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Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?
No
Brief description of the issue:
Performance at KSFO is massively down over SU8 and before
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Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:
Static and taxiing on ground from one of the Northern GA ramps in the C152. Weather High Level Clouds. Framerate is ~ 15 fps while it was 25-30 in SU8 and before. Accompanied by heavy stuttering. Uninstalling the Premium Deluxe airport does not help. Framerate immediately rises to 25-30 (which was the value in SU8) after wheels loose contact to the ground. Other airports (tried CYVR, EDDM, KDEN, EDDF) show the same performance (25-30 fps and more) on ground as under SU8. Community folder empty except Shift+Z mod for framerate.
PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:
Intel i7-6700K 4.0 GHz / ASUS MAXIMUS VIII Ranger / Kingston 32 GB DDR4 / Samsung SSD M.2 500 GB (System) + Samsung SSD 1 TB (MSFS) / EVGA GTX 1080Ti 11 GB / LG 34UM95 3440 x 1440 / Saitek Pedals, Yoke, TPS, TrimWheel / Win 10/64
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Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
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If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
I didn’t change any settings between SU8 and SU9 beta, thus LOD is the same as before (Terrain LoD 3.000000, Objects LoD 5.250000). The last value might look a bit suspicious but I compared to my pre-beta backup and it was the same.
Yes, I’m heavily main thread limited with Main Thread 53 ms but GPU 22 ms. This is all on a 2D screen of course, I’m usually GPU limited under VR. Plus, keep in mind my relatively weak CPU (using Process Lasso helps a bit with CPU performance).
While I haven’t tried KSFO since about Sim Update 6 or so, giving it a try now I can confirm that performance is suspiciously poor when on the ground, much worse than other notorious USA airports with this beta. I become MainThread limited easily, even without obscenely high Terrain LOD values.
Instead of starting another thread, I would like to report as a general observation that performance tanks at any airport I’ve been at since SU9. I have my FPS locked at 30 and that’s mostly what I was getting at most airports, but am now seeing drops to 17-18 fps and bad stuttering, on takeoffs, landings and taxiing.
I wonder if this is being caused by the issues being reported with the service vehicles? Just a thought, but obviously something has changed to cause the FPS drops and stuttering I’m seeing.
Next time you get a chance to check, can you see in Dev Mode if you are CPU Main Thread limited when this happens? What kind of CPU do you have? What is your Terrain LOD currently set to?
KSFO is a good place to test whether or not you’re getting hammered by the MainThread (due to your settings and/or the sim’s threaded optimizations (or lack thereof). I wouldn’t necessarily recommend flying there (just kidding, it’s probably fine if your settings aren’t too high)
I do think TLOD of 300 is quite high, even for SU8 (let alone the SU9 Beta) and I haven’t known anyone to report smooth operation at all times at that TLOD. 200-250 seems to be the maximum for the fastest modern processors to handle smoothly at all times, at least in SU8.
Why they gave us a slider that goes to 400 with current available technology, I don’t know.
Couple that with this beta build which shows evidence of a different kind of CPU optimization spread more evenly over more cores but still hammering the main thread, and those big airports near photogrammetry can become quite taxing compared to all other areas.
So, you might want to roll that TLOD back a bit, I mean, 200 is still considered Ultra. You are likely rendering the next photogrammetry city over when running above THAT, and you know the greater SF area is full of photogrammetry. Oakland, Berkeley… etc.
Now, I do suspect there is something extra taxing with SU9 even though I haven’t been able to put my finger on it. But a TLOD of 300 is too high for current hardware on any build. At least in really dense, busy areas like KSFO.
KSFO is my usual testbed, and I’ve taken off from it in SU8 from the same ramps quite a number of times with TLOD 300. fps on ground were not great but always ~>25 and stutter-free. So, something must have changed from SU8 to SU9. Plus, I don’t see such a big digression on ground on other major hubs like CYVR.
The extension of TLOD to 400 was upon request from a lot of users, btw.
I definitely agree something has changed and I am trying to nail it down, too.
That said, 300 is playing with fire.
KSFO is often cloudy.
How does performance compare on a clear day?
I think these new clouds are hitting performance more than before. Kinda like the earliest days of the sim. That’s my best guess… knowing full well a slight reduction in your TLOD would likely make your issue go away. You are, after all, describing a textbook misconfiguration for your Main Thread’s own limitations. For best performance, we really do need to calibrate around that, often every System Update.
Put another way, if you simply cannot dial your overly high TLOD back a bit, I suppose you could buy a faster CPU. TLOD may not be your only issue… buuuuut… it is the obvious one. And really, 200? 250? Not a profound visual difference compared to what you are currently running. Nobody’s running around yelling and crying over their paltry 200 TLOD. I mean, it is worth noting the change for the beta forum.
I’ve had to recalibrate all my graphics settings to get good performance in this update.
On YouTube someone with a Ryzen 5950X was getting 40+ FPS flying over New York photogrammetry with Terrain LOD set to 400, and was mostly GPU-limited (RTX 3090 at 4K and Ultra preset). With high-end Zen 3 and Alder Lake CPUs, LOD 400 is perfectly reasonable in the air. The only problem is on the ground, and it’s not a hardware limitation but a bug in the software.
Here is an example. This is CPU utilisation (6-core/12-thread) with Terrain LOD set to 400, sitting 1000 feet over KSFO. Limited by MainThread, which is obvious in the Task Manager.
And here it is sitting on the ground at KSFO. About 1/3 the frame rate (with horrible stutters when panning) and again limited by MainThread, but am I really?
To me it is clear that there is some sort of bug which is causing the CPU, not even a single core/thread, to not be utilised properly when on the ground.
I think the main thread is getting stalled by system calls and deferred procedure calls for IO and networking and such. But I don’t think it’s the whole story.
Let’s not confuse things here. In the air and at the airport are two different things, and the airport taxes the system more.
Bug or no, we can configure around this one. Especially with the OP’s system.
Seems folly to just do nothing and wait for Asobo to fix what isn’t exactly broken when there are all kinds of graphics sliders made just for cases like these.
Yes the sim runs faster at some points and slower at others. It’s a sim. That’s what they do.
Run with settings too high, you get stutters.
Now the question is, can he configure for smooth play at KSFO and still enjoy the scenery?
I think this is unlikely to get addressed by the MSFS team before SU9 is released for that reason. After all, it’s the same type of performance issue the sim has always had since release.
As I demonstrated though, sitting at the airport does not tax my system, it just uses less of it. That seems rather broken to me.
Every single update after Sim Update 5, which promised huge performance benefits especially around large airports, has caused regressions with ground performance. I’m not saying those with high-end systems cannot get around it by adjusting the graphics settings for now, but we’re not supposed to just sit and wait without saying anything about it. If performance is regressing without obvious visual benefits, “get better hardware” is not the answer.
I believe it’s partially a system bottleneck caused by poor threaded optimizations. The developers can’t seem to fix it ever since the sim was released.
I really have been talking about someone else’s issue. But you likely suffer from the same problem.
And a Main Thread isn’t a bug… it just doesn’t seem to work how you think it does. The Main Thread isn’t a core. It will get maxed out even if you have CPU overhead to spare on all cores.
Really, no need to keep being skeptical here. Either try the well known fix for THE most common MSFS issue, or don’t. But there’s no need to pretend it doesn’t work, or that this kind of stuttering is a bug, not if you are unwilling to configure your system for optimal performance and see if that doesn’t fix your issue first.
Folks with the best computers are often the most stubborn when it comes to admitting their CPU Main Thread can’t always handle what MSFS throws at it on the highest settings.
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(just kidding, it’s probably fine if your settings aren’t too high)
