I upgraded from a MSI 6600XT to an XFX MERC 7800XT last night and having a couple unexpected issues regarding frame rates.
My monitor is 60Hz and freesync enabled. On the old card, the FPS display would show I could max out at 60fps, but would not go over that with freesync turned on and vsync off in the sim (I’ve seen vsync not be reliable, hence not using it). With the new card, I’ve noticed my fps being able to go as high as mid 70’s. Since my monitor can’t go that high, this leads to micro-stutters due what I think is effectively frame skipping. This is most noticeable while panning the camera, but I do not get frame tearing. I hadn’t changed any sync related options between the two cards, so any idea how to get this back?
Sometimes my fps will dip into the 30’s. When that happens, the sim essentially locks there, even if I pan up to look at a clear blue sky. It’s like a 50% vsync setting was enabled and shows as being GPU limited in the fps display. If I tab to another window and back to the sim, the frame rate unlocks and will go back to normal until something else triggers this. This also never happened on the old card.
I didn’t get much time on the sim to fully tune things or diagnose these issues. I’m sure I’ll figure them out on my own if given enough time, but I’m hoping for some leads to shortcut the process since my pc time is often limited. I’d also like to address these two before fully re-tuning my settings because they are causing irregular results, especially the low frame rate lock.
Otherwise I’m fairly happy with the card. If I crank the fans up to 100%, I get extra immersion from the jet engine sound it makes! Lol.
First of all, did you uninstall your Adrenalin driver and reinstall with your new card? Secondly, you can verify in your MSFS UserCfg.opt file that the sim recognizes your new video card (see mine below). Also, if I turn off vsync in the sim and have no fps limits set my fps will go above what my monitor will support (120 in my case). It just drops those extra frames (but I don’t really see any tearing).
I haven’t. I didn’t have time to initially, and the last few days were spent addressing a broken PCIe release latch and no time to get back to this issue. I think I may do this anyway and go back to a minimum Adrenalin install. On my 6600xt, MSI Afterburner wasn’t compatible and would not affect anything on the card, which ironically enough was from MSI. I did find out Afterburner is working on this new one, so it would be nice to use that lighter weight program again.
So I got some time to fiddle with it yesterday. I did a DDU and clean install of the drivers, which seemed to take care of the odd soft 30’ish fps lock. To fix the fps overshoot, I had to turn on Frame Rate Target Control in Adrenaline, then set the max frame rate to 60fps. But then that created a situation where I had a persistent minor tearing at the mid point of the screen. It’s like v-sync, but 180° out of phase. I reduced the max frame rate to 59, and that seemed to finally get things acting right. It’ll take more sim time to know for sure, but hopefully it’s finally dialed in.
Aaaand the soft frame cap is back. If it can’t maintain over 40fps or so, it’ll now cap at 30 fps (half refresh rate) until I tab out and back to get it back to normal. I’ve tried various combinations of Freesync, target frame rate, and v-sync, but this is getting frustrating. I may try reverting to an earlier driver, which has also be suggested for another problem I’m having in VR that also wasn’t present on my last card.
Just a bump for a slight update. The problem seems to have become worse, where now tabbing out and back in rarely works. I also noticed on a flight today that it primarily only happened when in flight. When I was on the ground (or at least close to it), the frame rates were acting as they should and a fair bit higher. It’s almost like the sim is thinking once cruising, I’m not going to be at the computer and will go into a reduced power state. I seriously doubt that is the case, but it’s just odd that the problem is presenting itself during lightly loaded areas but performs better in denser scenery.
Also double checked temps, the fps display, and other stats, and nothing else seems to be a bottleneck.
FPS should definitely increase as you go higher in altitude. I know you’ve tried a lot of variations with freesync, target frame rate and v-sync in the sim and not had much luck as per your previous post. Have you tried a different monitor by any chance?
