Just upgraded my video card and decided to test the FPS on all my planes.
These tests were done in VR with the Pimax Crystal. The results were very unexpected.
Base line was at KLGA runway 22 at noon with engines running using the stock Cessna 152.
Cessna 152 - 52 / 53 FPS … cockpit view: 52, Outside view: 53
Airbus 310 - 40 / 42 FPS
Bae146 - 42 / 50 FPS
Fokker F28 - 43 / 43 FPS
Fenix A320 - 44 / 47 FPS
Now for the amazing part…
PMDG 737 - 52 / 52 FPS
PMDG DC6 - 52 / 58 FPS
The 737 practically matched the stock 152 in frames and the DC6 actually beat the 152.
How PMDG is able to match and beat a simple stock GA plane is pure wizardry to me.
They really do know how to optimize their code.
Of course, this test was for my system and your system could have different results.
This test was not about the actual FPS but the comparisons between different aircraft.
Interesting! What I’ve noticed in VR is that there are even differences in GA planes. Not necessarily in fps (I lock thise at 45 anyway) but in perceived smoothness, which I guess is down to frame timing consistency.
For example, the Cessna always feels much smoother than the JF Piper Arrow, even though both are locked at 45fps. its really noticeable. This is on a top-end system too.
I hope this kind of thing is ironed out in FS 2024.
OK. But there’s a definite correlation between FPS and latency.
In general, I’ve seen that higher FPS (up to my 90 FPS cap) corresponds to lowest latency.
PMDG is mostly written in C++ using WASM , which in MSFS is not interpreted like in browser-based Webassembly ( which still is faster than Javascript, reaching at least 90% of native code ), but it’s compiled a native .DLL using the inNative framework.
That goes against all those trying to imply WASM is “just to port legacy code” and Javascript is the “new way”. It might be a “new way”, and it might be easier and faster to code, but it’s clear that still nothing can beat native code yet.
It depends what you are doing. It’s not as black and white as your comment makes out, IMO.
Using Tobii, turning head fast, I can definitely feel the difference between 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100, 120.
And where / what / how you are flying. Doing fast rolls and racing low level in a stunt / aerobatic plane. You definitely notice it more. As scenery is moving in larger chunks per frame.
You can see it when panning, 40 will drop to a point where it lags, 50 may still be smooth, so there is a huge difference between having a baseline of 40 compared to 50.
No human being is able to see the difference between a refresh rate of 40 and 50 Hz in an isolated test situation where only the frame rate is the variable parameter.
You say you “feel” the difference, and that is the significant point. But what you feel is not the higher frame rate, but the positive impact that the higher frame rate can have on the latency of the monitor under certain conditions.
These are two different things, which are unfortunately very often confused.
This test was done in VR and I can absolutely tell the difference between 40 and 50 fps.
Just panning around the cockpit with my headset on, at 50fps it is quite smooth but at 40 there is noticeable choppiness.
I don’t fly with a frame counter on but when I approach a complex airport, I can tell when my fps is dipping by how the smoothness of my panning decreases.
Remember, we are not talking about a shooter type game where you may expect to see frames in the hundreds per second but in MSFS where we are talking about 50 frames, a 10 fps decrease is a pretty large percentage.
One thing about 50 FPS vs 40 FPS in VR is that a lot of headsets having things like 90 Hz as the panel native refresh rate. The hardware tends to try to hit the vsync on those panels, meaning above 45 FPS and below 45 FPS shows a big difference in VR (being half the native framerate). Also, because you are moving your viewpoint a lot in VR (rotating mainly, but panning too etc) then it is very easy to tell when it does a rotational reposition on an ‘old’ frame because it couldn’t supply them fast enough and has missed one or more. It’s why it seems to ‘drag’ and artefact a bit looking around. Synthetic frames (frame generation before it was cool) techniques like ASW, motion reprojection, etc all can help, but even then they aren’t perfect.
For 2D monitors it’s more subjective and based on personal sensitivity a lot of the time.
It’s not so much of if you can see a difference on those frames, but rather how that difference behaves in the sim. For example, when panning/changing views, you see a difference. Sure, when you are looking straight ahead of the cockpit windshield, you don’t see any difference, but when it comes to moving and changing views, you surely do. I am always above 60 fps in the sim, and believe me, for those who say you don’t need more than 30 fps in a flight sim clearly have not experienced 60+ fps in 4K with TLOD at 200 and Ultra settings.
