Microsoft Flight Simulator system requirements revealed

Highly anticipated: Microsoft has revealed the system requirements for Flight Simulator, indicating that the game’s release isn’t too far off and the wait should give players enough time to prepare their PCs before taking to the skies.

The release of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator would no doubt excite many a joystick at home, as the game will let players take off from any one of the 37,000 real-world airports and fly across beautiful uninhabited vistas in the daytime with real-time air traffic, only to be further blown away by thousands of twinkling night lights in cities (and their cockpits).

With the game due out sometime this year, the company has published the following system requirements, all of which need to run on top of Windows 10 version 1909 (November 2019 update).

Minimum specs:

• CPU: Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel i5-4460
• GPU: Radeon RX 570 or Nvidia GTX 770
• VRAM: 2GB
• RAM: 8GB
• HDD: 150GB
• Bandwidth: 5 Mbps

Recommended specs:

• CPU: Ryzen 5 1500X or Intel i5-8400
• GPU: Radeon RX 590 or Nvidia GTX 970
• VRAM: 4GB
• RAM: 16GB
• HDD: 150GB
• Bandwidth: 20 Mbps

Ideal specs:

• CPU: Ryzen 7 Pro 2700X or Intel i7-9800X
• GPU: Radeon VII or Nvidia RTX 2080
• VRAM: 8GB
• RAM: 32GB
• HDD: 150GB SSD
• Bandwidth: 50 Mbps

Unlike most games, the bandwidth requirements for this title are stated upfront because much of its data will be streamed to players from Microsoft servers, as putting the game’s entire content on physical media would need 20,000 blu-ray discs.

The developers, however, have been working on ways to load certain areas of the world ahead of time for helping those with slower internet connections and enabling offline play, likely expanding the game’s 150GB initial file size.

It’s also why the ‘Ideal’ specs for the game don’t mention the top-spec RTX 2080Ti but do require a 50Mbps internet connection. Although the ‘Ti’ variant would likely help with improving visuals where possible with more power and memory, streaming assets and live weather data from Bing, including hurricanes, thunderstorms, and rainbows into a player’s session in 4K is equally important for the game and thus needs such high bandwidth.

Microsoft has also committed to supporting third-party and community content, meaning accessibility and content improvements over time to a game that will probably keep fans airborne for years to come.