CGW's MSFS Day One Plan: Installation and Add-ons

[DennyA]

Computer Gaming World Magazine’s Guide to Day 1 with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

When MSFS 2024 ships on November 19, it’ll be Day One with a brand new simulator that has to run on a wide variety of hardware, using all kinds of controllers, and with terabytes of old-simulator add-ons to try. To try to avoid frustrations from diving in as quickly as possible, I’m sharing my thoughts/plans the first week here.

Installation:

• Update your graphics card drivers before installing. Nvidia released new drivers that have specific optimizations for FS2024 this week.
  
  
• The first time you run FS2024, you should be offered an option where to store your data files, as with MSFS2020. The default name is terrible (users should never be exposed to folder names like \Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe) and long enough to cause long filename issues with some programs. I will be creating a folder called FS2024 on my second drive, and pointing the install to that. That will make it easier to find the Community folder and help avoid path length issues.
  
  
• Run the sim, test fly, and get everything configured before you start installing any add-ons, from Marketplace or elsewhere. You want to ensure everything is solid before you start adding additional items. It will make troubleshooting any issues you encounter much simpler.

Week One Flight Plan

Between Marketplace, third-party stores, and Flightsim.to, I have collected literally terabytes of add-ons for FS2020. The first week of flying, I don’t plan to install any of these at launch, but rather, to explore the stock aircraft and scenery. There will be plenty to explore, and this will give add-on devs additional time to process feedback from users and update their products.

• My initial plan is to just explore the new stuff! There are so many new and enhanced planes, so many new scenery details for bush flying, etc. that there should be plenty in the stock sim to experience.
  
  
• On release, third-party Marketplace devs will have only had a couple of weeks with the sim, and non-Marketplace devs will get FS2024 the same moment that we do. Reading the discussions in the official developer forums, it’s evident that Asobo has done a great job quickly addressing issues Marketplace devs have reported, but so many small things have been found that it’s clear that there will still be plenty of issues with add-ons at launch. So my plan is to stick with stock aircraft and scenery for a week or two, to give devs (and MS) time to drop fixes. While it’s tempting to dump my entire FS2020 Community folder into 2024, that’s just asking for headaches and a poor experience.
  
  
• Marketplace won’t be live at launch, but the Library (MS2024’s version of Content Manager) will give you access to previously purchased FS2020 stuff. I won’t install this content before checking publisher websites/Discords or forums to hear how well things are working.
  
  
• I’ll be importing the sceneries I created into the FS2024 SDK and updating them to native format.
  
  
• I lied slightly above: For some favorite non-Marketplace sceneries, especially freeware ones, after I have the sim running smoothly I’ll likely try the FS2020 versions in FS2024. I’m assuming some smaller airports may not get a lot of traffic around initial release, so it will likely be helpful to devs who’ve created many add-ons to get polite and detailed bug reports early on so they’ll know that specific airports might need to be revisited. “Hey, works perfectly as-is in FS2024!” reports will be helpful to them as well!
  
  
• Despite all of the caveats/cautions above, I am certain that by sticking with stock stuff I’m going to have an amazing amount of fun in the sim! The brief tech alpha was evidence of that. Among my personal priorities (yours will vary!):
  • Test fly the planes I’m most excited about: Zlin Savage Norden, C-17, Dreamlifter, Albatross, Beluga XL, A400, SeaStar, Draco X, Skyship, etc.
  • Explore bush flying with the new terrain modeling
  • Get started on my pilot career mode
  • Sightsee!
  • Go on forums and share my observations, politely while remembering there are people on the other end and that making software is incredibly complicated nowadays.

“Wait," you ask, "what the heck is a magazine? Who is CGW?” Back before the turn of the century, there were things called “gaming magazines,” and for 5 years I was CGW’s sim columnist, sometimes covering a half-dozen new sims every issue. Then the genre crashed hard, with FSX one of the last new sims before Robbie Bach killed the MS Flight Sim team after that 2007 release, before Jorg and team resurrected it more than a decade later. So given the darkness of 1999, I’m excited to be able to write about a new simulation release. One that no matter what’s quirky at launch, would have blown my innocent 20th-century magazine editor mind.

 

[MZee1960]

Great post, Denny !

I love these 'how to' articles.

One thing to remember, IMHO, is to wait for a lot of the bugs in W11 24H2 to be 'ironed out' first. The 24H2 update will run MSFS2024 much more efficiently and improve the sim performance.

For me, I think I will wait things out a bit and adopt the new sim once things settle down a bit in a few month's time.

 

[simtech]

Great post, Denny. I've been here several years, never put it together. I never put the pieces together, but Denny Atkin's column was always one of my first reads in CGW. Such glorious days. I'm almost 80 and miss the good ole days having a slick gaming mag in hand. Thank you for so many, many pleasant and informative reads. Glad you survived the Ziff-Davis crash. Best of luck in your future endeavors..