Hello dear fellow simmers and friends,

I have an issue with my performance but this time I am not going to complain about that I am getting low fps or stutters. In fact just the opposite.

I have a deck of i7-6700K 16GB (DDR4) RAM with nvidia gtx 1080ti btw running on windows 10. I usually get 40~50 fps with this setup at high-end graphics settings at 2K resoulution.

What I am going to ask you guys is, when I set the settings to "low-end" I still get 40 ot 50 fps. Strangely I see no performance increase which leads me to the opinion of I might have a bottleneck at somewhere rather than the GPU. It looks it is doing its job fine but something other doesn't. As a home user I am limited to test it with different configurations of RAMs and CPUs so I need your ideas and experiences with your different setups.

I will highly appreciate if you give it a hand. Thank you all in advance.

 

 

😀 Post of the month!

It depends what you are after really Soulmaril.  Most people would be happy with that.

To chase 60 FPS (if that is what you are after) even people with a 3090 and a fast processor can struggle to get it consistently.
It is possible with a very fine balance of screen resolution and settings, but as for your setup, I think your CPU is now holding you back, especially if it isn't overclocked.
Reducing settings and not seeing any benefit in FPS is a sign of this - when you are CPU limited it can actually go down as you reduce graphics settings believe it or not.

MSFS isn't really a 60 FPS game for the vast majority of us (yet - maybe DX12 will help in the summer). 
Most, like me, are satisfied with a smooth 30 FPS at the higher graphics settings.
Two downsides to this are that 30 FPS may not be good enough for VR, and even at a smooth 30 FPS on mine, when I look sideways out of the aircraft at ground going past quickly, it does look a bit like it jumps past in steps.  This is to be expected as I have a large screen running at 4k.  

As you aren't realistically going to get 60 FPS on your PC, I would just aim for a smooth and consistent 30 FPS at higher settings.  The new update has changed things.  Due to the way the sim sends frames to the screen, 30 FPS can look pretty good and really smooth!  Load up you GPU until it hits about 35 FPS, lock it at Vsync at 30 in sim, and see how you go.  Make sure all other frame limiter software is not interfering, such as Nvidia Control Panel etc.

PS:  I have a 1080Ti also.  I can run at mainly high/ultra settings at 2k, and even go to 130% scaling, and still get a sold 30 FPS.  I am happy with that.  As I now have a 4k screen though, I tend to do it the other way now - 4k at 70% scaling.  Looks great!

Edited February 22, 20215 yr by bobcat999

I have the impression that it is really the resolution which changes the situation enormously on MSFS ...

In 34 "3440x1440 scaling 100% impossible to have 30 FPS while being in ULTRA.

After yes, downscaling but personally on the 320FBW 70% becomes unpleasant to read the information on the screens (blurry)

Three thoughts. First, I have read several times that the FPS count in MSFS (accessed through developer mode) is not reliable. Second, I find that the sim runs perfectly smooth (i.e. no detectable stutters) at 30 FPS. Third, advice I was given years ago, going back even to FS9, was to ignore the FPS, and look only at the perceived smoothness of the simulator. In other words, don't chase the number!

23 minutes ago, Axis3600 said:

I have the impression that it is really the resolution which changes the situation enormously on MSFS ...

True!  This is absolutely the biggest factor.  I have proved it by logging GPU utilisation while changing screen resolution.  The other settings (volumetric clouds to ultra etc.) do obviously make small differences, but going from 4k at 70% to 4k at 80% really changes the GPU utilisation drastically on my 1080Ti.  The biggest factor is definitely how many pixels the card is having to churn out.

17 minutes ago, cobalt said:

Three thoughts. First, I have read several times that the FPS count in MSFS (accessed through developer mode) is not reliable. Second, I find that the sim runs perfectly smooth (i.e. no detectable stutters) at 30 FPS. Third, ...was to ignore the FPS, and look only at the perceived smoothness of the simulator. In other words, don't chase the number!

Yes, (FPS Counter) sometimes people with 2 screens have the mouse over the second screen, which gives a false reading, but it also jumps around quite a lot.  Good to tell if you are GPU or CPU limited though from the other information it displays.

On FPS, you are right as well, but if you want smooth, you need 30 FPS synced to your screen really.  To do this you need to see how your GPU responds.  Some people say they get stutters, and this is because it is no good locking to 30 if your GPU at those settings can only deliver 25, as obviously it will be stuttery then.  So tune for 35 to give some spare margin, lock at thirty, then just enjoy the sim and forget about it as you say! 

 

Edited February 22, 20215 yr by bobcat999

Currently I am alright with the fps (with my old boy), game is smooth and playable. (don't want to remember FSX days)

When I lower the settings I get the same fps same with the higher settings. It should mean that something else  limiting me rather than the settings itself and the GPU and I am after that. Who to blame? CPU, RAM or maybe... a gremlin 🤣.

9 minutes ago, Soulmaril said:

Who to blame?

No one to blame... you have a nicely balanced system... turn off the fps counter!  🙂

13 minutes ago, Soulmaril said:

Currently I am alright with the fps (with my old boy), game is smooth and playable. (don't want to remember FSX days)

When I lower the settings I get the same fps same with the higher settings. It should mean that something else  limiting me rather than the settings itself and the GPU and I am after that. Who to blame? CPU, RAM or maybe... a gremlin 🤣.

Run the game in developer mode, then you will see what is bottleneck in your system, you should try to avoid "limited by main thread" and you will also see how much Ram and V-Ram that are in use.

Thank you all. I ordered 32GB ram with faster clock. While searching I have read articles about today's CPU's are bottlenecks. And I believe the same way.

To the micro stutter suffers check your EIST and SpeedShift or (SpeedStep older systems) in BIOS is disabled.

Turbo boost 2.0 and enhanced turbo (with decent cooling) and XMP on.

If that still fails then turn off Hyperthreading till DX12 comes.

 

Edited February 24, 20215 yr by 40track

Although not much has been said about this, but I believe, internet bandwidth speed and quality plays into this performance equation to some degree.  I wouldn't even know where to start to even try and quantify it, but certainly might be an additional consideration to rule out.

2 hours ago, 40track said:

To the micro stutter suffers check your EIST and SpeedShift or (SpeedStep older systems) in BIOS is disabled.

Turbo boost 2.0 and Boost are not the same thing?
Boost and XPM I found in the BIOS

EIST and SpeedShift in BIOS too ?

1 hour ago, Axis3600 said:

Turbo boost 2.0 and Boost are not the same thing?
Boost and XPM I found in the BIOS

EIST and SpeedShift in BIOS too ?

You'll find it in the BIOS sub menus.

Since our systems are essentially the same reset machine   hit del   press f7   then look for a menu called advanced cpu settings and hit enter key on it. its in there.

I had stutter before i disabled it. After was better.

Edited February 24, 20215 yr by 40track

As a quick note, it's a CPU bottleneck right now, 99% of the time, on reasonably powerful systems. I'm expecting DX12 to allow better CPU utilization, meaning less CPU bottlenecks, meaning higher FPS, as it's likely the CPU is also bottlenecking the GPU - maybe DirectStorage might alleviate this, if DX12 does not?

2 minutes ago, Concodroid said:

As a quick note, it's a CPU bottleneck right now, 99% of the time, on reasonably powerful systems. I'm expecting DX12 to allow better CPU utilization, meaning less CPU bottlenecks, meaning higher FPS, as it's likely the CPU is also bottlenecking the GPU - maybe DirectStorage might alleviate this, if DX12 does not?

Can i ask what's direct storage?