2024 comes with a weather radar and adds ground effect, microbursts and windshears to the sim! Even if they opened up the weather API for third party developers it would be nice as we could get to see HiFi develop activesky for MSFS and include weather radar with it.

If you don't like downloading new updates because your internet is slow, then things will get significantly worse if more of the game is moved online.

I started watching you for your Elite Dangerous videos - I wish that game was better - and I’m glad to see how the channel has expanded.

The devs should not be running into hard technical limits within three years of their super high tech real-scale Earth game engine... that seems alarming to me. I'm hopeful but worried for this new game.

I wonder how long Microsoft will wait after BeyondATC is released before they “acquire” them for their own ATC shortfalls

Its no secret that Microsoft want all their products on a Subscription model, they said as much a few yrs ago, Windows OS Subscription is coming. Might be a good times to get back into Linux.

I'd rather we get more accurate information later rather than a lot of overhyped information now which then leads to disappointment. We just have to be patient and see what it looks like when it comes out. None of my decisions right now are relying on this information, happy to see how it goes.

I'm very excited to see what MSFS 2024 will bring and until then, I'll just keep enjoying MSFS 2020 which already is what I only could dream about when I started enjoying this hobby many, many years ago.

Developers go silent when they are heads down so I do not expect to hear anything till early mid next year since it would likely come out end of next year. So nothing to see here at the moment does not mean we should be worried, it is too early. It means we can talk about aviation simulators and perhaps other products like X-Plane 12 in the meantime.

I'm hoping MSFS 2024 will integrate with some sort of large language model AI platform and provide sim pilots with the ability to actually speak to air traffic control like a normal pilot would. These LLMs have gotten really good at understanding normal human conversation and being able to generate natural replies, and the text to speech engines are also getting to the point where it is hard to even tell that it is not a real person. This seems like a perfect fit for ATC.

Technical limits may be mostly related to ensuring compatibility with extensions. This was historically the main reason to sell a new version: allow to drop support for plugins made for previous major releases. A plugin communicates with Flight Simulator engine with the limits of something called an Interface: it is the technical way to define a contract that can be extended with new access points, but existing access points can't be removed of modified without dropping support. For each access point, those contracts can allow synchronous or asynchronous calls: asynchronous calls are better for long-running computations like in-game virtual screens, but adds more management complexity and risk of failures. Adding compatibility layers to keep support for old contracts adds complexity and reduce overall engine performance. These are my humble opinions about those technical limits. Feel free to comment on this or telling me if I am wrong or not ;-)

I think 2024 will be an iterative update so far as how the SIM looks and plays, but it's clear that it will be far more focused on things like career modes, rescue missions and the like. I use Neofly and APL2, so I'm interested to see what they bring to the table to compete with external stuff like that.

The difference is, they will phase out support for 2020 eventually, and everyone who wants to fly MSFS and on updated computers will have to upgrade. I have no issue with this, as a 4 year lifespan is actually quite a nice ride that I don't get out of most games that I purchase. I for one will be one of the first to buy 2024 and, I don't care how "significant" an upgrade it will be...I will support Asobo, as they have shown overwhelmind dedication and support of their customers, unlike many developers. They have done more than than most by far.

Wish they would make a new combat flight simulator

Very valid points, Ant. Great video as always 🙂 Love from Norway 👍

If they can launch 2024 with proper multi threading support while still supporting external mods I'll happily pay for it without caring too much about what else they add.

Lets wait till 2024. Why worry, speculate and make early judgements? Let's enjoy our current sim.

I think the sole reason for MSFS 2024 is that MSFS 2020 isn't selling as good as it was. Most people into flight sim will have already bought the game. They can't keep working on updates if they have no cash at hand. It will probably just feel like a big update to the current game and the trailer has probably already shown most of it

There is perhaps the possibility of Microsoft using the 2020 format of world mesh and scenery thus keeping it compatible with 2024, and using the file header like xplane does for new functions within the scenery. The code base I think will be get rid of all the old underlying ESP code

So I think they actually already told us enough to make sense of most of this. We know there are a lot of things they kept saying they were working on and just didn't happen, and now, as you said, they said they basically decided it would be easier to rewrite core-level code of the system rather than try to update this system. What would that be? I think they've mentioned two things that on their own both A. would require an engine-level revamp, and B. would be worth it. First, multithreading. I have a VERY beefy computer. (13th gen i7, RTX 4070, 64 gigs of ddr 5 ram, 2 tb. SATA III ssd) and I STILL get stutters when I fly into big cities with ultra graphics, which is nuts. And there's nothing I can do about it, because the bottle neck is that they don't have it set up to use all the cores and threads in my processor. This is normal for normal games, but of course MSFS is not a normal game. In order to program in multi threading that can make full use of modern processors, they need a pretty fundamental overhaul. I fully expect that a lot of the stuttering and crashing and lag will be resolved with MSFS 2024, at least, for those who have the privilege of using high end computers. That alone will be worth it for me. Second, new photogrammetry. We all know it is going to be "better" but I think a lot of people focused on the "smaller downloads, more cloud" part, and missed a REALLY IMPORTANT tech part Jorg mentioned, which is that they have taught their AI to do better photogrammetry extrapolated from 2d photos. This is huge. Currently photogrammetry requires a series of photographs with parallax in order to extrapolate the spatial relationships. I do this in my work as a museum photographer by mounting two cameras on a long metal pipe so they take pictures of an object from two angles simultaneously. To get photogrammetry of cities you need to have an airplane with a special kind of camera rig fly over territory at relatively low altitudes photographing everything bellow. As you can imagine, this is not always welcome. I have been one of the folks long complaining that the "world" updates are largely Europe + Countries that Speak English, and have longed for better quality scenery for places like China, India, Tanzania, Mexico, or Brazil. The problem is that I can absolutely promise you that China will NEVER allow Microsoft to just fly out and take high quality photogrammetry surveys of anywhere in the PRC. (You might recall that Arma 3 devs were actually detained while trying to take surveys of islands in the Aegean on suspicion of being spies.) And other countries may be more open to photogrammetry surveys but have poor weather. If its raining your big expensive photogrammetry flight will give you nothing. I spend a lot of time doing research in Nepal, and I would love to see that better rendered in the flight sim, but it's a perfect storm of a government with a lot of red tape, a long highly militarized border with China, and weather that ranges from awful to dangerous for 10 months out of the year. The implementation of the new photogrammetry technology they say they've got would be an absolute game changer, but I can easily imagine that it would also take a lot of work on the code level to get it to integrate properly. As anyone in Canada may have noticed, the relationship between photogrammetry and the sim engine is already pretty tenuous and that is just dealing with the conventional stuff. All in all, if there is nothing more than those two changes, I still think the next version of the sim will be revolutionary.

I've greatly enjoyed 2020. But I'm fine with a new Sim if it's greatly improved. I mostly fly vfr sight seeing and would love a huge graphical upgrade for certain terrain.

Regardless of the advancements of MSFS is the owner will own nothing but the ability to fly by having an required account...won't independently own the flight program. Why I will stick with XP!

One thing I would love to see in the future is volcanic activity. We got many active volcanoes on earth and it would be fun to see some of them in action and also how that would affect the weather and air traffic control. Also, like the volcanic fissure eruptions in Iceland, it would be pretty cool to see the lava fields after the eruptions are over and that they're modelled in after time so we can go back in time to kinda study the evolution of the lava fields in a much interactive way than we've been able to before.

They delivered a lot of what was promised in 2020. But not everything they promised. These things are now promised in 2024. I say maybe offer owners of 2020 at least a minor discount for 2024. I don't see them doing this though. But I also don't see myself paying full price for 2024 either.

They said existing FS2020 addons will work in FS2024. Combine that with a better engine with better multithreading support. What's the problem?

Thank you for the viewpoint. I think you are spot on, and how can they possibly continue with another version when they cannot seem to correct the one they have. Again thanks for the informative videos and appreciate your views on this.

Raised some good discussion points here. Still excited to see what comes... Will be a long wait.

Excellent comments and thoughts. Thank you for sharing! I've had similar question, which I posted in an MSFS Forum thread called "How will dueling simulators work?"

I recently got a series S console and MSFS is available on that now . Is this based on 2020 MSFS ? Is the new 2024 version a whole new verion or upgradable add on ? Im not sure if I should wait till next year to get it or just get the current version with all the available DLC so far to date ?

def something that needs some fixing is the missing patches of sattelite imagery and the clouds on scenery but, its hard to get a full image of everything

They’re butting up against the profit margins of 2020 so they need to release a “newer” version bolster sales numbers.

My main worry is most of thr sim data being online,my connection speed is at best 77 Mb p/s but as the last update proved that figure is entirely theoretical.I was seeing speeds as low as 2Mb p/s and it stuck on the last bit of decompression causing me to do a reset which is the same as a reinstall.That took from four n the afternoon to four the following morning and I still had to reinstall a load of aircraft and all world updates.With that amount of data relying on the cloud for transmission to our PC's I'm not exactly brimming with confidence.I will wait to see how early users get on....................................

They've gone from being quite transparent to vague uncertainty. Not good for anyone who is involved in this, including Microsoft actually.

I think personally that photogrammetry is one of the updates most likely to persist to 2027 (very late). That is, because i deem it very unlikely that microsoft would put in the effort to change the photogrammetry for the new sim, because change is either expansion or reduction of what is currently available. If they would have expanded their photogrammetry, you would have already heard about it, and reduction is no option. It also involves 3rd parties. Therefore, i suspect that photogrammetry will be updated for quite sometime after the sim updates for 2020 have dried out. The last ones to leave is world updates, even later city updates.

I Pray that we can use this New Flight sim 2024 in OFFLINE mode. 🙏

I’m curious to see how this plays out. I’m inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s very easy to get bitten by early engineering decisions years down the line. Things like GPU Direct Storage & Hybrid CPUs come along and change the rules for how to extract maximum performance. I’ve been in this position myself. At some point it’s not worth investing more engineering time into the wrong approach. Its a painful situation, but not a massive surprise. I’m excited to see what they do with the thin client.

The inability to update cities and airports in South Korea is a weird limitation for MSFS2020 to have.

MSFS2020 had some key problems for a "sim" that I hope are fixed in FS2024. The inability to set weather limits to IFR standards easily (such as 200 overcase and 1800 rvr) for example are a problem for something labeling itself as a flight sim IMO. If they can resolve the weather issues, some night lighting that alone would be worth the upgrade to me. I hope at launch of 2024 the multiplayer flight decks stuff is there (allowing players to work as pilot/copilot or crew.) Crew abilities would be a gamechanger compared to all the other sims out now, and I think bring in a LOT more people. I'm surprised that Seasons was moved to 2024 - but if this was a limitation perhaps it was something to do with the install size getting too big with so many textures and models where the next version can possibly change this. Perhaps a rewrite will also allow them to move away from the single world thread type of game engine that its been using and move to what more modern game engines use with the asynchronous multi core world thread ideas. If this is the case we could see some much more powerful thing come about form the sim as we are currently very limited by this.

They figured out that they need a monthly subscription model to sustain the server cost. That's what 2024 will be, 2020 support will, no matter what they say now, end with 2024 releasing. My 5 cent.

I know I'm a weirdo, but I would love at some point to see a company like Asobo leverage the vast info in OpenStreetMap to procedurally generate an open Whole World racing/driving sim. I would love to drive some of the roads you see flying around in the sim. The ground buildings wouldn't have to be 100% accurate, just representative. A decent physics engine and effort put in to off-road activities as well could be a massive game.

Sounds like a bunch of mission scenarios mixed in with some game upgrades. MSFS2020 has the best G1000 simulation out of the box. Works very realistically with my G1000 hardware so I’m sticking with it.

I think that the next FSS2024 will have an improved engine that will have multi threading enhancements, updated bing maps and all world updates of 2020 will be native in 2024. The main addition will be activities, jobs. It’s a way to fund the next additions to the game (a dlc of new content sold as brand new game)

I'm like you . . . I am interested to see what 2024 offers, but honestly . . . I'm pretty happy RIGHT NOW, with what I've got. Getting a new flight simulator is kind of like getting a new computer. Sure, it's nice and probably runs much better, and so on. But there is also that horrible "settling in" time - of getting adjusted to the new game, getting settings just right, learning a new style of using it. It's a bit of a pain, even if it's worth it. I'm almost exclusively flying 2020 with the A2A Comanche 250, and I really can't think of anything I don't like. So I look forward to seeing what the new game looks like, but I'll probably stick with what I have for quite some time. (Also, my old laptop probably won't run the new game, and I just don't have the income to buy a new one. Sad.)

Hopefully you can play off line with internet getting so expensive it’s nice to have the option.I’m ok with this new game since they have said add one will work for both.the main problem will be finding more storage

I see no downsides. The sim gets a huge update and I get to pay to keep its development going. Any other community would be hyped to pay $60 every 4 years for more core engine updates. I’m not sure what the major fuss is, so.

Just hope the clouds don't look like sooty sponges. And using more than 4 threads will be a bonus 😂

Some of the things you question here are already answered. The reason for the 2024 version is the cloud data architecture. If they kept updating 2020 until 2030, then it would have a client larger then 1TB. And people are already complaining now about install size and download times. 2024 will grab more stuff from the cloud, allowing the game client to remain small. There are improved aerodynamics, as well as simulation for hydraulics, pneumatics, and electronics. More advanced avionics packages. Wear and tear, failures simulation. Rope and soft skin simulation. Better non urban enviroments. Seasons. There are plenty improvements that would likely be impossible to implement in 2020.

Is the scenery at 04:16 payware? And where is it? Looks beautiful.

Asobo will become the NEW Dovetail Games. Release a new version each yr to try & get you to buy & ignore the previous versions going forward. All they care about is you giving them money.

Great informations in this video 👍

5:33 wtf ? The updated code being online make it worse as you have to get it at every launch instead of when the update is pushed… seems like a java fiasco all over again…

If they bring in "coop cockpit", that would speak for a stronger online focus. Maybe you can even do the new jobs in groups, like fighting forest fires together in a live game... wouldn't that be nice?

the main reasons for 2024 are full DX12 , full CPU / multicore support, and a smaller base game with more online content. It will be a port of the existing game onto a new base engine.

Everytime you leave a menu or click a button in MSFS there is a delay as if every command has to be processed by a middleware. As long as that doesn't change I think that their engine is sort of a crutch. My guess is that in order to meet the extremely short development time they used a lot of old code from previous flight sims and run it in a virtual machine where it can't cause hard crashes. That would also explain why there are so many features that are not needed (camera system comes to mind). That would mean MSFS 2020 was less a new sim than a interface to run old code which they plan to refactor bit by bit.

Am certainly keeping my eyes peeled to the likes of this channel and 1 or 2 others for info on the new flight sim (2024). Because 2020 doesn't have my favourite aircraft, the B737-800, I'm at a juncture of do I buy pmdg 737 for FS2020 and then will this addon be compatible with fs2024 or will I have to buy it again? Yes I could use the A320neo but I've got used to the '37 having used it since the early days of FSX. Bit disappointed it wasn't in FS2020 but there you go. Thanks for an informative and unbiased opinion OA on the fs2020/2024 issue.

Hopefully will finally be able to save flights and flight plans.

Will this still be like the 2020 and not like a mission based sim?

I wonder sometimes if it is just another way for them to just make more money. Seems like so many things are today. I remember when 2020 was released and Microsoft promised us it was going to be supported for many years

Mark, on a side note, have you been actively involved in VR flying and if so, has it been a game changer for you?

My first thoughts are that moving more of the simulator content to the cloud is likely to be a bad thing for people with slow connections, rather than good. Currently, there's a HUGE amount of data that you need to get once. And then it's run from your machine and some data is then streamed on top of that. If the majority is streamed, it means it will be downloaded all the time you're flying. If your connection is slow you might well end up with photogrammetry, textures and maybe even mesh data streamed in and a dynamically changing view of the world as you fly. I think I'd really like to see more detail about this before assuming it's good for everyone. Things like sim updates, I'm not sure how much they can do on the cloud unless they stream the whole thing like stadia etc (which is definitely a bad thing for people with slow connections). I don't think they could do that without the game being a subscription. So I'd rule that out. Sim updates are usually to the base code, then the textures, panels, models for aircraft/airports etc as well as code for running systems (like glass cockpits etc). I don't see how these can be reliably streamed, except for some kind of "first use caching". As for sim updates in 2020/2024. I would assume some crossover time of a year or two max after 2024 release. But beyond that I'd expect nothing except basic updates/bugfixes in 2020 after that. They will most certainly not support two products fully. Since they're implying the engine is the problem, they would mostly need to double effort a lot of the sim updates and probably have some validation of world updates. That's time they won't want to spend on what will quickly become a "legacy product". I'm very much in a "wait and see" mode for this overall. There's far too many questions beyond even these to make any real decision.

I don't have a small internet speed but I still wait a long time for airports to download from the marketplace. I've done all the tweaks to the system I found online and still no good.

Your executive summary 3:35 described MSFS 2024 as Careers, Seasons, new Graphics. If it turns out the headline item "Careers" is simply based on the existing ancient FSX missions XML framework then IMHO that's enough to confirm MSFS 2024 is a facelift of MSFS 2020 without any real claim to being a new sim. TBH tweaking the VIrtual FIle System so it can fetch files from the cloud is an absolutely neglible change to the game code and if Asobo try and big that up as if it's (literally) a game changer they're taking the mickey.

In any regards MSFS 2024 will be "just" another iteration, just as XP12 is another iteration after XP11 build on the same engine with improvements, as well as P3Dv5 is build on the engine of P3Dv4 with improvements. Sometimes these improvements are big, sometimes they are not that big. People have to understand that you won't just build/swap a completely new game engine - usually the engine a studio uses will be adapted, improved and expanded but not be written from scratch (that also did not happen in MSFS 2020 - it's still the engine FSX used ;) ). If they would do so they would start another 10 years journey to just create that new engine.

For me the most important part is if they give aircraft devs more freedom to flight models. -Free Castering Wheels -Adverse Yaw etc… Pls let them not focus to much on „making it easier for casual flyers to fly“ Personally I do not need missions! My mission is flying as realistic as possible!

In addition to waiting for MS2024 to release instead of getting MS2020, I’ll probably wait to buy a new PC as well. I want to be able to play in high resolution, so I’d presumably need a later model PC.

I used to have massive issues with CTDs. I got rid of AI traffic about 9 months ago and I haven't had a single crash since.

Based on my 2020 MS Flt Sim, Australian trees are everywhere on the end of runways. Also Bing crap maps. I've ben a pilot since 1957, and having had MS X, a logical start-up and I expected better.

Am an optimist! MSFS 2020 was spectacular and one of my favourite games which is why I am confident that the next entry will be just as good or better.

I share these concerns. They seem to be going out of their way to be non-transparent with the community, including the state of VR.

I’m pretty sure Microsoft/Asobo have committed to a 10 year support plan for 2020, which we are about halfway through now. So I’d expect another 5-6 years (or so) of support for 2020. Eventually they will have to focus more and more of their efforts on future iterations.

I'm worried that Asobo might end up breaking FS2020 with a patch and then discontinue support ;0

Tbh I want Microsoft to partner with a combat sim studio to bring full fidelity combat into FS. Would be the first really strong competitor to DCS.

I suspect '24 will be a new code base that requires more modern GPU hardware. This would be better equipped to extrapolate from photogrammetry data, freeing up CPU resources for other purposes. We'll know when the recommended specs are released, but I think we'll be looking at 30 series or equivalent or even 40 series.

Considering the massive back-end support that is required it is likely that MSFS 2024 with be a subscription service.

My main concern is VR. After rumours that they had disbanded the VR team to work on other things, I'm pretty sure that anyone who currently uses VR in MSFS will not be prepared to upgrade to a sim that doesn't support it

I wonder if the individual career missions will be on custom separate maps instead of the full world. I hope not.

I follow digital foundry so upon seeing the 2024 trailer I thought - fair enough, that is a leap worth paying full price for. When there are call of duties left and right just from the visual upgrades like tree variety and seasons make it very apparent it's not only missions that's new. Btw it means we all should support adobo and move on to the new title. Because all purchases will carry over and we can only expect better visuals and performance with storage savings so no reason to stick to 2020.

They're moving it to a subscription model. Everyone will pay per month imo

Jorg confirmed that 2020 and 2024 will get world updates at the same time

Once ED bring the "world maps" I think we will see them expand gently into commercial aircraft, at that point Microsoft are screwed or at the least have heavy competition - which is great for us Vpilots :)

I feel like the lack of info from devs for any game can be very detrimental. You can't get feedback if your player base doesn't have a clue what you're doing

Still annoyed by the buggy ingame atc

So much of what will happen made me invest in X-Plane 12 just in case MS pull a dirty one, as a backup that I can run fully on my PC. And what happens to all our 2020 addons and DLC that we spent money on? Do we keep buying DLC for 2020?

What about all the aircraft purchased to MSFS 2020 , Can we may able to transfer them?

Directx 12 was launched in 2014!!!! Flight Sim 2020 is an old game with a bunch of makeup, it's what they had to do to get the franchise restarted. Luckily it's been a smash success and they hopefully have a proper budget to build a new game as I'm sure they wanted to in the first place.

The biggest concern would be forward compatibility of purchased content…..that would be killer if we had to repurchase content again.

While I understand people are always skeptical and like to assume everything is a sinister ploy. This jump to 2024 makes perfect sense to me. I had been wondering for sometime prior to the 2024 announcement how on earth were Asobo managing to siftware engineer these new features (which some are quite complex) withoit serious need for copioud amounts of RAM and CPU resources. It is quite clear they have hit a computational resource upper limit. It makes sense considering they are moving to a more client-based application where certain elements are cached on the fly and then dropped. So, it makes sense to rewrite the application and engine to better suit this.

I can't wait for this game

Whoever experienced the transition from XP11 to XP12 will know that probably all MSFS addons will need updates and some of them will not be free. That is pretty normal and it is ok. The thing to know is that it will take weeks to months after MSFS 2024 release until each and every addon dev has uograded their stuff.

There is two ways a game like this can keep going, as unlike earlier iterations it requires intensive and permanent maintenance and updates. 1. DLC and other paid content 2. Re-release every niw and then. I prefer the second option and frankly the community is disingenuous about it. Most of spent a fortune on their rigs tocplay flight sims, and many dropped alsmost as much for a single low quality aircraft as the game itself, not to mention captain scam. So for those who care, buying it again every four years should be no problem. On the other hand, MS should be more clear about the roadmap and should not oversell the game with future features that won't happen with the upcoming version.

I bought a Gaming Machine just to enjoy the Flight Simulator with the Ultra Settings. Now my dream became true

I'm just enjoying what we have today.

It's going to absolutely suck on launch. It's taken this long to get 2020 halfway decent and only because of third parties. I'm giving this a body swerve.

Most users would have purchased FS2020 yonks ago, while others I'm sure are playing it via Game Pass. It's clear to me that with the amount of time and resources they have spent since 2020 that they need another revenue stream. I fully expect FS to be cyclical release.

before i buy 2024 they first have to fix the CJ-4 back to a working version , they broke it 2.5 years ago and it still hasn't been fixed..

Their clouds in my opinion were amazing when the sim first came out and then they did something with one of the updates and they have looked absolutely terrible ever since so im happy they are coming out with another.

Not only am I amazed beyond the 104 GB of acquired memory the fact it's broken in so many segments if you don't have high speed internet I've been downloading for over 2 days working on my third day and I still got another $127 file 26 files excuse me 126 that I'm still downloading answer the part it gets me is when it said on my download point that I could start the game like actually do something with it and other than looking at Pages that's it so I'm going ahead and doing the full download complete since I'm probably going to have to be able to launch it offline since my internet capacity doesn't seem to satisfy even though me playing Grand Theft Auto online it has no issue figure that one out