10 minutes ago, Noel said:

there is little to no need to split the OS and MSFS install between drives

One exception though is when your OS drive is only 500 Gig (like mine) 😎 - then you have to split your stuff across drives. I have 2 x 2 TB drives for my games and photography stuff.

4 hours ago, Noel said:

I fully concur and this is why for people who have sufficient storage as I do there is little to no need to split the OS and MSFS install between drives.  All on one drive, and one drive for all....nope, not a Q-anon nutball 😜

I agree with you Noel. I have Win 11 and MSFS as well as a "few" apps that just work better when on Boot drive on a 1TB nVME. It is just under 1/2 full. All of my MSFS addons are on a 500gig SSD accessed via Addon Linker. I then have my SteamApps games on another 1tb SSD with all my other apps and downloads on a SATA hd. It all works like a charm for me.

@BlodhemnUK, are you using a 3rd party antivirus? If so, I would disable or uninstall completely. The DQ speeds of your 970 are in the low MB/s and should be over 1GB/s. I would also install Samsung Magician and run the performance optimization just to ensure Windows is configured correctly for the SSDs. You can also use task manager to see what is eating up disk utilization while MSFS is running. If Windows isn't reporting high disk utilization when MSFS is running, it could be something hardware related (such as the SSD being plugged into an M2 slot that shares resources with other devices on the system). Given that your other SSD's are showing poor performance though, my hunch is its software related. If VMD/RST is enabled in the BIOS, ensure you have the latest Intel VMD drivers installed as well (you can also check the device manager, under storage controllers you will either see NVMe controllers or the VMD/RST controllers).

Hope you're able to track down the issue!

6 hours ago, JSmith2112 said:

One exception though is when your OS drive is only 500 Gig (like mine) 😎 - then you have to split your stuff across drives. I have 2 x 2 TB drives for my games and photography stuff.

This is why after we left hard disk drives behind I went to one big drive, and that's all. I do have an old 256 SSD that I kept for non critical data.  It does not get any simpler and that includes for backups.  I have an identical clone 2TB NVMe drive so in the event of catestrophic failure we're up and running in 5 minutes.  I really should have done just an image on the 2nd identical drive that way I could have kept it in place for regular backups.  

Wow, such a busy few days. This morning I finally got round to doing a complete uninstall and reinstall if MSFS2020, and slowly started adding things. managed to get up to 45FPS without traffic. As soon as I added traffic using Fly By Wire installer, it dropped to 18-20 FPS, stopped the traffic and back up to 45.

On 1/13/2023 at 12:39 AM, Funky D said:

check the device manager, under storage controllers you will either see NVMe controllers or the VMD/RST controllers

I did just check this and I have Standard NVM Express Controller, is that correct?

Still reading back through all your suggestions, and helpful advice, so many of you trying to help me, MANY THANKS to ALL of you. I am truly grateful. 

On 1/7/2023 at 10:33 PM, ryanbatc said:

Maybe this was already asked - but do you have onboard video ?  Sometimes software will try to use that instead of the GPU.  You may to disable it in bios.

Hmm, now there is a HDMI output on my Z490 Pro4 motherboard (Not in use, as I am definitely plugged into the 3090ti), but under Display adapters there is only my 3090ti listed.  

8 minutes ago, BlodhemnUK said:

under Display adapters there is only my 3090ti listed

That is normal if on-board GPU is not enabled in BIOS, I would think.

1 hour ago, BlodhemnUK said:

managed to get up to 45FPS without traffic. As soon as I added traffic using Fly By Wire installer, it dropped to 18-20 FPS, stopped the traffic and back up to 45.

I think you are onto the core issue... Hardware optimization is always good, but this sounds like more fertile ground..

On 1/9/2023 at 10:01 PM, Mikeingreen said:

That did the trick although it was hard to find in my BIOS. Said something about enabling 4G support under PCIe settings of something. I set up same scenario and got 98-100 FPS. I used the Geforce Overlay (Alt-R) to test FPS this time. Raised Terrain LOD to 300 and was getting 80-82 FPS, which I can live with.

I wonder IF this is what the OP's issue is with his 4090. I don't recall it being mentioned is this thread at all until Dankovic mentioned it to me. And a Big Thanks to Dankovic for pointing me to it.

I Only have a 3090Ti, so not sure if this will work for me, but I just checked if my Resizable BAR is on / off and it appears its OFF. But also looks like I don't have all the requirements 

2 minutes ago, BlodhemnUK said:

I Only have a 3090Ti, so not sure if this will work for me, but I just checked if my Resizable BAR is on / off and it appears its OFF. But also looks like I don't have all the requirements 

So enable it in your BIOS😉

1 minute ago, Jazz said:

So enable it in your BIOS😉

Will it allow me if I am not meeting the other requirements too? 

21 minutes ago, BlodhemnUK said:

Will it allow me if I am not meeting the other requirements too? 

Yes because the other requirements are part of making it work. However, there is a situation where if you have CSM enabled and Windows installed in MBR format then you would need to reinstall Windows in GPT format to get it to work. That may be your situation judging what I'm seeing there. I don't know what motherboard you have but here is what ASUS says about it

https://www.asus.com/global/support/FAQ/1046107/

Check to see what you motherboard manufacturer says about it for precise instruction but the rules are the same.

 

Edited January 15, 20233 yr by Jazz

Im using Asrock Z490 PRO4 motherboard, so hope that will allow me to do it. Just been checking out some vids on how to convert my boot drive from MBR to GPT, may give that a try after work tomorrow. 

Cheers again all. 

8 hours ago, BlodhemnUK said:

I did just check this and I have Standard NVM Express Controller, is that correct?

Yes, that's fine and means you're using the built-in Windows drivers. Intel RST/VMD is only needed if you're running RAID, otherwise the performance will be the same with the built-in drivers.

Although you may have narrowed down the main MSFS issue, I would still run UserBenchmark again and during the disk benchmark, pull up the task manager. The processes tab should have a disk column; I would check if there are any processes other than the UserBenchmark program using the disk, because something seems to be holding back your SSDs. Also, the Samsung Magician program that I and others mentioned in this thread will verify that TRIM is enabled on your SSDs. If TRIM is disabled for some reason, your SSDs will get slower and slower over time.

15 hours ago, Funky D said:

the Samsung Magician program that I and others mentioned in this thread will verify that TRIM is enabled on your SSDs. If TRIM is disabled for some reason, your SSDs will get slower and slower over time.

I checked the drive with Samsung Magician, and yes TRIM is enabled, should I disable that?