Give lower settings a try, you may be surprised

[MrBitstFlyer 3,638]

I am very surprised, and a little confused, how lower settings can look much better than I assumed!  I had been using mostly Ultra settings and getting around 30-40fps depending on location.  At times the FPS was dropping into the mid twenties.  Also, my FPS graph in developer mode was red/yellow.  I was getting big stutters at just the wrong times - on final approach for example.  Sharpness is a big issure for me - I just can't enjoy the sim with distant hills/mountains/ground blurry. I didn't like the blurriness introduced with DLSS/Quality, so defaulted to using TAA.  Those lucky folks with 40 series cards using Frame Generation and getting massive FPS were a constantly nagging me. 😁  OK, so I have a 2080ti, but surely this card could give me more FPS and fluidity?

I read this thread about trying DLAA with DLSS. I did notice an increase in sharpness, but the FPS was unchanged. I decided to lower my settings to see what point I could get a constant 60FPS.  I read a lot about which settings were cpu/gpu dependent.  I watched YouTube videos demonstrating the differences between low/medium/high/ultra settings. I spent a few hours trying, changing settings and flying the sim.  I have managed to get a great looking sim at a steady 60fps, with sharp textures into the distance, with much lower settings AND using DLSS/Quality!  The developer graph is now all green.  My CPU is running at 10-12ms, with the GPU at 14-16ms.

I am confused why DLSS/Quality is now looking sharper than I have seen it before - presumably all the FPS saved with the lower settings has helped?  The instruments are still a little blurry, but the outside view is looking as good to me as using TAA. Most of my settings are now medium & high.  I have nothing on Ultra at all.  I even have Contact Shadows on low!  I had all shadow settings on ultra too, but lowering them all to medium had little effect on visual quality.

Give lower settings a try if you are frustrated at low FPS.  Most of the settings at Ultra are only slightly better looking than high, yet gain you plenty of FPS. The comparison video here is old now, but it demonstrates very niceley the jump in quality between the settings. For example, the quality between low & medium buildings is huge, but going higher with the settings yields very small improvements.

[Farlis 1,967]

8 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

using DLSS/Quality!

Try DLLS/DLAA. That's what the thread you linked to was about. Especially with the newest. Dll for DLSS it is not blurry any longer.

[abennett 111]

2 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

I am very surprised, and a little confused, how lower settings can look much better than I assumed!  I had been using mostly Ultra settings and getting around 30-40fps depending on location.  At times the FPS was dropping into the mid twenties.  Also, my FPS graph in developer mode was red/yellow.  I was getting big stutters at just the wrong times - on final approach for example.  Sharpness is a big issure for me - I just can't enjoy the sim with distant hills/mountains/ground blurry. I didn't like the blurriness introduced with DLSS/Quality, so defaulted to using TAA.  Those lucky folks with 40 series cards using Frame Generation and getting massive FPS were a constantly nagging me. 😁  OK, so I have a 2080ti, but surely this card could give me more FPS and fluidity?

I read this thread about trying DLAA with DLSS. I did notice an increase in sharpness, but the FPS was unchanged. I decided to lower my settings to see what point I could get a constant 60FPS.  I read a lot about which settings were cpu/gpu dependent.  I watched YouTube videos demonstrating the differences between low/medium/high/ultra settings. I spent a few hours trying, changing settings and flying the sim.  I have managed to get a great looking sim at a steady 60fps, with sharp textures into the distance, with much lower settings AND using DLSS/Quality!  The developer graph is now all green.  My CPU is running at 10-12ms, with the GPU at 14-16ms.

I am confused why DLSS/Quality is now looking sharper than I have seen it before - presumably all the FPS saved with the lower settings has helped?  The instruments are still a little blurry, but the outside view is looking as good to me as using TAA. Most of my settings are now medium & high.  I have nothing on Ultra at all.  I even have Contact Shadows on low!  I had all shadow settings on ultra too, but lowering them all to medium had little effect on visual quality.

Give lower settings a try if you are frustrated at low FPS.  Most of the settings at Ultra are only slightly better looking than high, yet gain you plenty of FPS. The comparison video here is old now, but it demonstrates very niceley the jump in quality between the settings. For example, the quality between low & medium buildings is huge, but going higher with the settings yields very small improvements.

Any chance you could share your settings?

[mobeans10 164]

I use low volumetric cloud settings in VR for a significant increase in performance. Obviously higher settings are better but I find low to be not too bad given the performance boost.

[Virtual-Chris 682]

High Terrain LOD is probably the biggest contributor to lower FPS for me. I run at 300 for VFR but 200 in the Longitude to compensate for using a pop out. It probably adds about 10FPS. 

[Luis Hernandez 458]

I've just set MSFS to medium, and I could set my framerate to 40 FPS (using RTSS front-edge sync). I didn't even finetune TLOD or glass cockpit refresh rate. However, I did have to retune my AI traffic (FSLTL set to just 14 planes and no parked aircraft, and LVFR statics reinstalled). I only had TAA and 135% rendering scaling (to replace my 1.78x DLDSR and get rid of the blurries in glass gauges).

Ground is still a bit blurry for my liking (but maybe Bing is not that good down here), and also houses and buildings don't go as far away as with other sims. I guess I need some fine tuning.

Edited August 1 by Luis Hernandez

[MrBitstFlyer 3,638]

4 hours ago, Farlis said:

Try DLLS/DLAA. That's what the thread you linked to was about. Especially with the newest. Dll for DLSS it is not blurry any longer.

Got the latest file thanks. DLSS/DLAA is good but hits the FPS.

[Pete165 2]

On 8/1/2023 at 7:59 AM, Farlis said:

Try DLLS/DLAA. That's what the thread you linked to was about. Especially with the newest. Dll for DLSS it is not blurry any longer.

is that DLL a separate download/install, or is it just part of a specific driver version?   Also is there a guide or discussion somewhere that you could link?  Thank you!!

[Virtual-Chris 682]

53 minutes ago, Pete165 said:

is that DLL a separate download/install, or is it just part of a specific driver version?   Also is there a guide or discussion somewhere that you could link?  Thank you!!

It’s a separate download and install. Google DLSS DLL update for more. If you have access to the DLLs in your MSFS folder get the DLSS Swapper app to make it a two click job. 

[Farlis 1,967]

3 hours ago, Pete165 said:

is that DLL a separate download/install, or is it just part of a specific driver version?   Also is there a guide or discussion somewhere that you could link?  Thank you!!

We just discussed this here:

 

[Noel 4,183]

On 8/1/2023 at 6:48 AM, MrBitstFlyer said:

but lowering them all to medium had little effect on visual quality.

I've known this and commented on it in past threads that counterintuitively lowered settings don't degrade visuals as much as expected, in fact often not at all.  But....I still end up using all Ultra anyway, don't ask me why!  I guess since I've not really evaluated this deeply I'm assuming Ultra must be superior.Thanks for the reminder I will try again and see if this impression still holds true.

I do continue to have excellent performance, my 3080Ti never breaks a sweat at 3440x1440, which suggests to me your GPU could deliver what mine does, with how I configure settings, especially at your screen resolution.  My goal is ultra low frame time variance, much less FPS.  I find FPS minimum of 33 or so is fine provided FTV looks like this which was with FPS of 35 as I had ample headroom for 35. Ultra-smooth animation, sharp, zero to rare brief stutters in a 2h flight:

[MrBitstFlyer 3,638]

21 minutes ago, Noel said:

I guess since I've not really evaluated this deeply I'm assuming Ultra must be superior

Same here, always used ultra settings in the past, but the difference between Ultra and high is really small depending on the settings.  I now have a steady 60FPS outside big cities which leads to a much better feeling of aircraft handling. 

As well as the video I posted a link to above, I used this page to check out the visual differences for all settings.

[Noel 4,183]

14 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

As well as the video I posted a link to above, I used this page to check out the visual differences for all settings.

Thanks for that,

Cheers

[MrBitstFlyer 3,638]

6 hours ago, Noel said:

I find FPS minimum of 33 or so is fine provided FTV looks like this

Interesting.  As I said, I have a steady 60fps which I am perceiving as very smooth. However, I downloaded the tool you showed in the image you posted and got very different results that shows room for improvement.

As an initial run through I recorded a flight at my steady 60fps, then a flight with the fps restricted to 30. I expected the graphs/pie charts with the lower fps to show completely smooth, but they were the same!

[Ricardo41 5,733]

The whole settings business is just youtube clickbait hype. 

Nobody says: the game was rubbish, but the graphics looked great!

Conversely, some of the greates games ever released look like rubbish graphicswise: Deus Ex, Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl, etc. 

I haven't touched my settings once since I installed MSFS on my new computer.