Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 continues to be on a roll with a packed roadmap of new content taking us to the end of the year. Just recently we had City Update 15 and World Update 22, and the next big one heading our way is Sim Update 6.
Due to drop sometime in July or August, Sim Update 6 was detailed at FSExpo last month. There’s a whole bunch of new stuff headed our way that we already heard about, and now that the first beta has dropped, we get to try some of it early for ourselves.
A couple of the new features arriving with Sim Update 6 that weren’t talked about during its initial reveal are ready to test right away: Upgrades to both DLSS and FSR upscaling.
DLSS 4.5 becomes the new default since it’s supported on all generations of NVIDIA RTX GPUs. It comes with Dynamic Frame Generation with in-game VSync.
For AMD users, you only have an option to choose FSR. The version you use will be decided by your driver, since, unlike DLSS 4.5, FSR 4 is not supported on older generation GPUs.
Not all of the newness coming with Sim Update 6 is available to test just yet, but the promised lighting improvements are a part of this initial build. Generic airports have lights added, with the full improvements still to come.
Also in this beta is the ability to start a flight without a walkaround in the Free Flight mode. This has been added based on community feedback, where lots of folks wanted a quicker way to just jump in and do some flying.
There is an extensive list of patch notes for Sim Update 6 beta 1.8.5.0 available to read on the Microsoft Flight Simulator forums. There are a ton of fixes and improvements, both general and specific to different aircraft and systems.
If you want to try the new beta for yourself, how you get in depends on where you’re playing. Sign up to be a Flight Simulator Insider first, and then flights are managed through the XBOX Insider Hub app on console or PC. Steam betas are managed through the game’s Properties menu, and PS5 players can download the beta via the PlayStation Store.
I haven’t taken a look at it yet myself, and as a still fairly new Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 pilot, I might hold off on betas for a little bit. If you want to see some of what’s new without installing it yourself, though, check out the YouTube video below from Huddison who walks through this first build.
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