So this new option in VR settings has low, med , high, and ultra.
Can anyone explain kinda in layman’s terms what this setting does?
It decides what quality the terrain that is not currently visible should be loaded at, and when it should be unloaded.
Low unloads almost everything ASAP and only loads when you turn your head, which can cause stuttering and pop-in, but gives nice performance (CPU wise) when looking in one direction constantly.
Ultra keeps almost everything loaded, and also loads full-quality scenery around you, which is fairly CPU costly but reduces or eliminates stuttering and pop-in when turning your head.
Medium and high are points in between, probably both in terms of quality, pop-in, and resource usage.
VRAM / RAM usage will increase with higher settings as well, but until you run out, that’s not an issue. When you do run out it’s a huge issue.
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Ok makes sense much thanks for the info!
I have 32 GB of system ram and 24GB of Vram so hopefully I am ok there.
Mine defaulted to Medium, may change to High and see how it does.
With those specs I’d go straight to Ultra. Not sure if that’s an issue with VR though as I only play in 2D.
As far as RAM and VRAM is concerned it’s absolutely no issue, I’m usually below 8 GB VRAM usage at Ultra, and RAM usually (always?) below 10 GB. The CPU impact is what might cause framerate issues, but then again, you might have framerate issues due to resource loading with lower settings.
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Ok will give Ultra a try, thanks!
I have the same memory ( 32 GB RAM, 24 GB VRAM) and I set it to ULTRA.
Yet I see no change in used memory when opening the Developer Mode. It always stays between 7 and 8 GB.
Furthermore I observed, that my setting was reset to MEDIUM when restarting the SIM.
Will check again next restart, if it was reset again as I set it back to ULTRA and saved it…
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Thanks for the info - I just checked mine by restarting the sim, and it stayed at Ultra setting for me.
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yes. I just found out that my UserCfg.opt file was “read only”, so it didnt update my settings.
Setting stays for me now, too…
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Hey guys how does this new setting differ from the Rolling Cache? Must Rolling Cache be on in order to take advantage of the off sceen terrain pre-caching feature?
I have been having CTD issues with having rolling cache on, so have turned it off for my testing today.
No, they’re entirely separate.
Rolling cache stores online data on your disk, including between sessions, to save internet bandwidth or improve performance when you fly in the same areas often.
The off-screen cache is located in RAM/VRAM and only keeps things that are right around your current location. It’s cleared when you start a new flight.
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Ok many thanks for the reply !
Even on Ultra settings, runway lights are still popping in during the take off roll. It’s better, but it’s still not pre-SU5.
Someone did a test on YouTube and ULTRA is the only setting that made a positive difference.
If you have a lot of ram (32 or 64), you could try a ram drive/disk. I use that as my rolling cache at 8gb and it’s been stable and improved smoothness and studders from when I used to use the SSD (some have theorized that the RAM disk is faster for the sim to access than even an SSD drive).
Of couse RAM is faster than ssd. Maybe when Direct Storage comes this fall it will improve things with reading the ssd-ram-gpu instead of ssd-ram-cpu-ram-gpu.
Just to update I resolved my CTD issues - did a Steam Integrity Verify, then launched the game and it grabbed a 50 MB update, and have not had a CTD since. Flew all day yesterday and it was wonderful.
I do have the Off Screen Terrain Pre Cache set to Ultra and am getting very good experience. Also have set rolling cache back to on with no problems now. Have it set to 16 GB. My performance seems a little better, but that probably had more to do with something being corrupt prior to the Integrity Verify I did.
Yes RAM is way faster than NVMe (also faster than SCM - Storage Class Memory).
Latency on RAM is like 10 nanoseconds and NVMe is 0.2 milliseconds. If you multiply those numbers with 1.000.000 you get 1/100 seconds and 200 seconds. So, a multitude better on RAM 
. It’s a blink of an eye vs starting MSFS(3 min)…
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