How and Why am I getting 9 fps in an airliner with a 3080?

So this may not be the correct area to post this but I really need to understand how even after spending thousands of dollars on a top of the line PC I’m still getting 9 fps in an airliner at FL350.

I mean talk about an absolute letdown putting my 3080 into my PC on Saturday and I’ve not been able to reasonably use the sim without miserable fps or a “data link” issue on loading every time. I’ve been all in on trying to support Asobo since day one and I really can’t anymore. This is a broken product.

Flight this morning was from KDEN to KSEA using the FBW Development A32nx. Didn’t even make it 40 minutes into the flight because frames were so bad I couldn’t turn dials/knobs. All graphics settings on “HIGH” only.

I’m using a Ryzen 7 3800XT, ASUS TUF Gaming 3080, 64GB RAM, and the sim is on an 1TB NVMe.

Give us a screen print of your graphics options settings, please.

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Reso = 100
LODs = 100
8x8
2048
Everything else on HIGH
Cockpit refresh on Medium

I’m very familiar with and use the Digital Foundry recommendations for non-3000 series cards. The fact I still can’t get good fps with these settings using a 3080 is pretty sad imo.

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Are you Limited by MT (Main Thread)?

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Is there a way to prevent that? Seems everyone is limited by main thread with this sim.

It’s the way the sim core is designed. Guru3D said it best in Aug '20 - no hardware currently exists today that won’t be brought to it’s knees by MSFS. Or paraphrased anyway.

Over time, Processor Power and design will overcome that, but for the moment - Immovable Mountain Meets Irresistible Force. That was also true when FSX first came out. Classic paradigms of software and hardware not being in optimal alignment.

There are optimizations coming, but it’s too early in the lifecycle process to see how material they are or when they’ll appear. DX12 and XBox version may bring some improvements to the PC side.

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I’m not by my computer right now. That sounds good as base settings go. Others will chime in, I’m sure.

Look through all of the services that are running and see if something, as a service does, not make sense to have enabled. Disable it (read up on the internet if you do not know what it does.) or set it to manual turn on.

In my case, I suspected Windows Defender and that was my solution. I dug around and found my solution there.

Others have said to over-clock. On my system, it was the opposite. When I overclocked it I ran into issues. So, I just put it back to base settings (CPU and memory) and forgot about it.

Look at the individual processes running under the task manager and see if something is hogging resources. That was how I spotted Windows Defender.

NVidia drivers updated? I manually do my updates and turned off GeForce.

This is what works for me, and every person’s settings/computer is different. As long as I stay out of the “big” cities I can fly just fine (9900K & 2080Ti).

This is my checklist, hopefully, it will help you spot what the bottleneck is.

You are using an SSD and not an HDD, right?

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Well I appreciate the information! I kind of figured that might be the case but wasn’t sure if there was something I hadn’t thought of. I was sitting at 45 fps average using a 2070 Super one week ago with no issues when flying around Benelux. Pop in the 3080 over the weekend and attempt my first airliner flight in the US in several weeks and 9 fps average is what I get.

I’ll be interested to see if future US world updates improve upon issues there as well because the Benelux world update seems to be flawless for me.

Correct WD SN750 SSD. I’m wondering if it might be another program like Windows Defender as well. Going to do a systems check like you recommended here. Thanks!

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That’s misinformation. MSFS is a DX11 game, and DX11 is a single core app (main thread). So even a cheap i5-9600K can do the job since the CPU is poorly used.

Then it is not a case of “no hardware currently exists today that won’t be brought to it’s knees by MSFS”.

It is more like “MSFS is so poorly optimized that no matter the hardware, you won’t be able to play it properly”.

These are two completely different statements. People should stop spreading this myth that simulators are too much for current hardware. From what I recall, all current simulators are DX9 or DX11, relying on a single core: bottlenecking the GPU to hell.

Just pray that the DX12 update will at least split the main thread in two to give us some hope.

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Watch Task Manager closely as you fly. Something may pop out at you that is causing the issue. It could be some processes that are doing background updates (Nvidia, MS, Intel, etc.). Watching the Task Manager, as I flew, solved it for me.

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to compare you need to fly in same place with same weather.
some big cityplaces, liek LA and SF area cna be slower yes.
yuo compare now apples with oranges, but yes you should have better fps on average.

Probably a goofy question but did you do a fresh install of your GPU drivers with the card change? My friend went from a 2070 to 3070 and was having all sorts of issues until he reinstalled the drivers fresh.

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I did do fresh installs but I may try again just for the sake of troubleshooting. Thanks for the suggestion!

This isn’t a locally stored standalone application. The sim core isn’t running 100 percent with all services offline and therefore fix the code, get better performance, done.

To say it’s poorly optimized is one thing, but to not acknowledge that variances between the settings in Graphics, Traffic and Data is to not acknowledge the Cloud SaaS component that is part and parcel of the sim’s features. Fixing the core isn’t going to speed up one’s local connection, nor the differences in latency to regional XBox Gaming Services front-loaders which facilitate the sim access to Maps and Azure.

There’s no question the sim needs optimization. Jorg himself stated in the last Dev Q&A that settings are coming that exceed Ultra - so something will get pushed down the road to enabled those sliders, and implicitly, sim performance commensurate to that quality increase. When, how? Don’t know.

Everyone’s hanging their hat on DX12, I’m personally not sure that’s a good bet given Seb’s comments in past Dev Q&As. Better to look at how streaming optimizations (which can influence everyone regardless of PC hardware) can improve on the services underlying the sim, but I’m not an insider. From an infrastructure view though, that seems to be a big bang for the buck across the board.

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Mainthread has to do with your cpu single threaded and it depends also on your resolution.3800x doesn’t have the best in this area but it’s no slouch.
Mine is often limited by gpu running a 10700kf 2060super but at time the gpu is not fully utilized.
Blame DX11 also

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Welcome. As a 3080 owner I’m lucky to get 15 FPS in any airliner. So this is just the norm until Asobo optimizes.

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Something is up with your setup, perhaps something in the background services. I have an RTX 3080 paired with a 10900K and 32gb RAM. I normally get 35 FPS and up in the VC of the FBW A320nx when on the ground at a dense airport and then upon takeoff the FPS climbs and can run into the 40s and lower 50s in cruise. Outside the craft I see upper 50s and 60s in flight and 40s on the ground at a dense airport.

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The performance degradation is bug (good performance at take off, but then FPS tapers towards zero). The workaround I’ve heard is to switch ONLINE FUNCTIONALITY to OFF. Then fly few minutes, and turn the settings back to what they were.

I have got the same Problem with my i7 9700k + RTX3070 with airliner cockpits and big airports like De Gaulle or OHare.

But when the CPU and GPU is used by only 35-50% there must be something wrong with the sim. Its not that the hardware is too bad cause then CPU should be also used by 100% with all the stuttering in big airliner cockpits and big airports.

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