Much of the environment will be streamed, so you also need a fast connection. You’ll need at least 8GB RAM, 2GB VRAM, and an NVIDIA GTX 770 or Radeon RX 570.
#Best flight simulator pc windows#
Where can you run this program?įS2020 works on Xbox One and Windows 10. While they also offer a wide variety of airplanes and expansive worlds, these are add-ons created by 3rd parties, and it could cost a pretty penny to get them up to the same standard as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.Īlthough it doesn’t include VR in the initial release like the VR-ready DCS, FS2020 has the option of adding it later. If that’s not exciting enough, you can also visit your own house to do a fly-by.įS2020 comes with more base features than any other simulator, including competitors X Plane and Prepar3D. There are over 37,000 airports to visit, or you can also stop at one of the 40 hand-crafted airports that are almost exact replicas of their real-world counterparts. However, you can also try out a few amphibious craft, private jets, and passenger planes. You can choose one of 30 different aircraft to explore detailed landscapes, with familiar models like the Airbus, Boeing, and Cessna available. All hail the king.You can fly over the pyramids before landing at a replica of Cairo International Airport – that’s the breath-taking experience promised by Microsoft FS2020.įS2020 price-tag fits the market average, but if you shop smart you can get it cheaper than almost every other simulator. Add in GPU-crushing graphical capabilities, more than 37,000 real-world airports, and a massive roster of planes, and Flight Simulator give air-heads everything they've ever thought they might want. Players can fly over the largest cities or the house they lived in during 3rd grade and expect to find everything just where it's supposed to be. Microsoft has flexed its considerable muscle this time around, leveraging the strength of its Azure artificial intelligence and Bing mapping capabilities to draw the majority of Earth in loving detail. But even the most ardent fans had to admit that the world they flew in was often flat and uninspiring. The flight models and airframes always looked like the real thing back then, and that's still the case today. Released more than 14 years after the last iteration (FSX) of the series, the 2020 version is a stunning accomplishment of realism.
The once and future king, Microsoft Flight Simulator once again undeniably rules the genre. Nothing dulls this experience more than a flight game that doesn't immerse the player in a realistic environment at that point, you might as well play Ace Combat or GTA (not that there's anything wrong with the Ace Combat series). There are no boss fights, or spells to memorize, or inventory management - just the pure experience of soaring amongst the clouds in your own personal airplane. Many players enjoy flight games because they don't have stages or storylines. Unlike most games, where the challenge of the game is the focus, flight games are more about the experience.
Updated on November 7, 2021, by Jeff Drake: Flight games (or sims) are an interesting type of game. Both old and new simulators now dot the landscape, and with both combat and civil aviation represented, there is truly something to be found for every taste The focus of these entries is realism, of the highest order, in both the graphics and the aircrafts represented on screen. This growth peaked sometime in the 1990s, but it still thrives thanks to a few dedicated developers and a huge modding community.
#Best flight simulator pc Pc#
RELATED: Best Farming/Simulation Games (According To Metacritic)Īs home computer technology quickly improved, and along with it the realism of control systems, the genre blossomed into one of the largest in the PC space.
The early entries were extremely crude by today's standards, but realism was always at the core of the endeavors, and the seeds had been planted for a vibrant future.
#Best flight simulator pc free#
Suddenly, millions of would-be pilots could satisfy their curiosity and desire to be free of terra firma just by turning on their computers. One of the earliest tentpoles of PC gaming was the flight simulator genre, with the first acknowledged example, Sublogic FS1 for the Apple II and TSR-80 systems, debuting in 1979.