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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this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.
Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person and third-person simulation, open world and vehicle simulator game in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is compatible with both windows-based PCs and Xbox X/S consoles. It went VR compatible in December 2020 as part of the free Sim 2 update. On November 18, 2021, the game was upgraded to the Game of the Year Edition for free for all players on all platforms, featuring 5 new aircraft, 8 handcrafted airports, 6 new Discovery Flights, 14 new tutorials, an updated weather system, early access to DX12 and a dev mode replay system. On May 25, 2022, a free expansion was released featuring F/A-18 Super Hornet livery, challenges and missions themed after the film Top Gun: Maverick. On November 11, 2022, the game was further upgraded to the 40th Anniversary Edition for free, with additional aircraft, airports and 24 classic missions from prior titles in the franchise.
General information
- Steam Community Discussions
- Official Forums
Availability
- All versions require Arxan Anti-Tamper DRM and a Microsoft account for both singleplayer and multiplayer.
Version differences
- Deluxe Edition includes everything from the standard edition plus an additional five aircraft and five international airports.
- Premium Edition includes everything from the standard and deluxe editions and adding an additional 10 planes and 10 international airports.
Monetization
Essential improvements
Skip intro videos
Replace the video files in the game folder[2]
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- Download the replacement files from here and paste them in
<path-to-game>\Packages\fs-base-videos\Videos (Steam) or %PROGRAMFILES%\WindowsApps\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_1.17.3.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\Packages\fs-base-onboarding\logos (Microsoft Store).
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Use the -FastLaunch command line argument (Microsoft Store)[3]
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- For the Microsoft Store version, right-click the desktop and create a new shortcut.
- In the item location field, paste
powershell.exe -Command "Start-Process 'shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App' -ArgumentList '-FastLaunch'" .
- Change the default name from 'powershell.exe' to something more descriptive, e.g. 'Microsoft Flight Simulator (Skip Intro)'.
- Opening the newly created shortcut will launch the game without intro videos.
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Using the SDK for the Microsoft Store version[4]
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- Launch the game as you normally would and enable the developer mode (options menu > general > developers > toggle developer mode on.
- Towards the top left of the screen, select 'Help' and then select 'SDK Installer'. This will open up a new tab on your browser and prompt you to download the SDK installer.
- Once the installation is complete, navigate to
MSFS SDK\Tools\bin (located in your root C:\ drive folder by default).
- Opening 'fsdevmodelauncher.exe' will launch the game without intro videos. You can also create a shortcut from it.
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Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
Video
Graphics feature |
State |
Notes |
Widescreen resolution |
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Multi-monitor |
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Ultra-widescreen |
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Hor+ gameplay and menus.[5] |
4K Ultra HD |
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Field of view (FOV) |
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Camera X, Y and Z axis can be changed in Camera settings. |
Windowed |
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Borderless fullscreen windowed |
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Fullscreen option is borderless windowed, there is no exclusive fullscreen option. |
Anisotropic filtering (AF) |
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Off, 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x. |
Anti-aliasing (AA) |
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Off, FXAA, DLAA and TAA. SSAA is also available between 30 to 200 in increments of 1. |
High-fidelity upscaling |
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FSR 2.1, DLSS 2.0 DLSS Frame Generation is supported. |
Vertical sync (Vsync) |
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60 FPS and 120+ FPS |
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Frames can be locked with V-sync. 20 FPS, 30 FPS, 60 FPS. |
High dynamic range display (HDR) |
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Ray tracing (RT) |
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[6] |
Color blind mode |
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Protanopia, Deuteranopia and Tritanopia with high contrast variants |
Input
Controller vibration found in Accessibility settings
- The game support D-Box haptic/motion platforms through a proprietary protocol[7], but must have "Enable Automatic Start with Game" enabled in the Motion Code setting in D-BOX Game Center.[8]
Audio
Audio feature |
State |
Notes |
Separate volume controls |
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Voices, Aircraft engines, Aircraft miscellaneous, Cockpit, Warnings, Other aircraft, Environment, User interface, Music. |
Surround sound |
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Subtitles |
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Closed captions |
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Mute on focus lost |
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Option to turn ON or OFF. |
Royalty free audio |
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Localizations
Language |
UI |
Audio |
Sub |
Notes |
English |
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Simplified Chinese |
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Added in 1.26.5.0.[11] |
Dutch |
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Added in 1.15.7.0.[12] |
Finnish |
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Added in 1.17.3.0.[13] |
French |
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German |
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Italian |
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Japanese |
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Added in 1.15.7.0.[14] |
Korean |
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Added in 1.31.22.0.[15] |
Norwegian |
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Added in 1.17.3.0.[16] |
Polish |
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Portuguese |
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Added in 1.24.5.0.[17] |
Brazilian Portuguese |
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Russian |
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Spanish |
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Latin American Spanish |
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Added in 1.26.5.0.[18] |
Swedish |
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Added in 1.17.3.0.[19] |
Turkish |
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Added in 1.31.22.0.[20] |
Network
Multiplayer types
VR support
Other information
API
Technical specs |
Supported |
Notes |
Direct3D |
11, 12 |
DX12 support added as of patch 1.21.13.0 GOTY Edition. |
Executable |
32-bit |
64-bit |
Notes |
Windows |
|
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Middleware
|
Middleware |
Notes |
Audio |
Wwise |
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System requirements
Windows |
|
Minimum |
Recommended |
Operating system (OS) |
10 (1903) | |
Processor (CPU) |
Intel Core i5-4460 AMD Ryzen 3 1200 |
Intel Core i5-8400 AMD Ryzen 5 1500X |
System memory (RAM) |
8 GB |
16 GB |
Hard disk drive (HDD) |
150 GB | |
Video card (GPU) |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 AMD Radeon RX 570 2 GB of VRAM DirectX 11 compatible
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 AMD Radeon RX 590 4 GB of VRAM |
- A 64-bit operating system is required.
Notes
- ↑ Settings are serialized via Xbox SDK, but e.g. input profiles will be plain xml, so can just try opening each file in notepad until the desired file is found.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Notes regarding Steam Play (Linux) data:
References