loki

A star shows up for me to the left of the thread title.

Yep, that would very much be in the "too good to be true" category, aka piracy. Unless PMDG have released it for free themselves, consider it still very much under their control. Those pirated downloads could very well have some unwelcome additions included too.

What resolution are you running at?

Looks like with the way the forums have been migrated over the MSFS Screenshots appears to be for MSFS 2020 only, whereas in the old forums it was for all MS flight sims. Not sure we really need separate screenshot forums as it seemed to work well before. Might be good to leave some feedback in the New Forum Software section.

In this case it is probably easier to uninstall and reinstall MSFS to the new drive. Be aware that a small portion will still end up on the C: drive, but you can point the installer to the D: drive for the bulk of the sim data. The contents of the Community folder should be easily copied over. I have my MSFS Packages and Community folder under G:\MSFS, for example. This will give you plenty of room for the sim, while leaving Windows alone on the C: drive. The down side of reinstalling will be the time needed to download the sim again, however.

Have you tried installing from within the Xbox app in Windows? Also, have you gone through the troubleshooting steps from the links below? https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015760660 https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405340433042-Advanced-Troubleshooting-How-to-troubleshoot-games-and-apps-from-Microsoft-Store

Are you going through the Xbox website (https://www.xbox.com/en-GB) or the Microsoft Store app in Windows?

Have you downloaded the latest Windows updates as well as updates from the Microsoft Store (especially Xbox Gaming Services)?

The other piece that people miss is that the Windows memory manager will move the data from inactive and background applications to the page file to make room for the currently active program, if needed.

Buying from Microsoft gets you both the PC and Xbox console versions.

Does the frame rate get in the way of you enjoying your sim flying? If not, then it's good.

Always a good day when you learn something new. Another way to think of keeping things in sync is that is exactly what the various multi-player games and sims have been doing for decades now. You don't need to transfer a lot of data for it to work (position, speed, direction etc.), and really just need to be able to send it fast enough to keep each computer in sync. Each individual computer will handle the heavy lifting, such ass rendering the actual images sent to their monitors etc.

Not sure why people think syncing multiple computers would be a problem when FSX was able to do what the OP asked using WideView over a network. And using multiple monitors on one computer wouldn't require SLI either (it also isn't supported on current GPUs anyways). The big question is whether MSFS has the support and/or APIs to allow connecting more than one instance of the sim to do so, which I don't think it does. Another problem would be the way the licensing works with the Microsoft Store and Steam allowing for installing on multiple computers, but only being able to run the sim on one at a time. Not sure either store would allow for buying multiple copies for your own use, so you would probably need a second account, which will get messy. At the moment the best solution is to try using multiple monitors connected to one PC. If you need more ports for the additional monitors, you would need an additional GPU. Edit: Should have read the WideView site in more detail as it does appear to support MSFS and would allow for what the OP was asking. It does look like you would need to use separate Microsoft Store or Steam accounts for each PC in order to buy multiple copies of the sim. https://www.wideview.it/downloads/wideview-2021-manual.pdf

SSDs are definitely the way to go these days for performance. NVMe is by far the fastest interface for connecting a SSD to your computer compared to the older, and slower, SATA and m.2 SATA ports. While FSX is mostly a single core application, it does do some things with additional cores, and the operating system can also use the extra cores to handle other tasks in the background. A CPU with fewer cores and higher clock speeds would be better than more cores and lower speeds. As far as moving FSX to the new machine, it depends a lot on what add-ons you have installed. Many, if not all, commercial add-ons would likely need to be reinstalled due to their DRM and registry entries. Freeware add-ons are usually fine to copy across though. It may also be easier to purchase and install the FSX Steam Edition (it can go on sale for $10) as it includes some fixes for more recent versions of Windows and uses the Steam copy protection/DRM rather than Microsoft's product activation.

And none of that makes it any less of a PC application or more of a console application. The sim being packaged up in a different format than previous sims also does not make it a PC second/console first application. It simply means they share common underlying infrastructure. As the Xbox console has become essentially a specialized PC it has become possible to fairly easily develop applications that run natively on both. Regarding the Xbox apps, no, you don't want to delete those, however, the same applies to Steam, Epic Games Launcher and the equivalents from other game studios. Most games from the big studios these days aren't going to run with the supporting applications and services in place. Most games rely on cloud servers to some extent these days, for some combination of DRM and online functionality. Still doesn't mean MSFS is an Xbox game console application first. As for why it ran better on your Xbox console than your PC, I would suggest your PC specs and the optimizations and limits placed on the console version are the reasons, not because it is a console first application. For example, they had to be more aggressive with the LOD limits on the consoles, especially when running on the Series S. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/ms-flight-simulator-on-consoles-finally-a-next-gen-game-for-xbox-series-x-s/ If you really want to apply a label to MSFS, call it an Xbox platform application that is designed to run equally well on PCs and consoles and is native to both.

I'm sure Microsoft is monitoring VR support, as they would with all other features. Looking around elsewhere, I don't think it's going anywhere and, if anything, I suspect Microsoft will be more likely to change their stance on VR support with their consoles than drop VR on the PC. And I was referring to the active pause in the sim. As the sim was developed first for the PC, I doubt the Xbox console quick resume feature was the primary driver, if it was a factor at all, in not including the traditional pause feature in the PC version. The complexity of saving all factors for a flight was probably a larger issue, both for pausing and saving, with developing a new flight sim.

Having support for the Xbox controller doesn't mean much as FSX had Xbox 360 controller support out of the box too. Asobo and Microsoft have been clear that MSFS was developed and targeted for the PC first, with Xbox development coming later. Features like VR are PC only, and wasn't trivial to develop. As for the pause feature, it appears that Asobo adopted the so-called active pause functionality from real world level-D simulators, which does seem to have its uses. The real issue is the lack of the traditional pause we're used to in previous sims.

With Steam you can create additional Steam Library folders to use when installing games. Once the folder is created you can install new games to it, or move existing games. https://www.microcenter.com/tech_center/article/11365/how-to-create-a-new-steam-library-on-a-second-drive

The command is "Cockpit/ External View Mode" (note the space after the slash), and is under the "Camera Mode Switches" section when assigning commands to your controls. You can use the search box to get to it directly, or search for "external" in "Search by Name" search field to see all external related commands.

Try the steps in the support article below. https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015985699-Microsoft-Store-version-Please-insert-the-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator-Game-Disc-Error-message

One more point to add to Tim's answer about Xbox, is that the sim runs on both PCs and Xbox consoles. If you purchase it from the Microsoft Store, you can install on both without having to buy it again.

Some drive manufacturers provide a special copy of Acronis True Image with their drives for cloning to the new drive. Though these days you will probably have to go to the manufacturer's website to download it.

My understanding from when the sim was first launched is that Microsoft/Asobo weren't going to have a disc version at all, but Aerosoft pushed for it and cut a deal to provide a boxed set. With the sim being so heavily tied to Microsoft's servers, the DVD version isn't really useful unless you want to have a physical box sitting on your shelf. And once you install from the discs, you are still going to have to download updates online, negating any advantage of the initial offline install. So unfortunately, for those with poor internet connections, this isn't the sim for them, and the discs don't really change it.

Didn't time the update, but it went smoothly for me. Both for the updates when you launch the sim, and the additional updates in the Content Manager.

Actually, this forum is for newcomers to ask any questions they wish as they get used to the forum, as the last of the stickied posts describes.