Good day Friends and Followers!
Starting today, I will release a small series of posts, that offer a deep-dive into important software and hardware aspects of flight simulation in 2025. Furthermore, I will talk about my current setup and the changes I made within the last weeks.
Before starting, I want to point out that I’m in no way sponsored ore affiliated with any products or companies named on my blog. The content on Upwithoutwings is independent and represents nothing else than my personal opinion.
So let’s get started with the big topic Software! As in previous software posts, I will differ between Flight Simulation Software (FSS) like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (MSFS) and Flight Management Software (FMS) like Jeehell FMGS or aircraft products like from FlybyWire, Fenix, FSLabs etc.
Flight Simulation Software
As I don’t have personal experience with X-Plane or Prepar3D, I’m going to focus on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (short: MSFS) as probably the most popular Flight Simulation Software. Most simmers have experience with Microsoft’s Flight Simulator because of it’s long history. If compared to early versions, the product didn’t really change a lot until Microsoft released the 2020 version. I think the developers of Asobo did an excellent job. Quality, level of detail and accuracy in the representation of our earth are stunning. Flight Simulation was never that fun, and I don’t think that lots of us had expected such a product 10 years ago.
Unfortunately, some unpleasant topics are still present. For example the fact, that oftenly a single cpu thread is limiting performance. So lots of cpu cores don’t help and it remains important to run a high cpu clock rate, at best in combination with a large L3 cache. More to this in the hardware post that I will release soon. That brings us to the beloved topic Tuning and Tweaking. I want to show you a handful of tricks to make MSFS a bit more enjoyable.
MSFS Tuning and Tweaking
Everyone experiences it at every start of MSFS: Loading times. Here are a few approaches to reduce them:
- Deletion of unused aircrafts
A way to reduce loading times and to free hard disk space is to delete unused aircrafts in MSFS. The reason is, on startup MSFS is reading the folders and loading every single aircraft.
I deleted some aircrafts and it works without problems. If required, you can always download and reinstall deleted aricrafts at any time in the content manager. Hint: Some World Updates require particular aircrafts to be installed. If needed, simply reinstall them. You can also delete the practise exercises/scenarios if you don’t need them. - Skip the intros
Probably the most effective tip is, to skip the annoying Asobo and Black Shark intros on MSFS startup. For the Microsoft Store Version of MSFS, simply create a shortcut to the following Path:C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App -FastLaunch
Hint: If I don’t start the Xbox app before clicking the shortcut, it happens from time to time that MSFS doesn’t start because the Xbox app requires authentication. Even if I then enter my credentials correctly, MSFS sometimes doesn’t start. Because of this, I recommend to launch the Xbox app first, authenticate if needed and then click the shortcut. - Launching Add-ons
If you don’t manually launch Fenix for example, it will be launched by MSFS automatically during the loading of the flight. Until the app has started, authenticated and minimized again, another 10 seconds are gone. You can save that little time, if you’re launching Fenix manually during the early loading of MSFS and then minimizing the app in the background. Maybe I’m going to write a small script which launches all of the programs. Will see. - Dedicated hard drive
To install MSFS on a dedicated hard disk (preferrably a SSD) is a good idea, so MSFS doesn’t need to share disk power with your OS, which is always doing something in the background. I recommend to go with a disk size of 1 TB. It sounds much, but you will see that add-ons, sceneries and world updates require lots of space over time.
Additional sceneries
- MSFS World Updates
If you like fine airport sceneries and accurate landscape representation, you should install Microsoft’s World Updates for MSFS before buying payware sceneries, as the microsoft ones are for free. You can check the availability of updates in MSFS within the Content Manager, accessible via “Profile”. But keep in mind that MSFS loading times will increase, the more world updates you’re installing. Also the packages are oftenly several gigabytes large, so download and installation can take a while. Also watch your free hard disk space. I recommend to only install world updates for regions you are actually planning to fly at.
Flight Management Software
At first, I have to point out that this kind of Flight Simulation is something else than running a full home cockpit. In this approach, we are using a virtual 3D-cockpit, controlled with keyboard, mouse and some selected hardware components. We indeed can luckily pop-out some of the glass cockpit gauges thanks to third party tools like POPM, but we can’t derive the load onto several PCs, which is a big problem regarding performance in a home cockpit. To power a full home cockpit with complete hardware, gauges, interface cards, etc. we need more capable software like e. g. Jeehell FMGS. As far as I know, the developer is currently working on interfacing MSFS with his software. As soon as there are any news, I will post them here, of course. For now, I’m going with the virtual cockpit approach, as it is my way to enjoy MSFS at best in 2025.
Looking back, I started all over again with Flight Simulation with MSFS and the FlybyWire A320. It has to be said, the guys of FlybyWire (shortened FWB) are doing an excellent job and I enjoyed flying their A320 neo a lot. Don’t forget that it’s freeware! I can clearly recommend anyone to go with the FBW first, if you don’t want to pay some money upfront and simply try out how everything behaves. FBW even released an A380 for MSFS recently.
After a few months, I talked to another flightsim enthusiast around. Talking about the limited system depth of the FBW, he recommended me to take a closer look at the Fenix A320. It’s a payware aircraft product of Fenix Simulations and they offer the A319, A320 and A321. I decided to go with the A320 only, which costs around 60 Euros. To make it short: The Fenix A320 is an excellent product with very high system depth. If you are looking for as-real-as-it-gets simulation, you have to go with the Fenix. FSLabs recently launched their A320 product, but by today I don’t have any experience with it. Have you? Comment below.
Add-ons and Tools
A very important topic is add-ons and tools! I’m currently using most of the following and can tell from personal experience.
- Simbrief.com
Navigraph offers Simbrief, a free of charge dispatching software. Here you can plan your flight and create all required data you later need in your Airbus FMS, like flight plans, fuel calculation, cruise altitude, cost index and much more. The data can be imported into the Fenix A320 with one click on the Fenix EFB.
- Navigraph navdata subscription
When you aim to fly realistically and probably with ATC coverage like VATSIM or IVAO, you should use current navdata. Airport information and departure/arrival routes are changing regularly and you should be up to date to avoid track deviations and unneccesary questions when communicating with ATC. As navigraph charges currently around 10 Euros per month for navdata and airport charts, I decided to go with the navdata subscription only. It is currently 38 Euros a year. Charts are oftenly available for free on the internet, even if they aren’t always up to date.
- Chartfox.org
A very good source for airport charts is Chartfox. You can access all available charts for free by simply entering the ICAO code of the airport on the website.
- FlybyWire Simulations FSLTL
An absolutely cool tool is FSLTL by FlybyWire. This piece of software generates AI traffic in MSFS, that is in sync with Flightradar24.com in real time. The tool comes for free with a big pack of current aircraft liveries, so the immersion gets damn close to reality! When you are parking at a gate and watching like aircrafts from other airlines are parking right next to you as they do at the same time in reality. FSLTL is offered for installation within the FlyByWire Installer. Simply download it and then install the tool. You can find lots of instruction videos on youtube for the setup. It has to be said that sometimes, the traffic doesn`t behave like it should. Now and then in my setup it appears, that aircrafts are rolling on the runway but aren’t taking off. Also you may encounter the problem, that AI traffic is rolling onto the runway right before you aim to touch-down. You then can remove nearby traffic in-flight via the FSLTL menu bar in MSFS. Besides those small problems, I do enjoy this tool a lot and in my opinion, the advantages outweigh the small problems.
If you are planning to use VATSIM or IVAO ATC, you don’t sync with Flightradar24 but with their service, so you see the actual VATSIM/IVAO traffic in the sim. I didn`t try this out yet, but it will come. - FS Dreamteam GSX Pro
As immersion improves with every tool you are using, GSX makes it perfect. GSX is a very capable and well done ground handling tool. With GSX, you can automate pushback procedures, talking to ground agents, your aircraft is being fueled up, freight is loaded, passengers are visibly boarding and leaving the plane and much more. Fenix-Integration is also included. A great tool that is worth its price (currently around 35 Euros).
- MSFS Pop Out Panel Manager (MSFS POPM)
MSFS POPM is a small freeware tool that allows you to automatically pop out glass cockpit display content into a new window in MSFS. You might need it, if you are working with separate screens for PFD, ND and ECAM displays. I’ve been using it as long as I was using my 34″ screen. Here, the glass cockpit displays were just to small to read, so I popped them out and dragged them on two small separate screens. Unfortunately, those additional screens lead to a fps-drop in the sim of > 10 fps. Now I recently bought a 55″ TV for simulation and the gauges are big enough to read and I can invest those fps in 4k resolution. The tool is provided and supported by the user “hawkeyesk” via flightsim.to
Have fun trying out the tools and see you shortly for the hardware post!
Do you know any other interesting tools? Let me know in the comment section!
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