Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 needs 64GB of RAM for ‘ideal’ specs

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is just a couple of months away from release, and developer Asobo Studio has released the system requirements for the game. For the most part, there isn’t much to talk about. The game can scale down to an aging GTX 970 and up to a recent RTX 4080, but one requirement has players scratching their heads — 64GB of RAM to meet the “ideal” system requirements.

That’s an unheard of amount of memory for a game, even in 2024. For some context, I have a PC packing an RTX 4090 and Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which is just about the most powerful gaming PC you can buy right now. Even with all of that hardware, I still only have 32GB of RAM. Why would you need more? Even the most demanding games can never hope to saturate 32GB of RAM, and there’s a strong argument that 16GB is enough for most titles. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is changing that narrative.

Are you planning to fly on PC? Here are the minimum, recommended, and ideal system requirements for #MicrosoftFlightSimulator2024. 🖥️

🔗 https://t.co/pBmUKmFXgP pic.twitter.com/yDdsDaxutR

— Microsoft Flight Simulator ✈️ (@MSFSofficial) September 19, 2024

The RAM requirement isn’t surprising if you understand how Microsoft Flight Simulator works. In the previous version of the game, Asobo developed a system that could stream real-time photogrammetry of cities into the game. That’s why you see a network speed requirement in the specs list above. The game needs to store that data somewhere, and with only 12GB of VRAM available, some of the map details are bound to spill over into system memory.

Naturally, the faster your internet, the more data the game can stream, and the more speedy storage you need to get those assets into the game world. The ideal specs also list some powerful hardware like the RTX 4080 and RX 7900 XT, which are likely playing the game at a higher resolution, therefore requiring even more space for high resolution photogrammetry.

The developers are making some big detail improvements for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, too. Asobo says it increased “the detail of its virtual environment by a factor of 4,000” and that it “can basically get every rock on Earth now.” Asobo also massively decreased the download size to only 50GB, whereas the previous version could occupy hundreds of gigabytes. “Now, we integrated everything into the cloud, and it is all streamed and kept into a rolling cache on the hardware. You don’t have to install any new World Updates; they’re just streamed seamlessly,” said Asobo CEO Sebastian Wloch.

Microsoft Flight Simulator launches on November 19 for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and it’ll be available on release day on Game Pass. Preorders for the game are live now for $70.