I am giving up on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020!!!
Building a new machine with sims in mind, I installed Elite Dangerous and DCS without problems, then found out Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 will take about two years to download everything again… maybe it’s a strategy to sell the 2024 version.
Yes, I may be exaggerating, but having a speed as low as 0.3mMbit/s — and moments without any bit of data moving — and that sets at a pace of 2Mbit/s takes me back to the early days of the Internet. I know it is not my network, as we download regularly from Steam and other sites and play online daily without any problems. I know it’s not my newly built machine — an i7–14700K paired with a RTX 4090, NMVe disks and 32GB fast memory — or even my Internet speed, which sits at comfortable 500Mbits/s… I never reach with this download.
The main game downloaded reasonably well, but once I got to the content from the Content Manager, the snail pace started. I tried it for a few days, at various times of the day, and I simply gave up because I have better things to do… like playing DCS or Elite: Dangerous. I have not even bothered to install the extra planes I bought from other sources — as Just Flight — or community files, because while I know they will download and install without problems, the REAL PROBLEM is Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is getting so huge with sceneries and the rest that it simply is not manageable, when Microsoft servers that distribute the game are only made to share… basic games of Pong!
I’ve no problems with other games… only with MSFS2020
As I see it now, it is as if Microsoft is selling us a jar filled with candy but once we’ve paid, they show that the jar is on the top shelf behind the counter… and there are no ladders to get to it.
Curious to know if it was just me that had problems, I browsed through Microsoft forums for MSFS2020 and discovered the problem has been going on for months, with lots of people complaining and Microsoft suggesting multiple non-solutions, as if the problem was not theirs! IT IS!
Apparently, it does not matter where you are in the world, the slow pace of downloads is a key part of this game. As I’ve no problems with any other game — let me say it again… ANY OTHER GAME — the problem must be on Microsoft’s side. I just download a 30GB update for Elite: Dangerous on three different computers without problems, but I’ve been trying to download an update of 6.5GB for one of the regions in MSFS2020 for days and I don’t have the patience to continue, as I’ve only downloaded 40.50MB. I am not waiting for hours that a mere region updates, and I still have, according to Content Manager many more regions to install. No way, at this speed!
Now, just to compare things, I decided to install the demo for X-Plane 12, and from download to being ready to play, it took me 20 minutes at the most. That’s for 23GB of data transferred at a speed that makes sense. So, I might just use X-Plane while Microsoft sorts out its downloading problem. Which starts with the company accepting that it’s their problem and something they must solve urgently, as it is affecting players and, in the end, their sales.
Or maybe this is just part of the strategy: by slowing downloads for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and suggesting that the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 will be different, faster and with less downloads, Microsoft is creating the conditions to “sell” their simulator again to the same clients… by strangling the actual sim.
Maybe I am wrong, and it’s just a coincidence, but June 2023, when people started complaining about the “EXTREMELY slow and fluctuating download speeds” is the same month Microsoft announced the 2024 version…
