FlightGear Flight Simulator

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Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.

FlightGear Flight Simulator

Developers
	FlightGear.org developers & contributors
Publishers
	PUBLISHER
Release dates
Windows	TBA
macOS (OS X)	TBA
Linux	TBA
Taxonomy
Monetization	Freeware
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Genres	Simulation, Vehicle simulator
Series	FlightGear Flight Simulator

FlightGear Flight Simulator
FlightGear Flight Simulator	2007

Article in-progress, over the next few days. please wait.

The FlightGear Flight Simulator 2020.3 Long Term Stable (shortened to FlightGear 2020.3) is a free, open-source, multi-platform, cooperative flight simulator development project made by FlightGear.org. It also simulates space flight in Earth's orbit.

FlightGear's flight dynamics engine (JSBSim) is used in a 2015 NASA benchmark to judge new simulation code to the standards of the space industry.

FlightGear 2020.3 has over 700 aircraft and spacecraft projects that can be filtered by advancement level in art/FDM/systems in the launcher's browser. The rest are available through 3rd party hangars or from development repositories. It's used professionally for research and development, and is available for home desktop or DiY project users.

Note: The project is a bit different from "arcade" commercial flight simulations and flight games. It's more Linux scientific software. Being opensource, the sim has received development form the science and engineering community. Some aspects of the sim presentation, features, and project itself may go against gamey software practices/norms. Examples: to be cont...

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Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Developer website		GPL source code is also available.

Monetization

Type	Notes
Freeware	yes

Microtransactions

Type	Notes
No microtransactions	None

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows

Save game cloud syncing

No save game cloud syncing information; you can edit this page to add it.

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Can specify any resolution.
Multi-monitor		Supports 10+ monitors on 1 PC. One GPU to many monitors/views on same PC. Multiple GPUs to multiple monitors on same PC. Multiple views on multiple monitors across multiple separate PCs or other devices. See configuring view windows and how to activate multi core and multi GPU support.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Default keys: x/X to change FoV. You're meant to zoom in/out when clicking on 3d cockpits.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Use launcher. See wiki. Use command-line options to get higher AA: --prop:/sim/rendering/multi-samples=N , valid values for N: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		To hit vsync limits, unlock FPS throttle from in-sim menu > view > rendering.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		No upper limits. Unlock FPS throttle from in-sim menu > view > rendering. Can reach 60+ FPS on 4k monitors with high end GPUs.
High dynamic range display (HDR)
Ray tracing (RT)

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Tracked motion controllers

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

See FGData/translations for new language updates to the latest 2020.3 LTS release.

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Dutch
French				Translated manual.
German				Translated manual.
Italian				Translated manual.
Polish				Translated manual.
Russian
Turkish
Simplified Chinese				Not sure if simplified or traditional
Slovak				Translated manual.
Spanish				Translated manual.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play

Other information

API

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Middleware

No middleware information; you can edit this page to add it.

System requirements

System requirements are a complex topic. A large range of hardware is supported than normally expected - as FlightGear is an opensource scientific and engineering software historically from the Linux community, and is run on non-gaming (e.g. weak GPU) hardware in research and education settings. In DiY (home cockpit) or professional simulator settings FlightGear is run in complex configurations, like having multiple instances of FlightGear running limited parts of the sim following a master instance, effectively distributing functionality across multiple embedded processors/systems over LAN or internet - e.g. using an ipad/iphone/android device to display instruments/maps , having multiple Raspberry Pis with stripped down builds of FlightGear drive displays/instruments , running physics/systems/graphics using separate PCs/devices, driving multiple views on different PCs etc.

FlightGear can scale to a huge range of hardware. FlightGear keeps renderers from older eras, has lots of settings configurability, has multiple weather and physics engines with differing requirements, and is backwards compatible with older versions of aircraft.

For marginal systems it's recommended for people to try running latest FG with lower settings, older renderers like shaderless, older terrain (e.g. WS 1.0), older aircraft, or less complex aircraft, before switching to older FlightGear versions.

At high settings FlightGear 2018 and later can fully use a GTX 1060+ at 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution.

Your target frame-rates (FPS) should be lower than for reflex based shooter games, as response speeds of aircraft control systems and aircraft turn rates are slower (30-ish FPS for a lot of aircraft and flying activities).

See wiki pages for requirements:

• FlightGear Minimum Startup Profile
• FlightGear Hardware recommendations
• Performance tips for worldwide 3d buildings, roads, cities (2020.3.7 and later)
• Example screenshots of appearance when using equivalent of GTX 1050 Ti or higher at 1080p, at 25+ FPS, with 4 core i5 or equivalent CPU.
• Aircraft from older versions of FlightGear

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Linux

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)

Linux
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)

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