Make 'Ultra' the default setting for 'off screen terrain pre-caching', or remove it entirely

[MortThe2nd]

Everyone will get loads of stutters when ‘off screen terrain pre-caching’ is set to any other value than ‘ultra’. Many perceive this to be a performance issue with the sim, which could be easily resolved by making sure it’s set to ultra in all the performance preset profiles.
Also, for many users getting the ‘could not read memory at…’ errors, setting pre-caching to ultra fixes this as well.

I understand that the feature is designed to lower RAM use, but even on a PC with 8GB of RAM the sim performs better with it on ultra.

It would probably be the best to just remove it as a user selectable setting at all, and just lock it on ultra.

edit: alternatively; consider changing it to a two option drop down;

• normal (include this in all presets apart from low, and is the current ‘ultra’ option)
• low end (indlude this only in the low preset)

[ImmergingWheel7]

I have a 3080ti with 32gb of ram. I have to set pre-caching to low or medium or else my fps will fall from 60 to 20fps. This feature does nothing for me above medium.

[Papa4332]

+1, having been troubleshooting my fair share of systems, I can’t see much reason for this setting to be anything but Ultra. While I’m all for having the option in the settings as it might become useful down the line for some, I agree that having it on Ultra could be the default for all performance profiles.

[Wined2310]

I can set it to low without any stutters,
I have it on Ultra and still get the “Cant read memory” CTD.

To avoid the CTD, I had to “underclock” the XMP Profile in BIOS.

terrain pre-cahing below Ultra is giving ugly pop-in of Scenery when looking around for me, but no stutters.

This setting was introduced on popular demand by community to improve performance. Would be most unwise to remove it.
Just set it by your likeing (Ultra) and leave it.
No need to change anything from my point of view.

[TheHoser11]

Ummm… No. Many cannot use Ultra because of consistent low FPS. I cannot go above HIGH and have a reasonable FPS.

[MortThe2nd]

Then something else is odd with your setting/setup. With 32GB of RAM you have more than enough for ultra terrain pre-caching. Are you running DX12 or DX11? What’s filling up? check the dev mode FPS readout.

[MortThe2nd]

are you talking specifically about the off screen terrain pre-caching setting, or the entire graphics preset?

[ImmergingWheel7]

I am using DX11. It only happens on the ground. I think it’s a bug in MSFS on certain systems. Like I said if I lower terrain precaching to medium I get perfect stutter free 45 to 60 fps. Higher than medium 15 and 20 fps on the ground. Very strange.

[ITDreamFly]

Some related/reference topics, e.g. why the settings were introduced if I remember correctly:

Slider to adjust/disable the scenery culling (reduce panning pop-in and stutters)

Sim Update 5 brought some huge CPU performance and RAM consumption benefits by culling the scenery not visible in the player’s current view. However, it means that panning the camera quickly or switching views can cause frame drops or stutters, and some obvious terrain morphing and object/photogrammetry pop-in. To many this is an acceptable compromise for better performance, but for some people this is too much of a trade-off, especially for those with high-end computers that are not interested…

A slider is needed control the LOD pop-ins. It's a very easy solution to implement that will make all happy

Very much agree. I enjoy the performance boost but I have enough headroom where I could crank these up and still get very good performance.

Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching Causes Extreme Stuttering After Update 7

‘Brief description of the issue:’ After update 7, “Off screen terrain pre-caching” is causing stuttering and performance issues. Setting this option to a lower setting is supposed to provide better performance but it actually makes the performance worse. This is related to other posts about terrible performance when changing to left/right cockpit views, etc. Theory about what’s happening: A lower value is supposed to load less geometry in memory. But previously, when new geometry needed to…

[nhc150]

The only users that would consider anything less than ultra are low-end systems. Any PC in the last 5 years shouldn’t have a problem keeping this at ultra, at the expense of using more VRAM and/or system RAM.

I think it should be kept as-is to benefit everyone.

[MortThe2nd]

Then maybe change it to a two option selection; ‘normal’ and ‘low end’

edited the OP to include this suggestion.

[ChaoticSplendid]

Although this memory-saving optimisation did not make sense for PC in the first place, several people have reported that reducing it to High (or lower) can fix stutters when panning and other performance issues, and so far two have done so in this thread.

It’s worth mentioning that the Ultra setting is configured so as to not move/switch the camera until the required scenery is loaded in, presumably to prevent any sort of visual pop-in. At higher LOD settings, this can create a long stutter when switching views for instance.

As such, I would not support removing this option completely or reducing the amount of provided settings, but perhaps it could be moved to the top section of the graphics settings (which means it would not be affected by the presets) and be set to Ultra by default. In that case, better naming could help (like replacing Ultra with Full, or Off if the setting is renamed to Off-screen Culling or so).

[MortThe2nd]

I think that there were some recent changes in SU10 beta that changed this behavior. I believe there are some reports specifically on performance on the ground at complex airports with SU10. So thinking it’s a chicken/egg thing. (especially with DX12 thrown in the mix). DX12 eats VRAM for breakfast, so might magnify this.

I’m thinking the SU10 ground performance at complex airports is a separate issue. Might be related, but a separate issue.

[nhc150]

@MortThe2nd

I think that there were some recent changes in SU10 beta that changed this behavior.

None that I’ve seen. The issue on one of the builds for SU10 was the mainthread being loaded higher than on SU9, causing a significant performance drop for almost everyone. This wasn’t related to the offscreen caching option. They fixed this with build 1.27.16.0.

[MichaMMA]

@MortThe2nd

Everyone will get loads of stutters when ‘off screen terrain pre-caching’ is set to any other value than ‘ultra’.

hmmm.. I remember there are some reports where users lowers these setting to fix some issues.

They get more CPU load then while panning ( which I can reproduce ) , but less issues.

[FilghtSimmer]

It looks the same for me, cannot understand why.
For test purpose, I’am flying around LFMT with nothing to cache and got stuttering if I look to the airport