My system is an Intel i6700 3.4 Gig.
Motherboard Z170 Pro Gaming
Ram 16 GB
Graphics board GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB Gddr5x
Is this PC enough to run FS well.
Thank you.
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Hi there!
You may have read about FS2020 being a beast to run, and yes, it can punish high end systems at high settings. BUT… there were major perfomance updates a couple of months back and it’s actaully now very well optimised. It uses significantly less RAM, it runs much more smoothly and consistently on moderate hardware, and actually it’s a fairly tame beast.
I test hardware for a living, and your PC will be just fine. Your only ‘aging’ part is the CPU, but actually FS2020 doesn’t use a tonne of cores, but can be limited by single core speed. So you might suffer slightly lower frame rates in complext areas, like big airports or low over cities. You have plenty of RAM, and your GTX 1080 will run the game great at med-high settings at 1080p or 1440p.
The other must have is an SSD, and FS2020 currently occupies ~200GB on mine so you need lots of space!
Fast internet also helps bring the world aliive with streamed data and photogrammetry. 30+Gb/s will really help here.
Best thing is you can try it cheap by signing up to the MS store for a month, and seeing how it goes. If it’s not acceptable to you, just cancel and you’ve lost less than $10.
What Intel CPU would you recommend.
Thanks
Firstly, don’t buy anything now. Intel 12th gen arrives in a week and should bring major performance uplift with it. If they end up expensive or out of stock, other CPUs still do well though.
You’ll need a motherboard as well, if you’re planning an upgrade… Possibly ram if you’re on ddr3.
The Intel i5’s do a fantastic job on a budget, the i5-10400 or i5-11400.
If money is less of a concern the larger Cache of the i7 or i9 can help, and you may as well get the K variants for slightly higher clock speed too. i7-10700K or i7-11700K are good. I9-10850K is some times as low as $350 and with 20MB L3 cache a great option at that price.
Finally, if you’re buying a new motherboard anyway don’t discount AMD, the 5600X for example has 32MB level 3 cache and very high single core speed and rivals any current Intel CPU for perfomance in FS2020. It beats an i5-11600K whilst not needing expensive motherboards or cooling like the high performance Intel options.
Tl;Dr - try your current system first. I think you’ll be surprised.
I initially could run it at high settings but noticed allot of heat but kept using it. Then one day the sim ran very choppy especially on the ground, almost unplayable. Once at about a 1000 ft. it smoothed out. I reinstalled the sim only, no addons. It still had the same issue. I also reinstalled the graphics board drivers, and still no change. So I think I cant upgrade this Asus Z170 Pro Gaming MB any further. What a pain!
Thank you
It sounds like your CPU may be overheating and thermally throttling, dropping performance to keep temperatures under control. THe fact It can run smoothly but then performance falls away indicates this may be the case. Also at altitud ethe load on the CPU lessens, so it can keep up again.
If you’re using the standard intel cooler then it’s almost certianly the problem, as well as the fact that it will be using 4-5 year old thermal paste (helps heat transfer from the CPU to the CPU cooler) that may have lost effectiveness.
You can remedy this witha quick clean out of the PC and replacing the stock cooler with an inexpensive but more capable cooler - Something like the ID-Cooling SE-224-XT or Vetroo V5 will do a fine job, just checkdimensions and fitment. Perhaps get a lcoal shop to fit if you’re not comfortable inside the PC case.
It runs really rough even as the sim loads. Im afraid I may have damaged the cpu or gpu. Its really pretty much unplayable at this point. Ill most likely have to build a new box.
Thank you.
Wonder if there is a way to test the cpu and gpu. I do have Valley Bechmark though. Not sure if thats a fool proof way. I also ran a Intel CPU/GPU test and there were no issues. I dont get it.
Thanks much.
No worries. There’s a few tools you can use to find out what’s up:
Hwinfo64 is free and comprehensive monitoring software. The 'sensors" Portion lists temperatures and you can leave it running as you run the sim. If you see cpu temperatures climb into the 90’s and core clock speed dropping significantly, that’s an issue for performance, but it can be solved by cleaning fans and intakes and perhaps a better cpu cooler.
As a more general metric, you can download ‘3dmark’ demo version from steam for free. Running those benchmarks and looking at the comparisons with others with the same specification can give you an indication of how you pc is performing. If your cpu or gpu is significantly below it’s peers, that’s a place to look for problems or optimizations.
You may be right, it might be time for an upgrade: but I hate to see people spend money when there may be an easy fix.
Your gpu in particular should still give good performmance in fs2020
I have an i7 6700k that runs up to 4,4 GHz via the BIOS boost function, but apart from that I have the same mainboard, 32GB DDR4 RAM at 2666MHz and a GTX1080Ti that has 11GB VRAM.
Are you sure your CPU is limited to 3.4GHz? Is that an i7?? I‘m no computer pro so if that sounds stupid, sorry 
I run the sim locked at 30 FPS with most settings sharing High/Ultra, I think trees are medium and the shadows resolution is a bit lower than I‘d like it to be.
As said above, don‘t buy a new CPU now. Just get the sim, you can use it, try it out, if it‘s not to your liking you won‘t lose it but can go for a nee PC.
You have the 6700 k cpu. Mine isn’t the k model. K is a better performer. And my video board isn’t the Ti model the ti model is much better.
I have had the sim about two weeks now and just a couple days ago it started running really bad. I don’t even like playing it now.
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Hi, I am new to this forum as just recently purchased this game myself.
I also have a lowly PC - Intel i7-6700K, the Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler, 32GB RAM, same ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming MB and the lower GTX 1070 graphics card.
My monitor is a 27" 2560X1440 Dell monitor, but I am hoping I can play this game in 1080p resolutioin, Medium graphics setting, Terrain detail set to 200 (not the new 400) and reaching consistent 30FPS. Fingers crossed.
Have you seen this? Something to look into: