Hello everyone,
I’d like to briefly share my latest experience, which was extremely positive and truly amazed me.
I’d like to start by saying that I’ve been a flight simulation enthusiast since the first Sublogic Flight Simulator. Over the years, I’ve followed the evolution of this simulator through its various editions. A common trait of the simulators, as we all know, was the difficulty in running it satisfactorily. This gave rise to the myth of “Total Fluidity” .
Well, I’ve been chasing this “chimera” for almost 40 years, ever since FS3, without ever succeeding. In fact, I’ve spent a lot of money on advanced graphics cards (do any of you remember the famous Mistique?) new most powerful Intel and AMD cpu,new RAM etc. Added to the expense were the frustrations that I think we’ve all experienced, more or less. I should also point out that I don’t use MSFS2024, but I stopped at MSFS2020 because I think 2024 is still a bit “immature” for my use. After the release of SU15, I was happy that the sim ran almost with the “total fluidity” I’d longed for. Unfortunately, at least for me, SU16 broke the spell. The Sim became jerky and temperamental again.
This led me to try to improve the situation in the usual way: buy more powerful hardware. And here I go, describing my rig: Asus Z790Plus WIFI
I9 14900KS
Kingston FURY Beast 64GB (2x32GB) 6400MT/s DDR5 CL32 DIMM
3 x nVMe Samsung 990Pro 1TB
RTX 5070 OC Edition 12 vRAM
PSU Corsair RM1000x
Arctic Liquid Freezer III 360mm Cooler
It’s not the very best hardware, but it’s still a great combination. Or so I thought!
Yes, because despite the rated CPU and GPU power, the sim still wasn’t satisfied. And I’m referring to the omnipresent stutters and micro-pauses. So I applied all the tricks and suggestions I found online and believe me, everything seemed to be helpful. The result? Some improvements, but never the much-desired total fluidity! Additionally, a very strange phenomenon occurred: sometimes the sim ran almost fine, other times the stutters increased without anything having changed on my PC or my ADSL connection. Okay, I said to myself, it must be the MS servers’ fault, and I can’t achieve more than that, given the hardware configuration, and I didn’t think about it anymore, resigning myself to flying “as is.” Then, unfortunately, I was hospitalized for a week, and upon my return, I had to undergo a convalescence that left me with a lot of free time. Flying during those days, instead of being pleasant and relaxing, was even more frustrating!
So I decided to abandon my beloved hobby; with great, great regret. However, the idea that something could still be done was always present in my thoughts, and so, after few weeks without MSFS, I began searching for new solutions using Google AI, the free one, to be clear. And a whole new world opened up to me. In short, AI-assisted, in a completely conversational manner, and, I must say, even in a friendly way, which doesn’t hurt! Long story short, listen up, I’ve found the total fluidity I’d been searching for decades! I didn’t believe it at first, but after a week of fantastic flights, I can be reasonably certain that MSFS2020 has truly changed me forever. The credit for this? Perfect frame pacing! Now I’ll explain what the AI made me do: - Processor undervolted: “pinstriped” at 5.8GHz - Upscaled MSFS to 3K despite a 1080p, 60Hz monitor (an amazing improvement in definition that allows for perfect balance between the main thread timing and the GPU) - GPU locked to a specific voltage that prevents the GPU from continuously varying its clock speed - RAM fine-tuning to allow smooth switching between the RAM itself and the VRAM for MSFS texture (ultra setting). The PSU provides clean, continuous power, and the Arctic cooler keeps temperatures really low; for example, the CPU runs at a maximum of 78 degrees Celsius during a full MSFS session.
We discovered that some stutters were caused by slow loading times from MS servers, which were completely resolved by purchasing a Keenetic Titan and using IntelliQos: now the ping is 0!
I briefly explained what I did, but it took 45 hours of fine-tuning settings—and it’s not always easy to find the right ones in the maze of Asus BIOS settings—testing, and the inevitable rework. All tests were done with ULTRA settings (except for the glass cockpit refresh time wich is medium) fliying in IFR and VFR (low altitude) between Aerosoft’s EDDM v.2.3 and LIRF v. 1.3.0 by MK Studios and LPPT v.1.0.3 by MK Studios (for heavy city photogrammetry) using A320 FBW, FSLTL with FS Traffic fleet (IFR traffic 80, no GA Traffic), and two pop-ups on the fourth monitor for MD and PND, using frame generation and capping the frames at 30 on the Nvidia Control Panel (I hope I remembered everything!).
To clarify: the RTSS “line” is fixed at 30fps at 33.3ms without any spike, the Mainthread is at 14ms, and the GPU is at 15.5ms on the MSFS counter. Everything is perfectly smooth and without any stuttering or “hesitation”, both in flight, in taxi in, in taxi out, in take off, in approach in landing and changing views: it really seems like a dream, at least for me, as I’ve NEVER had this fluidity. Now, after saving the BIOS and copying the image from the installation disk file by file with AOMEI Backupper Pro, everything is “safeguarded” on a backup disk. Now my hope is that all this will help someone improve their experience with MSFS2020 and, I believe, the same mechanism applies to MSFS2024 as well. I thought I’d have to chase clock speeds, but instead the solution was to use the CPU and GPU in a balanced manner and with perfect frame-pacing. I’m at your disposal if you need any specific information.
