Photo or satellite scenery is not new, but used to be limited to 2D overlays over 3D terrain meshes. Key to its appeal is how it deals with scenery allowing for low-level VFR flight anywhere on the globe, but using Microsoft's Azure Cloud AI, Bing aerial and satellite images and Black Shark AI to create a immersive and highly realistic world – that is so detailed that you will be able to find your street and house. In screenshots it is sometimes impossible to tell apart from a real photo.

The last Microsoft flightsim, FSX, was released back in 2006 and though add-ons, spin-offs (FSX: Steam Edition, Lockheed Martin's P3D and the ill-fated Dovetail Games entry) the jump in PC graphics, processing power in the past 14 years has meant the Asobo has been able to produce a truly next-generation flight simulation that is not only the best looking sim available, but possibility the best looking video game as well. 1) The entire world to explore in VFR flightĪthens and the Acropolis in MSFS - note how the autogen AI renders the buildings as typical Mediterranean sun-bleached white. Meanwhile more than 37,000 airports and airfields across the entire globe are modeled – with 40 hand-crafted ones including global hubs like JFK, Heathrow and Dubai in the Premium Deluxe version, as well as smaller but iconic ones such as Courchevel, Gibraltar and Aspen.īut why is this version causing such a stir? Lets take a look at the top ten reasons. Its latest offering, developing by French games studio Asobo, features 30 aircraft in the Premium Deluxe edition, ranging from the Zlin Savage Cub and Cirrus SR22 to the A320neo and 787 Dreamliner. The big news is PC flight simulation is that after 14 years, software giant Microsoft has returned to flight simulation – a genre that it first pioneered back in 1982. Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 590.Processor: Intel i5-8400 | AMD Ryzen 5 1500X.Recommended System Specs (high graphics):

One sim to rule them all, one sim to bind them? TIM ROBINSON FRAeS casts a critical eye over the latest 2020 reboot of Microsoft's long-running Flight Simulator series.

Microsoft flight simulator x updates