If you are running MSFS 2020 in DX11 and have NVIDIA app installed, MSFS will CTD during loading. With the latest drivers, CTDs occur even without NVIDIA app.
If you have a 40XX or older GPU, you can roll back to driver version 566.14. However, for RTX 50XX series cards, this driver rollback is not possible.
This thread is about MSFS2024 according to tag, and there all works fine. And also for other games it works fine (I play multiple latest Games currently without any issues). So the statement that the driver is „a hot mess“ is extremely over exaggerated. This is only maybe true for for MSFS2020 in DX11 and with a very specific usecase, but not for 2020 with DX12 and not for 2024 and certainly not in general (other games and applications)
You wrote
these “other games” include MSFS 2020, which CTD on loading, as I mentioned earlier. I’ll stop here since this isn’t the main topic; I just wanted to let OP know there could be driver-related problems.
I bought the 5090FE at MSRP in the UK, I’d already sold my Gigabyte 4090 OC for £1650! so not such a cost penalty. I only fly VR and have a 9800x3d + 64GB Ram, never had a single issue with Nvidia drivers and can now hit 50 fps over London in the Cessna 174 (64 - 68 fps away from photogrammetry), with live everything on High present with 170/ 150 T/ Olod, so very happy. Oh I’m on Beta SU4
I can confirm my 5090 with current driver works fine in MSFS 2024. However, I installed a clean new fresh copy of windows, cpu chipset, and nvidia driver, control panel and app recently.
I installed the nvidia app because now it does 2 things I like:
For me, the most important thing with the 5090, which is a power hungry card, was to make sure it ran efficiently and cool. So I spent a bit of time understanding how to set a modest undervolt. This allows the card to use less power and thus less heat.
If you decide to try this, the trick is to only undervolt the operating voltage of the card, and not the idle voltage (many videos show people moving the whole curve, which you shouldn’t do). So on mine, I’ve unervolted the range 820 mV to 950 mV, and raised that range’s frequency curve by about 350 Mhz - but everyone’s card is slightly different. I’m sure many on the forum can help with the specifics if needed.
Please qoute the right portion of my comment:
And there you can see I mentioned MSFS2020 explicitly, and when not hitting this special corner case with DX11 and Nvidia control panel, also MSFS2020 runs fine.
For MSFS2024 and other games (except MSFS2020 DX11 with Nvidia control panel enabled), I can not support the statement, that there could be driver issues.
But we digress, we need to return to the topic, although it seems settled, since the OP already bought the FE.
Hello deepakvrao,
I’m thinking of getting a 5090 paired with the same CPU as you (Ryzen 7 9800x3d: this is going to be a new build moving away from my old tired 8th gen intel build with an rtx 3080), so I was wondering how did you get along? I would like to sim at a constant 60fps+ in busy airports at 4k ultra settings only. In your opinion was it worth it and have you achieved those frames in your setup? Do you think waiting for the rumoured 5080 S/TI is something to take in consideration? Thanks for your advice.
If it helps, I also built a PC this year with 9800X3D and RTX 5090, and set about finding the most efficient way to get 60 fps on my current 1 screen (to leave headroom for 2 additional screens I plan on adding…)
I have the following setup:
MSFS settings:
Ultra Preset with the following changes:
With those settings I get a steady 66 FPS in almost all circumstances with 1 display, with an occasional hiccup panning, landing, or opening EFB - but I attribute that to MSFS still not gracefully handling / scheduling bursts of objects loading / unloading from memory and processing.
It’s a bit of a mystery to me how MSFS decides to use (or not use) available RAM and VRAM. I think VRAM is the current bottleneck for most people, so definitely pay attention to that when shopping for a graphics card. That said, Asobo does need to continue to optimize for MSFS to fit within the published system requirements…
During build and testing I did find that there is great benefit to learning how to apply a modest undervolt to both the CPU and GPU, because when they boost to max frequencies, the temperatures do spike. So cooling has to be solid, and a modest undervolt helps keep temps from hitting limits and causing issues.
Shorthand of that would be:
Thank you. Extremely valuable data. Thanks for sharing:) And congrats on your new build!
Card was delivered last week but I am travelling so not got my hands on it yet. WIll be back home by 8th so will post back in detail after I install the card.
Thanks for the details.
Why set max frame rate to 33? If you dont set that what fps do you get natively?
If it turns out that even RTX 5090 struggles with MSFS 2024, you might want to take a look at the topic below - it could be worth your attention:
I get that with my 4080 in pancake. I only fly VR and have no issues with that paired with a 13-900 AND 64gb RAM. . You don’t need the latest and greatest video card.
How is over 100 FPS struggling?
Having 100 FPS doesn’t necessarily mean everything is fine - what really matters is smoothness.
How is the 5090 struggling?
My goal is to get 60 FPS on 3 4K screens, while keeping power draw and temperatures as low as possible. To my eyes 60 FPS is silky smooth, and anything higher is not very noticable. Instead, I wanted consistency, and to use any extra processing headroom to increase TLOD instead.
By setting a Max Frame Rate of 30 the GPU has more time to process each native frame, and adding Frame Generation x2 (to get to 60) does a good job. I increased it to 33 targeting 66 just for a bit of buffer, as SU4 Beta was producing less frames than specified by Max Frame settings.
I’ve learned that more important than FPS, is Frame Time consistency (time needed to generate frames, in milliseconds, shown on the FPS on screen overlay.
So instead of chasing the highest FPS, I prefer to spend the processing budget on targetting consistent 60 (or 66) FPS, and TLOD 400. I’ll know soon if this strategy works once I set up with 3 screens!
In SU3 when I first set things up with no Max Frame limit or Frame Gen, in the 787 at KJFK, KLAX, or OMDB, with Ultra settings, I think I was seeing 60 to 70 native FPS, but due to all the incomplete optimization issues in default planes, scenery, traffic, etc, FPS would drop to 30 just by panning the view, or opening EFB, etc.
Asobo has fixed a lot of that (not all, but a lot), but by using above strategy, things are more consistent, and power/heat are lower too.
Thanks. Very informative.
Just did a couple of flights on my 3 screen setup.
9800x3d, 5090FE, 64gb RAM
3 4K screens and 5 other screens which run off the iGPU.
With frame generation fsr3 2x, I was getting about 45fps on ground with the Fenix in EGLL.
Would love to know if you actually hit that 60 that you are aiming for when you set it up.
