Just a quick question for those who own both the PMDG 737 and Fenix 320.
How does the frame rate performance compare to one another? Does one hit frames more than the other? Or are they about the same?
BAe 146, PMDG 737 and Fenix A320 (all very performance heavy in VR also) paired with dense urban area high traffic multi airport proximities and sceneries such as
LFPG
KMIA
LFMN
KFLL
CYYZ
KDCA
All NYC area major airports.
Expect a performance hit depending on your hardware and the airport/scenery pairing until you climb out at a high enough altitude where the system FPS can smooth out offload the tons of ground airport/ surrounding scenery objects.
Thanks for the response. I already own PMDG 737 and can state that it is performance heavy. But how does the Fenix A320 compare to it? Am I looking at further frame rate drops, or is it about the same as I would get with the 737?
The PMDG 737 should not be performance heavy depending on your setup. I’d suggest following this thread [RELEASED] Fenix High-Fidelity A320 Discussion - #1306 by gordongreig
Base on what I have seen the Fenix is heavier on performance.
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I would rank in this order of highest performance tax FROM MY EXPERIENCE
PMDG 737 (I’m using this mod though PMDG 737 700 4K & HD Wear and Tear Textures | JOIN DISCORD FOR ALL UPDATES AND VARIANTS | for Microsoft Flight Simulator | MSFS )
FENIX A320
BAe 146
Maddog MD80( I’m using this mod though RELEASED! MD-80 Hi-res VC project)
I don’t know about Fenix because I haven’t bought the product yet but PMDG is insane for me. I get around 55 FPS average. This is so awesome.
RTX 3080
i7-10700K (not overclocked)
32 GB RAM 2666MHz
512 GB SSD only for MSFS
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Fenix is definitely heavier on the system than PMDG. But that’s largely because the 737 is very well optimized (possibly using dark magic). The Fenix has about the same general load as comparable-level aircraft (like the Concorde, the Bae 146, etc.)
The PMDG has been running well for a lot of people while the Fenix is the complete opposite. However, for the Fenix it allows you to use their software to utilize the GPU to render the cockpit displays instead of the CPU (since MSFS is already pretty CPU-bound). Not sure if it makes a noticeable difference, that’s why i am not buying it yet. The PMDG ran pretty poorly for me because my CPU is several years old.
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I think it only makes a big difference if you have one of the CPUs that have onboard graphics processors. The Fenix software can offload the display rendering to the integrated GPU. I don’t have one of those chips (I have a laptop with an i7-8750H and a GeForce GTX 1080), and the switch to GPU reduced my frame rate by 4-5 fps - so that’s a no-go for me.
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I’m an exclusive VR user, so prolly not useful to your question. But both the PMDG and the fenix (default settings) are surprisingly good in VR (I think they run better than most GA planes). I have a 3080 Ti and a G2, with a i9-9900k CPU.
I have read on the forums that many pancake users have FPS issues with the Fenix. Not for me in VR, runs just as good as the PMDG!
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Pancake users. 
VR rules.
Once you go VR there is no way back.
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I actually went back. VR is cool but impractical for IFR flying compared to TrackIR. Being able to have physical checklists and a separate laptop/Ipad for charts etc. makes everything so much easier.
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Have you tried Navigraph in-game panel? With it, you can pull up all the charts in-game with your VR goggles on!
Same for me, I get really nice performance in the PMDG as well the CRJs, better than some default aircraft and much better performance than the A320NX. Sadly, I read a lot about the performance with the Fenix A320 being worse than the A320NX, So, for me, the Fenix A320 is a no go at the moment. I was actually hyped about the Fenix and said to myself, finally a nicer performing A320 than the A320NX, but sadly that don’t seem to be the case. I would have thought that being coded in WSAM would have raised the level of performance, perhaps WSAM isn’t the case, but then again this was just a thought, especially given how overboard the Fenix developers went with simulation depth. Questionable if all the current calculations are in fact needed in order to deliver a solid experience with it in MSFS. Good for sales I suppose.
Perhaps soon it will be time to build an i9 DDR5 system, but I cannot justify it at the moment, especially not for reasons being so that I could fly an older A320 in MSFS.
EVGA 1070 Ti FTW2
Intel i7 4790K @ 5GHz
32GB RAM
SSDs
Now waiting on the Aerosoft A330 
It isn’t WASM because it runs in its own exe. Which most likely is written in C++ which is faster than WASM.
The problems must have other causes. You basically run 2 applications instead of one and there is a degree of communication necessary that we don’t understand yet. Either it taxes your cores and memory too much, or there are bottlenecks due to the architecture. And maybe there are other problems too.
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OMG VR has wreaked it for me my brother… Or… Sister…
I made the vital mistake at a airshow in Masterton in New Zealand… there was a simulator tent where people were letting people fly MSFS and various other games… I tried the VR and WOW… absolutely WOW… I still have vivid dreams that one day I would get a VR set for home and kiss goodbye to the world!!! That was a year ago now!!!
Not totally sure why for me, however, the PMDG runs terrible for me. I am a VR user, with not an awful system by any means I don’t think.
RTX 2080 Super
Ryzen 9 3900x
32 GB RAM
3200MHz
512gb SSD for only MSFS
I’m questioning if it’s my community folder, which is while crazy huge, I wouldn’t expect to fully dump on the performance. I’d really appreciate not having to clear it out (again…) however it seems like I might just have to. I play on low settings in VR because that’s the only thing that is playable for the most part for me.
Anyone know how well this would run on a 4 core i7? I’ve heard issues on 4 core CPUs and Fenix isn’t allowing refunds and I don’t want to buy it just for it to run at 20fps.
I’m wondering as well.
In addition…is anyone using their integrated GPU to run the displays? I’ve seen some discussion about CPU vs GPU but it wasn’t clear if it was their main GPU vs an integrated one.