If the reporting is credible, that's not what was found:

"the track wasn’t really a track — rather, it was a series of brief clips lasting no more than a few seconds each, indicating that Zaharie had programmed it in advance then skipped along it to various points without actually playing through the entire hours-long flight" [1]

>Also the smoking gun simulator session was in a different aircraft to MH370 and with a significantly different initial route.

It was effectively the same aircraft (777-200LR vs 777-200ER). From the ATSB report:

"It comprised four complete and two partial data captures of various aircraft and simulator parameters at discrete points during the simulation. The aircraft simulated was a 777-200LR

The initial data point shows the simulated aircraft at Kuala Lumpur International airport. No useful location data was available from the second data point.

The next two data points show that the aircraft had flown north up the Straits of Malacca. By the fourth data point the simulated aircraft had reached 40,000ft, was in a 20° left bank, 4° nose down, and had a southwest heading of 255°.

Data points five and six were in the far reaches of the Indian Ocean, 820nm southwest of Australia's, Cape Leeuwin, with the simulated aircraft having exhausted its fuel.

Data point five has the simulated 777 at 37,651ft, at an 11° right bank, and almost due south heading of 178°.

The sixth, and final, data point was incomplete. "It was 2.5nm from the previous data point and the aircraft right bank had reduced to 3°.The aircraft was pitched nose down 5° and was on a heading of 193°. At this time there was also a user input of an altitude of 4,000ft," says the ATSB." [2]

Also from the ATSB report: [3]

"Six weeks before the accident flight the PIC had used his simulator to fly a route, initially similar to part of the route flown by MH370 up the Strait of Malacca, with a left-hand turn and track into the southern Indian Ocean."

"There were enough similarities to the flightpath of MH370 for the ATSB to carefully consider the possible implications for the underwater search area. These considerations included the impact on the search area if the aircraft had been either glided after fuel exhaustion or ditched under power prior to fuel exhaustion with active control of the aircraft from the cockpit."

[1] https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/call-of-the-void-seven-y...

[2] https://www.flightglobal.com/atsb-details-mh370-captains-sim...

[3] https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/5773565/operational-search-for...