The Best of Times; The Worst of Times

[David Mills 4,753]

Here is what I don't understand about the current state of performance within the sim.

After the latest sim update, the performance in my home region of Huntington, West Virginia, improved noticeable. I was delighted and posted a message here in the forum about improved FPS. FPS increased by about five (to about 35 FPS), stutters were practically eliminated, and the sim performed more smoothly than it ever had. When, however, I attempted later to fly out of Hartsfield International in Atlanta, I'm very lucky to get 10 FPS. The situation doesn't improve when I fly miles away from the Atlanta airport after taking off. Still 10 FPS. I know the scenery is more detailed around Atlanta than it is around Huntington, West Virginia. But there shouldn't be a 70% reduction in FPS. There certainly wasn't such a drastic reduction in FPS before the latest sim update. My FPS might have reduced from 30 to 25 in detailed areas before the update. All was well.

Now, to add more mystery, I can easily and happily fly out of Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, DC, using Drzewiecki Design's intricately detailed, super hi-res, densely-packed airport and DC city scenery and get 30 to 35 FPS like in my home area. Many of the highly detailed scenery areas within the sim likewise perform beautifully. Others are completely unusable. I don't understand what happened. These are "the best of times, and the worst of times." These are also "the times that try men's souls."

 

 

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

There are still issues and Asobo stated that the hotfix does not cure all the performance issues.

Another problem that apparently got worse after the hotfix are the long pauses: with my system and 1440p/Ultra/LOD100 settings I usually have 50-60 fps in airliners cockpit and 80-85 fps in external view but from time to time the sim completely freezes for about 2-3 seconds, with CPU and GPU usage dropping to zero (verified from task manager). Specially problematic areas are the ones affected since the beginning: KSEA, KLAX, KSAN... but I had these long pauses also near the Northern French coast and Ireland.

 

[Fielder 3,663]

I don't have these pauses, maybe because my framerates are locked at 30.

[bobcat999 8,473]

15 minutes ago, Fielder said:

I don't have these pauses, maybe because my framerates are locked at 30.

It isn't about locking at certain framerates. It seems to do with certain areas.  If you don't fly those areas you won't see it.

I lock at 30 FPS (can do about 45 in general unlocked), but I still get the long pauses.  It seems to be with scenery loading, which has been a ubiquitous issue in flight sims in general.  
However, it has become worse in the sim over a number of updates.

I know it is to do with fixing scenery bugs and/or optimisation due to the reasons below.

Flagstaff used to be bad and had black steps across the runway that were bad enough to flip the C152!  It was really bad for framerates and pauses.  I believe it was due to the broken scenery.
When they fixed the terrain spike issues, I found the Flagstaff runway was fixed as well, and the flight between Sedona and Flagstaff is now incredibly smooth - high FPS, no stutters, no pauses - so fixed!

However, Salzburg in Austria also used to be smooth.  Now, on approach to the airport from the south, and especially when banking East after a touch and go, it is an absolute pause fest, sometimes for 2 seconds at a time, and every few seconds.  Banking left and to the West, no problem at all.  Like I say, some kind of scenery issues, not linked to FPS at all.

 

 

[Ricardo41 5,949]

6 hours ago, David Mills said:

These are also "the times that try men's souls."

"When these phrases appeared in the pages of the Pennsylvania Journal for the first time, General George Washington’s troops were encamped at McKonkey’s Ferry on the Delaware River opposite Trenton, New Jersey. In August, they had suffered humiliating defeats and lost New York City to British troops."

So you're comparing a $70 game to the American Revolution. Ooooooookkkkayyyyy....

2 hours ago, MrFuzzy said:

h my system and 1440p/Ultra/LOD100 settings 

Have you tried the same flights with your settings reduced to high or medium?

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

9 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

Have you tried the same flights with your settings reduced to high or medium?

Yes, these freezes occur regardless of the settings.

[bobcat999 8,473]

1 hour ago, Ricardo41 said:

Have you tried the same flights with your settings reduced to high or medium?

Mr Fuzzy has > i9 10850K / 64 GB 2933 MHz CL14 / RTX 3090.  That is about as good a system as you are going to get.  

Like I have said previously, the problem of the pauses / freezes lies with the sim, and seems to be related to specific problem scenery areas that need fixing (similar to how they fixed 76T and DFW recently) ; it is not a stuttering / FPS issue.  The performance in between the pauses / freezes is actually very good now. 

In fact, on my old 1080Ti at 4k 70% scaling, on mainly high settings, general performance is pretty spectacular and has been since launch of the sim in August - but the pauses / freezes are new for me.

Edited April 8, 2021 by bobcat999

[Ricardo41 5,949]

Please post a video that shows these pauses/freezes. 

I'm running a close to 6 year old pc with 8 gigs of system ram. The pauses/freezes I get are, to me, an acceptable trade off for the overall performance of the sim, even on low-spec hardware. 

If MSFS improves this even further - great. Not something that raises my heart rate, though.

But that's just my opinion <shrug>

Edited April 8, 2021 by Ricardo41

[Fielder 3,663]

Tomorrow I hope to try flying around Salzburg and approaching from the South a few times. See what I find about pauses there....

[micstatic 4,319]

I have huge performance issues at ATL also.  It feels like something broke at this airport after a recent update.  MSFS is not my main sim, but I do periodically take a joy ride here and there.  ATL often being a jumping point

[billkirk888 28]

I am still having similar problems as you describe.  Flight from KWRI to KLCK this morning.  My frames were steady and locked at 35fps.  Roughly 30 minutes into the flight, cruising at 6K ft, my frames are struggling to keep above 28.  They are averaging somewhere between 25 and 28fps.  CPU/GPU and RAM running at about 1/2 capacity.  I am not flying over any densely populated areas, or water.  I flew the reverse route yesterday and had similar issues.  Frames were fine at takeoff, then mid flight dropped aprx. 8-10fps on average while in cruise.  No weather - clear skies.

I don't get it.  Nothing seems to be taxing the system, yet the sim is struggling to maintain frame rates I had pre-MSFS patch.  What gives??

[gb09f 298]

I sometimes think I'm running a completely different sim when I read about all these problems. I have a mid- range PC and I've had one crash since release and that was cased by Navigraph. 

In saying that, I'm lucky enough to be able to use my PC solely for flight simming and my only software additional to a base Windows 10 install is MSFS, Navigraph and FlyByWire A320neo. 

Antivirus software is the biggest scam around, most people don't need it but the cyber security companies scare them into believing that they must have it installed. As well as the built-in Windows antivirus software. 

I think perhaps a lot of problems are caused by people having too many conflicting software packages on their PCs.  Keep it simple is my way to go. 

Edited April 8, 2021 by gb09f

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

52 minutes ago, gb09f said:

I think perhaps a lot of problems are caused by people having too many conflicting software packages on their PCs.  Keep it simple is my way to go. 

Maybe, but I can guarantee you that in my case there is nothing unusual installed and nothing running in the background anyway.

I have even tried fresh installations of Windows 10 and MSFS, with only the nVidia drivers without GeForce Experience, all at default settings, and the issues are exactly the same.

Probably you don't fly in problematic areas such as Southern California, you don't set waypoints and approach routes on the A/P, or you are just very lucky.

As for the AV, I use Windows Defender and of course I tried to set exclusions, to disable it completely, etc. but that's not the problem.

However the sim is 95% OK and I have great performance as I stated before, only that 5% bugginess with the freezes in certain areas and the A/P issues are annoying, undeniable and we have the right to have them fixed.

[Ricardo41 5,949]

4 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

Mr Fuzzy has > i9 10850K / 64 GB 2933 MHz CL14 / RTX 3090.  That is about as good a system as you are going to get.  

The insight that throwing expensive hardware at a Microsoft Flightsimulator iteration rarely solves the problem is about 20 years old. 

1 hour ago, gb09f said:

Keep it simple is my way to go. 

I agree. A clean, well-maintained PC will go a long way in avoiding problems such as CTDs. I've had very few CTDs, and my PC is, as I said, close to 6 years old. And because it runs very well and gives me decent performance at medium settings in MSFS 2020, I have no intention of replacing it anytime soon. 

In addition, I'm extremely allergic to replacing equipment that isn't broken. Unfortunately, a lot of folks fall for the hardware manunfacturers' scam of "bigger and more expensive is better".

Edited April 8, 2021 by Ricardo41

[Steve Dra 7,588]

5 hours ago, micstatic said:

I have huge performance issues at ATL also.  It feels like something broke at this airport after a recent update.  MSFS is not my main sim, but I do periodically take a joy ride here and there.  ATL often being a jumping point

ATL for me has always been an issue...when I first flew there when MSFS released, it was a slideshow compared to other major cities.

One thing I found to really help was to turn down the tree density.  It seems that area is so stuffed full of trees that it has an impact.

I have not flown there with the recent release.....but this may help in general (and I can't tell the visual difference with tress at medium/low in normal flight)

BTW, I am also getting pauses as well in certain areas, not FPS issues but .5 to 1 sec pauses...in this latest release.