Description of the issue: On long haul flights, the sim turns to a complete slideshow. In-game FPS states that it’s generally in the 30s, but the actual experience does not match that. CPU and GPU utilization seem relatively low. VRAM utilization sitting at 9-10gb out of 16gb on my card. CPU and GPU temps are all normal. All other activities on my PC are brought to a standstill as well (browsers take >60s to even open, task manager takes >60s to open, etc.) I’ve experienced it how with the default A330, inibuilds A350, and PMDG 777. As soon as I close the sim, everything on the computer returns to normal. Restarting the sim brings me back to a ‘normal’ experience.
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
Every flight generally over 6-8 hours.
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:
Load in to any airport
Fly long haul flight
YOUR SETTINGS
If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.
What peripherals are you using:
PC Specs:
ASUS TUF B650-E
Ryzen 7800X3d
NVIDIA 4080 Super
64GB CL30 RAM @ 6000MHz
MSFS installed on its own M.2
All drivers currently on their latest stable releases.
I’ve had this happen a few times, and am not sure what the cause is. When they happened, I did have other apps open (Edge, Navigraph, etc) and was switching applications (ALT TAB).
But there are some settings worth trying, which are not harmful:
Settings > Display > Graphics > add a preference for MSFS to use your GPU, and not the iGPU on your CPU. (In my case, I clicked “Add Microsoft Store App” since my MSFS is from MS Store). I also turned off Xbox GameBar. Not sure if either helps, but I’ve not had it happen since.
you forgot to include your MSFS settings and NVIDIA driver settings. These settings matter, and without them it’s hard to properly assess the issue.
For the MSFS profile in NVIDIA control panel, I only change three settings: Power Management Mode to prefer maximum performance, limit Max FPS to 60 (120 or 200 FPS won’t make me a real pilot - 60 is more than enough for virtual flying and there’s no need to stress the hardware), and VSync to ON while keeping it OFF in MSFS.
System > Display > Graphics
Under “custom settings for application” click Add Microsoft Store App - scroll down and select Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Click MSFS 2024
GPU performance > select High performance (Nvidia Geforce RTX 5080)
Optimizations for windowed games - Off
You should disable hibernation, but before doing that, you need to turn off Fast Startup - Fast Startup can only be disabled while hibernation is enabled.
Fast Startup negatively affects drivers, which in turn can impact games as well.
Open the Control Panel and change the view from Category to Small Icons. Then click Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do > Change settings that are currently unavailable. Uncheck Turn on Fast Startup and save the changes. After that, select the High Performance power plan.
Turn off Hibernation via CMD.
To turn off hibernation via CMD, open Command Prompt as administrator and run:
powercfg /h off
This will disable hibernation and also remove the hiberfil.sys file from your system. Restart PC.
For the MSFS profile in NVIDIA control panel, I only change three settings: Power Management Mode to prefer maximum performance, limit Max FPS to 60 (120 or 200 FPS won’t make me a real pilot - 60 is more than enough for virtual flying and there’s no need to stress the hardware), and VSync to ON while keeping it OFF in MSFS.
Most are at their defaults for me. Currently have FPS limit off (will try setting to 60), Prefer Maximum Performance, and VSync set to Use 3D Application setting. Will try On and Off in MSFS.
System > Display > Graphics
Under “custom settings for application” click Add Microsoft Store App - scroll down and select Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.
Click MSFS 2024
GPU performance > select High performance (Nvidia Geforce RTX 5080)
Optimizations for windowed games - Off
These settings are already set this way for me and Game Bar off.
You should disable hibernation, but before doing that, you need to turn off Fast Startup - Fast Startup can only be disabled while hibernation is enabled.
Fast Startup negatively affects drivers, which in turn can impact games as well.
Open the Control Panel and change the view from Category to Small Icons. Then click Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do > Change settings that are currently unavailable. Uncheck Turn on Fast Startup and save the changes. After that, select the High Performance power plan.
Turn off Hibernation via CMD.
To turn off hibernation via CMD, open Command Prompt as administrator and run:
powercfg /h off
This will disable hibernation and also remove the hiberfil.sys file from your system. Restart PC.
I already had Fast Startup disabled and am running High Performance power plan. I don’t believe I had previously disabled Hibernation through CMD so ran that and will give it a try.
Flew another flight last night and still running into some issues. I ran HWINFO during last night’s flight and noticed “Virtual Memory Load” running >99% when my stutters began. I tried increasing the paging file size this morning to see if getting more headspace would help and it seems like the sim just keeps using up everything it has available. Is there anything that can be done to better manage the virtual memory usage?
You could give Intelligent List Standby Cleaner a try. It’s a tool that runs in the background clearing unused memory which can fill up during extended flights.
You forgot to include screenshots showing how your virtual memory / paging file is currently configured.
You also forgot to include where your Rolling Cache file is located and what limit (in GB) you have set for it in MSFS settings. That information is important as well, so please include screenshots of those settings too.
Set a fixed paging file size of 32GB for testing purposes instead of the current variable 8-16 GB and restart PC.
I’m not sure which NVIDIA driver version you have, but it seems to me that 591.74 driver is probably bugged. If you 591.74 driver installed, uninstall it via DDU in Safe Mode and make sure the NVIDIA app is also fully removed.
Before uninstalling, download the hotfix 591.67 so you can install it after 591.74 is uninstalled. Click here to download the GeForce Hotfix display driver version 591.67 for Windows 10 x64 / Windows 11 x64
Install only the NVIDIA driver and PhysX. Do not install the NVIDIA app and the NVIDIA audio driver.
After installing, launch MSFS 2024, switch DLSS to TAA, and turn off Frame Generation. If you want the MSFS FPS overlay to show, enable Developer Mode and FPS overlay, then make sure to disable Developer Mode before the flight - this is very important; the overlay will remain.
Save changes and close MSAFS.
Then, in the NVIDIA Control Panel, choose the profile for MSFS 2024 and select “Prefer Maximum Performance” along with the other two options we discussed.
I posted a thread about this a couple months ago and was told I needed 64g of RAM, with no add-ons, no community folder, no nothing just barebone stock as the same day I bought it. Sure glad I didn’t waste my $$ for more RAM.
Just tried to complete a new long haul flight after making all of these changes and still experiencing the same issue. My Virtual Memory Load was significantly lower this flight (presumably since Frame Gen was off), but I will saw the sim turn into a complete slide show.
Here’s what I was seeing at the beginning of the flight. Frames were pretty stable at 40ish FPS.
What was interesting was if the camera didn’t move, it would show 40-50 fps on the in game FPS monitor, but as soon as I moved the camera at all, it would spike all over the place. My computer was essentially locked up from doing anything after this but I tried to grab a few pictures and a video of what I was experiencing:
I’m noticing something in your HWInfo screenshots. I can’t know if it is a cause, or factor, or not, but…
Your Memory Clock is 3000 MHz (correct)
Your Infinity Fabric FCLK is 2000 MHz (correct)
… Your Memory Controller Clock UCLK is at 1500 MHz but should probably be 3000 MHz
Is your RAM on your motherboard QVL list?
Have you customized settings in BIOS? You might try:
EXPO = enabled
FCLK Frequency = 2000
UCLK DIV1 MODE = AUTO (or for example on my MSI board I set to “UCLK = MEMCLK” to make sure it is 1 to 1 mode, so controller and memory clocks are both at 3000 MHz)
Also, I suggest in your list of MSFS Graphics settings, turn all the items marked “Ultra” down 1 notch (except maybe clouds). Trees can have a big impact, it turns out, and there’s not a lot of difference between High and Ultra, at least worth trying.
I finally fixed my problem with stutter and lag over time, especially with AIG/FSHUD traffic. Finally, even in the end, I have the same performance as at the beginning.
I downloaded WinHance and followed a YouTube guide. Before that, I had already tried many settings, such as RBAr on/off, GPU scheduler, HPET off. There are some settings in WinHance that have completely eliminated the saturation and bottleneck of my weak CPU/RAM. Especially some options under Optimize/Gaming Settings. like adjust processor for best performance.
Thanks for this. Interestingly, my motherboard (ASUS B650 E WiFi) doesn’t have any CL30 RAM on the QVL list.
I do have EXPO enabled and it did correctly automatically set CL30 timings. I did update the UCLK setting from AUTO to UCLK = MEMCLK and HWInfo does show that at running at 3000 MHz now.
I’ll have to give this a try and see if anything changes. I also have an extra B650 board laying around that does have my RAM listed on its QVL so I might need to get around to swapping out mobos and see if anything improves (along with a full system wipe at that point).
I am having the exact same issue. After flying 8/9h almost near the “descent” I get the same issue!
Did you manage to fix it? If so, could you kindly let me know how did you do it?
I am desperate, I can´t complete a long flight at all
Sadly not yet. I haven’t put it through a full flight since making the most recent tweaks to the clock settings in the bios. I ran a 5 hour flight this weekend and didn’t see anything slow down so I have at least a tiny bit of optimism. Planning to try a long flight this coming weekend to test it out fully. Just too bad that it takes such a big time investment just to how impactful settings are.
Thanks a lot for replying, really appreciate it.
I’m in exactly the same situation and I’ve been testing non-stop for the last 3 days trying to isolate the cause. As soon as I have something conclusive, I’ll definitely report back here as well.
Quick question in the meantime, do you use any of the following during your long-haul flights?
BeyondATC
SimFly
APL2
Cabby
I’m trying to see if there’s any common pattern with external apps that run for many hours and might slowly accumulate issues over time.
Also, if you’re okay with it, I’ll send you a private message with my Discord so we can chat more directly and exchange findings faster, might be easier than going back and forth on long forum posts.
Thanks again, and fingers crossed we’re getting closer to the root cause.
Sadly still having issues with degrading performance on longer flights. Flew one yesterday that turned into a slide show around the 7 hour mark.
Today, flew one that around 8 hours in was running ok but then had a CTD. Event viewer says the faulting module was mimalloc.dll. I haven’t seen this one before but I’m assuming it’s RAM related.
