Your Computer Isn’t Fast Enough

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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Since this keeps coming up in other threads I figure it is time to have its own thread.

Folks, you may want to sit down before I tell you this.

Are you sitting down?

Good.

Now brace yourself.

Your computer is not fast enough to run MSFS smoothly in all corners of the world with all settings maxed.

Most of the folks here who complain about the performance of MSFS do not have the correct settings to get the most out of their computer. And some of these folks will blame anything BUT the fact that they are trying to run with their settings maxed out far beyond what their own multi thousand dollar PC can do stutter free.

To configure your system for smooth flight at all times, you will need to adjust your settings in a location where your computer struggles to keep up with the sim like on the ground at a busy, hand crafted airport in a photogrammetry city.

Your CPU is a bottleneck in these places unless you have already configured for smooth flight. When your CPU is the bottleneck, the whole sim stutters while the PC tries to keep up. A GPU bottleneck will just reduce FPS but the sim will continue to run smoothly. So we want to avoid CPU bottlenecks. GPU bottlenecks are fine.

Your Terrain LOD and settings for aircraft traffic on the ground are the biggest CPU hogs in these places and if they are maxed out, you WILL get stutters.

And of COURSE you get great performance in the most desolate areas. Your computer doesn’t have to do as much while flying over an unpopulated desert or ocean.

A LOT of folks blame the sim for their own stubborn refusal to configure the sim to run smooth when the CPU is taxed the most. And it should come as no surprise that taxiing your plane around the busiest airports in heavily populated areas with photogrammetry works your computer MUCH harder than flying miles above the most desolate areas.

Much like every MSFS before it, this sim can run any modern PC into the ground if it is not configured correctly.

So, that’s the hard truth. You don’t have to remain seated, but you should make sure you aren’t feeling dizzy or light headed before you stand back up.

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I concur with the above. I run a 12900k with a 3090 and I still encounter stutters while coming in to land or on the ground. It’s debateable whether this is performance related or just un-optimised coding at this point…

Just crossing my fingers things improve slightly with DX12 but I also know it’s no silver bullet…

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There is also a thread about the beta version of Windows with some promising results. It may help with CPU management.

For now, that main thread gets taxed, and there is nothing we can do about it but configure around it. I am willing to give Asobo the benefit of the doubt here because real time rendering of games tends to tax a main thread, whereas pre-rendering something could make far more efficient use of all cores because tasks don’t need to be done together in a linear fashion if they are pre-rendered. But they have to be done in a linear way when it is done live, because time itself is always proceeding in a linear fashion. We need our sims to play in the same way time proceeds.

This is how it has been since day one. In fact, it is far better than it was. But that main thread is still a bottleneck.

DX12, a Windows update, and/or further optimization will certainly help, and may allow for a LOD of 400 at some point with current hardware.

But since day one, there have been some stubborn folks who refuse to configure the sim for their CPU and insist the issue is with Asobo… not from them trying to squeeze twice what is considered Ultra from their CPU.

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I run an i9-9900K with a GTX 1660 TI without any stutters.

4K , Ultra (FS2020 default for Ultra) and smooth.
CPU at around 20%
GPU at around 99%
FPS = 20

KJFK, KLGA, KEWR Airports

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You configured your settings to get stutter free performance. No?

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I went to Graphics and set:
3840x2160 Windowed
Ultra
Scaling 100
HDR10 , DX11

Traffic and set:
Show Nameplates

Data
Top 4 = On

Rolling Cache = 16GB (I have 64 GB Ram)

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It is amazing what you can squeeze out of a mid range rig, especially if you are willing to configure for 20 FPS.

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It is amazing that it will fly smooth at 10 FPS.
I have seen it.

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Same. 10 FPS used to be the target frame rate for sims! Those were the days.

These days I need it in the high teens at least, or I feel like I am watching a slide show. But I don’t mind 20 FPS at all on my potato laptop. At least it flys. And it looks amazing.

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I run with everything set to max and never get below 25 fps anywhere I fly. I run 3 screens with two at 1920x1080 and one at 2735x1675. I really do not need 4K on any of the 32" screens. I run LNM on one and pull two displays out of the main screen to leave it for viewing on all sides. I do not fly jets but I do fly low. I am main not thread limited, my 4 most used threads all run 50-70% and the other 12 tick along doing something or other.

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That’s how you do it! I never knew your setup. I am impressed.

But again, you are not running at max settings, you have optimized for your needs, so you should expect smooth performance.

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I do have great performance for my needs. My new CPU is i9-11900kf and I believe Intel put a algorithm in 11th gen to boost other threads to help when the main thread is stressed. You may prove me wrong but something is right for me. To be honest I have set everything I can to max to see if it gets stressed except 4k and it doesn’t.

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are you saying your 12900 is the bottleneck?

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Do you fly on a TV with motion interpolation?
I can’t believe anyone would consider 10 fps smooth, but with interpolation it could look more like 30 at least.

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At maximum TLOD, I have to imagine it would stutter. It is a fast chip, but not an incomprehensibly fast chip.

The XBOX Series X also stutters a bit near airports. So even it isn’t properly optimized right now. The Series S is properly optimized so it runs stutter free.

It is SO easy to know it is the CPU, because the sim only stutters when the CPU is the bottleneck.

That said, it may be worth it for some folks to keep the stutter so they can enjoy the highest fidelity graphics the rest of the time. Just… that’s on them when it stutters.

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Thanks, I have spent some time working things the way I want them. Not everyone wants the same but my results suit me.

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It amazes me that people want LOD at 400 then complain of stuttering on approach

I use 180 terrain LOD and 100 object LOD and to be honest I don’t see a lot of difference

Ok I fly tubeliners , IFR but I don’t get stutters even approaching large airports, I get the occasional stutter taxiing but it is what it is

So turn down the LOD, if you get a lot of stutters

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Optimise while parked at large scenic airports and the sim will be smoother everywhere.
Not eveyone will be happy where their LOD slider ends up at though (…but I just spent $$$$ on a 30XX!!), and there lies this issue expectations v reality of people’s systems. I prefer doing one optimisation in a scenery dense env. that works everywhere else in the sim so I can forget about ever looking at FPS again.

I think that the methodology that currently prevails is-

  1. buy a new PC (or indeed just a new GPU)
  2. move all graphics options sliders to the max to see how good new system looks (or choose a default global ‘ultra’ preset in sim)
  3. it looks visually great with 40->60fps above the clouds but gets stutters especially during takeoff/landing
  4. try loads of optimisation tweaks from internet blogs that may or may not hold relevance any longer
  5. come on here and complain about devs not having optimised sim

Whilst there is an element of truth in that last point it doesn’t absolve people from doing #2 without understanding what these sliders all do or how they impact the system. Most people don’t realise that some level of research & learning in this process is required.

Add in to the mix a few mismatched systems eg throwing a high end GPU at what was a high end CPU a few years ago, and you have a lot of scope for unbalanced PC systems. Especially when those higher end GPU’s need more optimal loading for example if they are being insufficiently loaded/used at say 1440p instead of 4K. Also incorrectly targetting max FPS instead of overall sim smoothness to me appears to be one of the biggest mistakes everyone is making with the sim (my FPS is set to 30FPS/60Hz for example), but it can vary depending on your needs eg head tracking etc where others have said they need/prefer max FPS, but the tradeoff there will most likely be FPS dips during takeoffs and landings at scenery dense airports. Again expectations versus reality midset comes into play with 30FPS “but I just bought a RTX30XX, I should be getting better than 30 FPS!”, sometimes the hurdles are mindset ones to overcome too.

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Yup. Something’s got to give. And folks with expensive machines are oft the last to admit it to themselves. :joy:

I have to run at a TLOD of 50! Do I notice? NO. I hardly ever think about it. I completely forget. And that is a LOW setting. But my sim runs smooth, and I am blown away by photorealistic visuals as often as anyone else who flys on a faster rig with better graphics. Instead of modeled trees off in the distance, you see the trees as they were captured by satellite imagery off in the distance. It looks different, but it still looks great. The colors may be more varied and accurate because the MSFS generated trees can be quite same-y.

I will bump TLOD to 70 or 100 once in a while when I am out in the open, but I rarely do because it matters so little when all is said and done.

I mean, how many polygonal trees does my CPU need to keep track of at all times, 10,000, or 10,000,000? You are only ever looking at the ones you might hit. Well, not exactly true, but you are only really looking at trees when you are near enough to the ground that even the lowest TLOD settings would render THOSE trees.

And it is NOT like the trees are the show stealing graphical advancement that makes MSFS stand out as a shining achievement. In fact, when someone posts a real vs sim comparison photo, I always look for trees to spot the MSFS pic. They really aren’t that great. The sim looks better with trees than without, but you don’t need a TLOD of 400, all it gives you is more, barely passable trees off in the distance… so you aren’t missing much.

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Agree. Higher TLOD’s I think looks good at higher FL’s at night where you can see illumminated cities approach from afar which can be nice, but at TLOD of 250 I’m good to go. I think I had TLOD set at 100 on my GPU limited laptop, render scale at 70% (of 1080) & most sliders on low/med and the sim still looked great.

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