Users discover unofficial solutions as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 uses up to 300Mbps data

Recently, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has opened its doors to eager players for testing during its Technical Alpha phase. The game will be released in four different versions. A notable aspect shared among all editions—and indeed, across the Flight Simulator franchise—is the imposing system requirements that it imposes.

The requirements are divided into three tiers: Minimum, Recommended, and Ideal. According to the company’s specifications, users need a minimum internet speed of 10 Mbps. For the Recommended and Ideal scenarios, these requirements escalate significantly to 50 Mbps and 100 Mbps, respectively.

Moreover, some reports indicate that the bandwidth consumption during gameplay can soar up to 300 Mbps, implying that Microsoft Flight Simulator could consume approximately 132 GB of data in just one hour. Users with data caps may face significant challenges unless their limits are extraordinarily high, which is a rare situation.

This leaves users with powerful systems opting for minimum settings even if their hardware is capable of delivering higher visual quality. Concerns arise here too, as tests have shown that playing on lower settings—with reduced textures and no photogrammetry effects—can still result in a data usage of 13GB per hour.

Fortunately, some players have shared potential solutions to mitigate this issue. One suggestion involves setting bandwidth limits, which can help maintain a playable experience without too drastic effects. However, users should be aware that doing so might lead to slight texture pop-in incidents due to slower asset streaming.

One user has mentioned:

You can set a bandwidth limit… I set mine to 40Mbit/s, and it worked perfectly fine. You can even go down to 20Mbit/s.

Another player’s experience suggests that utilizing a VPN may also improve the situation. After switching from US servers to those in Norway, they experienced a remarkable enhancement in speeds, reporting:

I had success using a VPN to connect to a server in Norway… From the US… My speed jumped from about 5 Mbps to roughly 300 Mbps. It doesn’t make any sense. The MSFS CDN is not great.

This indicates that the bandwidth issues could vary significantly by region, which is undoubtedly frustrating for those affected by the steep requirements. We can hope that this is merely a quirk of the Alpha testing phase and that it will be resolved by the time of the official launch.

Source