The highly anticipated Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has made headlines in a bad way with a report indicating that it can eat up your bandwidth when streaming the in-game world at up to 180 Mbps.
Tom’s Hardware notes that this yields around 81GB of data per hour of gameplay when flying over densely populated areas at high detail settings, and that’s a figure that has understandably put some frowns on the faces of PC gamers.
The data comes from a YouTube video uploaded by Compusemble (see below) that covers four test flights made in the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 technical alpha, measuring both performance and internet bandwidth.
And here we have to take a flight over (the densely populated) Caveat City.
The first and most obvious point is that Tom notes that data can reach a streaming speed of 180 Mbps, but that’s of course the worst-case scenario, and it usually doesn’t come close.
Indeed, in the video we can see that when flying over New York, the bandwidth is generally more between 30 and 50 Mbps, with peaks above 100 Mbps (up to 180 Mbps), which are the exception rather than the rule. It’s more like 10 to 30 Mbps if the level of detail is turned down a little in the vast majority of cases.
Similarly, in Grand Canyon gameplay we’re looking at 60 to 90 Mbps (or 40 to 70 Mbps with the details turned down slightly).
We should also point out that this is in 4K resolution, Ultra detail, which also won’t suit everyone – these detail levels will obviously be a lot more intense for streaming.
We’re also looking at an alpha of the game, not the final product, as Tom’s acknowledges – this may not be the optimal performance in any given department (in fact, it almost certainly won’t be). The alpha is only a 9GB install compared to the game’s full 30GB size, as recently stated by Microsoft (though it does require 50GB of free space, we should note).
So is this all a storm in a teacup? We believe this is true in many respects, but at the same time bandwidth concerns are not unfounded. Let’s discuss the ins and outs a little further.
Look
Analysis: Caching off
As we saw when the game’s specs were revealed, Microsoft has reduced the installation of Flight Simulator 2024 to 30 GB (compared to the 130 GB minimum for Flight Simulator 2020), noting that: “By using the latest cloud streaming technology, the installation size has been reduced to around 30 GB to get you in your seat and flying as quickly as possible, with streaming in the higher detailed areas only needed for your flight path.
So we guess this talk of tapping into cloud streaming, combined with the bandwidth specification for the 2024 version – which increases the recommended connection bandwidth to 50 Mbps, and 100 Mbps is now the ideal specification (compared to 20 Mbps and 50 Mbps respectively with FS 2020) – is causing some concern.
And that’s fair enough – after all, we don’t all have the fastest internet connection, or the best router – but Tom’s is kind of fanning the flames here by picking a figure of 80GB of hourly usage, when the real story isn’t that. remotely close to that (even in the unfinished alpha). This is a misleading way of presenting the requirements of FS 2024, especially since it also doesn’t take the game settings into account.
You can download Flight Simulator content to your drive, and there’s a manual cache you can set up (to save world data locally instead of streaming it), and a rolling cache to boot (which saves frequently visited areas) . With these measures, your bandwidth needs in Flight Simulator 2024 should in theory be much more modest. Generally speaking, but that being said, there have been complaints from FS 2020 players that the rolling cache can have serious issues (including crashing the game), but we can hardly judge the 2024 incarnation on that basis.
This comes back to the rusty old expression ‘let’s not jump to conclusions’ because there are too many undetermined factors floating around. Still, we have to say that Microsoft raising bandwidth requirements is a bit ominous, so we understand – those gamers in the US who are hampered by a data cap on their internet pipe may be especially concerned. But let’s wait for the full picture here, because it certainly won’t be as bad as some reports portray it.
