Out of curiosity, what would make one turn on V-Sync and lock FPS?  I have it off, but wasn't sure what the rule of thumb would be to turn it on.  Thanks! 

I turn V-Sync on and limit FPS to 60 because when I don't I get some screen tearing. I do have a G-Sync monitor and G-Sync is on. It all works quite well for me.

Lee

I have said it several times ... it is my best find for all situations and scenarios...

Why would one have it off then?  I never really noticed any difference on or off.  I never limited to 60 FPS though since I've never gotten close to 60 FPS in any situation. 

37 minutes ago, Zimmerbz said:

Why would one have it off then?  I never really noticed any difference on or off.  I never limited to 60 FPS though since I've never gotten close to 60 FPS in any situation. 

A long time ago, in using Prepar3D, I learned the pathway to the smoothest, stutter-free experience is thru the use of Vsync, however capped at the maximum SUSTAINABLE frame rate during any given flight.  This same logic persists in MSFS.  As you note 60 FPS is not only not sustainable but not even achievable w/ your current configuration.  I have a bit more horsepower to play with than you do from your hardware specs, and I'm not able to sustain 60fps primarily because I have every slider set to Ultra.  So for MSFS, and because I don't have a Gsync capable display, I settle for a frame lock of 30 FPS.   And a solid, stutter-free 30 FPS is amply sufficient for any flight sim.   More is better, but not anywhere near as 'better' as putting all settings at Ultra, and LOD's out to 200-400, scenario-dependent.   A clear benefit of locking at 30 FPS is you are asking your CPU to prerender 'only' 30 FPS, and your GPU to render only 30 FPS (I hope I have the language right but may well not there!) so your hardware runs at the minimum it needs to to maintain that frame rate of 30.   Here's an example of this:

Here we are set UNLOCKED, no frame rate cap.  Notice both the CPU and GPU utilization rates--CPU16 is the MSFS mainthread when hyperthreading was enabled.  You can see the frame rate is 41 in this unlocked scenario:

Here is the same exact spot in the flight, however this time the frame rate is locked at 30, with Vsync turned ON. You can see CPU16 is now roughly at half of what it was unlocked, and GPU down to 76% from 99%, the CPU is running a little cooler as well.  

And the most important take home:  the latter produces the smoothest, stutter-free experience.  This is why it is absolutely preferred over the higher frame rate in the former example.  If I had a Gsync capable display presumably I could let Gsync lock the frame rate dynamically, so that in the above example I would be seeing a frame rate of 41 while maintaining smooth animation.  This is only my understanding as I've never seen it myself.  My next screen will sport Gsync, but as mentioned rock solid frame rate of 30 is amply sufficient for my needs so there is no rush to replace a perfectly excellent 34" curved display.

Vsync ON without a frame lock that your configuration can fully sustain gets you little to nothing, hence you never noticed anything.   With your hardware my recommendation for you is to go to the most demanding scenario you will find yourself in and tune settings in MSFS such that you can maintain 30fps, and put the frame lock to 30 and Vsync ON--set your monitor's refresh rate at 60Hz for this to work correctly.  Esp important to set correctly are your LOD settings, especially Terrain.  

Edited January 7, 20224 yr by Noel

1 hour ago, Zimmerbz said:

what would make one turn on V-Sync and lock FPS?

If you have a 60Hz monitor, set v-Sync to 30, then set you in-sim settings to sustain 30fps, you will notice how smooth the sim will be. I have a 120hz curved monitor, I've set v-sysn to 20 (1/3 of my monitors refresh rate) which in turn yields 40fps, smooooth as silk everywhere I fly. 

Applying v-sync essentially eliminates screen tearing when panning around giving you a smooth experience.

Edited January 7, 20224 yr by CarlosF

2 hours ago, CarlosF said:

Applying v-sync essentially eliminates screen tearing when panning around giving you a smooth experience.

And two other actions are very effective in maximizing smoothness in panning:

1. Pre-cache slider set to Ultra
2. Low Latency set to Ultra in NV Control Panel

V sync on 30fps that is all you need for a flight sim. plus there is less stress on your GPU.

 

I have adopted this philosophy and for me it was a huge benefit, I was constantly trying to chase 60fps as I have a 42 inch 4K TV (60Hz). This really put a lot of strain on my trusty old 1080TI. I could only run at 2K with mediocre settings. Once I set Vsync in the sim and set 30fps I reset all my graphics settings then did a few test flights and saw that I really could maintain a solid 30fps no matter what I was flying. I then went about about re evaluating my graphic settings and was totally surprised that I could run the sim in full 4K resolution with decent settings and I was seeing CPU usage around 60% and GPU usage around 80%

Ultimately now I am finding the experience so consistent and hit a solid 30FPS with live weather, live traffic & road traffic and a sim that visually looks amazing. I did think about selling my 1080TI, it is still a great card but I wasn't prepared to sell any internal organs to pay for a 3080TI or similar. I am so glad I didn't !!!!

I have been flying this way since Sept and have not looked back, I am very happy with what I am able to achieve with my rig which by today's standard is probably considered a mid range PC. I guess the moral of this long winded story is give it a try and see if you like it.

Happy Friday !

Richard

Edited January 7, 20224 yr by RJC68

46 minutes ago, RJC68 said:

but I wasn't prepared to sell any internal organs to pay for a 3080TI

I hear you on that and that is fabulous your 1080Ti is doing so well.  I was caught in a little bit of a squeeze play when I found one at a price I could stomach (barely!) this was immediately before the giant performance increase we saw in I think it was SU5?  Anyway, I bought a 3080 Ti FE and it's been great, of course.  Even w/ the performance upgrade w/ my former 2070 Super I had to dial back specific settings, often clouds had to dial back to High instead of Ultra, but really it was still very good.  I am able to run all planes and all settings maxed but do need to vary Terrain LOD else my CPU isn't up to the task otherwise.  It's set at the worst case settings (FSDT's KORD in weather in the 787X, from this morning's flight) I had to set T-LOD to 160.  Usually I just leave it on 200 and it's fine, but when in lighter weight aircraft and rural scenery out to 400 no problem.

4 hours ago, Scimiter said:

V sync on 30fps that is all you need for a flight sim. plus there is less stress on your GPU.

 

This exactly. I have a 3090 but still lock my fps to 30. It runs the gpu much cooler on high or ultra settings. 
 Besides if you turn off vsync the menu screen wd run at 1000 fps making the gpu sound like a rocket engine. 

But be aware that the V-Sync settings in the game refer to TV monitors running at 60 Hz, 60 is equal to your monitors refresh rate, 30 to half your monitors refresh rate and 20 to a third, I run my monitor at 75 Hz and sets V-sync to 30 in game, which gives me a fps lock at 37.5, (half my monitors refresh rate.) I personally prefer little higher fps than 30 when panning as it does not get as choppy as it does at 30 fps.

Edited January 8, 20224 yr by Ixoye

On 1/7/2022 at 10:54 AM, Noel said:

And two other actions are very effective in maximizing smoothness in panning:

1. Pre-cache slider set to Ultra
2. Low Latency set to Ultra in NV Control Panel

Amen!

Even with my poor rig, pre-cache is set to Ultra. We all remember the horror when one of the Asobo updates set it very low. By popular demand they had to undo that change in the 'fix' release.

Edited January 11, 20224 yr by Fielder

On 1/7/2022 at 7:54 PM, Noel said:

And two other actions are very effective in maximizing smoothness in panning:

1. Pre-cache slider set to Ultra
2. Low Latency set to Ultra in NV Control Panel

Where would I find the Pre-Cache Slider? Or do do you mean OFF SCREEN TERRAIN PRE-CACHING?

I always ran limited to 30fps for smoothness and to avoid tearing with my old 1080 rez monitor even though I could get 50 fps or nore most of the time.

Now I've got a g sync 1440 monitor, it doesn't matter whether I try to limit framerate in the game or Nvidia control panel, the frames just won't limit, whether I have g sync switched on or off.

Oddly, I'm also finding I can no longer run in DX11 and have to use DX12 which gives me nearly twice as many FPS but is really choppy near the ground.