ahahlberg

Well I think it's not only annoying but bad human factors design. I run the simulator off an SSD and I've watched the activity light and it's not taking a lot of I/O time during initial load, it's apparently out on the network confirming every piece is up to date, individually and maybe twice just to be sure - so when it take at least 2 minutes to get to "Did you really mean to start the program?" and then takes another 2 or 3 minutes to get to the main screen is a bit tedious, just to select something that then takes another 3 to 5 minutes to load. But like you, I just kick it off, go get a cup of coffee, then press a key, and then take the cat for a walk, and then try to remember why I started the game, select an option, and then go wash my bicycle, and all this on a system that MSFS describes as "High-End." They could at least decide to let you go right to the main screen even if it took just as long. Very annoying to have to go into chimpanzee mode (apologies to Chimpanzees everywhere) and press a key only to wait just as long again before you take the next Pavlovian step. But it is pretty once you get there - not a whole lot better than FSX on the ground but more realistic at altitude.

So far, although still only in the first week of using it, I've found the "VFR" maps pretty useless, particularly in the Bush activities. Real VFR maps are highly detailed showing highways, rail lines, power lines, larger vertical structures, and details regarding every public and some privately operated airports including elevation, runway length, availability of lighting etc. They are very useful for the basic flying skill of pilotage which is essentially what the Bush mode is supposed to represent, i.e. flying with respect to known physical characteristics of the land around you. About the only way the MSFS 2020 "VFR" maps are useful is that they show water ways and ground contour and the location and runway orientation of airports similar to but way less detailed than real VFR Sectional or terminal area or the broader area VFR flight planning maps. And with a lot of pilots these days using cellphones and tablets to track their flights in real time with the detailed sectional and terminal maps, it's comical to me that they put up these nearly useless VFR maps that don't support even simple pilotage by providing references like roads, rail lines, city boundaries, and power lines. No one in this day and age would fly into unknown territory without as much detail as they could find to carry with them. As to the isogonic lines option, isogonic lines describe the perimeter of areas of equal altitude and augment the basic coloring running from MSL in light blue through green, yellow, brown, etc. representing broad scale elevation changes. And that's about the only part of "VFR" maps they got right.

I've got about 6 hours flying time in so far on the new version and thus four to 5 times that learning the new interface. And so far only two CTDs both during initial loading. The actual installation took about two hours and I was barely able to fly within an hour of starting the game and immediately impressed with the visuals. But what is driving me crazy is learning all the new methods of configuring including what's missing, what works, and what doesn't. And one of the things that doesn't work is my n52 speedpad2 which I added to the configuration to give me more buttons to go along with my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick. The Options-Controls menu worked very well configuring my joystick but doesn't seen to work with the speedpad. It's listed as the fourth item along the top of the Controls, after keyboard, mouse, Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, and then the Nostromo n52 Speedpad, but every attempt I've made to configure it fails in that I cannot specify anything different than the default key assignments for it. The configure options in MSFS only list a button number from 1 to 20, no option for the scroll wheel or d-pad and no matter how I assign the buttons they either have no effect or exhibit behavior associated to the default out-of-the-box values from the factory. And this happens even after I use the separate speedpad configuration utility to pre-assign the key sequences for each button to those MSFS should use for the functions I want. But in the game they never exhibit the desired behavior except that coming from the default key assignments - as though there is no real option to configure the speedpad - yet. So I'm thinking this is a "feature" meaning they haven't got around to actually implementing this yet and although they allow you to go through the act of configuring it's really a non-operation. Does this sound about right? Has anyone been able to configure a separate keypad in addition to a joystick? And meanwhile, I pay the price for not preparing better. I thought I'd just upgrade my equipment - but all of you people who did prepare bought up the worldwide inventory of the better yoke and throttle kits and none are available until late September, or October, or November. Oh well!