I have also noticed fewer frames as of late. Here is my thoughts and experience.
I was an alpha and beta tester for MSFS2020 and I can tell you my computer was handling it just fine and I was getting good performance with setting on high few clouds.
Specs.
I5 8600k
Geforce 2070 super
32gb ddr4
Flight sim on its own 1tb Samsung evo ssd
Windows 10 pro
I have always updated windows, graphics driver and game to latest version!
Since launch of MSFS 2020 i noticed things looked alittle different but performance wasn’t that bad… as updates started to arrive I have to say the simulator has gotten worse and worse for me. Ever since the Japan update I noticed the clouds looks terrible! The water has some strange pattern in it during direct sunlight, the ground textures have become grainy and lower resolution, mountain look soft and LOD radius has decreased, the shallow water textures “masks” that have been advertised in the world tour videos have all disappeared or were never included, and whats worse is i see way more stuttering, micro freezing and freezing when rapidly changing weather from daytime to night or back to day…Sometimes even 30 secs freezes, and frame drop! Not to mention the plane issues and autopilot (like the ap disengaging on its own mid flight and just going into rolls lol)
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the sim and appreciate the work thats gone into it, but common its gotten so bad I actually upgraded to an intel i9 9900k last week to see if it would make a difference and it made no difference (again all same setting on high few clouds)
I also noticed a circle that keeps appearing on the right bottom of my screen from time to time like its loading information (guessing thats terrain data)… and when I check the servers im usually connected to the east USA server but even that connection has gotten worse. It use to be around 36 and now I find it around 45 and I see when I make quick movements in sim or change the weather the number spikes very high! I live in Toronto and my internet connection i believe is Roger’s ignite 400mb download and 20 upload so more then enough to handle the sim as per recommended specs. Im sure the sever connection has something to do with the decreased performance as well but to me the sim needs some major quality control when releasing these updates and patches… just my opinion.
Also I would like to note that my current setup and again running setting on high and few clouds
Cpu usage 25% at 4.68ghz
Memory 58% at 18.6gb used
GPU 10% usage
Internet connection 56kbps with huge spikes from time to time (not sure how to read the data)
So I believe with my specs I could push the sim to ultra due to my hardware usage, but with the performance im getting now I have to stick with high, sometimes medium, and im still getting the stutters and frame issues.
Happy flying