FWIW, for the past few updates I had been running my system (i7-9700k, 3080FE) at stock CPU settings for stability’s sake. Today I decided to try going back to my 5GHz overclock and it made a huge difference in smoothness, like 10-20% gain in FPS. For whatever reason, looks like SU9 might be more CPU bottlenecked than previous builds.
3.6 Ghz to 5 Ghz is almost doubled.
I wouldn’t say that it is bottlenecked.
SU9 is completely broken. For some reason they moved most of the computing to the last CPU core, which by the way is hyperthreaded, when before it run multithreaded and equally distributed on all cores. Main game thread is basically struggling now. Until WU8 performance was ok and load was well balanced between CPU and GPU and all CPU cores too.
This is how CPU usage is now after loading a flight and being in the cockpit view in a regular airport. In this case main game thread latency is around 16ms and FPS around 40:
And this is the same in a dense area like New York (again last core takes the hardest load):
In the case of New York the main game thread is struggling and latency goes from 16ms (the regular airport case) to almost 43ms. FPS figure is pathetic therefore. You have lost 15fps and increased the latency by 2.5 times.
Cheers
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I just want to say, you should stress and stability test to proof out your OC is stabile. It shouldn’t be a “let’s play and see” thing. Because if it is an unstable OC, it might not surface today, but a year down the road when games/sims are pushing hardware harder.
There is no reason to go back to stock clocking if you truly have a stable 5ghz overclock.
Hi @SharpWave. I moved your post here to the #self-service:install-performance-graphics subcategory where discussions like yours take place.
You issue is certainly intriguing. I too have significantly better results with my 8700K o/c to 5.0 GHz and have experienced smoother performance since SU9. Even with the O/C, I am still limited by the main thread. I think I need to bump up my graphics settings 
Photogrametry is killing the main thread. If you are near one of those cities the performance drops even at dozens of miles away from it, as currently the buildings viewdistance is linked to terrain viewdistance setting. It also kills performance in the same way while in ground. However this is not the case in areas where there are no photogrametry cities nearby.
I got tired of that and decided to deactivate the buildings photogrametry and keep only the bing data for terrain textures for the time being as it´s impossible to use game so far with this situation, unless you reduce the terrain viewdistance to 25% which is a no go for the overall graphical quality.
Cheers
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A post was split to a new topic: Question About VFR Flight Training at Sedona
I’m on an AMD platform and thought I’d try and eek some more out of my 5900x given this sim is so monumentally CPU bottle necked.
In a nutshell, I’ve undervolted the CPU based on a good YouTube video and whereas it would boost to 4800mhz with the odd spike to 4900mhz, it will now happily sit above 5ghz, and I’ve seen it boost just shy of 5200mhz. 300-400mhz extra clock speed just by undervolting, nothing more.
As far as the game goes it’s definitely made a difference. Much smoother and is more able to maintain VSync 30 in busy areas with AIG traffic.
The sad thing is that on CPU’s of the type we’re talking about, we shouldn’t have to be overclocking to get single core speed high enough to run the sim smoothly. Even with things as they are my CPU utilisation is around the 15% mark, often below 10%. All that computing power just sat unused.
Games have to move past the days of high clock speeds on 4 cores. These high core and thread count CPUs are totally pointless otherwise.
That’s very interesting, Don’t suppose you got this YouTube video on hand at all do you? Would be very interested in taking a look, as I myself have a 5900x.
Tried a few times to use AIG traffic but just melts my frames way below 15 at some airports. Maybe its the settings I have, but not entirely sure honestly.
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I agree with that. AIG is awesome but the way the sim is currently set up it has a disproportionate effect on MainThread load.
This was the video….
I’m regularly seeing it boost to over 5.1ghz now.
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Thanks for the link, shall give it a run through.
Thats somewhat reassuring that someone else too finds fps tanking as of late. Currently play with all traffic off (high end graphics preset @1440p) and even then sometimes my frames are pretty bad. Again with the Mainthread limited issue.
Maybe I should stop looking at it like a regular game and expect 30ish region fps and just cap it there, not like I’m moving around fast ingame.
Thanks again for the video.
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What GPU do you have?
I have a MSI Gaming X Trio 3080. It is undervolted to 1950mhz @875v, haven’t played with memory so thats at stock.
Interesting. I’ve got a 2080ti and play in 4K / Ultra / 100% renderscale. My Terrain LOD is 250.
With that I cap it at 30fps and the experience on the whole is good. Where it falls down is on the ground at big airports or on approach where the Main Thread becomes overloaded (using AIG traffic)
Sadly that is something only Asobo can fix. It’s easy to think that things have always been like this but they 100% haven’t. From day 1 I was GPU limited but sometime around SU7 that flipped, and the sim cripples any and every CPU on the market. I cannot load up a 2080ti enough to balance the system, which goes some way to explaining the sometimes poor performance.
Very interesting. I did a few windows updates and a complete reinstall of GPU drivers and since then roughly im around 50-60fps. I have upped the renderscale to 150% which puts me at 4k (not native) and I get roughly 45-60fps. No more stuttering either. Will do a few flights see how it goes. Also did the tweaks from that PBO video and seems to boost to around 4.9-5ghz happily now, so maybe that has a bit to do with it also.
I think su7 was around the time Asobo added or changed the draw distance didn’t they? Possibly the cause of the heavy mainthread swap around.
What’s your TerrainLOD if you don’t mind me asking?
I’m at 100 on both Terrain and object. With High end preset. So mostly high settings with one or two things on ultra such as clouds.
Ah, that’s why your FPS is so high. Should you wish your system is definitely capable of more graphical fidelity. If you cap at 30fps (which is more than enough) you can make it look awesome.
I assume he increased the turbo from 4.9 → 5 . I have some doubts that this will bring 20% better performance
Just to clarify, the base clock is about 3.7ghz, but the 5900x is sold as boosting to 4.8ghz which it will happily do, and sit there.
Following that video and under-volting it mine is now happily boosting to over 5.1ghz and maintaining it, giving me an extra 300-400hz of clock speed.
Given how CPU constrained the sim is at the moment that is not to be sniffed at.