Lock Frames at 30 FPS = Smoother Performance, No Stutters?

[Republic DC9 234]

I was suffering from terrible pauses and stutters south of KSEA/KRNT (like full-blown 1 second pauses that made me ready to switch to any other hobby) until I figured out how to lock FPS at 30 in the Radeon software thingy under a setting “limit FPS to X to save power” or similar (sorry I’m new to AMD cards but remember my Nvidia 1070 allowed similar locking).

Strangely my card temp and junction temp are WAY down but the fluidity/lack of stutters is amazing while the graphics settings stayed the same not only in MSFS but also on my XP11 install with True Earth scenery.

No idea why other than a locked 30 FPS allows more time for the CPU and GPU to render each frame vs. chasing an unlimited higher number and stuttering and getting hotter in the process?

Something like that?

It may not work for me tomorrow, but it allowed smooth flights in both sims in both Seattle and KSNA/KLGB today.

Perhaps worth a try if you haven’t and aren’t having a smooth experience, it’s free and you can always revert.

My specs are a 10900K and RX 6800 16GB with 32GB of RAM (new build with performance eerily similar to my prior 4.0 GHz 1070 GYX 8GB except the RX 6800 actually can load XP11 textures without blurring like crazy.)

Steve 

 

 

[ThomseN_inc 1,128]

Thats pretty much how i enjoy MSFS in 4K ultra settings for months now. ;)

[Seven7 148]

Same, perfectly fluid, in all Ultra/High, up cities or not, etc 🙂

[reignman40 450]

I set my frames to 60 in the sim and lock them externally at 45. Nice balance of smooth with plenty of frames for the external camera.

Edited April 3, 2021 by reignman40

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

2 hours ago, Republic DC9 said:

I was suffering from terrible pauses and stutters south of KSEA/KRNT (like full-blown 1 second pauses that made me ready to switch to any other hobby) until I figured out how to lock FPS at 30 in the Radeon software thingy under a setting “limit FPS to X to save power” or similar (sorry I’m new to AMD cards but remember my Nvidia 1070 allowed similar locking).

What is the Vsync setting in nVidia control panel and in sim?

I tried many times to love 30 fps but it just looks bad with my monitor (Samsung C27HG70), even with adaptive Vsync on half refresh rate and the monitor limited to 60 Hz. Moreover it does not cure the stutters due to scenery loading.

Does your monitor support 30 Hz refresh rate? That is the game changer I think.

 

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

18 minutes ago, MrFuzzy said:

What is the Vsync setting in nVidia control panel and in sim?

I tried many times to love 30 fps but it just looks bad with my monitor (Samsung C27HG70), even with adaptive Vsync on half refresh rate and the monitor limited to 60 Hz. Moreover it does not cure the stutters due to scenery loading.

Does your monitor support 30 Hz refresh rate? That is the game changer I think.

 

 

 

Minimum refresh on a C27HG70 is 48 hz though it does have Freesync 2 and hence adaptive sync.

Very few 144hz monitors will go as low as 30hz natively.  Ironically most budget 1080p 60hz monitors actually will do 30hz, it is the default minimum for a 60hz monitor - which is why it is probably seen as some "magic" number to use.  ( I have seen numerous people argue till they are blue in the face that 30hz has some biological basis to do with the way the human eye works but I have seen no actual evidence for that) 

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[RichieFly 729]

This is how I run too. 

[Car147 2,279]

I also set my Radeon RX5700XT to 30fps, and it has definatly improved stutters to virtually non since i had the issue a couple of days ago again when they had started dropping to single figures again.

On this setting i am hardly getting any now, even on approach to some of the busiest airports, possibly 1-2 blips compared to the massive pauses previously encountered.

[cianpars 1,165]

Ive tried 30 a few times, though always reverted back to 60.  May give it another go though and try setting in the Nvidia control panel.

I remember from fsx days to always set your limiter to a little bit less than you normally get for smoothness.

Also, I would find that the more unnecessary frames I rendered, the visual quality could drop.

[Republic DC9 234]

Interesting to hear others’ experiences thank you.

I should have mentioned that my monitor is a 50” Samsung 4K TV set to 4K resolution and 60hz then in MSFS I bring down the render scaling to 50 or basically 2K while keeping the TV at its native resolution (in XP11 I reduce the resolution in game but it keeps popping back). 

I’ve played with using Vsync and limiting frames in MSFS that way as well as turning the TV to 30hz but for me leaving the TV at 60hz and FPS unlimited in game then turning it to 30FPS max on the Radeon thingy works the best so far.

 

[Ixoye 1,821]

I have a 100 Hz monitor, and when I set V-Sync to 30 in the game I get fluid stutter-free gameplay at 50 fps, it seems that ASOBO uses adaptive V-Sync which lock max fps to the monitor's half refresh rate in the game if setting V-Sync to 30.

I have tested all possible settings I can think of, and by comparing the results with the performance overlay in developer mode I have come to the conclusion that the use of Asobo's adaptive V-Sync is what undoubtedly gives me the best performance, even better than cap fps to 30.

[Car147 2,279]

16 minutes ago, Ixoye said:

I have a 100 Hz monitor, and when I set V-Sync to 30 in the game I get fluid stutter-free gameplay at 50 fps, it seems that ASOBO uses adaptive V-Sync which lock max fps to the monitor's half refresh rate in the game if setting V-Sync to 30.

I have tested all possible settings I can think of, and by comparing the results with the performance overlay in developer mode I have come to the conclusion that the use of Asobo's adaptive V-Sync is what undoubtedly gives me the best performance, even better than cap fps to 30.

That would tie in with what i am seeing, my monitors refresh rate is 75hz

[bobcat999 8,483]

I run on a 4k monitor but at 70% scaling, and I have 30 fps locked Vsync in sim here, and it is giving me a smooth and fluid frame rate. 
I don't run any other kind of frame limiter software any more (like RTSS) as it is not necessary after the recent in sim changes that Asobo made to page refresh, which is great.

Stuttering is normally linked to a mismatch between frame rate and monitor refresh, as eluded to in this thread, but on a large monitor like mine, it also happens when you look out of the side window at speed and at low level - there is no way the monitor can display the scenery going past across the width of the monitor in thirty frames a second, so that is just a limitation and not really what I call 'stuttering', it is just choppy scrolling due to the frame rate limitation and is to be expected.  It would be better at 60 FPS of course, but like many on here, I can't reach that performance yet.  Maybe with DX12 and an Nvidia RTX 4000 series next year!  

I think performance of the sim is actually very good in general, but people confuse it with the pausing bugs introduced (which some people call stuttering).
The pauses brought on by the recent updates are the real issue now ('manipulators' issue etc. which Asobo have finally acknowledged), and no amount of tweaking the GPU will alter that - that is up to Asobo to fix.

 

[skipph 82]

6 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

What is the Vsync setting in nVidia control panel and in sim?

I tried many times to love 30 fps but it just looks bad with my monitor (Samsung C27HG70), even with adaptive Vsync on half refresh rate and the monitor limited to 60 Hz. Moreover it does not cure the stutters due to scenery loading.

Does your monitor support 30 Hz refresh rate? That is the game changer I think.

 

 

That is the case for me. Samsung 27" 4K supports 30 and 60hz refresh.

[edpatino 1,964]

Running with Vsync ON and frames locked in sim to 60 works lot better here than locking to 30.

Cheers, Ed