CPU very low useage, GPU very high useage. FPS not as expected

User Support Hub Install, Performance & Graphics
,
1

Looking for help from a Flight Sim hardware whiz on an issue I am trying to solve.

I built a system in March specifically for FS2020, It has been running since it debuted, on my last build five yr old intel core I-7, 6700, older ssd, win 10. With LGA1100 Motheboard, 32 gig DDR4, Radeon RX580 GPU. It worked with settings Medium to low with about 25FPS max.

My new system specs Are:

Intel Core i7-12700K Desktop Processor 12 (8P+4E) Cores up to 5.0 GHz Unlocked LGA1700 600 Series Chipset 125W

ASUS ROG Strix Z690-A Gaming WiFi D4 LGA1700(Intel® 12th Gen)

ASUS TUF Gaming AMD Radeon™ RX 6800 OC Edition Graphics Card (PCIe 4.0, 16GB GDDR6

2 - Viper Steel DDR4 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3600MHz Kit (64 GB Total)

2 WD_BLACK 1TB SN850X

Corsair iCUE H115i Elite CAPELLIX Liquid CPU Cooler

Corsair 5000D Airflow Tempered Glass Mid-Tower ATX PC Case - Black

CORSAIR RM Series (2021), RM850, 850 Watt, 80 Plus Gold Certified, Fully Modular Power Supply

Windows 11 Home Edition

8 - 140mm Nocturna cooling fans

Monitor: Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 49" WQHD 240Hz 1ms

The system is fast and smooth and stays fairly cool, boots up in under 25 seconds. Was hoping to be able to run MSFS at ultra settings with decent FPS. But realistically I can get 35fps on high settings with my monitor 5120x1440, and only about 6 FPS more if I change to 3840x1080. Switching monitor between 120 hz and 240 hz really made no visible difference. My GPU was maxed out at 90 to 100 per cent but my CPU was 4 to 6 per cent while playing.

Seeing as MSFS 2020 is supposed to be processor dependant something does not seem right.

Income tax refund appeared and I grabbed a high end video card PowerColor Hellhound AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Graphics Card

With this card my FPS would be about 53 fps with most settings high and a few on ultra. Still not what I was hoping for, this rig should be able to run 4K. With this setup my GPU was relatively steady at 80% and my CPU again at 5 to 8 percent with the odd jump to 20%.

Tried many online guides for setting graphics options in FS2020 to tweak it but could not get much better.

I don’t think bottlenecking is my problem. Am I expecting too much lol.

Anyone have any thoughts on this. I even enabled Ultra Performance mode on Win 11.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Pete

1 Like
2

Hi @InlaidConstant6 … please stop excessive use of font formatting… Nobody can read such posts in a nice way and it is against the CoC Code of Conduct - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

To your issue:
for me is a average fps-range around 60 what I expect for a RX 7900 XTX in 4K range in Ultra ( depends on situation, cockit- or view outside, ground or in-the-air, PG, mods, etc etc ). Unfortunality you mentioned nothing about your in-game settings or other manuall settings outside of the game ( or I dont see it behind all that big bold letters ) , so we can’t give hints related to your settings ( e.g. v-sync, dx11/12, or whats ever ).
If your GPU is not in full load and you get low fps, then you are usually CPU limited. We explained often in forum ( keywords “limited by mainthread” ) why the overall-number of CPU usage says nothing. In special with the new heavy-multi-core CPUs you allways have to check whats your Single-Cores doing. So please also check the Taskmanger ( single-core view ) too.

To be sure that your new rig works well, I recommend to install a benchmark tool and check whether all is fine with you PC and whether it runs in “expected performance range”.

And also, I done a quick forum search what other users wrote about a 7900xt:

You can use the forum search too for may be additional results / existing discussions.

3

Thank you so much for your feeback. So sorry about the large fonts, this was my very first post although I have been flightsimming since fs5.1 I think, it was on 3.5” floppies. Had every edition since and decided later in life I really wanted to get my my private pilots license, but by that time health problems prevented that. I am almost 70 so not the brightest spark anymore. I love simming and want to get the the best experience that I can afford…
I will heed your words and make some detailed observations and tests using different settings and resolutions, also will note my in sim graphic settings and what my CPU and GPU are running at.
I will add to my post at that time.
Once again thank you for your patience and for trying to help. I learned a lot from you already…
You sound like you really know what you are talking about.

Cheers
Pete

1 Like