I have been using the fps counter that comes with the nvidia GeForce experience. As opposed to the frame counter in MSFS which looks very gaudy with all the other large counters included.
I like that the GeForce experience frame counter can be assigned to whichever corner of the monitor you wish to show it. To my eye, it’s much less conspicuous and distracting.
I’ve tested with the Nvidia FPS counter, MSFS dev mode and MSI Afterburner/RivaTuner stats all running at the same time. They’re all within a single frame of one another so yes, it’s accurate. The sim’s dev mode gives more precise info (tenths of a frame per second, lists the sim bottleneck, etc), but for general info, the Nvidia counter is just as accurate.
Thank you @LameLefty and @Crossave1957 for sharing this in the Forum! Typically I just want to keep an eye on FPS as I change settings etc. in MSFS so the unobtrusive nVIDIA FPS counter is exactly what I needed, because it doesn’t clutter the screen with all the various performance details that are displayed using the MSFS DevMode FPS counter method.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help anyone else who may want to give this a try. Of course this only works if you have nVIDIA GeForce Experience. Here are the steps:
That sets up a little 2-digit FPS counter running in the top ribbon of the display. (I have mine in the top-left corner of my main screen, which I believe is the default location for it but there are options for other screen locations.)
Then, once you’ve set that up:
To toggle the 2-digit display off and on, click:
→ Alt+R
The FPS monitor will appear in that location on various apps - not only MSFS, and you don’t have to have MSFS running for the FPS to display. For example, you can have it running in your browser. Very handy!
Heads up!! Further to what I posted above, I just found out that leaving the HUD FPS counter set up in GeForce Experience was the culprit causing the following problem:
My Taskbar would not unhide when I was running any app Full-Screen.
Good news though: There’s a way to sort of “have your cake & eat it too.” Huge thanks to the posters on Taskbar will not unhide - Microsoft Community
From the answers I applied the following remedy:
To restore Taskbar unhide functionality, I had to simply remove the programming for the HUD: Click:
→ Alt+Z
→ {Gear icon}
→ HUD Layout
→ Performance
→ Off
The change in that last click removes the little 2-digit FPS counter that was running in the top ribbon of my display
That’s a pity, because that unobtrusive FPS counter is really handy when making changes or diagnosing behavior of MSFS. So, I still use it occasionally, but temporarily only!
Whenever I really need to have the FPS counter displayed e.g. to see the effect of different settings in MSFS, I simply do the sequence above replacing the step
→ Off
with
→ FPS
Then, when I’ve finished using it, I simply do that sequence except for the last click instead of
→ FPS
I click
→ Off
That works for me. I still use the little HUD FPS counter occasionally for a temporary period; I just need to be mindful to turn off the counter setup when I’ve finished using it. Caveat emptor: YMMV!