That seems excessive
I don’t see why it matters though? You’re not gonna be playing the game on your phone with limited data
Because my ISP charges $50/mo extra for the “privilege” of having unlimited data.
That’s more than I pay for unlimited gigabit here wtf 😭
I love where I live, but my biggest miss on moving was leaving my fiber network behind and moving to Cox monopoly territory.
I’m in the same boat. Their only competition where I am is DSL, other than 5G/satellite.
Mine too.
That’s insane!
My Starlink plan is 50gb per month!
Obviously the flight simulator runs in the cloud.
People downvoting you didn’t get the joke.
At this point you might as well stream the game video, it would be less bandwidth.
It wouldn’t be as responsive though.
3d terrain tile streaming takes a crazy amount of data. it essentially downloads hundreds of png files at a time and overlays them over 3d terrain data. Everytime you move an inch or pan the camera, it pulls down new data.
A lot of isps are rolling out gigabit and even faster internet. Finally having a killer app for it will increase demand for it and shame slower isps to upgrade their old coaxial and copper cables with fiber.
I think the thing to note here is that ISPs roll those things out fully aware that hardly anyone who pays for that will actually USE that amount of data. They don’t want a killer app for it, they just want you to think you need that much data, and then never actually use it. In fact there are some places where regardless of your bandwidth, you have a monthly data allotment. This game represents a shift into super high bandwidth usage for the general non-technical population. If everyone and their mom starts actually using all the bandwidth they pay for, can the ISP deal with that? If you don’t have a monthly data limit, do they start to roll those out to you and your area?
ISPs are unshamable and a flight sim is a niche application.
I get Gigabit over coax tho
DOCSIS 3.1 is pretty awesome. I heard 4.0 is in testing. Fiber (FttH) is similar to coax in that many subscribers are attached to one head end device. Subscriber throughput is determined by the number of subscribers and the speeds they ordered on the shared resource. Although fiber is leading in total capacity per OLT/PON, it’s not like coax can’t achieve excellence subscriber speeds by just deploying more head end devices with fewer subscribers on each.
Who cares about shame when you have no competition? In your dreams.
I won’t be upgrading my 50mbit download/10mbit upload 😂
The next flight aim is gonna lean even heavier into streaming. So not just landscape but also plane models will be streamed. So this is gonna get worse not better
Well if you are gonna stream something you might as well stream everything if you can. I for one like small install sizes.
What benefit would streaming plane models have?
Landscape and real time weather data makes sense. Things are changing and it doesnt make sense to have high res textures of the entire planet on users PCs. Or are you just meaning on demand download of the skin?
Basically Google Stadia
Okay so after reading the article, that 150MB/s statement is doing a LOT of heavy lifting.
So first off, that was the fastest they recorded. So they just took that times an hour and said “Whoa if it stayed that sustained for the whole hour it’d be 81GB!!”. Bam, clickbait title achieved. Ad revenue pleeeease
Now, for actual data, it looks like in rural areas it’s about 10mbps and in cities about 100. I’ll just throw it out there, why wpukdnt you want it to stream back as fast as possible?
This is like the same stupid RAM argument. I WANT you to use as much as you can! What is the point of paying for the pipe if you don’t use everything you can?! There is no reason they shouldn’t push it through faster. It’s not more data, it’s not a constant stream of 150MB/s like the garbage title claims, it peaks at 150MB/s. So good. I’m paying for gigabit, use the full pipe. When I’m playing a game that is my number one priority, give it to me as fast as you can.
You are mixing up the different values.
“Meanwhile, scattered reports of **MS Flight Sim 2020’**s bandwidth consumption point toward a more conservative ~100 Mb/s in densely populated photogrammetry areas, such as major cities. Usage in lighter areas could dip as low as 10 Mb/s, though the official Microsoft bandwidth recommendation for that game was 50 Mb/s.”
Flight Sim 2020 had a higher install size and lower bandwidth. Flight Sim 2024 has a lower install size and higher bandwidth requirement. Even if the sustained load isn’t using the maximum bandwidth, it still means that 2024 will use a significant amount of bandwidth such that it may affect customers with data caps.
150Mb/s, way different than 150MB/s…
This is why I prefer MB/s and Mbit/s it’s less ambiguous.
My ISP will automatically throttle my house if I was slurping up that much bandwidth. It simply isn’t feasible for most people as ISPs usually throttle speeds when they detect sustained high bandwidth activity.
What ISP? That seems awful.
Sounds like they need to throttle their payments
What is the point of paying for the pipe if you don’t use everything you can?! There is no reason they shouldn’t push it through faster.
This is the reason why I leave the shower running in every hotel I visit. And at the buffet, I tell the waiter to fetch me a trash can so I can actually get rid of the whole thing. If I can, I usually leave both a heater and an air conditioner running in the hallway.
None of these are the same comparison. There is no “wasting” Internet speed.
The comparison would be better to turning on the faucet halfway to fill your cup slower. What’s the point. You’re using the same amount of water. Just open it all the way and fill your cup.
The cup doesn’t keep overflowing with data. You’re downloading files, once those files are done downloading it’s done. It’s not like it “forgets” and accidentally downloads the whole internet. What a weird way of thinking the internet works
Well clearly you drank the Comcast kool-aid. Bandwidth is nothing like clean water supply, food, or generated electricity. It’s more like traffic on a highway. Sure, there is a finite amount of room on the highway, but until you hit that at any one time, there is room on the highway for more traffic.
It could be a problem if everyone was playing flight simulator at the same time but they are not.
It’s not just the bandwidth that’s the issue it’s the amount of data as many people have datacaps.
The article says:
official Microsoft bandwidth recommendation for that game was 50 Mb/s.
which comes out to 23GB/hr. That can add up quick. 10 hours in a month equates to 20% of my cap with Comcast.
This also neglects people who live in rural areas that might not even have 50Mbps available and can’t play because MS streams half the game to you rather than include it in the install files.
Also *Mb/s not MB/s
You can force a download of it, just be prepared for the massive install size, which also won’t help the people with data caps.
Just to be clear. Comcast which is a major ISP for the United States has data caps?
I will never understand why the United States insists on living about 30 years behind the rest of the planet.
I will never understand why the United States insists on living about 30 years behind the rest of the planet.
Just because one shitty company has it doesn’t mean they all do. I have Quantum fiber which is 8/8 gbps at my house with no cap. Only costs me 165$ a month.
My cousin in a rural as shit location has fiber as well… 10/10 available for 240$. He currently does 1/1gbps and pays something like 65$
I have a gigabit internet plan with Comcast , cost me $80 a month. And yes there is a 1.2tb data cap each month. Every 50gb that you go over, you are automatically charged an additional $10. Oh I’ll just choose another ISP…nope Comcast is the only option in my town. Not unless I want 5G cell Internet or satellite which is not super reliable or fast.
Capitalism, an oligarchy that controls major players, and legislation to keep public players out of the game in a lot of places. Even aside from the fact that private companies are able to prevent municipalities from making their own networks, Congress passed taxes to build out a fiber network and let the ISPs do fuck all, to the point that we had been taxed to the tune of $400 BILLION dollars A FUCKING DECADE AGO.
It constantly amazes me the shit our government lets corporations get away with.
Depends on where you live, most places Comcast just has soft caps.
The US is actually moving further back. Data caps are a newer thing.
Many countries don’t have data caps on broadband.
Sounds civilized and competitive.
*Most
Wasn’t even aware it was still a thing, apart from on mobile (where it somewhat makes sense-ish)
Even on mobile my data cap only counts some of the time. Streaming services are not included.
So I can watch all of the YouTube or Netflix or Disney plus that I want and my data limit never goes anywhere. Basically it’s just for general browsing. Given that the bulk of my usage is streaming my data cap essentially doesn’t exist for me.
My friend says they don’t have data caps on mobile in Finland.
Sure, you can turn off data streaming too. It also allows you to cache the data, just like fs2020. My point is that the article makes it about the speed and makes some arbitrary data points. Your data examples are more accurate than theirs. They only presented a worst case scenario, not what will actually happen
Cant wait for how many flight nerds are about to find out about their comcast data caps.
Or how many ISPs are going to accuse people of illegal internet activity due to constant large data transfers when its literally just a Flight Simulator lol.
your isp already knows youre streamin nonsense from microsoft. this wont trigger anything
It’s public domain music and Linux, I swear!
ISPs won’t even notice. They don’t care about big upload/download unless it’s continuous, affecting other users, or they get a legal notice.
Not the case for everyone. I’m regularly throttled watching a long 4k movie on Netflix or trying to download a big game from Steam.
So that’s about 15 hours before exceeding your Comcast data cap for the month (1.2TB) assuming you don’t use your internet for anything else that month. Then after that it starts costing you about $16/hr to play in data usage alone. ($10 per 50GB)
I keep seeing comcast mentioned, why do you guys across the pond pay for a broadband service with a maximum download amount like it’s a 3G phone?
I live in a monopoly area. My only choice for internet is comcast at 10/5mbps down up and it costs me 180 a month. Two blocks away fiber costs 40 a month.
180!!! Wtf
Wait, so does a single company own all the cabling or something!? We have a despised-for-their-incompetence company called Openreach in Britain but the cables they manage cover almost the entire county and any ISP can use them.
There’s other options, but they’re all MUCH slower. If you want a different ISP with comparable or faster speeds, you need to move. In my case, internet is bundled with HOA fees. And there is no other fast option available at my address anyway.
Lol, we had 10-20MB/month packages with 3g…
Are they streaming it to you??
Wait that would actually take FAR LESS DATA
They don’t stream a video feed to you, they stream the terrain to you
Why does the terrain take more (much more) bandwidth than a video stream?
And what the heck do you mean they’re “streaming the terrain” surely it would be a one and done date transfer, much smaller than a live video packet stream, that amount of bandwidth is insane, you could do multiple 4k streams.
Because it is more data I guess ? Also probably has to use lossless compression, if it can be compressed at all. Whereas video compression algorithms are usually pretty damn lossy
It is detailed terrain for an entire planet, and figures are at around 10Mbps for just terrain without buildings.
Assuming you’re flying at 800kmh in something like an airbus A380, you’re flying 13.3km each minute, uncovering a large part of a new circle/sphere of terrain with a radius of 13km (half of it overlaps with old already-downloaded terrain). That’s half of 555km squared of terrain. That’s a lot of terrain. If you want that terrain to be fairly accurate, you’ll want to see at least meter accuracy near the plane (if you’re near the ground you’ll want to see one datapoint of terrain per meter or more), with lower levels of detail as you get further away. Add onto that things like the placement of trees, bushes, rocks, and all the texture data of the terrain (probably an index into existing possibly procedural textures), and you’ve got a lot of data that needs to be transferred.
10Mbps seems pretty fair for all of that.
Also terrain data is updated regularly, and you might not want to keep around old terrain in the first place. There are reasons like players only flying some routes once and never again, and if you save all of mozambique for someone who actually only flies around in the US that’s bad too.
EDIT: Buildings of course cost extra. Airports take up a bit of bandwidth each time you take off or land, as they are probably custom modeled. Cities like NY or LA though will have a ton of custom modeled buildings and textures, and those cost a lot of bandwidth.
because 1) the figure in the headline is only the most extreme value they found. 2) the image generated by your GPU is only one perspective of the entire 3D environment. maybe in order to download the area you’re also downloading objects that don’t need to be displayed on your screen yet. And 3) cloud streaming videos are also heavily compressed.
The current Microsoft Flight Sim is gigantic. My install folder is upwards of 300 GB and I’m missing a few terrain updates
I don’t get it; what do you think they’re doing?
GeForce now streams the entire game to you, it takes a few mb/s, barely more than YouTube.
Microsoft could stream an entire game screen to you for far less bandwidth, so what are they actually sending to your machine?
GeForce now does not stream the entire game to you. That’s the whole point of GeForce now, it just streams you the final render. Which is just 1 image, though at 60 per second. Which is way less than all the terrain data, textures, meshes, etc in multiple square kms of map data. Ever wonder why modern AAA games are 90+gb big? Thats all the assets that Microsoft streams to you in their flight sim. The actual code is only a few 10’s/100’s mb. Now imagine an AAA game that covers the whole earth and how much space those assets would take up. Hence why they have to stream it to you to make you even capable of playing this game.
Why is that surprising? A compressed video stream is obviously smaller than actual textures and mesh data of the entire planet. You can’t compare the two.
Also NVidia doesn’t produce the stream out of thin air. They are running the game on their own servers then compress the final image and send it to you over the net. While MS sends you the actual game data like meshes and textures and you compute the screen image on your own machine. It’s not the same. What Nvidia is doing is expensive since for every client that connects they need a graphics card, a cpu and a SSD running in a server farm. If MS would do it that way you have to pay a subscription fee to play Flight Simulator. What MS does is just sending files. Since bandwidth is obviously exponentially cheaper than spinning up an instance of the game on a server for every customer they’ve decided to do it this way. So you only have to pay once.
continuing in https://lemmy.world/comment/12892907
My gut feeling? Probably something nafarious.
My proof? Decades of feeling like people were up to shady shit. Being told I have no proof, and to shut up, and then they later prove it was shady shit.
But hey, that 2003 Iraqi invasion TOTALLY saved the world from a nuclear blast, right? It couldn’t have just been a series of government lies. The government wouldn’t start a war, and kill young 18 year old men without a clear and proven threat, and have a solid plan in place to end that threat.
I’m 41 years old. I was two weeks away from turning 18 when 9/11 happened. By 2002 I smelled something fishy. I told my friends not to sign up to serve. I told them something was up. I was called a coward, and that George Bush was the president of the USA. He wouldn’t lie to the nation about something so serious.
And now, 20+ years later, I’d just like to tell you how we still find the time to get together a few times a year, share some beers, and laugh about how wrong they were. How foolish they felt when Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and how during the Obama years it was leaked that the Bush administration even knew it was bullshit at the time they said it.
I’d LIKE to tell you we do that…but they’re all dead. Some killed in action, others came back with PTSD and killed themself. The end result is the same. I grew up from kindergarten through high school with boys that became men, and always were my brothers. Now I have half a dozen anniversary dates that I visit gravestones.
Ok, granted I got off track and forgot what the topic was. This game isn’t that serious. But I still smell something up. It’s probably running a crypto mine rig on your CPU in the background or some data harvesting farm, or something.
Again, no proof, but I smell bullshit.
Well then you shouldn’t have gotten rid of the big bacon classic! That would be like McDonalds getting rid of the BIG MAC, and replacing it with the double quarter pounder with cheese…except no condiments or toppings besides 8oz of BIG MAC sauce, and calling it the “MAC ATTACK”.
AND WTF HAPPENED TO YOUR SPICY CHICKEN??? ITS LIKE HALF THE SIZE NOW! LIKE AN OVER GROWN CHICKEN NUGGET!
I haven’t had Wendy’s in at least a decade. You are telling me that they destroyed the spicy chicken sandwich. Maybe the best fast food sandwich of all time? This is a shock to me that I might not recover from.
Its so small now. It’s so unfufilling.
Well, I can’t conceive anything other than streaming 4K satellite terrain data that could take up that much data and be nefarious. This is download activity, not upload, so I don’t see it being like a botnet or something.
How much upload activity is there?
But how much data does it take to send terrain information? Why not just send the picture of the terrain every moment (stream it) rather than whatever they’re doing?
Data vs compute
It’s easy to send all the data in an x mile radius of the players position. Or to identify the players position, speed, camera angle, etc. render it all, compress it, and then send the computer, rendered, video fees.
But obviously they’re taking the more bandwidth intense route, that must cost them more money…
That would require Microsoft to do something like running a 1:1 local render of everything the player is doing in their sim, for everyone playing the game, at all times. And then they’d have to stream that video feed to the player and somehow make sure the elsewhere-rendered terrain is synced up perfectly with the player’s local game. Doesn’t really seem reasonable.
But the bandwidth has to be more expensive in the long run…
Probably not more expensive than the immense computing power they would need to support something like the method I mentioned. I’m quite sure they’ve done a cost analysis on this lol.
Because it’s 3D? Have you seen the advertizements?
I smell copypasta.
i don’t think that’s appropriate for such deeply-invigorated trauma
Dude. What?
Eh, not much nefarious you can do by pushing data around. Taking a lot of CPU/GPU usage? Certainly, you can do a lot of evil with distributed computing. But bandwidth?
Costs a lot to host all that data to push to people, and to handle streaming it to so many as well, all for them to just… throw it out? Users certainly don’t keep enough storage to even store a constant 100Mb/s of sneaky evil data, let alone do any compute with it, because the game’s CPU/GPU usage isn’t particularly out of the ordinary.
So not much you could do here. Ockham’s razor here just says… planes are fast, MSFS is a high fidelity game, they’ve gotta load a lot of high accuracy data very quickly and probably can’t spare the CPU for terribly complicated decompression.
Like game streaming, vs streaming cloud data, because the data is already based in azure.
They’re streaming in the 3d world detail, but the rendering engine is installed locally.
Playing on xCloud will just stream in the visuals that are rendered remotely, so a lot less bandwidth, but then you have the lag, and need a subscription.
GeForce now uses 20 gigs/hour at the highest quality, how are they not just sending the entire video to your screen, what more do they need to send??
because it takes more data to generate the image than the image itself, especially in highly detailed and dense areas.
