I have an Intel Core i5-13600K, yet, I see that very often, it gets to 100% utilization in Task Manager, making the FPS go from a good 40 to a mere 12 or so, for like 10 seconds. And during those drops, I hear the audio scratch/cut. This happens a bit everywhere : on the map or in the air. Is this expected?
I’m at “High”, 1080p
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I’ve seen the opposite. My Ryzen 5700 is rarely above 50% but my 2060 is at 98%
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It is pretty common to be “CPU-bound” (i.e. limited by your CPU). Influencing factors include the resolution you are running the game and your GPU. I’d say what you’re experiencing is to be expected. It is also known from 2020 that the LOD options and traffic heavily impact CPU usage.
There is something amiss there. If you can get 40 fps you can get 40fps. your CPU doesn’t go “hmm. I’ll do 40fps for now then get busy for no reason and drop to 12!”.
At a guess I’d say your GPU VRAM usage might be too high so the poor CPU is having a hard time swapping textures in/out of VRAM. That murders performance.
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This doesn’t seem to be the case, because I have 16GB of VRAM, and there are “only” 12GB used. As for the regular RAM, there are 29,5GB used out of 48GB
I understand that the game is heavy on the CPU, due to the streaming and all of that, but the issue is that I have a “very” good CPU, and that most of the time, I have 40 FPS, but it often drops to 12. Furthermore, I have set the game to be on High, not Ultra, and I haven’t touched the LOD slider
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I have a 13900KS and see variations in performance. I’ve seen huge FPS drops when the sim streams in new content. I understand that this is down to a download thread blocking/waiting for data probably from the backend/server; and we all know these have struggled to cope with demand since launch.
What I’m saying is, it’s pretty normal and totally depends on what you are asking of the engine at any given moment. You still haven’t mentioned what GPU you are running, but check FG is enabled if you can run it. That’ll double your FPS.
Very different experience here. My 13900K is working great on Ultra. Even in VR on High, it is not bottlenecking.
But my GPU (RTX3900) os now reaching its limits in VR.
The biggest issue I have is my 32GB DDR5 RAM. With 3rd party airport and default Airliners it can reach up to 98%…
Well, “High” means use the CPU for stuff instead of the GPU. So that won’t help if you are CPU limited.
But is still doesn’t sound right.
My CPU is a little better than yours and I have an RTX 4080. I get between 75 and 125 FPS depending on where I am. I’ve never had a drop to the 30s or lower.
Tbh I’ve probably misunderstood what you mean, but I’m pretty sure that when the settings are set to High, the CPU is not doing stuff that the GPU is normally doing, this doesn’t really make sense
Just thought I’d chip in with a bit of info:
I fully expected to but have put off building a new PC for this sim until I decide what CPU to go for this time. Meanwhile I thought why not try running MSFS2024 just for a laugh. Current PC spec, built 8 years ago for flight simulation:
i7-6700K @ 4GHz (not OC’d) - 32GB DDR4 - RTX 3070ti 8GB GDDR6X (GFX upgrade 2 years ago)
Way below the stated “min spec”.
Colour me really surprised, the sim runs like a dream (though I have it locked at 60fps) - I set it to medium fully expecting a slide show but no, it works great. The only time I see CPU at 99% is when the loader is doing the decompressing thingie whilst “loading simobjects”. So I can wait a bit longer before PC replacement. 
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There are plenty of videos out there explaining it in detail and way too much to write here. People expressing shock that they can get better visuals and more FPS by making their settings higher.
Will that work for you? No idea. I don’t know all your settings and it is really easy for you to find out. But it works for many of us.
The options are for moving load between CPU and GFX card. It is a balancing act where you want to be CPU and GPU limited, not just one or the other.
So if your video card has spare capacity but you choose a lower setting, then the CPU gets used more than it would have if you used the GPU to do the processing. Anything rendered by the GFX card can be rendered by the CPU, just a lot slower. For many options, this is the choice you’re making. This is useful if someone has a good CPU but a ■■■■■■ GFX card.
Yes, what I wrote is simplistic and on mostly true. But the upshot is that with anything like an RTX 4080, it is best to have all graphics on ultra. Or OFF. The CPU and GPS isn’t going to do much if a feature is off.
It lets my GPU do all the work it can possibly do and the CPU the absolute less.