microsoft-flight-simulator-feature-image

MS Flight Sim Expected $2.6B Hardware Sales

microsoft-flight-simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Developed by French studio, Asobo Studio, the long-awaited flight sim was released by Microsoft this month to huge critical acclaim and deservedly so. The sim — whatever you do, don’t refer to MFS as a game — delivers on what it promised in spades. Weather and air traffic are in real-time and the map of the world as seen from above is absolutely breathtaking. To fly anywhere in the world, using a plane of your choice and to fly through clouds that could actually be forming in real life around you is a surreal yet beautiful experience. But to enjoy this flight time to the fullest you’re going to need a very powerful PC.

gibraltar-airport

My computer is no slouch, running on a Ryzen 2600x six core, twelve thread CPU with 32GB of memory, an RX580 8GB GPU, with MFS installed on an M.2 SATA drive and in order to fly at a smooth frame rate I have the graphic settings at medium. Even then I’m lucky to top out at 45 fps, with the sim often eating up 16GB of RAM and 6GB of VRAM. When I first built this PC, it was the mutt’s nuts, at least as far as I’m concerned. But tech never stands still and to meet the demands of new, erm games, the time comes when upgrading your PC becomes only a matter of time and money.

Time To Upgrade Your PC?

Flight-Sim-PR-001

Will I be upgrading mine? Not in the very near future, unless I can beam myself over to the first world with a fistful of dollars, but even then the choice of hardware would be very expensive. For example, if you’re upgrading your car or motorcycle it has to be a significant upgrade, not a sideways move and by that I mean that I would probably need to spend $1500-$2000 to make the upgrade viable. But many enthusiasts will upgrade their hardware and according to John Peddie research, hardware upgrades over the next three years could generate around $2.6 billion. The fact is, Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of those advanced projects, much like Crysis was in 2007, written for hardware that doesn’t yet exist. But it will exist very soon as AMD, Nvidia, Intel, and others never stop in their quest for faster CPUs, GPUs, and sexier PC peripherals.

actual-flight-sim

Some flight sim enthusiasts will pay anything from $10,000 to $100,000 for the ultimate set up, whilst others probably scrimp and save for a more modest arrangement.

Alloy-Full-TH2-Angle

For my part, I opted for a new Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick which has improved my enjoyment of the game sim by more than 100%.

logitech-extreme-3d-pro-2

Will you be upgrading?

2 thoughts on “MS Flight Sim Expected $2.6B Hardware Sales”

  1. Great post, Marc.
    If it works ok (sort of) with your slightly outdated hardware then I shouldn’t have much trouble with higher details on a modern rig..
    RX 580 and 45 fps? not bad for that GPU!!
    Would not have thought you’d get those results with your setup. So it’s sounding good for those with similar lower graded or older gear.
    Thanks for the post.

Comments are closed.

Scroll to Top

WHY NOT SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER?

Get great content like this delivered to your inbox!

It's free, convenient, and delivered right to your inbox! We do not spam and we will not share your address. Period!