I should qualify that by saying do you find yourself more apt to set settings so high that you have to stop the sim to readjust in midflight, in order to enjoy the improved IQ when it's possible to do so?  Or have you adjusted settings to accommodate the highest demand scenario you will ever find yourself in so as not to have to ever stop and adjust in midflight?  

I've just recently started the latter, I guess mostly because it's taken me this long to learn where the optimal setpoint it.  And focused mostly on LOD-Terrain slider as I've kept everything else at Ultra.  So far, with I9-9900K@ 4.8gHz, 3440x1440 vsync 30, all other sliders at Ultra, Texture SS 8x, AF 16x, LOD-Objects 200, in the B787 HD, the best I can do for LOD-Terrain, is really 220, and to have some buffer probably 210.  Now sure I can and have set LOD-T at 400 or even 300,. but it comes into play when landing the 787 HD into something like KSFO, and did the other day to the tune of a drop to 25-26fps and w/ it stutters.  But at 220 or 210 this goes away and it's a steady 30fps and smooth again any big terminal I have been in lately. I've tried this at the lovely but performance challenging Roman Design's CYOW and 220 got me perfect taxi with one brief shudder shortly after TO which who knows where that came from anyway.  It took going into Dev Mode to see the point at which the sim became GPU limited over Mainthread limited.  That juncture seems to be what it takes to avoid degrading performance to less than 30 if that's where you're locked at.

Anyway, if you haven't tried this approach give it a whirl and see if you think it's good to never have to think about 'performance' again, at least from your own hardware/software configuration is concerned, which is kind of what's happening.  I'm liking it but then again I generally prefer steady and predictable over other alternatives.

I prefer to set it up so that I get smoothness in even the most demanding area.

Having said that, in P3D I have performance profiles saved, and I do switch between them sometimes.  In MSFS I just have it set up so that I have smoothness everywhere.  It's not that hard because even on lesser settings it looks great.

But you're right, dialling it in properly IS hard.  We don't have 10-15+ years of experience with this platform.

I "demand" stock ultra !.. When i heard that we were going to get this sim i made a point to build my pc according to the highest recommended specs the game specified. Performance was awesome for what ? till around service update 2 ? So i played the upgrade game  in January so i could keep my visuals the way i wanted them to be without suffering too much at an airport like ORD-JFK-LAX. I will  keep playing the upgrade game to keep the visuals i want. Which is ultimately to fly into JFK  with a system heavy airliner  with ultimate traffic and all the sliders to the right with the fps not dropping below 30fps at slightly above 1440p (render scale 110-115% (value meal 4k). Thankfully the sim is not yet developed for that to be simulated so im actually able to have smooth flights into JFK at present with the FBW A320 but we will see when the PMDG stuff drops and AI traffic bugs get squashed.  (Have a feeling another round of upgrades are in order next year)

I've always preferred eye candy hehe...and I never have the high end rigs lol.  If I'm doing a pilot edge flight though, I tend to scale things back favoring smoothness.

1 hour ago, Mace said:

It's not that hard because even on lesser settings it looks great.

This is so true, and remarkable, that MSFS scales so well on such a wide range of hardware!

IQ is useless to me if it the motion is not smooth for almost all of the time. I tune for the best of both, then spend my time sim flying while not worrying about it (which I learned long ago can be crazy making if I didn't let it go).

 

Smooth 60fps has priority for me tho which I could vsync to 30fps so could have greater eye candy

I mainly fly GA plane and avoid those areas that cripple my fps so mainly regional flights into smaller cities.
It's a compromise to maintain that 400 LOD and Buildings on ULTRA so I can get the view distance

 

 

 

EDIT Double posted somehow!

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 20214 yr by Stona

I just had the painful experience of returning my PC (rtx 3080 and 10700k) as it was underperforming and causing ridiculous stuttering (not only in MSFS).

In MSFS I was getting stuttering in every scenario nevermind far lower fps than normal in rural or city locations (with the stutters making it not much more playable in 4k than my old gtx1080 and 6700k).

In MSFS, even in locations where the fps were higher it was so riddled with microstutters (and big stutters) that it was unplayable in any enjoyable way even locked at 30fps (although slightly smoother in rural locations when locked at 30fps). I was getting weird drops down to the low 20s and teens in certain city locations.

This experience really brought home to me the importance of smoothness in the sim as well as high fps in any title but especially in MSFS. We can have all the fancy tech in the world but if for whatever reason it is not working well together and the result is stuttery gameplay, then frankly high fps with constant microstutters is just simply not worth it. 

I am reluctantly now back to using my old gtx1080 and 6700k setup for the moment. I will see what the 12700k brings and reassess then. 

Edited October 29, 20214 yr by steve310002

I prefer smoothness overall, I hate stutter.

IQ?  started off questioning my own IQ and had to think about that. Given the context I think I've worked it out now.

One solution to your question could be variable settings. Input your desired minimum FPS  (say 30) and the settings adjust themselves to give you the best result. We could even prioritise the settings to give the sim an idea of what settings to trim based on your preference......a nice dream lol.

Certainly the traffic setting could be altered. The current % doesn't work very well. PC smooth as butter in south america on 50%, overrun with aircraft in europe. Perhaps change it to "Maximum aircraft you desire"

As things stand I prefer smooth.

I'd like to say I am smooth but my IQ says otherwise...  Oh wait, this wasn't about us personally... 

Smooth over IQ here, hence G-Sync monitor investment.  No more compromises 🙂  

5 hours ago, steve310002 said:

I just had the painful experience of returning my PC (rtx 3080 and 10700k) as it was underperforming and causing ridiculous stuttering (not only in MSFS).

In MSFS I was getting stuttering in every scenario nevermind far lower fps than normal in rural or city locations (with the stutters making it not much more playable in 4k than my old gtx1080 and 6700k).

In MSFS, even in locations where the fps were higher it was so riddled with microstutters (and big stutters) that it was unplayable in any enjoyable way even locked at 30fps (although slightly smoother in rural locations when locked at 30fps). I was getting weird drops down to the low 20s and teens in certain city locations.

This experience really brought home to me the importance of smoothness in the sim as well as high fps in any title but especially in MSFS. We can have all the fancy tech in the world but if for whatever reason it is not working well together and the result is stuttery gameplay, then frankly high fps with constant microstutters is just simply not worth it. 

I am reluctantly now back to using my old gtx1080 and 6700k setup for the moment. I will see what the 12700k brings and reassess then. 

That's a terrible story!  I guess you never found out where the weird perf came from.  Yes a new 12700 will help but even then it shouldn't have been the 3080/10700K that was the source of those woes.  Good luck on your next upgrade you will love it when you get it working correctly!

5 hours ago, steve310002 said:

I just had the painful experience of returning my PC (rtx 3080 and 10700k) as it was underperforming and causing ridiculous stuttering (not only in MSFS).

In MSFS I was getting stuttering in every scenario nevermind far lower fps than normal in rural or city locations (with the stutters making it not much more playable in 4k than my old gtx1080 and 6700k).

In MSFS, even in locations where the fps were higher it was so riddled with microstutters (and big stutters) that it was unplayable in any enjoyable way even locked at 30fps (although slightly smoother in rural locations when locked at 30fps). I was getting weird drops down to the low 20s and teens in certain city locations.

This experience really brought home to me the importance of smoothness in the sim as well as high fps in any title but especially in MSFS. We can have all the fancy tech in the world but if for whatever reason it is not working well together and the result is stuttery gameplay, then frankly high fps with constant microstutters is just simply not worth it. 

I am reluctantly now back to using my old gtx1080 and 6700k setup for the moment. I will see what the 12700k brings and reassess then. 

Was it a pre-built?  Starting to hear more and more stories of pre-built systems with great components but horrible cooling...  Some of the pre-built system cases do not seem to have adequate airflow for the power draw/heat output of these chips/GPU's... I have had two pre-built systems and had to replace the memory on both.  Never had to replace RAM before in all my years of building my own.  Curious if yours was a pre-built system?

Sorry for the OT... 

1 hour ago, GaryK said:

One solution to your question could be variable settings. Input your desired minimum FPS  (say 30) and the settings adjust themselves to give you the best result. We could even prioritise the settings to give the sim an idea of what settings to trim based on your preference......a nice dream lol.

I don't think it's a dream.  My sense is Asobo is already using various tricks to improve perf wherever possible.  One low-hanging fruit I see is that LOD-Terrain on the ground, or even close to the ground, could be dynamically dialed back since you really can't see the effects of high LOD-T values when down low--and yet the performance hit is still there and in fact is magnified by having all of the airport buildings, planes, ground airport traffic already impacting performance. Say if you had LOD set a 300 or 400, and as you got down close to landing that value would dynamically be reduced to 150, or say 50% of what you have the slider set it.   In my OP above the scenario was I had LOD set at 300 and all was fine on approach to KSFO in the 787 HD, but as I got within a mile or so of touchdown frames went from a smooth 30 steadily down to 25-26 w/ loss of smooth video as I landed and started taxiing.  On the ground it took dialing back LOD-T to 220 at which point stable smooth 30fps resumed.  I am going to Zendesk the observation who knows maybe it will get shared w/ the dev by the people who forward ideas from Zendesk.