Frustrating issue with Nvidia (591.74) Update(s)? - Please help!

[Plimp93]

Hi all,

Was wondering if you could help, not sure if this is an Nvidia driver issue, or something else, but I have a very frustrating issue with MSFS 2024 since I performed a GPU driver update on 8th Jan 2026. (To enable DLSS 4.5 in with release 591.74)

The issue is really repeatable, and so is the temporary fix.

Plus, I have a list of things I’ve tried to resolve it, none of which make a difference. All listed below. Please can I draw on your collective wisdom, as this is driving me crazy.

Issue

When panning and zooming, I get a regular momentary stutter, approx, but not exactly at 1s intervals.
Unusually, this is - a) Inside the cockpit, b) Outside views, c) In PMDG B737, Fenix A320, Default Cesnas, Default airliners (Everything) d) at third party less complex airports (BHX) e) More complex 3rd party airports Ini LHR and FRA etc. f) Default airports g) At the gate, in taxi and in cruise h) in the dark, in the rain with clear skies and at daytime - basically everywhere, and doesn’t follow familiar patterns like being bad at a gate at LHR, but OK in cruise!!

Pre-Condition

Purchased this PC in November 2025, and the Sim ran perfectly. Never any stutters anywhere, not even on approaches into FRA / LHR. But, a bit laggy at the gates at those airports, but to be expected.

Specs - AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, ASUS PRIME X870-P WIFI, 64GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR5 6000MHz, GEFORCE RTX 5080, 2TB SAMSUNG 990 EVO PLUS M.2

How the issue started

On around the Thursday after release, I downloaded the latest Nvidia GPU driver 591.74 to enable DLSS 4.5 to get rid of the speed tape ghosting etc. At the time you needed to “opt into beta” in the Nvidia app. I Don’t think I ever got DLSS 4.5 working at this point, as you needed to override model presets to model M, and I never quite got this right. But this is when it all started. I thought, oh well, DLSS looks laggy now, so I’ll switch back to TAA. The stutters were still there.

Left the sim over the weekend, and came back on Thu 15th when the Nvidia App had been updated so DLSS 4.5 was no longer in Beta, and watched guides to switch it on properly. (Override model presets to “recommended” and then select DLSS “performance” to enable DLSS 4.5 model M.)

Seemed to be activated now. Ghosting gone, speed tapes less blurry. But, this stutter was still there. So I thought, thanks but no thanks, and went back to TAA. Stutter still there.

It was at this point I thought, It’s happened since updating to 591.74 in the first place. So, I re-installed the driver using the Nvidia app “clean install”, and it was still the same.

I then rolled back to the 18th Dec version. 591.59 - and all was OK again. Phew. Until a restart and it was back.

I then went for the shader cache - no good.

I then used DDU, and re-installed 591.59 - great - all good. After a restart it was back.

I did the above sequence of events for Dec 4 version 591.44, and even back to 577.00 from July 2025, and the results were the same each time. After a new (or the same) driver re-install using either DDU or the Nvidia app, it initially “fixes” the issue, but then after 2, 3 or 4 restarts the issue is back.

Measurements that accompany the issue

Using Dev mode in MSFS, I can see one particular parameter changes when the issue is present, and to another value when the issue is not present.

1. Issue NOT present - Flips between “Limited by Mainthread” and “Limited by GPU Queue” with Mainthread timing in the teens of milliseconds - 11 - 18ms.
2. Issue PRESENT - Constantly “Limited by Mainthread” with Mainthread timing pegged at over 30ms.

Screenshots

Things I’ve tried.

Every graphics setting in the game. Even switched EVERYTHING to low, and issue still present.
Changed Gsync - on / off
Changed Vsync on / off
Changed resolutions
Frame Gen, on, off, 2x, 4x etc
Changed HAGS on to off and back
Selected clean install, not clean install, do not install audio drivers, etc etc.

As you can see, I’ve tried many of the suggested fixes for this sort of thing, but nothing works. It seems, whatever the initial installation of 591.74 bought with it, has stayed regardless of DDU, Driver version, Nvidia app version / app present / not present etc.

With the mainthread observation above, is something else unrelated running in the background? Any Diagnostic steps you can suggest all will be GREATLY received all.

Thanks in hope.

msfs-2024

[BegottenPoet228]

I’ll throw this out there, but only because it helped me solve a similar problem (although mine wasn’t nearly as bad as what you are experiencing.)

Still, it might help, so here goes…

The first thing you want to do is download and install LatencyMon. We need to get a baseline system latency test without the sim running. Then do this:

To get the most valid result, run LatencyMon for 30 minutes. Then post a screenshot of the result like you see here.

Finally, check the Drivers tab and post a screenshot. Let’s see where the highest reported latency is.

My #1 suggestion for fixing this is to make sure you have the latest system BIOS and (especially) chipset drivers. But we want to see the condition of things now, before you make any additional changes.

There’s another thing I did to my system that improved things even more, but we can get to that later.

[Plimp93]

Many thanks Dr Brown.

As this is a gross error, repeatable and always quite bad, I’m confident it’s 1 setting or change that will completely fix it.

I will perform the above and feedback, and many thanks for the quick response.

[TenPatrol]

Make sure your system power plan is set to High Performance.

Go to Windows Settings > System > Display > Graphics
Turn OFF Variable Refresh Rate.

Under “custom settings for application” click Add Microsoft Store App - scroll down and select Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Click MSFS 2024

• GPU performance > select High performance (Nvidia Geforce RTX 5080)
• Optimizations for windowed games - Off

---

You should disable hibernation, but before doing that, you need to turn off Fast Startup - Fast Startup can only be disabled while hibernation is enabled.
Fast Startup negatively affects drivers, which in turn can impact games as well.

Open the Control Panel and change the view from Category to Small Icons. Then click Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do > Change settings that are currently unavailable. Uncheck Turn on Fast Startup and save the changes. After that, select the High Performance power plan.

Turn off Hibernation via CMD.
To turn off hibernation via CMD, open Command Prompt as administrator and run:

powercfg /h off

This will disable hibernation and also remove the hiberfil.sys file from your system. Restart PC.

[Plimp93]

Hi all,

Many thanks so far, and thanks TenPatrol for your hints.

At this stage I’ll leave my requested LatencyMon results below, and try your suggestions next.

I’ll record any additional results here after changing. However, Latency Mod is suggesting I update my BIOS, I will probably therefore get the USB ready, and download the AMD Chipset drivers. AND follow the advice from TenPatrol - but one step at a time.

Is it interesting that the most demanding process is to do with the graphics drivers, and I get short term improvements when I update them, or is this normal for them to show up highest? In any case, the screenshots below are taken with only LatencyMon being launched, nothing else at all. Let the destkop settle too before doing it.

After 30 mins graph…..

After 30 mins - Drivers

[kbA7187]

Any Solution? I think i have the same issues starts with the latest NVIDIA driver..

[BegottenPoet228]

What you are seeing is high interrupt latency from your nVidia graphics card.
I saw the same with my system.

Step 1 - If you are using Balanced Power Plan, try switching to High, then rerun the test.
(I’m using the Bitsum Ultimate Performance Plan, so that doesn’t apply to me.)

Whether to use Balanced or some other power plan is a point of debate. I can’t tell you which is best for your system. The best thing is to test different settings during repeated flights with CapFrameX.

Make sure you create a System Restore point (better yet, a disk image) before moving on.

If the result is roughly the same, move on to Step 2, which is to manually assign your GPU interrupt to a single CPU core. First we need to test per core latency:

Step 2 - Download and run autogpuaffinity.zip

You need to run the extracted .exe file as administrator.

CAUTION : The provider of this tool includes a disclaimer.

“I am not responsible for damage caused to your computer. There is a risk of your GPU driver not responding after restarting it during the tests. A possible fix for this is to set the PCIe link speed to the maximum supported in BIOS.”

I ran this test several times and had no problems. It’s suggested to run the test 3 times and find what you think is the best performing CPU core. It’s a bit of a guessing game, because the test will show different results each time. But you really can’t make a mistake, as long as you ignore Core 0.

After the tool has benchmarked each core, a table will be displayed with the results. Green values indicate the highest value and yellow indicates the second-highest value for a given metric. You are looking for the CPU core (OTHER THAN CORE 0) which has the best combination of Avg, STDEV, and 1% Low latency.

It will look like this:

(Higher numbers are better - they represent throughput.)

CAUTION : No matter the result of this test, do NOT assign the GPU interrupt to Core 0 in the next step.

Step 3 - Download and extract interrupt_affinity_policy_tool.zip

Read this for an explanation of how to use the tool.

(I assigned my GPU to the best single core. I also assigned my USB Controllers to the 2nd and 3rd best cores. Whether you choose to assign interrupt affinities for the USB Controllers is up to you. I recommend it, but again - DO NOT manually set any affinities to Core 0.)

I realize that this is diving pretty deep into the inner workings of your system. My system had the same high latency associated with my GPU. I also saw nvlddkmd.sys with execution times in the 80ms range. After manually assigning the GPU interrupt affinity to a single core, my LatencyMon test looked like this:

Improving the GPU driver latency from 80ms down to 0.012ms made a HUGE difference.

Good luck. I hope this helps.

[PilotJedi688]

Latency Monitor is a great tool, good luck with it.

I noticed the GPU memory is around 90%. If textures are being replaced rapidly the CPU may take the hit, taking fps down.

One test is to get GPU memory down to 80% to give a bit of headway and see if that helps.

[Plimp93]

Hi all.

Updates - as I write this, I am now back in the FIXED condition, but, I’ve been here before.

Before I got to this fixed condition though, I did the following.

1. Update Bios

2. Update Chipset Drivers.

Resulting in this Latencymon reading.

3. Follow ALL of TenPatrols power management changes resulting in this.

Back to the sim no change, and the main thread reading of over 30ms was still in the stats window.

I then had a revelation about what I messed around with to begin all this.

I updated to Graphics Driver 591.74, but also used DLSS Swapper to update the frame gen and DLSS versions. Was it because with all my rolling back and forth, that I had enabled the latest DLSS DLLs, and they weren’t compatible with the older drivers? I don’t think so. Because the temporary fix I’ll mention below had worked with those also. BUT…….

Steps to initiate temporary fix.

a) DDU the latest 591.74 driver out of the system.

b) Use DLSS Swapper history to see what my originally installed DLLs were compatible with the 18th Dec 591.59 Drivers and switched both the DLSS and Frame Gen DLLs to 310.1.

I checked the directory that these get put into and hovered to make sure they were 310.1 - they were, but there were two of the same file names in there, with different sizes? Normal?

c) Updated graphics drivers now “compatible” with the selected dlls. (not sure if this really makes any difference!!)

d) Restart.

Loaded MSFS into Heathrow on stand with FSLTL traffic driven by BeyondATC and GSX ready, and also onto the runway - and ALL WAS SMOOTH AGAIN!!

Shutdown, and while typing this left latency mon on in the background without the sim running, and that’s what you see below.

Interestingly though, the Nvidia items do not show as longer process time now in the drivers tab

Before it looked like this

SO Next steps.

Repeat the process of shutting down, restarting and trying the sim to see what I get.

Based on previous experience, I’ll see the issue back in 2 - 3 restarts.

I HOPE I come back here soon and say it’s stayed permanently fixed. If so my experiences can be written in stone to help the next poor soul.

All I wanna do is fly from the UK to Europe - that’s not too much to ask is it?

Thanks so so much so far all!!!

[Plimp93]

One single power off of PC. Power on, launch game, and it’s back………..

Latency mon shows nvidia processes a lower process times again too, so what I said above is probably a red herring.

Are Audio Drivers worth going after, if so, how?

Thanks.

[Plimp93]

One more update for today,

My PC building company offered the following advice.

Uninstall NVIDIA APP completely, then reboot the PC and then manually delete the following folders:

C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\NVIDIA
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\NVIDIA

Reboot the PC once more. Now you need to only install the graphics driver and PhysX only.

Do not install the NVIDIA APP yet, in case that is the one causing the issue.

Test MSFS 2024 and see if there is any stuttering now.

I did this and it is interesting that I get the same result. Went from the same driver to the same driver. Installed, restarted and the sim was fine. Next boot, and the issue was back.

There’s definitely something in this………..

[TenPatrol]

First, LatencyMon should be running without MSFS. If LatencyMon is running together with MSFS, the results will be inaccurate.

Second, uninstall the drivers using the DDU program to ensure a clean installation.

Third, test without any mods. The community folder must be empty, so rename the existing community folder and create a new empty community folder.

Also, uninstall FENIX if it is installed, and then test MSFS by flying the Cessna 172

[Plimp93]

Thanks a lot mate.

Will try.

Note, all latency mon results above are with the sim off.

[apeduke1806]

You have the exact same issue as i did! I thought i was crazy, but i think nvidia did some retroactive changes. I had to roll back to 577. see my post here. New NVdia driver causes mainthread to saturate (50ms) when using framegen - #6 by apeduke1806

[apeduke1806]

And i also did several clean install, DDU, roll back driver, etc. To no avail, only 577 or earlier drive would not saturate the mainthread.

[Plimp93]

Many thanks mate, but i have also tried 577. No good.

REALLY interesting finding tonight though. I thought id go back to msfs 2020 for a bit. Wait for a new nvidia driver update.

Would crash on loading at 50%. Upon googling that issue, I found advice from. Previous forum posts which included changing a configuration file to prefer DX12. I set that and the old sim loaded.

In sim. All good. Went in cockpit. Panned. Same issue as 2024. Now that’s interesting right?

Restarted, and loaded msfs 2020, and it wouldn’t load again. I assume this is due to the cfg being reset to dx11. I did however change the graphics settings in the sim to dx11, so maybe that overwrite the cfg.

Anyway, really interesting finding after following all advice on clearing caches, changing power management settings etc.

I might try my trick tomorrow. Ddu drivers, start msfs 2020 and see what happens.

Interestingly, developer mode showed mainthread limited at over 30ms just like in 2024.

There goes my “ill fly 2020 while I wait” idea

[apeduke1806]

i think the new nvidia drivers messed up something, that even when going back a few drivers you would still have issues. May be try DDU first (in safe mode), then install the new driver, then the MSFS2024. This way at least you have a clean game.

[Maki152]

-Disregard-

[Plimp93]

I have used ddu. And each time I do that, all is fine for the first run. Then next restart issue is back.

I will try and replicate this with 2020 too.

I think I need to try another game. Assetto corsa rally seems fine, but it is the only other game I have loaded

[kbA7187]

I have same issue since about 05-06.01.26 , thought it was because they shut down some MP servers but now i think its because the latest NVIDIA driver killed something in Windows/system?! maybe.. i dont know tried a lot but can not resolve it ..