Flight Simulator SU5 hotfix #2 released

It nearly missed the weekend, but here it is. The second hotfix after the release of Sim Update 5 is now available for download on PC and Xbox. As previously revealed, this new patch addresses some of the problems simmers have been facing in the aftermath of SU5, the polarising update that brought some chaos to the world of MSFS.

This hotfix #2 brings Microsoft Flight Simulator to version 1.18.15.0, hopefully fixing the following issues, but still leaving other important ones (CTD’s) for later:

  • Fixed ground level of detail (low resolution) when flying at airliner altitudes
  • Fixed “washed out / oil painted” clouds and the overall luminosity under cloud coverage
  • Fixed missing volumetric lights
  • Fixed abnormal temperature spikes over airports when the Metar data was not updating often enough
  • Aligned pressure altitude simvar and pitot static altitude calculations to prevent wrong altitude information for external Live ATC services
  • GPU stats are now displayed in the debug window when the dev mode is activated on PC
  • Disabled aggressive compilation optimization for WASM (signed-zeroes, NoInf and NoNaN but keep fast-math)

Known issue:

  • In-sim ATC service radar can still report incorrect altitude (fix expected in World Update 6)

This patch follows on the first hotfix that was released a week ago, and will certainly not be the last. World Update 6 is expected later this month and will include new improvements to the changes introduced with SU5, but there’s a chance that we get at least a third hotfix until then. The MSFS platform was greatly destabilized with this update and everyone seems to be looking for some peace, both the simmers that were most affected by the changes but also developers, who have been struggling to get their products to work after SU5.