Hey there!
This is my first time here, so pardon me if I get anything wrong!
While playing MSFS 2020, I suddenly get a massive FPS drop that stays there. I came to realize that it was my GPU reaching 100%, which makes it enter thermal throttling, where it would lower performance in order to maintain a lower temperature.
So I find lowering my graphics a bit useful, but I’m unsure of the ones that really use the GPU.
I would really appreciate it if someone could help me find which graphics would help to lower GPU usage, or maybe even a way to lower the chances of thermal throttling!
Thanks!
Edit:
CPU: i7 11th - last gen
RAM: 64 GB of ram
GPU: Nvidia T1200 Laptop GPU
Resolution: 3K resolution but I use 1080 in-game.
I always played on high-end settings, but I’ve changed it in order to lower GPU usage.
It would be useful if you posted your current graphics settings, resolution, and CPU/GPU.
Clouds set to Ultra is what really hits my GPU hard.
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GPU main driver is render scale, output res and then most of the graphical sliders EXCEPT LODs which are mainly CPU drivers. Volumetric clouds being too high can load CPU too.
I had GPU limited laptop that I had to optimise and running at 1080, with a 70% render scale and most sliders all at medium/low (some high) gave me 30FPS.
You can also lock your FPS at 30FPS by using a 60Hz refresh rate and VSYNC on at 1/2 refresh rate.
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most important step one is to set a max fps limit in nvidia control center ( if you own nvidia ). Also enable vsync in-game and may be choose not 100% of your monitors fps if the half is fine for your ( dont be confused with 60,30… ).
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Sorry for not posting my specs, I’ll update the post right now.
My specs are:
CPU: i7 11th - last gen
RAM: 64 GB of ram
GPU: Nvidia T1200 Laptop GPU
Resolution: 3K resolution but I use 1080 in-game.
I always played on high-end settings, but I’ve changed it in order to lower GPU usage.
Gotchu, appreciate it. By the way, I do have vsync on in order lower as much usage as possible!
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hmmm… this card have realy a lot of stress to handle MSFS, even if you limit the graphic settings 
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Is there any way to lower the stress on it? MSFS is a big part of my day, it’s probably the only thing I enjoy doing!
Fans and cooling vents on laptops can easily become clogged with dust thereby reducing their cooling capacity. I recommend you have it professionally cleaned to prevent thermal throttling.
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For comparison I had a i7 CPU HP laptop with a P1000 CAD NVidia GPU and 32GB RAM. I have now switched over to a desktop PC. The screenshots below are the settings I used to optimise my laptop GPU. They worked quite well for my hardware although in hindsight I should ahve had VSync set to 30. Didn’t stop my laptop fan screaming at me all the time though! -
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Will try to do that, thank you!
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Thank you very much, I really appreciate it! From the moment I changed some of the settings to some of yours, I’ve noticed that the GPU is staying at a 70-80% in a quite big and detailed airport. Again, I really appreciate your help.
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You are welcome. It doesn’t look too bad on some of those settings either. You do come to realise the trade-offs quite quickly. I ran a matrix of settings over several days to optimise around those settings. The only thing I wasn’t aware of at the time was the locking VSYNC at 30 at 60Hz refresh rate trick. I seem to have had it set to 60FPS (in reality floating but achieveing 30-33FPS) when instead I could have locked at 30FPS.
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