MSFS 2020 Performance with VR - What is truely needed?

Sorry but it’s not about tuning, it’s about downgrading the graphics to a point that VR looses vs flat screen experience. Today you can’t get good resolution, good horizon distance, good details, good clouds, good effects, with an acceptable amount of FPS.
3090, G2 and 9900k here. Maybe you can with lower resolution headset.
For me the trade off is far too important. You don’t have the contrast and the vibrant OLED TV colors with LCD headset, nor you have the definition at long range, so it has to be a flawless experience to be acceptable, I think we are quite close with maxed graphics in vr and high resolution setting but as soon as you have to downgrade the graphics the experience isn’t worth it imho.
I’ll get back to vr in this game if performances are uped by maybe … 100% (dlss?), until then I’ll stick with IL2 … and assetto for racing games.
It’s important to stay objective, some peopole read this forum and could think vr is so good that it justifies a 4k€ gear, obviously not ATM for this game at least. Wouldnt recomment to a friend …

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I don’t agree. To a flight sim enthusiast i would recommend buying a high spec pc and a good vr headset (to be exact, i’d give them a go on my setup 1st). I have a good spec pc, I have a 49" 4k tv/monitor and vr hmd’s, i never fly 2D now. Horses for courses etc.

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Hi there,

I guess it depends on your patience.

If you can wait a while, you should wait for the RTX 4xxx gpu generation first. Then you can buy it or get a RTX 3090 or 3090ti cheaper. Maybe.

I had the same situation like you…after 10 years without a gaming computer I really wanted to fly MS2020 in VR. As a child, I was impressed from the VFX 1. Year 1995.

Then…what is a RTX 3090…what is SSD…what is…

So…I bought an Intel i9 9900…MSI Z 390 with 32 GB RAM…a Nvidia RTX 2070 Super…1 GB SSD. Air cooled.

And my opinion is…the HP G2 is great…good black colour and 4K. I bought it.

Then the drama started. Too hot…watercooler bought and installed for the CPU. Then…still more or less medium settings in VR, but fun already.

Then I bought a RTX 3090, which has 24 GB VRam. And it helped a lot. Every setting on high, some on Ultra. (Some special settings under Windows 11 should be switched off because it causes a lack of fps).
But too warm…stuttering…so I moved the GPU out of the case, screwed it outside at the PC case and also use MSI afterburner. Helped a lot.

Because of gurantee I didn’t change to watercooling for the GPU.

In my case, the CPU is definately not the problem. Never reach limits.
The GPU is always around 95 Percent.

My whole computer cannot handle every setting on ultra with an acceptable FPS in VR. (Edit: Acceptable means always more than 30 fps on every eye.)
On a regular screen is everything possible.

I believe you should definately buy the best GPU you can get. The CPU is not a big issue. But the newer generation of PCI on newer generations of mainboards (newer than z390) could help. The RTX3090 has the newest PCI Standard (called PCI express 4.0), but can be handled by older boards like the Z390 motherboards with older PCI standards. Fast memory helps as well (DDR4).
SSD is a must have. Watercooling is also recommended. For CPU and GPU.

And for fun and immersion…you should think about your controls…panels, flightstick and so on.

My computer has cost around 1600 Euro, 80 Euro for watercooling the CPU. Year 2020.

Then 2000 Euro for a new RTX3090 3 months ago. This was cheap, by the way. Good luck for me that time :slight_smile:

Then…70 Euro for the flightstick and 600 for the HP G2 incl. controllers.

I hope I could give you an idea about what is needed and possible.

Warm regards and good luck.

Dirk

PS. I never overclock.

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I find my (not so new) rig acceptable for VR (Reverb G2) - no reprojection, TAA 100%, OXR 80%, most settings in the “High” range:

  • RTX3070 with a bit of OC - this is probably the most contributing component (and also the most up to date),
  • i7-7700K 4.2 GHz with 15% OC (quite old, just 4 cores, but still nice single core clock speed),
  • 32 GB RAM,
  • SSD,
  • 600 Mbps Internet link (I guess 100Mbps would be still more than enough),
  • G2 with shallow gasket (so called “FrankenFoV DeLuxe” to improve the FoV and to make the sweet spot bigger by moving the eyes closer to the lenses).

In the Aerosoft CRJ all the glass screens are sharp and legible I never need to zoom or lean-in. In GA planes I apply TAA 80%, OXR 100% to improve scenery a bit vs. the resolution inside the cockpit. I don’t do aerobatics, I finally never turn the FPS counter on (after many months of doing this), the whole experience is just pleasant to me.

i7-9700K (no OC) 32GB DDR4 memory / 3060Ti 8GB memory / Flight Sim on dedicated SSD as is Windows 10 / 500 Mb/sec internet connection / new in December HP Reverb G2

In VR all settings are at Ultra with TAA and 100 on both sliders

flying around San Diego / San Diego Bay with LVFR KSAN / photogrammetric approach addon / “We Love VR region 2”,etc. at 2500’ AGL in C172 at 100 knots I see 18 to 24 fps in VR and 50 - 60 fps in 2D images

flying around eastern San Diego county (mountains to 7,000’) in Robert Young G36 Turbo at 145 knots I see 28 to 32 fps in VR and 60 fps in 2D images

In VR The GPU is at 100% busy every microsecond and Dev Mode says I am GPU limited - ALL 8 CPUs(processors) are busy between 15% and 75% with the total system busy at 48% to 52%. Flying in VR I am definitely limited by the GPU.

In 2d flying (two 1080p monitors) the GPU is ~75% busy and the CPU total (across all 8 processors) is about 60%

I am very pleased with my system but will upgrade the GPU as soon as a 4xxx model is available

Impressive that you can pull this off with a 3060 powering a G2. What are your OpenXR and in-game Render Resolution settings?

VR Render Scaling 80
VR Terrain LoD 150
VR Objects LOD 150
Live Traffic and Weather OFF
MultiPlayer OFF
NO aircraft traffic
Airport life - all three are 10 -29
Land and Sea are 10 to 20 except Road Vehicles at 50

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No system on planet earth can run MSFS at a steady 90 FPS in VR. Everyone runs it with frame interpolation/reprojection.

I’d like to buy a PC and Quest 2 to play VR MSFS. The one I’m looking at has:

MSI RTX 2060 6GB
i7 10700
32GB RAM
NVME 1000 GB
HDD 3000 GB

Would this work?

A tricky and expensive decision and the same one I faced last year. Some (including me) go VR and never go back, and consider it the biggest leap in sim technology in decades. Others think the immersion gained is not worth the trade off of lower graphics than 2d, or the general inconvenience of having a sweaty plastic brick strapped to your face. Others still get motion sick from VR so can’t do it entirely. So my main recommendation is to find a way that you can try it first, either at a friend’s house or with a retailer that lets you refund the equipment if you do not like it.

With regards to headsets I think the quest 2 scales pretty well on different hardware - IE with a top machine you can run top resolution and read glass cockpit ok, or with a mid level machine you can run mid resolution which is fine for basic steam gauges.
It can be used for other vr experiences as well (it is wireless so amazing for something like half life alyx, I wouldn’t want to play that wired). It also can run basic games without a PC, so you could buy it without buying the pc to see if you get VR sickness when playing Ultrawings etc (this is what I did actually).

If however you want the best possible resolution for seeing the smallest text on glass cockpit aircraft, you will need reverb g2 and I think a top machine to drive it - maybe others can confirm but I have read that the sweet spot (area of maximum sharpness) reduces if you don’t run it at max resolution, this is not an issue with the quest 2. However note in the last couple of weeks there has been interesting software developments which may improve this (see NIS thread on this forum).

Hope that helps!

Not everyone. The reprojection consumes CPU/GPU resources which results in the need for lowering the quality options in the sim. Mamy users prefer the visual quality and accept lower FPS in VR.

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No I’ve seen a lot number of people complaining about stutters and poor fps with a 30xx series GPU. I don’t know if their perception or expectation is different but Microsoft Flight Simulator has always required a bit of compromise but I can easily get smooth frames on my Asus 2080 Ti with reprojection of course and that is the compromise for me.

I find this hard to believe. Why would you increase graphics at the cost of fps. MSFS scales pretty well and still produce amazing scenery at lower graphical settings. For me it’s all about hitting 30fps or higher in VR and letting the reprojection do the rest.

I have crystal clear picture and no artifacts in Reverb G2 with Reprojection always on.
OXR100 and Renderscale 80.

We all have different needs and different PCs. Some prefer smooth FPS, some graphical settings. I don’t like the occasional artifiacting caused by reprojection, my PC is possibly not strong enough for repro:

  • RTX 3070,
  • i7-7700K
  • 32 GB RAM
  • G2
  • TAA 100%, OXR 80% (no need to lean-in or zoom-in to read even the smallest letters on the CRJ glass displays),
  • Aerosoft CRJ
  • virtual desktop in VR with Pilot2ATC, Navigraph charts, several PDF files open,
  • real weather,
  • real traffic + Aerosoft Simple Traffic,
  • several home cockpit devices (so I barely touch the mouse when flying).

I have no issue at all with the temporal image quality without repro, to stay sane I don’t even check the FPS counter.

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