Hi there
I have tried various freeware Photo scenery updates ( based on google maps) and they make a big improvement to the visuals, but are hitting my FPS so looking for some advice / suggestions
thanks
douglas
No, sorry.
Google earth ripped scenery mods are not optimized at all, and will always result in terrible performance.
agreed but adjusting something must make it less terrible ! , just wondering what the something is …
I noticed the same thing. I am also running on 16GB RAM and noticed that when I fly over a town with custom Google Earth based scenery, my RAM fills up quickly. Also wondering if more RAM would help would help with stutters and general performance.
I would recommend 32GB to run MSFS but there is little you can do to stop stutters unfortunately. We have to wait until (and if) Asobo can improve the general performance. 
Asobo will never be able to improve the general performance of unoptimized google earth ripped photogrammetry mods, because they don’t make them.
Any of those add ons are just killers for performance down low.
I know its very tantalizing to want to use addons like that in VR and I wish we could, but presently they are not really worth the performance problems.
The graphics of MSFS are a curse as much as a blessing for a lot of VR users because instead of actually flying and enjoying themselves they are obsessing over graphics and endlessly tweaking the settings.
Its painful because one can see how real it could look and so its natural to want to try and get it working. But it will probably be more frustration than its worth.
I personally am just going to try and forget mods/addons like that now and just enjoy the game. Not going to avoid (photorealistic) cities but I’m not going to fly through down low (as real pilots wouldn’t anyway) over them or buy extra addons.
Besides it need not be the settings that are important, but the setting. If you want ultra immersion and realism try flying over African mountains in bad weather close to sunrise/set (reducing exposure in VR makes everything look so much better). Or try the Scotish highlands or the Penines at sunset (beautiful) and don’t obsess too much over getting the cities to look like the youtube videos. You’ll drive yourself mad!
One thing I find helps to improve performance is to turn everything as low as possible and add things one by one and see what you think. If you do this over a demanding city it can work as a great benchmark.
There are alot of settings that do not make things look better (and actually make things look worse IMO) in VR and degrade performance. High draw distances and more things going on can just mean more clutter and less clarity. I find I have better performance and clarity now having turned off so many of the other settings. I think I have terrain lod on about 100 and a rendering scale of about 110-120 with trees(mod) on ultra and the rest basically all off! I actually tested all the settings 1 by 1 and was surprised by how little of a difference many of them made in VR.
Really the most important setting is the resolution itself, but the rest not so much to be honest…
I am sure that’s not what he meant you took it the wrong way he said ‘‘general’’ 
I wasn’t referring to any addons or third party scenery, just general MSFS performance. I don’t run any scenery mods and the sim is a stuttering mess most of the time I’m flying. (And my system is no slouch) I remember when FSX was first released, performance was abysmal and that was fixed after a few patches, hopefully same here 
But yes, adding things like ripped GE scenery will definitely have a negative effect on performance even on a top end gaming beast