After two months of flying in 2024, the biggest issue I've encountered is the VRAM issue, and until the VRAM issue is addressed, 2024 will not be a viable simulator. I just had to scrap a DTW to RSKI run because the VRAM issue brought the sim to a crawl and the IniBuilds A340 instruments stopped responding (other issue?) after wasting an hour of planning and prep.

The problem with the VRAM exhaustion issue can rear its head at any time. You go from the never-before-encountered bliss of 100fps at JFK to 1 fps or less (yess LESS than 1 fps) while doing nothing but sitting at the gate. Likewise, you have the best flight of your life with great performance on takeoff and en route, but just as you make your final approach to a complex airport at 80 fps, all of a sudden, you're at 2 fps and attempting to land your stuttering mess. So you've wasted 40 minutes loading and preflighting your aircraft or spent 8 hours flying only to end up not being able to take off or land.

Now. If you're a GA pilot you may wonder what Mike T is on about - because I doubt you'll encounter this issue. But tube liner pilots flying into complex airports in complex aircraft, with AI Traffic (you can turn off the AI Traffic and still encounter the issue) see the VRAM warning as soon as they load up the scenery in many cases. Frustratingly, I'm not running everything pegged at Ultra, and I can keep turning down settings per the VRAM warning until I'm running on mid and low, at which point you might as well go back to MSFS 2020 or P3D v6. And yes, I've tried the "auto-config" setting and it can look pretty horrible. 

I'm running a high-end system with a 4080, and when 2024 is good, it is breathtaking, but when the VRAM issue hits, it ruins everything. The problem then becomes that I'm seeing 5090/4090 users encountering the VRAM issue too, so I'm loath to spend $ 3,000 on a 5090 for nothing. And because I know that my 4080 can run at very high frame rates, at high settings, until the VRAM issue hits there's no way I can justify it.

Are any of the beta testers seeing anything better? I DON'T want to go back to 2020, but I never have so much as a peep with it and I know that when I start a flight, I can complete it, which makes it compelling when the new shiny toy has a glaring issue like this one does.

Mike T.

 

I solved it by getting a RTX Pro 6000. 96GB of sweet VRAM, and 10% faster than a 5090.

Totally worth it for $10,000.

Edited July 2, 2025Jul 2 by RNAVV19R

I can’t run 2024 in VR unless I put graphics to mostly low settings, and use anything other than TAA.  Otherwise it’s crash city for me.  My system isn’t the beefiest, but it’s no slouch either.  In 2020 TAA with medium settings works well.

While I'm a GA-only flyer, I recently encountered a similar issue at KTVL, with VRAM utilization pegged at the maximum and the sim essentially grinding to a halt at 1 FPS or similar.

However, I tried the same spot in the latest SU3 beta and got much better results at the same settings, with significantly reduced VRAM utilization, so perhaps they are actively working on this...

Use for AutoFPS for the time being. In combination with GPU-Z it will detect how much of your VRAM is being used and lower the settings when you hit the roof.

4 hours ago, Gilandred said:

mostly low settings, and use anything other than TAA.

With that system you should be gettting much better performance. Do you have any kind of overclocking turned on? Try turning that off and check. 

4 hours ago, Mike T said:

The problem then becomes that I'm seeing 5090/4090 users encountering the VRAM issue too, so I'm loath to spend $ 3,000 on a 5090 for nothing

I’m not seeing any VRAM usage above 22GB so far, RAM is around 28-30GB usage.  BUT, I don’t use DLSS which will consume more VRAM.  I stick to SSAA (aka TAA=200).  

I do have A LOT of add-ons (FS Traffic, SimBrief, FSLabs, PMDG, GSX, Orbx, iniBuilds, FSDT, etc.)

How is your VRAM usage without DLSS/FrameGen?

But in case you didn’t know, using VRAM is a performance benefit and should be used as much as possible in order to keep FPS acceptable.  Have you tried the dynamic performance option in MSFS 2024 to see if that helps?

5 hours ago, Mike T said:

After two months of flying in 2024, the biggest issue I've encountered is the VRAM issue, and until the VRAM issue is addressed, 2024 will not be a viable simulator. I just had to scrap a DTW to RSKI run because the VRAM issue brought the sim to a crawl and the IniBuilds A340 instruments stopped responding (other issue?) after wasting an hour of planning and prep.

The problem with the VRAM exhaustion issue can rear its head at any time. You go from the never-before-encountered bliss of 100fps at JFK to 1 fps or less (yess LESS than 1 fps) while doing nothing but sitting at the gate. Likewise, you have the best flight of your life with great performance on takeoff and en route, but just as you make your final approach to a complex airport at 80 fps, all of a sudden, you're at 2 fps and attempting to land your stuttering mess. So you've wasted 40 minutes loading and preflighting your aircraft or spent 8 hours flying only to end up not being able to take off or land.

Now. If you're a GA pilot you may wonder what Mike T is on about - because I doubt you'll encounter this issue. But tube liner pilots flying into complex airports in complex aircraft, with AI Traffic (you can turn off the AI Traffic and still encounter the issue) see the VRAM warning as soon as they load up the scenery in many cases. Frustratingly, I'm not running everything pegged at Ultra, and I can keep turning down settings per the VRAM warning until I'm running on mid and low, at which point you might as well go back to MSFS 2020 or P3D v6. And yes, I've tried the "auto-config" setting and it can look pretty horrible. 

I'm running a high-end system with a 4080, and when 2024 is good, it is breathtaking, but when the VRAM issue hits, it ruins everything. The problem then becomes that I'm seeing 5090/4090 users encountering the VRAM issue too, so I'm loath to spend $ 3,000 on a 5090 for nothing. And because I know that my 4080 can run at very high frame rates, at high settings, until the VRAM issue hits there's no way I can justify it.

Are any of the beta testers seeing anything better? I DON'T want to go back to 2020, but I never have so much as a peep with it and I know that when I start a flight, I can complete it, which makes it compelling when the new shiny toy has a glaring issue like this one does.

Mike T.

 

How much VRAM does your card have? My card have 12GB's of Vram and the highest usage I see is close to 11GB's. You never mentioned what version card driver you're using.

Turn off photogrammetry...  something is coded oddly in 2024...  but that's a massive difference on my end in 2024.

I've not seen the resource window appear since doing that.  It's a bummer cause I like PG but it's not doable with all the addons I run.

2 hours ago, JonathanC said:

With that system you should be gettting much better performance. Do you have any kind of overclocking turned on? Try turning that off and check. 

I thought so too.  No overclocking either.  I turned off photogrammetry in 2020 because it looks horrible to me, so I’ll try turning it off in 2024 to see if that helps with performance.

7 minutes ago, Gilandred said:

I thought so too.  No overclocking either.  I turned off photogrammetry in 2020 because it looks horrible to me, so I’ll try turning it off in 2024 to see if that helps with performance.

Somethign is definitely amiss. You tried 3DMark or any bechmarking software to check whether other stuff is giving the results you expect? You can compare with similar systems via 3D Mark, and that's a great way to know whether you are generally getting the right amount of performance out of your components.. or sometimes a driver isn't installed/some bios setting is off or whatever, and you lose a lot of performance. 

I would first try and see if your system delivers with 3D Mark or similar. 

FSX days we had 32-Bit OOM issues and now VRAM issues is new poster child.  Maybe FSUIPC can have an alert setting like it did for FSX (in this case - VRAM is about to get real low)

The past issues haven't left us; it just got remixed into something else....

 

 

With the cost of the latest GPU approaching the cost of  a J-3 Cub, why bother with a simulation when you can do the real thing?  :0)

31 minutes ago, jmdriskell said:

With the cost of the latest GPU approaching the cost of  a J-3 Cub, why bother with a simulation when you can do the real thing?  :0)

For me to build a new pc (or just get one from Microcenter) with 5090 - is going to be around 5K.  That is half the price of my PPL.  Guess what I am going for PPL - and the graphics will be real.

I don't have VRAM issues with my 8gb 3060ti but I don't use PG.

If you do try using Dynamic Settings.  It helps a bunch at the big addon airports and helps the sim all round so I leave it on.

Also VR users report it helps them.

dd

Edited July 3, 2025Jul 3 by Sky_Pilot071