{"id":4407,"date":"2021-07-26T14:54:01","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T14:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/makersground.com\/?p=4407"},"modified":"2021-07-26T14:54:01","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T14:54:01","slug":"microsoft-flight-simulator-is-an-impressive-xbox-series-x-workout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/makersground.com\/ar\/microsoft-flight-simulator-is-an-impressive-xbox-series-x-workout\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Flight Simulator is an impressive Xbox Series X workout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing has pushed my PC further than\u00a0Microsoft Flight Simulator<\/em>. That might sound odd for a \u201cgame\u201d that\u2019s largely about flying around empty skies by yourself, but Asobo\u2019s latest iteration of the classic franchise is technically groundbreaking and ambitious, with all manner of wizardry going on beyond the scenes to stream in accurate city data, real-time weather effects, and so on. I\u2019ve still had a great time with it, but compared to most AAA games,\u00a0Flight Simulator<\/em>\u00a0asks a lot more of your CPU.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I was intrigued by the new version for Xbox Series consoles, which comes out on Game Pass tomorrow. In fact, it\u2019s the first Microsoft game for Xbox Series consoles that won\u2019t run natively on any Xbox One model at all, though an xCloud version is also coming to mobile and will\u00a0eventually hit older Xbox consoles<\/a>\u00a0as well. I\u2019ve been playing a preview build provided by Microsoft on my Series X for a few days, and as with my PC, I think it\u2019s the strongest workout for the hardware so far.<\/p>\n

Microsoft Flight Simulator<\/em>\u00a0is essentially the same proposition on Xbox as it is on PC, offering players the chance to pilot a variety of aircraft around a beautifully rendered version of our planet. The tutorials have been tweaked a little, with a series of shorter missions that should make it easier to get up to speed, and the various commands have been mapped to the Xbox controller in a straightforward, accessible way. You can make the flight model just as complex as the PC version if you want, although right now there aren\u2019t a lot of Xbox-compatible flight stick options.<\/p>\n

On the Series X,\u00a0Flight Simulator<\/em>\u00a0runs at 4K resolution and targets 30 frames per second. Overall, I got a more stable experience on the Series X than my own i5 6600K\/GTX 1080 rig, which was impressive when I put it together five years ago but somewhat less so now. The frame rate isn\u2019t perfectly smooth \u2014 you can drop below 30 when flying low in dense areas like downtown Manhattan, for example, and that\u2019s noticeable. It helped that I played on an LG CX OLED TV, which is capable of variable refresh rates and means you don\u2019t experience tearing or stuttering when the frame rate does fluctuate above or below 30.<\/p>\n

Graphical settings are broadly comparable to what you\u2019d get on a good gaming PC, if not quite at the top of the line. The game consistently looks stunning when you\u2019re high in the air, and any seams in the experience are only really apparent when flying close to the ground. That tends to be more to do with how the photogrammetry streaming technology works \u2014 again, if you fly quickly into Manhattan or Shinjuku, not every skyscraper is always going to be loaded into memory at once, meaning some buildings might appear a little wobbly at first. I also noticed a few amusing glitches from time to time, like cars driving on the surface of the River Thames in London instead of on Tower Bridge directly above.<\/p>\n

As for the Series S, my colleague Tom Warren has spent some time testing that version, and the results are impressive for a tiny $299 box. The game runs at 1080p with reduced graphical effects and draw distances, but as you\u2019ll see from the video, it delivers a solid Flight Simulator experience and will be by far the cheapest way to achieve it.<\/p>\n