Being new to MSFS I am having difficulty with stutters.  With p3d and setting my monitor to 30hz I have an extremely smooth experience.  But I am having difficulty finding this smoothness with MSFS.  No matter what refresh rate I set or in game settings I get stutters.  What is everyone’s experience with this issue?

30 Hz?  If I remember correctly, Windows 95 used to be set at 60 Hz.

2 hours ago, mpw8679 said:

Being new to MSFS I am having difficulty with stutters.  With p3d and setting my monitor to 30hz I have an extremely smooth experience.  But I am having difficulty finding this smoothness with MSFS.  No matter what refresh rate I set or in game settings I get stutters.  What is everyone’s experience with this issue?

Do not use the in game vsync it is broken and unpredictable.

What hardware do you have ? Stutters are often a symptom of CPU issues.

First thing to do is go into dev mode and turn on the FPS counter and see whether the comment below the FPS number is "limited by main thread" or "limited by GPU"  and let us know what you see.

 

If you absolutely have to set your monitor to 30Hz for smoothness, turn on Vsync in MSFS and make sure to set MSFS FPS to 60HZ.  Yes MSFS Vsync is broken, but it seems to set half refresh rate for some users.  Give it a try. Works for me if I need to do it on rare occasions if I happen to fly in a densely populated area, like NYC.

1 hour ago, DylanC said:

If you absolutely have to set your monitor to 30Hz for smoothness, turn on Vsync in MSFS and make sure to set MSFS FPS to 60HZ.  Yes MSFS Vsync is broken, but it seems to set half refresh rate for some users.  Give it a try. Works for me if I need to do it on rare occasions if I happen to fly in a densely populated area, like NYC.

I can confirm this. Monitor @30Hz and ingame Vsync set to 60Hz makes up for the smoothest experience for me.

6 hours ago, ThomseN_inc said:

I can confirm this. Monitor @30Hz and ingame Vsync set to 60Hz makes up for the smoothest experience for me.

Same here. You will never get rid of all stutters, maybe when DX12comes along. I have a 9900k@ 5.0 CPU, 3090 GTX, memory  36gig @ 3700 and I will get pauses still esp. when app. airports, large cities etc.

The Vsync setting inside MSFS does indeed appear to be broken and only offers half of the displayed rate.  Vsync doesn't appear to be needed for MSFS anyway, as it runs in 'borderless window mode', which seems to automatically apply some kind of Vsync.
Certainly, I have never seen any screen tearing since day one with this setting turned off.  

I believe MS / Asobo haven't fixed the broken Vsync setting due to low complaints, due to the fact it can just be turned off, so it will be low priority.

I set my FPS to 30 and also scanline sync at x/2 in Riva Tuner (as I have a 60Hz 4k monitor), and this is as smooth as silk and doesn't get my 1080Ti too hot and noisy.  No stuttering or tearing, and holds the 30 FPS easily at sensible settings.  No Vsync setting needed anywhere.

Edited February 7, 20215 yr by bobcat999

12 hours ago, mpw8679 said:

Being new to MSFS I am having difficulty with stutters.  With p3d and setting my monitor to 30hz I have an extremely smooth experience.  But I am having difficulty finding this smoothness with MSFS.  No matter what refresh rate I set or in game settings I get stutters.  What is everyone’s experience with this issue?

i made a short video for a friend with monitor to 30hz and ingame 60hz with vsync on, everthing on Ultra.

I dont fly this way, usualy standard 60fps and mainly VR. But this was to show him it is super fluid even at 30hz.

ps: Ignore the flying part, it was a test with a gamepad ! 😅

 

Test running the game in Dev-mode and check if you are suffer from "limited by main thread" warnings, if you do, try put more work to your GPU and turn off CPU hogs like AI traffic etc.

Edited February 7, 20215 yr by Ixoye

13 minutes ago, Ixoye said:

But first test running the game in Dev-mode and check if you are suffer from main thread warnings, if you do, that is your main problem.

And the best way to reduce the main thread load is by reducing the terrain LOD down to 100. Then just use a tree draw distance mod to get the LOD back.....

18 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

And the best way to reduce the main thread load is by reducing the terrain LOD down to 100. Then just use a tree draw distance mod to get the LOD back.....

Yep, I actually run terrain LOD at 80 and use a tree draw mod and it looks pretty good, at least at 1440p.  I should do some testing to see what else it effects other than trees though.

One thing to be aware of with 30hz/30 fps is that, whilst generic 60hz screens will go as slow as 30hz or even 24hz, a lot of gaming monitors will not go that slow. My 32" AOC is 48-144 hz for example. Though it does have LFC and freesyc 2 and seem to work fine with Gsync

Edited February 7, 20215 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

40 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Yep, I actually run terrain LOD at 80 and use a tree draw mod and it looks pretty good, at least at 1440p.  I should do some testing to see what else it effects other than trees though.

One thing to be aware of with 30hz/30 fps is that, whilst generic 60hz screens will go as slow as 30hz or even 24hz, a lot of gaming monitors will not go that slow. My 32" AOC is 48-144 hz for example. Though it does have LFC and freesyc 2 and seem to work fine with Gsync

My monitor also have LFC and and works fine with G Sync, but I need to use V-Sync in combo with G-Sync to avoid screen flicker if I run the game at 30fps and my monitor at 100hz.

Edited February 7, 20215 yr by Ixoye

3 hours ago, Ixoye said:

My monitor also have LFC and and works fine with G Sync, but I need to use V-Sync in combo with G-Sync to avoid screen flicker if I run the game at 30fps and my monitor at 100hz.

Which mode of V-sync is recommended? Just got a G-sync compatible monitor as well and still learning how to adjust it.

24 minutes ago, Virtpilot said:

Which mode of V-sync is recommended? Just got a G-sync compatible monitor as well and still learning how to adjust it.

Hardware based g-sync? If yes, turn off v/sync. It’s not needed unless you go above the maximum refresh rate (highly highly not likely in msfs). 

Thanks for your answer. I don't think it's hardware based. It's Asus VG279Q 27'' monitor. I found a new setting from the NCP which helped a lot. Choose refresh rate either highest possible or application controlled. When I chose application controlled, the sim became much smoother. I have not limited my frame rates to any number. 

Edited February 7, 20215 yr by Virtpilot