Developer Asobo Studio’s Microsoft Flight Simulator is a franchise that’s well-known for a multitude of reasons – authenticity, attention to detail, and visuals. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was one of the best games in its class, and fans will be happy to know that it’s finally headed to Sony’s platform, with a scheduled release on PS5 and PS5 Pro.
While there are more similarities than differences between Sony’s and Microsoft’s architectures, we couldn’t help but compare the two in an effort to understand how well the experience has translated to the newer machine. To that end, we present a full graphical analysis of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on the PS5 and PS5 Pro, and compare those results with the Xbox Series X/S and PC versions.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a rather technologically advanced game, and it’s built using an evolved version of the developer’s in-house engine which combines a rather sophisticated physics framework alongside real-time world data from Azure to create a surprisingly authentic flight experience. Even though the engine was built specifically for Xbox and PC, the game’s transition to PS5 is a rather smooth one.
The moment-to-moment experience on PS5 (and by extension, the PS5 Pro) is largely comparable to what we see on Microsoft’s console, but there are a few minor differences that one can pick out related to how the texture loading and world streaming work on the newer machine.
To put things into context, at launch last year we tested the game on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 5950X, a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and 32 GB of RAM—hardware that’s more than capable of handling such a demanding title. We turned the resolution up to a full 4K while setting the DLSS setting to Quality Mode, and put most of the other settings to Ultra. We also set the Terrain and object level of detail to 200. We toned down certain effects, like Windshield effects, to medium quality, while the glass cockpit refresh rate is kept at High.
When it comes to the visual presentation, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is a very computationally taxing experience and it continues to push every platform to its limits. While the visuals are largely similar across both consoles, there are subtle differences in how Xbox and PS5’s texture and light quality are rendered, and how they maintain the stability of LOD transitions – but these differences are only noticeable when we look closely at the same scenario across platforms.
The PS5 and Xbox Series X both utilize mesh shaders and advanced texture streaming optimizations to handle the game’s dense geometry at a large scale, but developer Asobo seems to have optimized the Xbox pipeline to match the experience that exists on PC. The PS5 version is most likely using a translation layer to accommodate for Sony’s GPU API since the engine was never built around that hardware, but we are happy to report that the performance is mostly uncompromised.
That being said, we did observe visible pop-in artifacts when flying over densely populated areas. These instances are minor but can manifest as momentary reductions in distant object sharpness or a dip in cloud fidelity as the engine prioritizes essential data first. The Xbox Series X handles these transitions slightly more gracefully, and that’s most likely due to the absence of a translation layer that sits between the source code and the hardware which gives the machine a little more compute to work with.
The PC version – unsurprisingly – stands out from the lot thanks to raw horsepower and the flexibility of configuration. With our RTX 3080 Ti test bench and our graphics configuration from launch, the game maintained consistently higher draw distances than what we saw on PS5 alongside cleaner volumetric cloud rendering at Ultra settings. The DLSS implementation is great; the DLSS quality mode does a great job of upscaling a lower resolution image with minimal artifacting. Even at identical nominal settings, geometric complexity and photogrammetry data loads were faster on PC simply because the platform is not bound by the same memory bandwidth constraints as the consoles. Still, Asobo’s engine is remarkably efficient, and the gap between PC and consoles here is narrower than what we see in many visually intensive titles.
Switching gears over to the rendering resolution, both PS5 and Xbox Series X target a dynamic 4K presentation with image upscaling while the PS5 Pro aims for a higher internal resolution and that results in more stable performance at higher pixel counts. Under demanding weather conditions, such as storms which trigger post-processing effects and volumetrics – the base consoles drop internal resolution slightly, but the reconstruction techniques help minimizing the visible artifacts during gameplay. The PS5 Pro, on the other hand, doesn’t shudder like this, and you can expect a more stable image output on it.
Lighting remains one of Microsoft Flight Simulator’s most striking features, and the comparison between platforms reveals a couple of noteworthy differences. The PS5 versions share the same GI implementation as the Series X, but some scenarios exhibit marginally softer shadowing on Sony’s machine which could hint at some optimization shortcomings – though it isn’t too severe. The PC version flaunts higher resolution shadow maps and superior screen-space reflections, resulting in a more grounded and realistic look, which particularly excels during sunrise and sunset.
Another key element of the rendering is the vegetation and water surfaces. While foliage density is largely identical between PS5 and Series X, the PC version can push significantly thicker tree coverage and more varied grass LOD transitions without noticeable performance hits. Water rendering is likewise more refined on PC, with more consistent reflections and wave simulations under ultra settings. That said, the PS5 Pro’s enhanced GPU headroom allows it to come surprisingly close to high-end PC settings.
The one area that remains quite consistent across all platforms is the world streaming experience, which is great since it’s one of the most important and technically challenging parts of the presentation. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 has to stream massive amounts of data from Azure servers, and the quality of the user’s internet connection plays a significant role in how smoothly terrain and photogrammetry load. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X handle streaming admirably, with efficient caching and background loading that minimize visible pop-in, and you can expect the same performance on the PS5 Pro.
Texture quality is another point of comparison, and the story of comparable results continues. On both PS5 and Series X, texture quality is impressive, but the Xbox version occasionally loads higher-resolution textures slightly faster during rapid camera movements when the PS5 version can have slightly delayed texture streams in extremely dense cities. These delays are brief and typically self-correct within seconds, but they remain one of the few visual discrepancies between the two consoles. The PS5 Pro has additional horsepower, so these occurrences are almost non-existent. PC naturally tops the comparison here with instant texture loading and sharper surface details at close range.
Loading times also saw noticeable variance between platforms. The PS5 definitely has a higher throughput on paper, but the Xbox specific optimizations help in significantly reducing the load times on Microsoft’s machine. Booting into a flight from the main menu was consistently a few seconds faster on Xbox Series X as compared to Sony’s machine, and can be attributed to great use of Microsoft’s Velocity Architecture. The PS5 Pro further improves on these load times, shaving off an additional couple of seconds thanks to improved bandwidth and better decompression throughput – but it still doesn’t match the results we see on Xbox Series X.
On the PC side, load times scale heavily with the hardware configuration. Our Ryzen 5950X and fast NVMe drive combination delivers great results that are largely comparable to that of the Xbox (we tested this over several runs). This can be attributed to both optimizations made for DirectStorage API and the sheer capacity of high-end PC hardware to brute-force data processing, especially when dealing with large terrain pools.
Texture quality is another point of comparison, and the story of comparable results continues. On both PS5 and Series X, texture quality is impressive, but the Xbox version occasionally loads higher-resolution textures slightly faster during rapid camera movements when the PS5 version can have slightly delayed texture streams in extremely dense cities. These delays are brief and typically self-correct within seconds, but they remain one of the few visual discrepancies between the two consoles. The PS5 Pro has additional horsepower, so these occurrences are almost nonexistent. PC naturally tops the comparison here with instant texture loading and sharper surface details at close range.
Loading times also showed noticeable variance across runs, largely because the game pulls real-time data from Azure servers. Factors like internet speed and third-party services can either accelerate or slow down the process, making it difficult to produce a strictly uniform comparison across platforms.
When examining frame rate stability, both consoles target 30fps. The PS5 and Xbox Series X achieve this target with impressive consistency, though the Series X enjoys slightly fewer dips under extreme streaming conditions. These dips are minor, but they do appear more frequently on the PS5, especially in scenarios where post-processing effects or volumetric effects end up pushing the GPU to its limits.
As mentioned earlier, the PS5 Pro targets a dynamic 4K resolution at 30fps, and it performs markedly better than the base PS5, remaining locked for the vast majority of our tests. Since it doesn’t have to reduce its internal rendering resolution as often as the PS5 or Xbox Series X, image clarity is visibly improved. Even in demanding scenes with intense volumetrics, the PS5 Pro maintains its composure, resulting in a consistently smooth experience.
In conclusion, the PS5 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 stands tall alongside the Xbox and PC versions. It delivers a decently optimized experience that remains faithful to Asobo’s vision. Despite a few minor differences in texture loading and world streaming responsiveness, the game offers a near-identical level of fidelity – making it another successful port of a previously Xbox exclusive to Sony’s platform.
