How fast does your FPS really have to be?

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62

This is a great topic. The minimum frame rate that one “must have” is going to depend on the altitude, speed, and bank rate one flies.

If you are low and fast, the ground needs to move fast beneath you… and you are low so you expect high details and for it to have a true 3D look.

At altitude, ground is far away and you expect less detail (the eye can’t even see much at that distance) and the view is more 2D than 3D. And of course, the ground “moves” much slower underneath you.

When you are level, the world is moving in one direction right underneath you. When you bank, now it has to move in a couple directions. In addition, when at steep bank angles, more “new visible objects” move onto the screen per unit of time.

Contrast that with flying level, “newly visible objects” don’t come into the viewport very quickly, and these “new points” are always far off in the distance on the horizon.

For these reasons, I always recommend to set your video settings using the fastest, lowest, insane banking aircraft you plan to fly.

Don’t worry about graphics detail. Simply ignore the quality of the video, and instead focus on the FPS and if you “feel” like you are moving as you would be in that aircraft.

Increase the settings until you just don’t “feel” like you are moving correctly, and now dial back the quality to find the best settings.

For me, and the type of flying I do in the type of aircraft I fly, I really need a frame rate of 50+. Otherwise, it just feels fake.

Other people are going to find their FPS requirement is a bit different.

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63

A few words on FPS science:
In 2014, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted research to determine the shortest amount of time required for the brain to interpret visual stimuli. The study’s findings support the theory that most people can see 60 frames per second, but not much more. It shows that we can view and discern info from images at up to 72 frames per second at 13 milliseconds per image.
The USAF, in testing their pilots for visual response time, used a simple test to see if the pilots could distinguish small changes in light. In their experiment a picture of an aircraft was flashed on a screen in a dark room at 1/220th of a second. Pilots were consistently able to “see” the afterimage as well as identify the aircraft. This simple and specific situation not only proves the ability to percieve 1 image within 1/220 of a second, but the ability to interpret higher FPS.

Reaching 60 FPS and more in my most hardware demanding car racing simulation is no problem ! In MSFS I trade off some FPS for better image quality : an average frame rate 45-50 fps (99% FPS never below 30!) is a good deal. A good time trial at Reno Air Race in the jet class is very difficult but possible using my setting. But at a mind-blowing speed of 15 feet per frame, there is no room for error. In car racing I not even reach a speed of 5 feet per frame !

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64

How can I check my frame rate?

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It is a setting in developer mode.

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66

Thanks. That’s why I never saw it.

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Y’all got me wondering so I checked my frame rate using a flight leaving the burbs of Chicago. First, the monitoring screen playing was annoying so I only ran it for a few minutes. It was showing a rapidly fluctuating rate between 50 and 60 so I guess that is okay?
Also, I would think that detailed monitor with multiple measurements and charts changing constantly must put some load on the game itself.

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Very nice. Thank you.

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There are multiple freeware apps also (in addition to the developer tool) that will show you frame rate and MANY other parameters, such as RTSS/MSI Afterburner and GPU-Z …

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30fps when at an airport is minimum.

But also importantly is how smooth the gameplay is. Having a stutter free experience makes 30fps feel like 45 and 45 feels like 60.

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Simmers have been chasing and focusing on framerates since the initial release of MSFS way back in the 1980’s. Turn the FPS display off. If the SIM is smooth and you’re happy with the performance that’s all you need to concern yourself with, but a high framerate does not necessarily equal a stutter free performance.

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72

Here’s my least acceptable dipping into the twenties and it’s KBOS and CYYZ FlyTampa, Simple Traffic, Enhanced Ground Vehicles … meh too many the boats and stuff and all the things made by flyingscool (superawesome) around Boston all the REX things MD82

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The sim stays running all day … granted I can crash it popping into post as I am now but it’s rare.

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They both smooth bro’:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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That entirely depends on what you like on your toast!

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KillerBluesman, I have almost the same setup as you, I7 9700K, RTX 2070 Super, 64 Gb DDR4 2133, 1 Tb SSD x2, 1080 27 inch curved …

Question, what effect does MSFS rendering resolution have, if I am using nVidia DLDSR 2.25 ?

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I started getting screen tearing pretty badly after SU9 & so i tried V-Sync at 30fps. Perfectly happy with it. I might not get the 50-60fps i used to get a lot of the time but locking it to 30 has left it feeling far more smooth with no screen tearing or laggy moments. Just generally a more enjoyable experience. We’ll see if DLSS does anything significant.

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I have mine fixed at 42fps (50% of monitors refresh rate) and that’s good for me. Bonus is the GPU isn’t having to be cooled aggressively so much quieter.

Oddly when I’m playing driving games/sims I need the rate at 85. Anything lower and I just can’t help notice it.

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I have a decent setup 10850k, 32GB ram, 3090. My best results comes from limiting the fps to 32. It’s now completely smooth and stutter free. Uncapping the frame rate leads to higher frames but also a much louder PC and more stutters. I guess this is because the GPU and CPU are more maxxed out and cannot respond as quickly to a sudden increase in scene complexity. Capping the fps gives you more headroom, and your PC is better able to respond for a smoother experience.

In VR I use motion reprojection and ensure my settings are are dialed in so that MR never drops below 30. If it’s locks to 22.5 fps that’s when you start experiencing watery wobblyness and artifacting.

With MR disabled I find even 50 FPS in VR unpleasant because of the ghosting I get when moving my head quickly around the cockpit or when I’m hard turning the plane onto the runway and the whole screen judders. With MR enabled and my fps locked to 32, I experience 90 fps performance with minimal tearing. It wasn’t always like this, I used to hate MR until a month or two ago, but it’s improved a lot in conjunction with the OpenXR toolkit.

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79

i9-10900KF / RTX 3070 / 32 GB RAM

I use MSFS, XP and P3D pretty much maxed out and at 1440p.

As long as I can hit ~40 FPS I’m a happy camper (and usually do easily), with some of my other games this wouldn’t be the case, I would be complaining. I’m easily hitting my monitors refresh rate with them.

80

Oh man,

I have no idea….sorry.

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Are you telling me to relax after implying 24 fps is good enough? Flame bait !! JK :laughing:

I would normally prefer 60 FPS in most games because it’s easier on the eyes (smoother and less jittery), but I’m okay with 30 in this sim because it prevents my laptop from melting.

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