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PSA for those playing Microsoft Flight Simulator on mid-range graphics cards

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
Now that the NDA on Microsoft Flight Simulator is gone, here's something people playing on mid-range graphics cards (I'd say GTX 1660 ti and lower, but you probably better check even if you have better) may want to keep an eye on.

The menus of the game feature a fully-rendered and animated scene behind the options which is VERY performance-intensive.

Since V-sync settings don’t apply to menus, it all runs with unlocked framerate and on non-top-of-the-line GPUs utilization is stuck at 100% while idle all the time, even with the window not in focus. This means heat, unnecessary part wear & tear, and even crashes in menus with no error messages if your card is really struggling. Funnily, the world map which is the only thing that really needs to be animated is the only screen that has lower utilization (40% for me).

Until Asobo solves this, here's a stopgap workaround that can help a lot. You can go in your video card control panel (I only have visibility on Nvidia's but I'm sure there has to be a similar option on AMD) and force limit framerate to 60. This drops utilization from 100% to 70% for me, which still isn't ideal but helps a ton to keep things under control.

If you want to create a profile for the game to do it automatically, on the nvidia control panel you can go to program settings and select Microsoft Flight Simulator (if you have the Windows 10 version it won't detect it automatically so you can uncheck "Show only programs found on this computer" and select it from the list of all supported games instead).

Hope it helps. Nowadays GPUs have plenty of failsafes in place, so this won't likely cook your video card, but it's still good practice to avoid unnecessary wear and tear, and if you're crashing, that gets annoying.
 
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I need to know what graphic options I can lower. So what is a huge performance hit, but only a minor graphic gain?

My 1070 at 2GHz is struggling
 
I need to know what graphic options I can lower. So what is a huge performance hit, but only a minor graphic gain?

My 1070 at 2GHz is struggling
im on a 1070 too. i tried high settings @1440 and 80 res scale. still shit fps.

im at the point im waiting for it to show up on xcloud and playing it that way
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yea fuxking sucks. Ps5 atleast will handle this good with variable frequency which one of the instances would be this
I don't think that's true, because that would also have control FPS, because if you ask for all the power, you get it, specially when CPU is pretty idle in these scenarios.
 

Wonko_C

Member
I need to know what graphic options I can lower. So what is a huge performance hit, but only a minor graphic gain?

My 1070 at 2GHz is struggling
I'd also like to know this alongside a breakdown on what settings are CPU bound so I can lower them. I'm way below the minimum but it's still workable somehow.
 

Tumle

Member
I don't think that's true, because that would also have control FPS, because if you ask for all the power, you get it, specially when CPU is pretty idle in these scenarios.
the variable frequency, makes sure that the fan will not ramp up higher than what was meant by the manufacturing.

that's one of the benefits with variable frequency, you will always know the max heat output.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
the variable frequency, makes sure that the fan will not ramp up higher than what was meant by the manufacturing.
Well in that case sure, you have capped the power budget, but that's on PS4s too. Problem is under designed cooling, but hopefully PS5 do better. Probably one of the only complains I have at the actuall HW of PS4 (outside of PS4S)...
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
I don't think that's true, because that would also have control FPS, because if you ask for all the power, you get it, specially when CPU is pretty idle in these scenarios.

If the variable clocks don't solve it then the secret sauce SSD obviously will.
 

Tumle

Member
Well in that case sure, you have capped the power budget, but that's on PS4s too. Problem is under designed cooling, but hopefully PS5 do better. Probably one of the only complains I have at the actuall HW of PS4 (outside of PS4S)...
im not explaining my self the right way.. since i cant find the right words.. lol :p
the PS5 is designed around a max power usage, that's why the CPU will throttle down to give more power to the GPU and vice versa, that way they always know the maximum amount of heat it will put out.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
If the variable clocks don't solve it then the secret sauce SSD obviously will.
SSD fan included? Sold.

1) im not explaining my self the right way.. since i cant find the right words.. lol :p

2)the PS5 is designed around a max power usage, that's why the CPU will throttle down to give more power to the GPU and vice versa, that way they always know the maximum amount of heat it will put out.
1) I know that well, don't worry : D

2) Umm, and what if you have beefier power delivery from PSU > Board...also cooling. Hmm then what? : P
 

Three

Member
Why do devs do this? There are games on PS4 that do the same thing. When you pause the game or enter a menu, the framerate unlocks and the fans on the console goes nuts.
This is actually what the variable clocks prevent.
 

Tumle

Member
SSD fan included? Sold.


1) I know that well, don't worry : D

2) Umm, and what if you have beefier power delivery from PSU > Board...also cooling. Hmm then what? : P
Lol yea.. hopefully that has been taken into consideration when slapping together the system.. 😊
 

Pallas

Member
Yea fuxking sucks. Ps5 atleast will handle this good with variable frequency which one of the instances would be this


HhcgojS.gif
 
When cerny was giving example for variable frequency he talked about horizon zero dawn and how the map would put ps4 in overdrive mode for fans.he mentioned ps5 will handle situation much better by noticing work load from big triangles (low details)and would act on it to ensure it doesn't over work the apu. You can go read up on it .
 

LostDonkey

Member
let the game default to high end on my 6700k 1070 combo and it ran great. much better than I expected and looked phenomenal
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
I need to know what graphic options I can lower. So what is a huge performance hit, but only a minor graphic gain?

My 1070 at 2GHz is struggling

I'd also like to know this alongside a breakdown on what settings are CPU bound so I can lower them. I'm way below the minimum but it's still workable somehow.

I'd also like to know an answer to the above.

A few settings you can lower are the Ambient Occlusion, the reflections, the object detail and the terrain detail. Those are all very heavy when at ultra/maxxed.

Also, if you have less than 8 gb video ram, I would not run texture resolution at ultra. High is perfectly good and there's very little visible difference.

What I normally run for anything else than screenshots for my 1660 ti is everything at ultra but Ambient Occlusion and reflections dialed down to high, object and terrain detail down to 150 (from 200) and texture resolution to high.

Of course, 1080p

I get 30-45 FPS, which for a flight simulator is plenty while I wait to upgrade when nvidia launches the RTX 3000 series. I expect their 3060 to be able to run this in 1080p all ultra with no sweat at all.
 
A few settings you can lower are the Ambient Occlusion, the reflections, the object detail and the terrain detail. Those are all very heavy when at ultra/maxxed.

Also, if you have less than 8 gb video ram, I would not run texture resolution at ultra. High is perfectly good and there's very little visible difference.

What I normally run for anything else than screenshots for my 1660 ti is everything at ultra but Ambient Occlusion and reflections dialed down to high, object and terrain detail down to 150 (from 200) and texture resolution to high.

Of course, 1080p

I get 30-45 FPS, which for a flight simulator is plenty while I wait to upgrade when nvidia launches the RTX 3000 series. I expect their 3060 to be able to run this in 1080p all ultra with no sweat at all.
object detail sounds like a big downgrade in graphics.
I only want to turn stuff below ultra that you won't notice.


Something like this:
 

Abriael_GN

RSI Employee of the Year
object detail sounds like a big downgrade in graphics.
I only want to turn stuff below ultra that you won't notice.


Something like this:


I checked, and the difference between 200 and 150 is basically nothing. You can easily compare in game.
 
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