Absolutely agree. You are completely right. The problem IS NOT our hard or software, it lies
solely and exclusively in the precariously programmed graphics engine of MSFS.
See also, if interested:
thanks for your testing, maybe itās an zen3 issue, iām not sure. as my test so far, not all airports have fps drop, i hope they can fix soon. this is an amazing game anyway.
=> exactly what I already mentionedā¦
thatās something matters in urban airports, i even tried extremely, thatās is to set the resolution to minimum which is 640*480, the whole image is blurry enough, guess what, the fps is not even changed. i really want to know what holds the whole sim behind, what does the āmanipulatorsā do in background.
this can possible only the developers check / answerā¦ Therefore allways create a ZenDesk ticket in case of issues ( also performance issues ).
Hi. I had the i7-9700K and 32GB and MSi MB. NVidia MSI GTX 1660 TI.
Same Stuttering, etc.
Upgraded to the i9-9900K. Great improvement in graphics.
Check for my lenthly discussion on this upgrade in CPU. And resulting
graphics improvement. Many did not see it but I did.
Not surprised 8c/8t is bound to run into a cpu bottleneck.Similar situation with my current cpu 6c/6t is not even enough for this sim to run at its full potential.Unless youāre coming from a really old CPU I found the biggest boost to performance for me in this sim was a GPU upgrade.
interesting! Maby devs can share some light over this 
9900k is a hot cpu right? I am considering upgrade to 10700k or beyond
I was thinking that maybe I would go for the new i11-10900K or whatever the new Intel CPU is ( Iām Intel only) but the main thought was:
If the new Intel Xe GPU that is in the Intel CPU chip and if is would run 4K at 60 FPS:
Then, I would buy the new CPU and required new Motherboard (Z590) and not have to buy a new Nvidia 3000 GPU card.
But, it looks like the Intel Xe GPU is only good for 1080P and maybe only Mobile CPUs.
I think Iāll maybe stay with the i9-9900K CPU and lowly GTX 1660TI and be very content.
Happy flying FS2020 to youā¦
Edit: i7-9700K = 8CT 8T No Multitasking.
i9-9900k 8C 16T With Multistasking.
There are people ( in these topics) that argue that FS2020 only uses one Core (1C 1T).
I didnāt see it in Afterburner.
Research well, my friend.
Iām surprised I donāt get the same with my 9700K. You might want to try this:
- Launch FS2020, jump to the cockpit
- Enable developer mode and open the fps window
- Note the fps and the general histogram trends.
- Open Task manager
- Set Affinity to Flight Simulator.exe to only 3 or 4 cores out of 6
- Return to FS2020 window and note if there is any difference in the fps window.
I donāt see any from 8C/8T to 4C/4T on my 9700Kā¦
The main bottleneck is a singular big thread doing the bulk of the job per frame and the faster single core speed, the better fps in flight simulator. All other thread/core activity is most likely small tasks spawning in the task scheduler (not the Win10 one, the internal app own scheduler) and overall represented as āsomeā activity on all remaining cores.
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I am replying this because I still canāt understand the main single CPU processing capability of FS2020.
Although I did see something in the FS2020 Development FPS screen showing 4 blocks and indicating that all the real processing power was done in the 1st block. Is this where the argument comes from?
Just canāt make myself realize and accept that a 8C 16T
Multitasking CPU would be limited to 1C 1T processing.
The argument is that 4C 4/8T CPU is fine for FS2020. Does as much processing as an 8C 16 T does. Only benefit as to get more processing comes from only a CPU speed increase.
i9-9900K running 4.8GHz
Citation CJ4 rolling down the runway on takeoff
MSI Afterburner
CPU Average Usage 16%
CPU 1 14%
CPU 2 14%
CPU 3 22%
CPU 4 13%
CPU 5 17%
CPU 6 11%
CPU 7 48%
CPU 8 09%
Then, I was told how to do a screen shot:
CPU 7 usage at 48% ?
I donāt consider this as mainly 1C 1T main thread performance.
But maybe it is. The screenshot is just one moment in time. The percentages change in real time and are very dynamic if you look at them in real time with MSI Afterburner.
We had a long and detailed discussion in this thread over the 9700K vs 9900K and subsequent 9900K vey improved graphic performance.
Community - General Discussion
Topic = Flyers with CPUs i9-9900 and under and GPUs 1080TI and under (canāt afford newer and better)
Please accept my apology for this post but I canāt understand how FS2020 does all it does on: āone main processing singular big thread doing the bulk of the job per frameā. Why buy a Core 10, 12, 16 CPU hoping FS2020 will improve in performance and FPS ?
But I did see from 9700K 4.7Ghz to 9900K 4.8GHZ
- An increase in performance (FS2020 DEV showed the CPU stopped displaying throttling)
- The NVidia GTX 1660TI displayed new improved colors and graphic details that no one will accept I really see on a TCL 4K HDR 65 inch QLED TV.
This shall give you some info about all this:
if youāre not a developer, it will be quite hard explaining all this even in layman terms. But you can try already in your example above compare F2020 running like you did, then in changing its affinity mask to using only 3 or 4 cores instead of 8 and see whether this changes anything (fps/stutter wise)
Flight simulator runs on 5 cores but at 90% on one core it is necessary to have as many Mghz as possible. for info I just went from an i78700k @ 5ghz (580 points on CPU-Z) to a Ryzen 5800x (665 points on CPU-Z) and I had a gain of 25% on Roissy CDG Piste r26 in A320, I go from 38fps @ 50FPS. Despite that you have to wait for the directx 12 optimization to gain a little more performance, there will be better multicore management but do not expect a breathtaking gain, I think we will only gain 20% more.
The processors to be preferred today, the high frequency intel processors, the ryzen 5000, not the 3000 because in single-core they are bad and especially the future intel 11900k which will be the top this year for FS2020.
To know if you are limited by your processor and not your graphics card, you just need to lower the resolution of your screen, if you still have the same number of FPS whether in high resolution and in lower resolution it is because you are CPU limited.
In my case I am GPU limited in 4k at high altitude with a rtx3080 and CPU limited at low altitude. In 2k and FULL HD I am still CPU limited.
I invite you to do a CPU-Z test to see the performance of your processor in single core
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Some charts: CPU-Z Benchmark - CPU-Z VALIDATOR
This is exactly the opposite of what it should be. You lower res to GET CPU limited. Literally every other game.
Thanks for your continued responses, CptLucky8.
You are right, I am not a developer and the more I try to understand this,
it seems the worse I get in understanding.
CPU-Z Benchmark (x64 - 2017.1) Best CPU performance - 64-bit - January 2021
CPU--------------- Single Tread-- Multi Threads
i7-9700K/8C8T------ 547----------- 4191
i9-9900K/8C8T------ 545 ---------- 3779
I couldnāt believe that a 9700K beat a 9900K and I bought a new Z390 MB and 9900K to loose processing power.
Then I figured out the need to select 16 vs 8 threads on the chart.
i9-9900K 8C16T -----NL----------- 5512 where NL = not listed
Although the 9900K does Hyper-threading and 9700K not, I guess this does not make any difference in CPU performance. Assuming Multi Threads on the chart does not mean Hyper-threading.
But when the 9900K came out, Intel said it was the fastest gaming CPU and was not challenged.
So why look at all of this? I canāt see why.
As you all have stated, FS2020 only processes with one main core/thread.
Save a lot of money.
Stay with your 9700K and MB.
Fly FS2020 and be content from a pure FS2020 context.
Note that I did buy the 9900K also for Hyperthreading and other Applications.
Fastest Gaming CPU does mean Fastest Gaming but has nothing to do with
FS2020.
But 1 final point and 1 final question: I promise.
Point 1
Why in the world would ASOBO spend the Millions of $, Talent/Manpower
and Investment to develop a new Flight Simulator on a program that only uses the capability of a CPUs 1C/1T to provide a rather very complex program?
Granted, the GPU provides the Video processing.
Question
My initial statement that has never been answered.
I did see from 9700K 4.7Ghz to 9900K 4.8GHZ
An increase in performance (FS2020 DEV showed the CPU stopped displaying CPU throttling).
The NVidia GTX 1660TI displayed new improved colors and graphic details that no one will accept I really see on a TCL 4K HDR 65 inch QLED TV in FS2020 4k Ultra with smooth CJ4 handling (IFR/ILS) and smooth graphics at 11 to 17 FPS.
CptLucky8, I would really love to understand this but I guess it would be better to let it go.
Thanks again for your responses. Bless you for your patience and desire to help me understand.
I still love FS2020 and love flying it. Thank you, ASOBOā¦
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Well, there we have it againā¦
We can struggle as much as we want with benchmarks, CPUās, GPUāsā¦
The problem lies solely and exclusively within the faulty graphics engine of MSFS.
I hope this should be clear by nowā¦
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I have seen the ā1C/1Tā assertion many times. I decided to test this by limiting MSFS to running on only one core. If MSFS only uses one core, then there shouldnāt be any difference in performance. I used Task Manager to verify 1C/1T. The processor utilization running MSFS was 100% throughout the test. I cancelled the startup test after 45 minutes. It had gone as far as the USA update screens. The next test was done while in-flight. Again the processor utilization for MSFS was 100%. I cancelled this test after about 15 minutes because the screen had not changed. During these tests, MSFS used a much smaller amount of real memory. The GPU was at 0%.
My processor is an AMD 9 3900X running at 4.25 GHz. Other processors may have different results.
I believe it needs a minimum of 2 cores itself (main thread and render thread) and probably 1 more (DX11 thread) for a total of 3.
Update: just tested
8C8T:
3C3T:
With 2C2T it locks up, enabling 3C3T it resumes.
Update: a quick flight over photogrammetry (LAX) and it is better with 8C8T than 4C4T on my system.
I was reading another Post that had a lot of info about the
one main thread processing of FS2020. It answered a lot of my doubts
about this program execution.
I owe Asobo an APOLOGY. It applies to all games and flight sims.
Point 1 Answered
If you are interested in the FS2020 concept of only one main core/thread processing,
this is a great topic:
MortThe2nd
you canāt spread the load from the āmain threadā to other threads. One of the main jobs of the main thread is to keep all the other processes synced up, so it canāt be spread out.
Asobo are still optimizing this, and are trying to move as many other loads over to other threads, but every process moved, will always have an effect on the main thread, since itās yet another thing to keep synced up with all the other ones.
CourrageRapace9
The developers talked about that during the last event on twitch, they said they already tried to use all cores on the CPU but there is still work to do. I have the same issue and Iām wait for the patch ASAP.
Nitraxn
You donāt understand how multprocessing works. One software thread (like the fabled MainThread) can only run on one CPU thread at a time. Depending on OS scheduling this thread may run all the time on a single core (showing it as āpeggedā at 100%) or sometimes it is constantly moved between the cores for example to spread the heat (showing a 25% usage on each core if you have 4 cores). The operating system tries to run threads on their own physical cores if using hyperthreading. Hyperthreading may look like two full cores, but running two threads on a hyperthreading core maybe only gives 30% actual performance improvment even if monitor says 100% usage.
RemisLT
It wonāt, donāt listen to him, he doesnāt understand how things work.
By increasing resolution you put more load on GPU which leads to GPU bottleneck. So if the game is bottlenecked by CPU and if you increase the resolution at some point you will reach a resolution where your GPU becomes a bottleneck.
So switching to 4k youāll get less fps, more load on GPU and less load on CPU because there will be less frames to process.
For now itās CPU limited and you canāt do anything. Cores donāt matter, only single thread performance matters.
aparsons671
With a game like FS, there is one thread that is in charge of everything that is calculated and tasked. That thread is called the world thread. In FS terms, itās the MainThread. The main thread asks for a flight model calculation, asks for files to be loaded, asks for memory to be copied, asks for data to be calculated from the multiplayer engine, tasks the ATC engine to make decisions and everything. Those other tasks can sometimes be delegated to other threads. You can load 10 files at once from the hard drive instead of waiting on one by one depending on some factors, but each file loading may use a different thread to do so. Until all the tasks are completed by the workers, the MainThread canāt move on to the next step.
MortThe2nd
The main thread will always be the limiting factor for most games, and especially for more complex (racing/flying) sims. The main thread keeps the tasks that have been offloaded to other threads in sync. It doesnāt work like for instance a tile-based renderer, where it doesnāt matter that 1 tile is rendered before another. In a sim this canāt be done, and it will therefor never utilize 100% of all cores.
Stating that it only uses 1 or 2 cores is complete nonsense, it uses around 8-12 threads currently. Itās just that the core thatās running the main thread is having the heaviest load, and is the limiting factor.
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