Blog
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on Starlink: streaming the world at satellite speed
The sim pulls scenery over your connection as you fly, so steady speed matters more than ping. Here's how each Starlink Residential speed range lines up.
- Flight Simulator 2024's Steam page asks for 10 Mbps minimum and 50 Mbps recommended, with 50 GB of storage.
- Starlink expects 80–100 Mbps on Residential 100 Mbps and 80–200 Mbps on Residential 200 Mbps, so both clear the 50 Mbps recommendation on paper.
- Tom's Hardware measured the sim pulling up to about 180 Mbps in flight, a peak only the faster end of Starlink's plans reaches.
- By our arithmetic, a steady 50 Mbps is about 22.5 GB an hour; Starlink says its Residential plans include unlimited data.
- For a flight sim, latency matters little; a wired PC, a local scenery cache and a dish with open sky above it matter more.
Flight Simulator 2024 asks for 50 Mbps, and the download speed Starlink expects on every Residential plan starts above that. The sim’s peaks and its hours of streamed scenery are what to plan for, which makes a wired PC, a local scenery cache and an unblocked patch of sky for the dish matter more than they would on cable.
The good news for rural sim pilots: this is one of the few popular games where latency barely matters. Speed and steadiness do.
What the sim streams, and why it matters
Flight Simulator 2024’s Steam page (read Nov 3, 2026) asks for 50 GB of storage and a network speed of 10 Mbps minimum, 50 Mbps recommended. A 50 GB install is small for a game that covers the whole planet, and 50 Mbps is a big ask for a game you can fly alone. Our reading of that gap: the sim pulls much of its world, the ground imagery, terrain and city detail, over your connection while you fly instead of keeping it all on your drive.
Tom’s Hardware measured how much. It reported the sim pulling up to about 180 Mbps while in flight, which it equated to about 81 GB of data an hour. That’s a press measurement at its own location and settings, not a figure from Microsoft, and it describes peaks rather than a typical hour.
So two questions matter for a Starlink home: does your plan’s speed cover the sim’s ask, and how does it cope with the peaks?
Starlink’s speed ranges against the sim’s ask
Starlink publishes the download speeds it expects on each Residential plan (US Specifications and Starlink’s order card, read Nov 3, 2026). Set against the sim:
| Plan | Starlink’s expected download | vs 10 Mbps minimum | vs 50 Mbps recommended | vs about 180 Mbps peak (Tom’s Hardware) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential 100 Mbps | 80–100 Mbps | Clears | Clears | Below the whole range |
| Residential 200 Mbps | 80–200 Mbps | Clears | Clears | Only the top of the range reaches it |
| Residential Max | Up to 400+ Mbps | Clears | Clears | The “up to” figure is above it |
Three caveats. Expected speeds are Starlink’s words, not a promise. Starlink sells the 100 and 200 Mbps tiers only in select areas, while Residential Max is the plan offered everywhere Residential is sold. And Starlink says homes on the 100 and 200 Mbps tiers are likelier to slow down on a congested network than homes on Residential Max.
What happens when the connection falls behind a peak? Microsoft doesn’t publish it. Our reading of how streamed scenery generally behaves: detail arrives late or blurry, most of all in low, fast flight over a dense city, rather than the flight stopping.
Data per hour
Our arithmetic: one megabit per second, held for an hour, is 0.45 GB. If the sim ran at its ask for a whole hour:
- 10 Mbps minimum: about 4.5 GB an hour.
- 50 Mbps recommended: about 22.5 GB an hour.
- Tom’s Hardware’s peak of about 180 Mbps: about 81 GB an hour, its own figure.
For scale, Starlink’s data-usage page says HD video uses about 3 GB an hour and 4K about 7 GB an hour or more. An hour of flying at the 50 Mbps recommendation works out to roughly three times an hour of 4K video by our arithmetic.
On a home plan that volume doesn’t change the bill: Starlink says all Residential plans include unlimited data. The limit you’ll feel is speed at the moment you fly, not a monthly total.
Rolling cache and data settings
The sim gives you ways to lean on your drive instead of the connection. Look in its data settings for two kinds of option:
- A rolling cache. A slice of your drive set aside to keep recently streamed scenery, so a second flight over the same area pulls less over the connection. A larger cache on a fast SSD helps most if you fly the same region often.
- Online data switches. Options that turn some streamed layers off or down when the connection struggles.
Microsoft’s FAQ on flightsimulator.com explains what each setting does in the 2024 release and how much of the world works offline. Check there before changing anything, because names and defaults have moved between versions of the sim.
A practical pattern, our reading: fly your home area and favorite routes first on a quiet evening, when nobody else in the house is streaming, and let the cache fill. Later flights over the same ground draw more from the drive and less from the dish.
Multiplayer and live traffic: latency barely matters
A flight sim isn’t decided in single frames the way a shooter is. Multiplayer positions, live weather and live air traffic arrive as small, regular updates that the sim smooths out (our reading). Starlink reports a US median peak-hour latency of 25.7 ms as of June 2025, with fewer than 1% of US measurements above 55 ms. For a sim, that’s plenty.
What does matter is a dropout. Starlink says an obstruction that stays in the dish’s view “can still cause intermittent outages, dropped packets, and lower speeds.” In the sim, that looks like scenery that stalls for a moment. If it happens at the same point on every flight session, the Starlink app’s obstruction map is the first place to look; the lag guide walks through reading it.
Set up the PC for it
- Wire it. Run a cable from the router to the sim PC; the console and PC setup guide shows the ports on each Starlink router, and the lag guide covers which cable to buy.
- If a cable can’t reach, Starlink says to put computers on the 5 GHz band.
- Watch the evening. Starlink’s help center defines peak hours as 6 pm to 11 pm local time, when speeds can be slower. If scenery struggles only then, fly earlier or turn the streamed detail down for evening sessions.
- Mind the household. Tom’s Hardware’s peak figure is already above Residential 100 Mbps’s whole expected range before anyone else streams, and a 4K Netflix stream asks for 15 Mbps on its own. No router setting adds bandwidth that isn’t there. The streaming speed and data guide adds up a busy evening.
- First install. By our arithmetic, the 50 GB install takes about 1 hr 23 min at 80 Mbps, the low end on the two lower plans. Download times for other big games are on the game downloads page.
Where Starlink falls short for the sim
- Peaks near 180 Mbps, Tom’s Hardware’s figure, are above Residential 100 Mbps’s whole expected range and the low end of Residential 200 Mbps.
- Expected speeds aren’t a promise, and evenings and plan priority cut into them.
- Obstructions cause scenery stalls that no sim setting fixes.
- Which plans you can choose depends on your address: the 100 and 200 Mbps tiers are sold only in select areas.
Who should wait
- Your cable or fiber line already runs well above 200 Mbps: for a sim that streams this much, keep it.
- The sim is your main hobby, you like low flying over dense cities, and only Residential 100 Mbps is offered at your address.
- Your only workable mounting spot is boxed in by tall timber on several sides.
- You’d want Starlink only for a few months of flying.
If none of those fits, the fit check weighs your household’s gaming and streaming together before you decide.
Sit this one out if…
- fiber or cable already reaches the house: for online play a wired line is normally the lower-ping pick
- you run game servers or need an open NAT in every title: home plans sit behind shared IPv4 addresses (see NAT type)
- the plan is a few months of internet, one tournament weekend or a single trip
- you’d keep it only if month one is flawless: Starlink’s referral terms are written for customers who intend to stay, so make the call before ordering
What gamers and cord-cutters ask
Does Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 work on Starlink?
On paper, yes: the sim recommends 50 Mbps, and the download speed Starlink expects on every Residential plan starts above that. Evenings, Wi-Fi and obstructions decide how it feels in practice.
How much data does Flight Simulator 2024 use per hour?
By our arithmetic, about 4.5 GB an hour at the 10 Mbps minimum and about 22.5 GB at the 50 Mbps recommendation, if the stream ran at that rate all hour. Tom's Hardware measured peaks it equated to about 81 GB an hour.
Is Starlink's ping good enough for Flight Simulator multiplayer?
For a flight sim, yes by our reading. Starlink reports a US median peak-hour latency of 25.7 ms as of June 2025, and a sim exchanges positions and weather in small, regular updates rather than split-second shots.
Can I fly Flight Simulator 2024 offline on Starlink?
How much of the 2024 world works offline is for Microsoft to say; check its FAQ on flightsimulator.com. A rolling scenery cache on your drive cuts repeat downloads for areas you fly often.
Should I use Wi-Fi or a cable for the sim?
A cable, because streamed scenery wants every bit of steady speed the connection has. Where a cable can't reach, Starlink's Wi-Fi advice puts computers on the 5 GHz band.
Sources
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on Steam, system requirements (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 sucks up to 180 Mb/s of internet bandwidth while in flight (Tom's Hardware) (retrieved Nov 4, 2026)
- Starlink Specifications, US (DOC-DF-1915-15313-48) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- What are the Residential plans? (Starlink help center) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Data Usage Best Practices (Starlink help center) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Starlink network update (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Why are my speeds slow outside or during peak hours? (Starlink help center) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- How do obstructions affect my Starlink connection? (Starlink help center) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Netflix-recommended internet speeds (Netflix Help Center) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Starlink Service Plan Descriptions, US (DOC-1728-44881-79) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
- Intermittent Internet - Troubleshooting (Starlink help center) (retrieved Nov 3, 2026)
Every figure keeps the date we last looked it up; our fact rules say how. When one turns out wrong or stale, the fix is dated on the corrections page.