Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020: Take off in a detailed data monster

Travel wherever you want – and with a permanent panorama view. Flight Simulator 2020 makes it possible and delivers unimagined attention to detail in all areas. This not only delights airplane fans. Fun for everyone, were it not for the high hardware requirements.

The propeller roars. The Cessna 152 Aerobat feels good in the air. The best weather conditions for the approach to my home airfield. In the panorama view I make a slight detour to let my gaze wander over the Eifler Maare. The mishap happens to me in the descent: hit too hard. The Cessna reacts immediately and begins to lurch. My counter-steering comes too late, the treetops are getting closer – a fall is inevitable.

This new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is not for break pilots. And not for action fans: Airplane crashes are blocked off as unspectacularly as possible with a black screen. Nevertheless, the simulation in its new edition is totally detailed and demanding, but players don't have to despair. Anyone familiar with the basic controls and using the tutorial to obtain a virtual license will have a relaxing and aesthetically dreamy experience.

The Flight Simulator is packed with very different types of aircraft. It goes into the air with propeller planes, jets and even a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, more than 37,000 airfields and airports can be controlled worldwide. But not only airplane freaks get their money's worth. The controls can be adapted to personal abilities: if you want the (almost) fully operable cockpit of an Airbus A320neo, you get it – if you just want to accelerate, take off and land, simply switch on the appropriate autopilot in advance.

The Flight Simulator does not offer missions, but challenges such as particularly tricky landings or panoramic flights in real time. Jet from the Croatian city of Rijeka with the propeller plane along the Adriatic coast to Santorini in Greece – around nine and a half hours of flight time have to be planned for, but the journey can also be done in stages. The whole thing then even works with other players in tandem flight.

Thanks to the in-house map service Bing Maps and satellite images, Microsoft has succeeded in depicting the earth with a level of detail that has never been seen before in simulations. There are no limits in the flight simulator: sights, metropolises or the highest peaks can be explored from above. Even the already mentioned flight over the home town in the Eifel can be implemented. Here, however, the software reaches its limits with tens of billions of objects displayed. Floor plans, streets, rivers – Artificial Intelligence manages all of that. On the other hand, she often misrepresents buildings in terms of their dimensions, as she has to reckon with aerial photographs. Exceptions are large cities with over a million inhabitants – here the developers themselves worked and ensured a detailed depiction of the urban landscape.

Challenge for the hardware

The virtual globe is anything but static, there is a lot of movement. Road, ship and air traffic are also mapped thanks to real-time data. Data from the Swiss weather service also simulates the current weather situation. Above all, this has an impact on the aerodynamics of the aircraft – a challenge for amateur pilots, but one that can also be turned off.

But that's not the only data pulled over a cloud. The Flight Simulator is a real data monster. A solid internet connection is required for a smooth gaming experience, because data is constantly streamed in order to generate the attractive landscapes. The game also works in offline mode, but graphically you have to accept some compromises.

Before it can take off, the technical requirements have to be right. The flight simulator places high demands on the hardware. A four-gigahertz processor and a high-performance graphics card of the newer generation (NVIDIA GTX970 or better) should be there if the game is to run smoothly and with attractive graphics. The frame rate and the level of detail can be varied as desired and adapted to the computer performance, but the flight simulator only looks really outstanding with 60 frames per second and high resolution. Despite the appropriate hardware, the loading times can take several minutes.

Playground for amateur programmers

The question arises whether it is worth buying a new PC or upgrading the old one for the Flight Simulator. In view of the scope and looking back at the release of its predecessor in 2006, one can assume that the current Flight Simulator will remain the measure of all things for a few years to come. In addition, content is constantly being developed – and not just by Microsoft. Hobby programmers and developer studios can use the marketplace function to bring modifications to airports and aircraft types into play. 600 companies are already working on small improvements in the simulator. The content is then available partly free of charge and partly against payment in the marketplace.

So if you meet the requirements of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, you will not be disappointed. The standard variant offers 20 types of aircraft and 30 airports that are handcrafted down to the smallest detail. The deluxe and premium versions each add five more planes and special airports on top. Graphics and size alone are weighty selling points for all three versions. And the software will even grow in detail in the next few months.