The clue's in the name: Microsoft Flight Simulator is a venerable gaming/simulation series, initially exclusive to PC across the decades until Asobo Studio created the remarkable Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, delivering an excellent experience to both the Personal Computer and Xbox consoles. And now, it's available on PlayStation 5 consoles. Is there parity in features between Series X and PS5? What extra features does the PS5 Pro get? And what's the score with unlocked frame-rates at 120Hz? We took a look to find out.

Before we kick off, there's a key point to make on install sizes. Flight Simulator's install size by default is small at 28GB on PS5, which accounts for just a base installation. Most of the world's details, however - like buildings, airports, and terrain geometry - are streamed in as needed through an online connection. In fact, there's a setting to adjust how much bandwidth should be assigned for the task, as hopping around the globe can get rather data-heavy. This streaming system works brilliantly overall, but even on a decent fibre connection in my case, there are still bandwidth limits at times. As a result, different flights across the same region will have randomised levels of pop-in, making comparisons of draw distances with Xbox or PC an imprecise art.

An extra spanner in the works is that PS5 versions have no ability to download this data locally. The feature is missing. On Xbox Series X and S you do have that option: go to the marketplace, and all these world, city and airport data packs are ready to install to the SSD. The downside, of course, is the sheer volume of data needed to cover every detail: in our case, this complete Series X install bloats to a hefty 480GB or so with every item committed to local storage. In short, Xbox has this useful extra feature, if you've the SSD space for it - while for now it's a shame that PS5 launches without it.

Flying over Auckland, for example, having the world data installed to an SSD on Series X helps to reduce the regularity of terrain pop-in to a slight degree. Again there are variances in terms of when a tree or building might switch LOD, but Series X is slightly more consistent in avoiding the issue. All systems are prone to pop-in though, and yes, world detail still translates well to PS5 consoles, assuming you've a decent internet connection to stream that data in.

In term of visual settings, you'll also notice that screen-space reflections run at the same setting on PS5 and Pro. Sadly this SSR method does cause some expected disocclusion artefacts as your aircraft obscures oncoming terrain, causing blank spaces in reflections on water bodies. It's unfortunate and this is the main notable blemish on the Flight Simulator package. It's even true of the PC version fully maxed out today, and really it'd be great to see a proper ray-traced reflections option added.

The game's PlayStation website listing has a box-out suggesting enhanced Pro performance, improved optimisation and even ray tracing features - but not all this comes to fruition. Starting with the main upgrade, image quality is boosted to 1800p on PS5 Pro, an increase over the native 1440p on base PS5 and Series X. Just as with the other consoles, PS5 Pro's native 1800p is reconstructed to 4K using the game's own TAA option. The net result is that image clarity is slightly improved thanks to more pixels being pushed on PS5 Pro, but there's still shimmer on distant buildings, similar to the other consoles. The AA behaviour is the same, in other words.

As promised in the box-out, there's also an improvement in draw distances on PS5 Pro, especially next to the base PS5. Again, bandwidth to the servers is a factor in streaming this world detail in, but terrain across the city does tend to render in ahead of time on Pro. Otherwise there's little else to report: PS5 Pro has no graphics toggle, so what you see is what you get once you boot the game up. A close zoom-in compared to base PS5 shows few visual differences and Pro's raw GPU advantage is seemingly funnelled towards generating more pixels. It also only runs at 30 frames per second on a 60Hz display, just like PS5. SSR quality is the same, while screen-space ambient occlusion around the interior of the cockpit runs at a matching preset. So, expect to see ambient shade disappear at the screen's edges as you move the camera.

Finally, PS5 Pro's shadows use the same rasterised setting as base PS5. Hence, PS5 Pro exhibits the same aliased shadow lines across the plane's dashboard - and it's a missed opportunity to not push for any better. For context, PC running fully maxed out with ray-traced shadows shows the upper limits of what's possible today. The option delivers cleaner, more temporally stable global shadows as the plane changes its orientation. RT cockpit shadows is a worthwhile, if taxing feature for PC, since those shadows are so front and centre to the experience while in this view. Alas, it's not made the grade on PS5 Pro here. It would have been 'nice to have' ultimately, but otherwise PS5 Pro and base PS5 by extension still put in great looking renditions of the game.

Switching over to performance, and just as with Series X, both PS5 consoles continue to run at 30fps if you have a 60Hz display attached. This is perhaps expected given the heavy CPU demands of streaming and rendering a rich, dense landscape of detail. In fact, even 30fps is too lofty a target at points for base PS5 or even PS5 Pro to hit consistently. Building-dense capital cities, especially once you lower your altitude to near street level, reveal an easy way to get the frame-rate lurching into the 20s for extended stretches. It could be Barcelona on base PS4, or switching over to PS5 Pro, Rio De Janeiro - there's no escaping some visible drops, with a subtle flash of screen tearing at the top too. Broadly speaking, most locales run well at 30fps without issue, but it's clear that there's not much improvement over Series X in this respect.

An extra twist to performance testing is that the game's cap rises to 60fps while using a 120Hz monitor with VRR support. Under these specific conditions, it's technically possible to glance the 60fps line while looking right up at the sky. But, in practice, PS5, PS5 Pro and Series X are more realistically running at between 30-40fps in most scenarios. So, in the cities it's closer to 30-35fps on PS5, for example, while flying around less CPU taxing areas like the Himalayas sees that line jump to around 40fps. It's fascinating to see the actual frame-rate's peaks and troughs, behind the veil of that 30fps cap - and this again underlines where the bottlenecks are.

It's a close battle between PS5 Pro and Series X for pole position in my testing. Series X only just edges ahead in tests like a matched Tokyo flyover - by a 1fps average - while less CPU-taxing spots like Giza have a similarly slight Xbox lead. Ultimately, all performance advantages PS5 Pro might have had are channelled into pushing a higher 1800p resolution, up against Series X's 1440p, and the resulting frame-rate is often at near parity. Rome is an exception to this, curiously, where PS5 Pro enjoys a lead out of the three - while base PS5 trails behind by a good 3-4fps. The bottom line: getting to a locked true 60fps is just not a goer on any format, and this mode is perhaps a better fit for Xbox's VRR support overall, given the system's availability of low frame-rate compensation - LFC - while dropping under 40fps at 120Hz output.

Landing on Sony consoles for the first time in its long history, the sheer feeling of awe while playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 translates well to PS5 and PS5 Pro. It's all intact. Actual advantages - visually speaking - are rather light on the ground for Pro outside of its 1800p res boost and improved draw distances, and anyone hoping for 60fps will be disappointed. Indeed, just tackling 30fps seems to be enough of a challenge, and dips into the 20s are a reality on all consoles.

This was true of Series X, and it remains so on PS5 as well. The only point to be addressed for true parity is the missing download function for world data on PS5 right now. Even if it does takes up a sizeable chunk of SSD space - near half a terabyte to cover everything - it's a worthwhile feature, especially where internet connections are less reliable. Other than that, Flight Simulator 2024 at last opens itself to a new audience, and for those that have yet to experience it, it's a real treat.