I did the same and have the same experience. The sim is caching and with 64 the caching file becomes smaller. I fly VR and there my sim used already up to 38Gb sometimes.
I recomend using it.
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I’d love this work of art. Anyone got a spare $5k?
Personal Comments and Observations
With my role at one of the MS Partner Studios, I’m one of those folks who will definitely be running the sim and recording - I create orientation and training videos as well as record defects for remediation. I’ve been running 2020 with 64GB for over a year now and it’s worth it now.
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As a “technical nerd” goose … I would be reaaaally interested in how the sims data processing and caching pipeline works.
Usually anything that can prevent unnecessary data copying … server to client to disk cache to memory cache to GPU VRAM etc should in theory help to speed up a process (significantly). However …
… at the same time it is not trivial to make good use of lots of memory because you need to prevent memory fragmentation or excessive index lookup time when searching for local data. Memory management does not come for free (CPU cycle wise).
Todays “Rolling Cache” seems to cause stutter issues (and other problems) … even when I put it into a RAM disk. But in 2024 the Rolling Cache should prevent unnecessary network traffic (e.g. by caching your favourite aircraft and airports) … for that it should be on a local “real” disk.
Without really knowing how the internal pipeline works I guess we will have to try-and-see once we start using it.
Here is one other concrete “issue” that I run into today … I very often switch between the cockpit cam and the drone cam … and they usually do not show the same region. So when I switch I can very often seen that the 3D object graph needs to be reconstructed basically from a “flat earth”. So if world data caching would be “camera aware” in MFS 2024 if there is enough free memory … then maybe such switching might be faster in the new sim. But well … I guess we will have to wait and see.
PS. I find this Wikipedia page on the “order of magnitude” of memory speeds very useful … Memory hierarchy - Wikipedia
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There was a question on the live stream about DirectX DirectStorage, but the Asobo devs. didn’t really answer that. It seemed like they were unsure what it was, so didn’t want to commit to an answer.
Please explain a bit more. Why would a ‘real disk’ be better than a RAMdisk?
I see that I was not good at stating my point clearly enough. So allow me to expand my argument in more detail.
IMHO you want “both”.
- You want to avoid slow data copying over a network
- Networks are many orders of magnitude slower than anything done locally
- You want certain things to be available in case you are really offline
- say, your favourite aircraft and some favourite region(s)
- You want to avoid slow data copying from disk to RAM
- There is at least one order of magnitude difference in speed (bytes/sec)
For (1) we have two options:
- A … Download the entire asset to a local drive
- still possible in MFS2024 and if one has the disk space most likely still a good idea
- B … Download parts on demand into the local “Rolling Cache” onto persistent storage
- If the rolling cache is done “correctly” then that will give you a big reduction in network data copying
Now (B) is not as easy as it sounds. I am an old goose and I am frequently surprised that terms like “Btree” do not ring a bell with many of todays IT professionals.
For (2) we also have two options
- C … Put the Rolling Cache into a RAM disk
- that is what I tried to do in MFS2020 … failed due to stuttering, which indicates that some important parts of todays sim are part of the main thread … where they should not be in an ideal world.
- D … have the sim use additional free RAM for some “hidden internal RAM disk”
- basically that is a cache
I would prefer option (D) here because access to a RAM disk has to use many layers of OS and driver APIs, which are adding unpredictable latency. Besides that (D) could use a preprocessed version of the 3D data … so there would be less compute (e.g. no decompression etc.) when the sim needs to push that data to the GPU.
However, the problem with the statement during the stream, that 32 GB is enough is, that it hints that (D) most likely does not exist.
Now I understand Asobo from a PR perspective … they need to avoid the impression that you need a very very expensive system. And most likely things like the (D) cache will not double your FPS. It could be that the biggest bottleneck is always the PCI bus and the data copy from RAM to VRAM.
Personally I have no idea which features “DirectX DirectStorage” would bring. There clearly is a reason why an API like that has been added to DX12. Memory management in a GPU is yet another can of worms.
I am confident that Asobo knows what is possible at this point in time … given the different platforms which they need to support and the resources (developers) which they have available and the countless OS and driver bugs which they have to work around all the time.
All that said, I have to constantly remind myself how magical the sim still is … even after all those years. This little goose can fly around the world … and I enjoy it.
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Are you kidding me, serisouly you talk like he don’t know nothing and you know better then him, he is doing all optimization on the engine, performance, flight modeling, fix crash fix and so on. Flight Sim are the most complexe software to handle compare to all others game type, far behond this.
Xbox don’t run widnows service, usless things and all app in behind, and it has auto LOD all the time to maintain maitain 30FPS.
Not a bit. Like many other times, they seem to be unaware of many things relating to their game. They seem like unprepared PR men. You are welcome to have a different opinion.
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Folks please keep the Code of Conduct im mind, and be respectful of others opinions.
- A Pilot is a Pilot - Treat everyone in the community with respect, and seek to have positive experiences with your fellow pilots.
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The ram are made for this, for extra usage, regardless any stuff, it’s a basic things to understand in computer world, doing 3d rendering, video, music and so on, some of my game when I open others stuff, start to glitch a bit and I only have 32gb ram, with more it would not have issue.
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
I do indeed put the FS20 rolling cache in a RAMdrive, which gets written to an image file on shutdown, and re-written back to the RAMdrive when I login to Windows. I simply haven’t had the ‘stuttering issues’ others report. Not sure why. FS20 has always been a bit smoother when I put the RC on a RAMdrive.
I remain unclear about the purpose of the new ‘Rolling Cache’ - especially whether it acts to store previously loaded scenery (as it does now) or if in FS24 it will act more like a buffer between the stream and system RAM.
A physical disk cache could be used for that, and with today’s fast SSD’s they would, as you point out, far exceed the data transfer rate of a server-client transfer.
But I’m still having a hard time believing that a RAMdrive wouldn’t far exceed the speed of a physical disk when it comes to transferring data from the cache to RAM. Certainly a DirectStorage option would change things, but we don’t have that yet.
My SSD’s are rated at 7,000 MB/s (of course they aren’t that fast, but an ATTO benchmark shows them around 5,000 - pretty fast.) But an Aida64 memory benchmark shows my RAM Read/Write at 84,000 / 95,000 MB/s. That’s around 20X the data transfer rate of my SSD.
Surely the PCI 4.0 bus with its 16 GT/s bus speed isn’t a limiting factor, especially since both RAM and the GPU have a direct pipeline to the CPU across that very fast bus.
I suspect I’m not understanding something fundamental here. You’re obviously an expert in such matters, and you’re explaining it well. It just isn’t making sense to me why a physical disk would be preferable to a RAMdrive when it comes to caches. Both are connected to the CPU and GPU across the PCIe 4.0 bus (My X670E actually has a PCIe 5.0/4.0 bus, and my 7950X3D is a PCI 5.0 CPU, but my drives are all PCI 4.0.)
I appreciate your thoughts on this subject, because I think it’s going to be a very important decision vis-a-vis the new rolling cache.
Well I think you are correct in your statements and observations.
I guess our misunderstanding is that I did only state my preference for an “in sim RAMdrive” (=cache) vs an OS-drive level “real (generic)” RAMdrive. But it is unclear to (me to) what extent that exists at this point in MFS2024.
And if your RAMdrive is made persistent on un-mount (OS shutdown) … perfect … then you do get the best Rolling Cache behaviour that is possible indeed:
- very fast access while in use
- no write stress (wear) on the SSD
- persistent data storage during shutdown/poweroff
And now that I think about it I think that my RAMdrive is/was also persistent via some image on the regular SSD. I would have to check. But I clearly had very noticeable FPS stutter due to the Rolling Cache. That is why I had to disable it. If that is fixed in MFS2024 … I guess I will buy more RAM.
PS: What RAMdrive software are you using?
That was somewhat tongue in cheek. 
I’m recommending 100 terraquads of RAM for MSFS 2024 in case you need to do Star Trek galaxy navigational computations while playing video game 
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Better to stick with FS2020 so the computations have more unused CPU resources available.
I’m using 2x32GB. Yeah, I’ve heard bad stories from using 4 sticks of RAM on AM5.
Yeah, So today I decided to switch back to 32GB and make sure it’s not just in my head. With 32GB, I do get those occasional stutters. Now, the occasional stutters that I’m referring to are very tiny micro stutters that happen on some rare occasions. My sim is running 90+ fps smooth most of the time.
But, when I use the 64GB, I do not get any stutters. I can pretty much say I’ve gone from 98% smooth to now 100% smooth with the 64GB.
Again, this is just my experience with my hardware and I too am surprised as I really don’t see why it would make that difference when 32GB should be plenty of RAM.
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I had the chance to test two different models of G.Skill 2x32 GB RAM kits. I didn’t notice a significant improvement so I stick with 2x16 GB G.Skill. I should also mention that I don’t experience any stuttering while gaming.
- Motherboard MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk WIFI
- PSU MSI MEG Ai1300P
- CPU Ryzen 7 8700X3D
- GPU RTX 4090 2K
- RAM 32GB (2x16) G.Skill