I was using MSFS since day one, since the new VR option I hardly stopped flying it and I love it. At the beginning the performance of my G2 Reverb has been acceptable with settings in Mid-High, 100/80 and all the tweaks that you can find on the forum with 457.30. With each version and hotfix the FPS started dropping. The latest hotfix, maybe related to the offscreen pre cache, it has become a hardly 20 FPS experience with a lot of stutters. I posted a couple of questions and comments started to point that probably the problem was on my settings but I doubt it, I havent changed much on my side. I lately upgraded to the latest nvidia driver which pushed 2 extra FPS but within the airport areas it drops below 20 and my VATSIM connection drops. When I check my CPU and GPU usage nothing is maxing out, plenty of room there.
With my 2080TI, i9 3.8Gz, 128GB RAM and M2 Drive I started to think that I was on an “old” hardware, not capable of driving the desired performance so I decided to remove the dust from my Xplane. With similar settings, mostly HIGH, SkyMax Pro and a lot of addons to make Xplane nicer and a complex plane, trying the E190 and the Zibo 737… I was amazed to see 48-50 FPS with my Reverb G2 using SteamVR at 100/100. So smooth that I really started to doubt the MSFS VR implementation.
Its not a rant, it was a realization that there is nothing wrong with my hardware and I hope the Asobo team checks whats going on with the VR performance. Does anybody else experienced this difference?
1 - It’s never a good thing to compare Performance of one sim vs another, why? because they run on completely different graphical engines, with a million different moving parts, on totally different codebases that all play a part in acquiring a desired FPS. Then throw in the multitude of different settings you can adjust, there’s simply too much going on to directly compare.
2 - VR in general is not very well optimised in MSFS, it got better with SU5 in some respects but I feel there is still much more Asobo can do to help us eek out that extra performance.
3 - Each persons setup can yield different results, what matters to you is finding that right balance for your HMD with your PC Specs. By all means follow the great guides around here, take advice and try out some stuff. But ultimately only you will know exactly what your PC/HMD combo can handle with MSFS, it may well be a certain setting is killing your performance, tweaking one or two sliders ever so slightly may improve things dramatically. Remember that MSFS is still in it’s infancy, each update appears to be bringing new graphical options which may benefit some of us.
Possibly summat to do with Vulkan drivers being well-implemented over FS’s DX11. DX12 may bring an improvement to the rendering pipeline. On the other hand…p’raps not.
Hello OSalvadorO, yes, that’s exactly how I can confirm that. The constant stability of the frame rates is simply no longer available with the same settings after a certain time, and you don’t know why at all. Although nothing was changed, new add-ons or the like, the performance got worse. I’ve also seen my game settings totally changed from one session to another even though I didn’t ?! “Back then” I also bought a new PC that has the same components as yours, plus the new hp reverb g2 because it is Microsoft itself and was developed for this Sim. Already at the first start the disillusionment, unfortunately the advertising for it was again better than the reality then it was, a shame. What I can’t really understand is that with my other flight simulations that are there: X Plane 11, IL2 Sturmovik, DCS World, Aerofly FS, War Thunder I can set everything to extremely high and there are no problems with the optics in VR or the performance!? So somehow you always have to make compromises with a Microsoft flight simulator and constantly tinker around as a user … that has always been the case and unfortunately has not changed. Although I have to mention that this simulator is an extraordinary product with a fantastic look and in constant further development … I do not give up hope that the development teams will get everything under control.
Happy Landings
First of all - don’t you see difference in visuals on flat screen between Xplane and MSFS both maxed out in settings? MSFS is way more advanced on visuals (light, scenery, clouds etc. etc.) So that’s why you have difference. It is not only resolution (100/100, 100/80) etc. More advanced graphic engine requires more power.
Complexity of aircraft (in matter of simulation of systems) doesn’t matter here much - it is just CPU based.
So simply - MSFS (newer) requires more resources than Xplane (older).
In other words - more demanding MSFS = less fps, less demanding Xplane = more fps.
Also - I didn’t experienced any FPS degradation since early this year, each update gets better (some visual issues appear and go away with updates etc).
If you experience your GPU not being maxed out while in VR, then something is wrong with your setup. Update your drivers/bios, do cleanup on PC, check if some mods don’t make issues. It have to be something there. Maybe your RAM have issues? (please tell me that you need that 128GB for work, didn’t get it for gaming ) Check for thermals, maybe CPU or GPU are overheating and throttling down?
Why I’m so sure that it something is wrong?
Even though still there is plenty for ASOBO to fix and optimize, MSFS uses 99-100% of my 3090 while in VR (all settings on max) - producing 30-45 FPS depends on plane without stutters. I have very good cooling in my case (3 x140mm Noctua, Fractal Design case, Noctua NH15D).
I am comparing two sims with similar settings. Is not a matter of textures as I have plenty of VRAM left, its a matter of coding unfortunately. I used to have good stable 35 FPS in MSFS, nothing has changed on my side, just different versions of MSFS and its getting worse. It went from 35 FPS no sttuters to a mere 17-20 stutter fest. Its a shared observation to understand if other people experiences the same, MSFS has less computational need than xplane as I can see with Lasso tools but uses much more VRAM for textures, hence my question.
Well, that’s my point. Nothing has changed on my side but all the comments end up saying that is a problem with the configuration. That’s why I am comparing with xplane. I can see xplane uses more computation time in my CPU and GPU than MSFS and I have plenty of RAM and VRAM with water cooling. At the end of the day I used to have 35 FPS and now I hardly run 20 with stutters, it makes me scratching my head. I am glad that other users are not experiencing this as gives me some room for further research.
Something must have changed. Maybe your bios lost fan curves, maybe your drive is getting wrong, maybe some other software you installed, maybe some windows updates were installed or weren’t installed when they should. Maybe your network/internet connection is worse. Or maybe some mod for MSFS became incompatible with new version. MSFS can be not optimized, but that means that it will use all resources and don’t give you a lot frames, behavior of underutilization of resources is not normal. Especially when it is known that MSFS can use all. All my 3090. So MSFS is good in matter of how much resources it grabs.
Fact that Xplane uses more doesn’t mean anything - is it constantly using 99-100% GPU? if not then it might not generate a lot of heat on GPU, while MSFS ramps up usage, heats up and then throttles down? Try running benchmarks like furmark or 3dMark (both have free version) and see what temps you have and if GPU and CPU maintain 100% usage during their parts of benchmarks.
Try HAGS off - having this on became a major issue for me and my 2080ti a while back. Also latest drivers should be good with HAGS off too. Just be sure to reboot to confirm fully off.
MSFS VR runs tons better with addons than XP11 ever has.
Even after Vulcan update there are addons for XP11 that just weren’t meant nor optimized for VR.
Sint Marteen/St Barts for example. Absolutely horrible performance in XP11 VR.
The Vulcan update was greatly overhyped and what I would consider barely a performance boost for XP11 VR.
Meanwhile my hardware is chewing through and handling MSFS VR with tons of airport and scenery addons loaded with tons of 3d objects with mostly ultra/high settings.
The fact that we can get smooth VR performance in an area like South Florida where KMIA and KFLL airport addons are installed simultaneously is a performance breakthrough in VR Flight Simming.
As all previous sims P3D/FSX/XP11 would absolutely crawl in VR trying to process, load and render both 3d object loaded full ai traffic addon airports in such close proximity.
Comparing different games is pointless but the performance in VR is indeed terrible and has nothing to do with system or software settings. It took them up to SU 6 to figure out 2D performance, now it will probably take twice as long for them to fix VR performance.
Would love to know your other settings if you can get 30-45fps all msfs settings maxed. 100/100? Surely not. I have a 3090 and a 5950x and i get around 18-28.
Depends on plane (I don’t like glass cockpits f.ex.) I fly mostly DC-6, Pipper Arrow. And I’m not saying about boring flying over New York I’m sure that since months I didn’t saw as low as 18 fps. It don’t go lower than 30 fps for me and no stutters. I’d have to check later, but I’m quite sure that I have 100/100 or 85(msfs)/120(openxr) (what results with still full res, but some upscaling on WMR side). Remember that CPU/GPU is not only thing matters - as I mentioned earlier - thermals, network connection, fast drive and so on matters.
I will check and do some benchmark, probably not today, but I will try to remember and post results.
) Check for thermals, maybe CPU or GPU are overheating and throttling down?
