Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Will Require 150 GB of SSD Space and 32 GB of RAM for the Ideal Experience

Tsing

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Image: Microsoft



Does 16 GB of RAM suffice for gaming purposes? Maybe not. Microsoft has released the specifications for Flight Simulator 2020, which requires 32 GB of memory for its highest graphical setting. This “ideal” tier also calls for a Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X, Intel i7-9800X, or greater CPU; a Radeon VII, NVIDIA RTX 2080, or greater GPU (8 GB of VRAM); and an SSD with 150 GB of space.



There’s also a bandwidth requirement of 50 Mbps. For those who haven’t been following its development, Flight Simulator 2020 will leverage Microsoft’s cloud-computing platform, Azure, to stream data in real-time for hyper-realistic ground, sky, and weather details.



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Image: Microsoft



“Yes, it will...
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Not terribly surprised by this. I've been passively following development of this over the last six months and there's many amazing images that have been released for it. The amount of effort put into a it has been pretty astounding. Flight simulator has often been a demanding program as well.
 
Agreed. MSFS has always been demanding. Worth it if that's what you're in to. My father's FS setup is pretty ridiculous. I think I'll be building him a new PC for this though.
 
They goofed on the GPU spec. This is what happens when some non-PC folk is assigned to do the chart.
High-end seems fine RTX2080 and Radeon7. Very close.
Now mid-tier. RX590 or GTX970. 4GB. What? RX590's only come with 8GB and the old but solid 970 has 3.5GB. And the 970 is a ways back of a 590 to be certain on any benchmark ever, even the most Nvidia favorable ones. Not close.
Now low tier. In my opinion it gets worse. And RX570 which is a bit slower then the RX590 that sits in the mid-tier slot above, but same generation card. But on the Nvidia side they put a fricken GTX770? What the hell. That card is a refresh of the GTX670, and two steps down from the GTX970 with the slow as hell now GTX780 and 780ti falling in between. Yet this 2GB card gets a equivalent rating to a GDDR5 RX570 4/8 GB? LMO.
This spec list is laughable. I have seen some bad ones but come on.
 
funkydmunky said:
I guess with these specs we aren't going VR. At least now outta the gate.
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I thought about VR, then quickly realized that it would be very hard to implement. My father has a full cockpit setup, G1000 setup w/ extra glass gauges, switch panels, controls everywhere. There's no way he'd be able to control all of that with VR glasses on.
 
funkydmunky said:
They goofed on the GPU spec. This is what happens when some non-PC folk is assigned to do the chart.
High-end seems fine RTX2080 and Radeon7. Very close.
Now mid-tier. RX590 or GTX970. 4GB. What? RX590's only come with 8GB and the old but solid 970 has 3.5GB. And the 970 is a ways back of a 590 to be certain on any benchmark ever, even the most Nvidia favorable ones. Not close.
Now low tier. In my opinion it gets worse. And RX570 which is a bit slower then the RX590 that sits in the mid-tier slot above, but same generation card. But on the Nvidia side they put a fricken GTX770? What the hell. That card is a refresh of the GTX670, and two steps down from the GTX970 with the slow as hell now GTX780 and 780ti falling in between. Yet this 2GB card gets a equivalent rating to a GDDR5 RX570 4/8 GB? LMO.
This spec list is laughable. I have seen some bad ones but come on.
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Back in the early 2000's when I got back into PC gaming, after a 10 year hiatus, I was briefly using recommended specs for games as a guide for upgrades and builds. That didn't last too long. To this day I consider them at most a very, very, basic reference. Most are conservative to say the least but occasionally might come across one that hits the right marks.
 
Riccochet said:
My father has a full cockpit setup, G1000 setup w/ extra glass gauges, switch panels, controls everywhere.
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I've often thought that with all the YT shows and channels out there someone should do one that focuses on setups like those for flight and racing simulators. I've seen some impressive flight sim builds over the years that are mind blowing. Occasionally some similar ones for racing and I'm sure there's a few things out there too.
 
Peter_Brosdahl said:
I've often thought that with all the YT shows and channels out there someone should do one that focuses on setups like those for flight and racing simulators. I've seen some impressive flight sim builds over the years that are mind blowing. Occasionally some similar ones for racing and I'm sure there's a few things out there too.
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I doubt my 77 year old father is going to start making YT vids any time soon. lol

He flew private planes for over 40 years and has been using flight sim since it came out. Can't pass a physical to maintain his pilots license, so he invested in a proper sim setup.
 
Wow.

Those are some crazy requirements, but it also looks phenomenal.

I played around with Ms Flight Simulator (4.0 I think?) in DOS in the early 90's, but I have completely lost track of it since. I didn't even realize it was still a thing.

I remember having some fun tooling around in the Sopwith Camel, but other than that my recollection is vague. It's been almost 30 years.

I may have to pick this one up just to play around with it.

I don't have a sim setup or a joystick or anything like that, but it could be fun to fool around with if it isn't too expensive.
 
Riccochet said:
I thought about VR, then quickly realized that it would be very hard to implement. My father has a full cockpit setup, G1000 setup w/ extra glass gauges, switch panels, controls everywhere. There's no way he'd be able to control all of that with VR glasses on.
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No, but he would use the regular flight controls of his setup just fine.
 
That's pretty amazing. The one with the reflection of the controls in the windshield has me thinking raytracing is involved.
 
Riccochet said:
That's pretty amazing. The one with the reflection of the controls in the windshield has me thinking raytracing is involved.
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From Peter's link:
Now while the game does not currently support Ray Tracing, it does feature some cool reflection effects. Moreover, these screenshots show some gorgeous environments, as well as some of the planes that players can fly.
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Dang! I can see that taking a hell of a rig to run at full tilt.
 
I have been waiting for this for so long... I cannot wait. I might bump up my internet speed for this but I am going to test before doing anything rash.
 
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