I think I finally found why my new 1660 Super GPU usage never reached 90% and my FPS was capped below 30:
I set up a graphics profile for MSFS in NVidia Control Panel. One setting was Low Latency Mode and I set it as ULTRA as recommended by one published MSFS guide. This setting was said to “limit the number of frames the CPU can prepare before the frames are processed by the GPU”, but I doubt it only capped GPU usage well before it’s over burdened. My further research found that Ultra Low Latency Mode is only for serious online gamers (to achieve better input response) but actually lowers FPS!
After I changed this setting to the default OFF, now I can easily get 35+ FPS in ULTRA 1080P, even without disabling at least five other background programs. AND now my GPU mostly worked at 95% + while CPU usage was around 50%. My CPU is a very old i7-3770, but it’s still quite decent after almost 8 years.
I just flew LongEZ over Toronto downtown at only 1,500 feet altitude. I was looking around those close skyscrapers (I used Open Track with Smooth Track on iPhone for face tracking) and FPS was 33 with GPU 100% & CPU 45%. Even when I changed weather to heavy rain with cockpit glass reflections everywhere, my FPS was still around 30. I am just not sure if this meant that GPU is still my MSFS bottleneck? Or else?
I hope no other player ever fell into the same graphic setting trap as I did. However I would be very happy if my above post can help some regain their deserved FPS and enjoy this game much more.
Good on you for finding your problem. Yeah, PCs let people shoot themselves in the foot pretty easily. I rarely change settings in such utilities at all now because there is always some game it will negatively affect.
I mean, look at the mayhem Geforce Experience can wreak by auto changing peoples settings!
I bought a famous online MSFS guide which explicitly recommended readers to use Ultra setting for Low Latency Mode. I now believe its author(s) must be serious online gamers who copied their own experience from competitive air combat games.
What made this even trickier was that my old GTX 1650 card (and probably other lower end cards) seemed not truly support the Ultra Low Latency Mode. So with the same wrong setting my GTX 1650 could still work near its 100% potential, although still much slower than GTX 1660 Super.
Why should i change anything outside of the sim? This is exactly the problem why so many are having issues. Don’t touch anything outside of the sim. That is also what Asobo meant if users would listen to them.
If you don’t have the system to play it smoothly on ultra or some like that, then get one or play on lower settings.
I already explained that I changed those settings because a famous MSFS guide explicitly recommended them. The very reason I share my discovery was because other players might have followed the same advice.
No, I didn’t notice any. Actually I once tried to change those settings back to Power/Quality, only to find that it didn’t help with the grainy/flickering/excessive sharpness/clouds issue I experienced after Update 5.
Yes, i loved FSX but never took hands on P3D. Only once for about an hour and it was not worth it because i had great performance on FSX. Even Flight Sim 2004 was a great experience for me when it comes to fps.
I probably have the same guide as you and have these settings as a result:
I;ve not had any issues, but am now going to see what I get low latency set to default (off). At the moment I;m getting 40_ FPS usually everywhere, sometimes 50+ and 30+ around the bigger cities. Here is a shot from the East Coast US tour - you can see my frame rate bottom right. I will try this now and see if it improves at all.
You have 2080 Super, which is way faster than my 1660 Super. With 1660 Super I happened to be on a fine line: unless I utilize GPU near 100%, FPS under 1080p Ultra would not stay above 25 (normally 22-23) which I think is the minimum for flight sim experience.
Strangely when I used 1650 before US Update, GPU could easily be utilized at 100%. I think either 1650 is not actually using Ultra Slow Latency as much as 1660 Super, or that US Update patch somehow made the same setting reduce FPS more. Anyway, now disabling Ultra Slow Latency setting made quite a difference for me.
