New Microsoft Flight Simulator Cuts 170 GB File Size In Half

The latest update for Microsoft Flight Simulator has drastically reduced the base game's file size. Update 1.16.2.0 brings a number of updates to the critically acclaimed plane simulator but the biggest change is that file size has been optimized, bringing the size from over 170 GB down to just 83 GB. That optimization reduces the game's file size by more than 50 percent, freeing up some precious storage space.

This follows a trend of other developers finding a way to reduce the file size of games, with Fortnite and Warframe as recent examples. As games have increased in visual fidelity and complexity, file sizes have continued to grow, taking up more and more of people's limited storage space, with games like Call of Duty Warzone being criticized for having massive file sizes.

While this patch focuses more on bug fixes and small changes, Flight Simulator's latest big patch introduced high-resolution 3D photogrammetry for Paris and Amsterdam. Microsoft is planning to have a joint summer Xbox showcase with Bethesda on June 13 and could announce new updates for Flight Simulator or a release date for the upcoming Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S versions.

Microsoft Flight Simulator Update 1.16.2.0 Patch Notes

RELEASE NOTES 1.16.2.0

• Some packages in your community folder may not have been updated and, as a result, may have an unexpected impact on the title’s performance and behavior.
• Please move your community package(s) to another folder before relaunching the title if you suffer from stability issues or long loading times.
• We performed some optimization for the initial full download of the title so the base game is only 83GB instead of +170GB.

NAVIGATION

• New AIRAC cycle 2105 has been implemented
• FAA data has been implemented to our navdata solution
• Departure gates are now saved in flight plan (.PLN) files
• Fixed a crash and other issues when selecting a parking space as arrival and no set departure
• Fixed some Live Air Traffic aircraft using the wrong model
• Fixed an issue where some Live Air Traffic aircraft had broken callsigns
• Increased the density of Live Air Traffic
• Aircraft that are not on the ground but that have an altitude of zero will now appear at a default altitude of 5000m
• Live traffic stability has been improved
• ATC phraseology improvements to FAA standards (wording only)

WEATHER

• Reduced weather data bandwidth
• Improved precision of live snow coverage
• “Visual Effect Only” in assistance now does properly deactivate other weather effects
• “Visual Icing” has been renamed “Icing” in the devmode because it impacts the whole icing system
• “Icing” in DevMode only changes visual effects if “Visual Effect Only” is activated
• Ice constant decay is no longer ignored outside of frost conditions
• Accelerated pitot icing model while making it slower to defrost
• Fixed pitot icing not scaling with the number of instruments
• Fixed overspeed controller vibrations not affected by pitot icing
• Decrease structural icing rate by a factor of 15 for severe icing (6 for moderate)

PLANES

ALL PLANES:

• Added altitude interception for PITCH HOLD mode
• Increased native induced drag amount and improved induced drag precision
• Autopilot no longer flies toward a Waypoint removed from the FlightPlan
• SimConnect injected traffic (VATSIM, IVAO) should now be displayed in HTML/JS instruments that have traffic displays as well as on the VFR Map
• Fixed simvar acceleration not taking impacts into account and returning wrong values on ground
• Writing back corrected acceleration values after impact resolutions so that they are exact when pulled as a simvar
• Flaps, stall, wing and fuselage updates of flight model
• More cleanup of the flaps system. Support multi systems with different number of levels and max angles
• Increased threshold to avoid trim fight against elevator to 50% (corresponds to disconnect threshold)
• Changed elevator AP with trim to avoid fighting against user input when user input is >50% on elevator
• Allow setting the empty CG position out of limits
• Fixed more audio not playing on large aircraft
• Fixed Autothrottle sometimes disabled by AI

TURBOPROP:

• Improved tools to tune prop drag on constant speed & turbo propellers
• Removed fake and completely wrong ITT simulation when prop is feathered or reverse
• Fixed reverse thrust problem with propeller (no support of negative beta & induced wind)
• Added prop lever debug on engines debug page
• Fixed torque increasing with altitude because of N1 / Corrected N1 confusion in FSX turboprop code
• Fixed crash bug when scrolling Daher TBM 9300 Flight Plan pag
• Torque fine adjustment per POH for the Daher TBM 930
• Updated stability and inertia for the Daher TBM 930
• Adjusted sea level max torque on the Daher TBM 930
• Turbine fine tuning: ITT, Torque, Performance, and Fuel Flow on the Daher TBM 930
• Flight model update for handling on the Daher TBM 930
• Ground level max torque and torque limiter setting updated. 100% max with inertial separator; 112% max, limited to 109% without inertial separator on the Daher TBM 930
• Reduced effect of inertial separator from 25% TQ to 12% TQ for the Daher TBM 930
• Tuned stability and inertia on the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Tweaked Idle RPM from 1030 to 1060RPM for the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Adjusted max sea level torque on the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Tuned Beechcraft King Air 350i turboprop engine: ITT, Torque, Fuel Flow and other minor changes
• Added ITT debug to engine debug and added density on fuel flow table for turboprop engines on the Beechcraft King Air 350i
• Fine tuned fuel consumption per the POH at IDLE, 12000ft cruise and 18000ft cruise on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Fixed ITT, Throttle to Torque Ratio, and Garmin color bands for ITT and TRQ on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Pass on stability and inertia on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Fine tuned Fuel Flow per altitude and adjusted sea level max torque on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Turbine Torque fine tuned per POH on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Control surfaces & handling improvements on the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX
• Prop lever of the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX can now be set in feathering range

OTHERS:

• Weather radar now displays precipitation instead of cloud coverage
• Fixed contrail behavior on player’s aircraft during windy conditions
• Contrails are now displayed for applicable AI traffic planes
• Reduced rudder authority based on the Cessna 152
• Stability and inertia pass on Cessna 172 Skyhawk and Cessna 152
• Flight model handling update for the Cessna 152
• Fixed Cessna 152’s rear wheels not touching ground
• Pass on engine power & propeller drag. Fine tuned max speed, cruise speed, climb speeds, glide speeds and other minor tweaks on the Cessna 172 Skyhawk
• Flight model tuning of Cessna 172 Skyhawk (handling, induced yaw, roll and stall)
• Fixed water on windows and tail color on LOD5 for the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner
• EICAS now displays “CLB” instead of “CL” when the thrust levers are set to CL in the A320
• Fixed an issue which prevented copilot from autocompleting the Securing Aircraft page on the Diamond DA40 TDI
• Improved propeller drag and engine drag tuning for the Diamond DA62
• Flight model handling update on the Diamond DA62. Made engine effect more important by adjusting rudder surfaces
• Increased rudder stability slightly and fixed engine stall in air at low speeds on the EXTRA 330LT
• Added a notch more dihedral to increase induced roll a little on the EXTRA 330LT
• Fuel Pressure gauges now display correct levels of pressure on the EXTRA 330LT
• Fine tune on the 103Solo Engine and implementation of engine clutch below 2100 RPM
• Fixed FS Livery on Cessna Citation Longitude disappearing too early on LOD6
• Corrected Pipistrel Virus SW121 flaps animation which would not properly play for negative flaps values
• G3000 : Map zoom level is now kept constant between Regular and Weather map
• G1000 : Airspaces are redrawn uppon change in map orientation
• G3000 : Fix PFD display error when a DirectTo is requested
• Fixed aircraft spawning with glasscockpits turned off randomly
• Fixed FlightPlan displaying passed waypoints when canceling a DirectTo
• Fixed FlightPlan guidance not re-engaging properly when DirectTo is canceled or reached
• Fixed G3000 and G3X MFD TopBar displaying True Bearing instead of Magnetic
• Fixed overspeed strip being too low on airspeed tape
• Fixed bug where the flightplan was not displayed properly if the flight was started directly on approach
• Fixed VFRMap not updating approach according to FlightPlan
• Tactile glasscockpits scrollbars are bigger and can be interacted with more easily
• Fixed FlightPlan guidance not re-engaging properly when DirectTo is canceled or reached

INPUT

• Fixed resetting position peripheral input position when user exits the pause menu
• Fixed the unresponsive specific axis on Honeycomb Bravo Throttle
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Eclipse Yoke
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Fighter Stick
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Flight Sim Yoke
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Fighter Stick Pro
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Pro Pedals
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Pro Throttle
• Fixed default mapping for the CH Throttle Quadrant

UI

• Community Folder Addons will now show up as Installed in the Content manager

SDK/DEVMODE

GENERAL:

• Coherent GT’s debugger is now included in the SDK
• Speed restrictions and RF center fix information is now available on airport facility procedure data via the JS facility listener
• JS facility listener LOAD_* calls now return bool to indicate whether or not an ICAO can be loaded
• Facilities.getMagVar added when JS facility listener is loaded which allows one to get the mag var for a given LatLongAlt
• Maximum number of JS BingMap views increased from 5 to 9
• Ability to intercept and mask key events has been added to the JS key event listene
• Preventing the game from crashing if too many virtual netbing maps were created
• Fixed the installation of 3DS Max tools
• Fixed the font displayed in the release notes window

DOCUMENTATION:

• Creation of an Xbox X|S dedicated page in the documentation, which gathers the latest info & best practices to port content on Xbox.
• Visual Effects documentation has been added along with a sample. A video tutorial will be added soon.
• Major updates were made to The Project Editor section:
• Updated main page with more information
• New section for Project Asset Types (WIP)
• New section for the various project editor menus: Project, Edit, View
• Updated Marketplace Data page
• Updated Export Window page
• Content Configuration now has a section dedicated to Flights And Missions:
• Initial documentation for Flight Plan Definitions
• Initial documentation for Flight Definitions
• Initial documentation for Event Trigger Definitions
• Initial documentation for Weather Definitions
• A page has been added documenting the new SimObject Stats window.
• A page with samples to illustrate model optimization has been added specifically for the Xbox, although the samples shown are relevant to everyone creating add-ons.
• A page has been added for Submodel Merging in the 3D Models section.
• The Airport Tutorial has been updated to show the Airport Wizard for Creating Or Replacing An Airport
• Page on Aircraft Texture Mapping now has a section describing how to set up Ice
• Page on the Package Tool XML Definitions has been updated with more information.
• Page on the DA62 sample added to the Samples And Tutorials section
• New engines.cfg and flight_model.cfg setting documented

PROJECT EDITOR:

• Renamed package inspector “+” button into “Add asset group”
• In the Marketplace Data Editor, fixed a crash when loading empty thumbnail
• Fixed simvar index being lost when loading a file
• Disabled a false positive error message box that appeared randomly when building aircraft packages

SCENERY EDITOR:

• Fixed a crash when editing runway terraforming profile
• Fixed ‘`’ char being filtered in taxiway sign content text entry.
• Fixed the “add custom asset group” window which wouldn’t close when creating a new non-templated asset group
• Fixed a crash when editing runway terraforming profile
• Fixed the windsocks with wrong orientation
• Fixed infinite loading for light presets with no mesh
• Fixed issues with water polygons

AIRCRAFT EDITOR:

• Fixed a potential crash when converting old .air file.

VISUAL EFFECTS EDITOR:

FLIGHT MODEL:

• Added elevator_lift_coef, rudder_lift_coef and fuselage_lateral_cx to give aircraft creators better control over plane stability

SIMCONNECT:

• Added new SimVar “GEAR SKIDDING FACTOR”

AUDIO:

• On Wwise Sample Project: Fixed shared IR convolution medias not loaded in remote
• On Wwise Sample Project: Added Built-in Emitter & Listener cone game-parameters

KNOWN ISSUE

• You may crash when exiting VR mode. This issue is being investigated but we suspect OpenXR preview runtime (v106) may be involved. So if you experience this problem, we recommend you revert to the official public runtime (v105).