A great explanation is at this link and explains that unless you are recording for later playback, you don’t really need more than 30fps for game movement.
Frames locked at 30fps is more than adequate and allows the gamer to enjoy high fidelity gaming.
….and the satisfaction of problem solving a graphical or performance problem is also very addictive. I remember having to add bit maps manually to airport scenery in FS9 with a tool I found on the internet - I had shimmering airport scenery for years until I discovered this trick on the web. The results were night and day. Christal clear airport objects- it was a feeling of elation discovering this fix after years of suffering shoddy graphics!
Interesting, because I leave it at 30 and what I put on youtube looks smooth as silk. Good info tho! I will keep that in mind
Interesting link - and I disagree (though certainly not an expert, but do still work in the video streaming industry so have some experience with frame rates and such), there can be a substantial difference between the smoothness of what you perceive, especially going to higher frame rates. The soap opera effect is observed as you have a smoothing that happens as the source material is usually at either 24 fps (or in the US it’s commonly 23.976 / 29.976** ) and the TV display then have “adapt” the input into something that plays at that frame rate.
To get the most accurate result when streaming a movie / video - is to have your device play the content at the source frame rate - that gives you are result that’s close to what the creative artists planned for.
Now when it comes to monitors you also have to factor in the display update latency, which can greatly affect how smooth an experience feels like when using a computer - as an example I have a TV next to me that has an update latency of almost 40ms (2015 era early 4K TV), which if you go with usual frame rates means that any frame above ~24fps just creates a blur really – same time I have another TV where the frames usually update within about ~0.2-2ms - and that just by virtue of updating much quicker creates a MUCH smoother experience, especially when using higher frame rates - below 24… it doesn’t matter)
a) My understanding is that early frame rates came from the speed that an operator could rotate the crank for a movie, but also due cost considerations (to save film) and also while providing a good enough experience - but not a film historian
b) Interesting historical artifact behind the uneven framerate numbers you see in the US is that back when color TV was introduced there was an observed moirre effect - by changing the frequency of a crystal from 1000Hz to 1001Hz they were close enough in specs to avoid the moire effect, but where things still worked in a backwards compatible way with black&white TV infrastructure. This has created the uneven frame rates (in the US) where it really comes from 24000 (ms/hz) and when you divide that by 1001 you end up with the uneven numbers (24000/1001 = 23.976023976023976, and 29.97002997002997) – which really means that what is a ‘second’ in duration most of the world, kinda have to be dragged out to be 1.001s in the US
c) While digressing - Three-two pull down - Wikipedia describes the conversion process between 24fps → 30fps
And we are in the second year of a “ten years project”. Will the sim be finished in 2030? When finished, will this sim be abandoned to the new project called “MSFS30”?
between the original Il2 Shturmovik and FSX I had several of these kinds of breakthrough moments.
Finding a balance between enjoying what you have and looking for ways to squeeze out a few more FPS is tough. But finding a really good trick and figuring out how to set it up on your home rig is certainly rewarding
The sim runs well for me. I’m not an fps counter. I don’t know what I’m getting. As long as it’s running smoothly, and my ASUZ laptop isn’t catching fire…I’m happy. Live weather out again? Oh well. I turn on a preset, and take off. Have fun, guys. There are other things, in life, more important to get aggravated over.
I’ll be 80 years old then. If I make it that far, I may possibly not be too interested!
As others have said it’s easy to get sucked into watching the fps counter and wondering why it’s dropped 1 fps rather than letting your eyes tell you what feels good. Spending all your time counter watching is what is causing the disappointment. Turn it off.
I’ve locked my frame rate to 50% (42fps) and then I leave it. Each new update I see briefly if I can increase anything but still go by what feels good rather than the actual number I hit. Occasionally it might dip to 30 but if I can’t perceive that then I don’t care.
Spend more time flying and enjoying the sim rather than worrying that you’ve lost a couple of fps temporarily.
To be clear, I believe the original poster, as well as myself, are not worrying or frustrated with framerates per se.
If you look at our posts, free of pre-conceived judgments, you will see it clearly said, that working to maximize both hardware and software so that we can do our part to enjoy the best experience and performance possible from our Flight Simulator, is simply part of the hobby itself. Speaking for myself.
It is certainly both possible and plausible to engage in study, increasing our own knowledge base of hardware and software environments, implementing knowledge and theory gleaned from our research, and finding some joy when something actually works with our own rigs.
What you should see here, is not at all to be confused with people who live in a state of frustration, wallowing in disappointment constantly, pointing blaming fingers at Micosoft, Asobo, developers, etc. even Nvidia whenever there is a setback. These users are well represented in these forums. But if you will truly listen to the posts in this particular thread, that is not what this thread is doing. At least, not the OP, and certainly not me. I have enjoyed this hobby for some 35 years now. I say again, enjoyed. Though I have now spent about 20 minutes explaining my experience, so as not to be misunderstood, I will be just fine knowing that it doesn’t matter one way or another if some don’t understand.
For me, the endless goose chase is simply waiting for them to fix the sim, excitedly downloading updates, and then being even more disappointed. I wish the sim worked well enough that FPS was my concern, but it’s not. It’s just amazing to me that we’re almost a year and a half in and it’s now to the point where every single core feature of the sim is broken in some way… The Flight Simulator series has never been perfect and has always had some major issues around release, but the big problems usually get addressed within a reasonable amount of time. No entry in the series has ever been anywhere near this broken, nor has it been released with fewer features than all the versions before it (not counting one of the spinoffs). They took the FSX code, stripped half the features, and just slapped on improved graphics and scenery…
I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. I can’t think of a single major feature that isn’t bugged in some way or just completely broken… The weather, AI, physics, SDK, ATC, camera, avionics, atmosphere, aircraft systems, bush trips, multiplayer… All of it is either plagued with major bugs or is incomplete, and it’s only getting much worse over time, not better…
Don’t bet on it. I’ll be 93 this year and still interested. In fact, more than I was in any previous version. Hoped for, but never expected this level of personal computing in my life-time. Enjoy it, give it time. You WILL be surprised. 
My very best wishes to you. My dear old Ma has just turned 93. And she has no interest in flight games now.
Mind you, she never did! 
I never have trouble with performance on my computer, i7 8700K, 1080ti, 16GB RAM.
Everything is set at high and some settings are even ultra. I haven’t touched the settings for months.
And fiddling around with config files or other things under the hood has never occurred to me.
When I do get some stutters or a bit less performance then I think, yes, my machine is getting old. BTW, I never looked at an FPS counter in MSFS.
I must say that I almost exclusively fly simple GA planes with the Kodiak as my ultimate “systems heavy” one.
That´s the way to enjoy flying (or gaming): Just enjoy flying and gaming instead of having five FPS counters and GPU meters all over the screen installed, and immediately starting to yell everywhere “baaaaaad optimized! Game is absolut sh.t and completely UNPLAYABLE!!!” as soon as the FPS counter shows 40 FPS or so instead of 55 over New York, a slight more usage of calculation and rendering power which the human eye would not have even noticed without an FPS counter. 
So 16GB RAM seems to be okay I guess, I was afraid selling the g.Skill 32GB kit would give some problems at ultra settings when my favorite graphics card is hitting that special price tag I am waiting for.
Unless you plan on cranking LODs to 9 in the usercfg.opt file, you’re fine (for now) with 16 GB. Prior to SU5 however, the sim could regularly take up 20+ GB on its own. Since SU5, it typically takes less than 10 so it can fit in the memory footprint of an Xbox.
But as they bring back the higher end graphics that were removed with SU5 (the “Beyond Ultra” initiative they’ve talked about in Q&As), that memory requirement for PC will increase if you intend to use higher LODs. Then 16 GB won’t cut it any more.
I really hope they do this, before SU5 every flight was just wow factor, not anymore since that update.
It’s pretty much back now if you crank everything to ultra and max out the LODs. But the performance hit we used to have pre-SU5 comes back with those high settings as well unless you have top tier hardware to run it on. At least now the horrid pre-SU5 stutters are mostly gone.
Don’t forget that maxing out LODs now means much finer terrain resolution farther away and rendering of many more objects than it did pre-SU5.
So it it’s undeniable, or it should be, that the sim was greatly optimized in SU5 and that the, in my opinion unintentional, visual degradation that came with it has largely been eliminated in the following updates.
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