Poor performance on the ground

Definitely seems like your issue is very different. The 3D photogrammetry cities issue is very specific. You have to be main thread limited on the ground with photogrammetry on bringing your FPS to about half of what it would be if you had photogrammetry off.

The other identified issue is the one that started this thread. Your FPS goes to single digits on the ground with photogrammetry on and seems like the only fix for that one so far is to do a full reinstall of windows unfortunately.

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Great findings!
I tested before only in the US. With all PG areas enabled, i have in the US on the ground near PG areas -50% FPS on my system. The performence i so bad, that the sound begins to stutter during the loading screen.

So now i tested other regions.
With all PG enabled i had no performance degredation in: ESSB Stockholm, EFHF Helsinki, LSZH Zurich, EGLC London, YSSY Sydney

But EKCH Copenhagen gave me again -50% FPS with PG on. I had one CTD there, when i enabled PG.

@Hester40MT i hope the devs will find something with this

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Yes, that seems to be the issue on PG (sometimes), reinstall os. The thing is there are so many reasons an issue will/can happen with this newish tech, complexity and size. And re-installing Win fresh seems to resolve but I’m sure you know as well as I there’s likely other ways to fix it (Win) without re-install. I may do that on one of my test benches soley to satisfy my curiosity, but it’s a hobby flying and I’ve been down those rabbit holes before ; ) Works good for me the way I’m currently using msfs … which will change as it always does.

My main intention was to bring some more thought on this and specifically the nvcp adjustment that resolved my issue. Likely could fix others issues with this too as I doubt that’s the only conflict the driver/app can have… but not everyone’s due to… not all the same exactly.

Doin great f14billy, keep getting and disseminating info, helps many.

Edit: Just did a flight KJWY to KAFW no issues and good flight with max and live weather (no traffic) to check storm out. Noticed small MSFS patch/update since yesterday too on loading.

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Unfortunately I cant replicate this at EKCH :S which makes this particular bug even stranger!

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Just retested:
EKCH is a strange one.
I get the bug 100% on gates A-34 and A-30 (Closest to the city)
On gate B-3 i get the bug half, that means i have 30FPS instead of 20FPS when the bug is otherwise present.
On gate G 15 and Ramp-57 i could not see a difference (but V-Sync was on, so 38FPS was max FPS)

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Interesting… More than FPS changes look for main thread time in ms changes. Since other factors can affect the fps depending on what is being rendered and how much gpu is being used. Regardless it is possible that the bug is more obvious in certain areas. I mostly test in JFK because it’s guaranteed to show.

Here we go:
For Reference Gate A-34 PG off:


(red number comes from sreen shot)

Gate A-34 PG on:

Gate B-3 PG on:


(1/2 Bug)

Gate G 15 PG on:


(all fine)

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Yes, MainThread is what is driving the FPS in the “low fps” situations that most people in this thread are experiencing.

Since I needed a re-install of Windows anyway, I went ahead and wiped the OS drive, installed Windows 11, and installed FS2020. I haven’t installed anything from the marketplace yet.

First quick observations:

The delta between PG on and off is much, much smaller now, and was almost imperceptible in an area without PG. In an area with PG, the FPS delta was still there (caused by mainthread), but it was probably half the impact it was before. (testing on both sides were with no community addons and everything from the marketplace deleted.

I’ll mess around more in the coming days.

Still seeing MainThread chew up performance and limit FPS though, even in non-PG areas with PG on.

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New and interesting discovery: The “chug” with PG on is semi-related to off-screen “terrain caching”, an anomaly that is also present on Nvidia GPU’s, but not to quite the intense degree that I experience on my RX 6900 XT.

When I pan around in circles, both directions, with terrain caching set to Ultra, in any plane, at any airport, PG on or off, the pan is smooth as butter right up until a point, then it hangs, then picks back up and is smooth again. If I average the direction that it hangs when panning both directions, the middle of the “hang” is around 030 on the compass. I checked multiple places across the U.S. and Halifax, same result.

I’ll have to make my own thread about that issue though. In regards to this thread, while the chug is less pronounced, it is still there with PG enabled, regardless of whether I am in a PG area or not.

Also, the “chug” is less intense with Terrain Pre-Caching set to low, but that’s because the average framerate is lower, so the dip down to the ‘chug’ is a smaller distance.

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I have already raised that particular one :slight_smile:

Whats even stranger is that if you change the time of day the point at which it stutters changes!

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Thick clouds or a certain cloud type in live weather can do this. Reflections ultra did the same but that seems to have been fixed by the SU7 hotfix.

This has nothing to do with weather, all tests were carried out using the clear skies preset.

Then I’m at loss why it changes with the time … maybe a certain star or the moon. And maybe not in this case but thick cloud can also be a problem

It seems to be tracking the sun position, its deffo a strange one but very easy to replicate

Do you use HDR? or any GeForce filters?

HDR is on but the stutter happens whether it is enabled or not. Im conscious that we are polluting this thread. I have raised an issue for this particular “bug” so will post any further answers on that thread.

Does it still happen if the sun is blocked out by clouds?

Ah interesting! I was using the exact same weather and time of day in my tests, which explains why the azimuth of the stutter was roughly the same no matter where I spawned the aircraft. Good catch! I’ll chime in over there, too.

Also, @DensestSnail693, please stop clogging up the thread with troubleshooting steps that aren’t relevant to this thread. Ask these in over in @BlackBag2300’s thread if you’re going to ask at all (don’t ask at all, we got this).

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some more data for the PG issue.

This is also affected by the camera altitude, as you can see in the below screenshots there is a cross over point where this bug is no longer affecting the frame time. this was at Phoenix again with all cities installed.


As the camera is raised the increase in frametime goes away.

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Yes the performance hit happens at or near the ground. Once above a certain altitude the issue goes away.

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