This is what ChatGPT says, but you can make up your own mind.  Some may find it useful:

Here are a set of tweaks & recommendations to optimise Windows 11 for running Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (MSFS2024) — aiming to reduce stutters, improve frame-rates, decrease loading times, etc. If you tell me your PC specs I can give more tuned suggestions.

---

System & Windows Settings

1. Power Plan

   • Use the High Performance or Ultimate Performance power plan.
   • If “Ultimate Performance” isn’t visible: use powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61 to enable it.

2. Disable Unnecessary Background Features / Security Overhead

   • Turn off Core Isolation → Memory Integrity (unless needed), since it can add CPU overhead.
   • If you don’t use virtualization much (VMs etc.), disable virtualization / VBS (Virtualisation-Based Security) in Windows.
   • Disable transparency effects, animations, and other UI features that don’t help in a simulator.
   • Turn off unnecessary notifications.

3. Graphics / GPU / Display Settings

   • Ensure Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling is enabled in Windows 11. Helps reduce latency.
   • Enable Resizable BAR / Above-4G decoding in BIOS + GPU vendor driver (this lets the CPU more efficiently send data to GPU VRAM).
   • For NVIDIA: set MSFS executable to High Performance in the Graphics settings (Settings → System → Display → Graphics).
   • Disable fullscreen optimizations for FlightSimulator.exe, and override high DPI scaling behaviour.

4. Storage / Pagefile

   • Install MSFS2024 and its content / cache on a fast NVMe SSD if possible. (Loading terrain, textures etc. improves a lot.)
   • Ensure pagefile (virtual memory) is enabled. Some users have reported crashes when the pagefile was disabled.
   • Keep enough free space on the drive MSFS uses (cache + rolling cache etc.), as insufficient free space can hurt performance.

5. Windows Update and Drivers

   • Keep GPU drivers up to date.
   • Also update motherboard BIOS / chipset drivers where relevant (especially for ensuring features like Resizable BAR or PCIe link speeds work correctly).
   • Windows updates: ensure critical updates are installed; sometimes performance or driver fixes are included.

6. Disable Game / Xbox / Overlays

   • Turn off Game Mode (Settings → Gaming). Some people report better stability with it off.
   • Disable or remove Xbox services / apps that run in the background and aren’t needed.
   • Disable overlays (e.g. from NVIDIA, AMD, Steam, Xbox) which may introduce latency or stutter.

7. Windows Features: Fast Boot etc.

   • Some recommend disabling Fast Startup (especially if encountering driver conflicts or odd behaviour).
   • Make sure “Use Unicode UTF-8” (if relevant) is set where needed (some performance guides mention non-English Windows setups).

8. System Monitoring

   • Use tools like MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner / CapFrameX to monitor GPU/CPU usage, temperature, frame time, VRAM usage to detect bottlenecks.
   • Look for GPU usage falling low in scenes where you expect high load (means maybe CPU bound, or something else throttling).

---

In-Game & MSFS2024 Settings

These are the graphics / simulator settings that trade visual quality vs performance. Tweak them according to your hardware.

Setting	Recommended Adjustments
Display Mode	Fullscreen is generally better for performance.
Render Scaling / Resolution	If performance is low, reduce render scale or use upscaling tech (DLSS / FSR etc.).
Terrain Level of Detail (TLOD)	Medium or slightly above. Very high TLOD gives big performance hits.
Texture Resolution	High instead of Ultra helps, especially if VRAM is limited.
Volumetric Clouds / Cloud Quality	Medium or High rather than Ultra to reduce GPU load.
Object / Scenery Density / Traffic	Reduce AI traffic, parked aircraft, airport services, road traffic etc. These have big CPU and GPU overhead.
Shadows, Reflections, Ray Tracing	Shadows can kill performance: shadow quality → low/medium. Reflective surfaces / realtime reflections also expensive.
Anti-Aliasing	TAA is a good compromise. Other AA modes may be more demanding.
Vertical Sync / Frame Limiters	Use V-Sync or a limiter if you get inconsistent frame timings or tearing, but test what works best for your system. VRR (variable refresh) helps.

---

If you want, I can assemble a step-by-step checklist for your specific PC (if you tell me CPU / GPU / RAM / SSD) to get the best performance. Do you want me to build that for your setup?

Please be aware that for AMD X3D CPU-s you should use Balaced Power plan so that thread scheduler and Core parking could work. 

"For X3D processors with dual chiplet (CCD) designs, the Balanced power mode is generally recommended because it works with the AMD smart scheduler to intelligently place games on the 3D V-Cache-equipped CCD, maximizing performance while keeping non-gaming cores parked for efficiency. Using the Best Performance mode can sometimes hinder X3D benefits by preventing core parking and potentially assigning gaming workloads to less optimal, non-V-Cache cores, leading to performance drops.   "

Good point Dankovic, I've just changed mine to see if it makes any difference.  There are a lot of variables, but there are a few pointers here for those who are less au fait with some of the ways that can help with Flight Simulator performance.

Edited October 9, 2025Oct 9 by cianpars

13 minutes ago, Dankovic said:

Please be aware that for AMD X3D CPU-s you should use Balaced Power plan so that thread scheduler and Core parking could work. 

"For X3D processors with dual chiplet (CCD) designs, the Balanced power mode is generally recommended because it works with the AMD smart scheduler to intelligently place games on the 3D V-Cache-equipped CCD, maximizing performance while keeping non-gaming cores parked for efficiency. Using the Best Performance mode can sometimes hinder X3D benefits by preventing core parking and potentially assigning gaming workloads to less optimal, non-V-Cache cores, leading to performance drops.   "

That explains something I noticed:

When I go to best performance and watch a YouTube video while cruising along the audio of the video is out of synch. 

When going back to balanced the problem fixes itself. 

36 minutes ago, Farlis said:

That explains something I noticed:

When I go to best performance and watch a YouTube video while cruising along the audio of the video is out of synch. 

When going back to balanced the problem fixes itself. 

That's why it's better not too use  ChatGPT for tuning your system...Or at least don't follow it blindly please

1 hour ago, Dankovic said:

Please be aware that for AMD X3D CPU-s you should use Balaced Power plan so that thread scheduler and Core parking could work. 

That only applies to the 16 core CPUs that only have 3d cache on have the cores. The 8 core CPUs have 3d cache on all cores so they don't need to run the same scheduling services.

1 hour ago, bailout said:

That only applies to the 16 core CPUs that only have 3d cache on have the cores. The 8 core CPUs have 3d cache on all cores so they don't need to run the same scheduling services.

I can't say I've been able to notice any difference so far between the two power plans with my 8 core 5800X3D TBH

24 minutes ago, cianpars said:

I can't say I've been able to notice any difference so far between the two power plans with my 8 core 5800X3D TBH

Yes, I missed to say it only applys for CPU-s with 2 CCD-s. 

Enable r-bar you loose Vram to the system and makes no sense in MSFS 2024 when you have 16GB Vram or less... When disabled on a card with 16GB or less Vram you will have more Vram to spare... ymmv

One thing on Fast Startup - kind of a goofy thing.  I would not turn it off, just be aware of what it is.  With Fast Startup on, if you hit reboot, you aren't doing a full reboot.  It kind of saves some things to make startup (you guessed it) faster.  It is fine to leave on, just be aware if you really want a full restart, power off.  Basically, when there's no problems, just leave it on.  

I won't drag out my soapbox on AI, just my usual word of caution.  You should understand what you are doing before doing it.  Fast Startup is a perfect example.  Not exactly bad advice, but I don't think it should just be turned off without consideration.  

It's actually largely pretty good advice.  Not to be taken blindly and better to also ask Chat-GPT to explain and of the commands/functions above if you don't understand and default to leave it as is if you are unsure of course but overall it's pretty good suggestions.  

Outside of longer boot times with fast restart it also usually disables USB pre-OS boot so if you want to boot from a USB for example then you will probably shut it off anyway but either/or shouldn't do any harm. 

None of the Windows settings are specific to MSFS. Those are the recommended settings for gaming in general, although using Balanced power plan isn't necessary for single CCD X3D CPUs (like the 5800X3D, 7800X3D, or 9800X3D.)

Edited October 9, 2025Oct 9 by RNAVV19R

33 minutes ago, kerosene31 said:

With Fast Startup on, if you hit reboot, you aren't doing a full reboot.  It kind of saves some things to make startup (you guessed it) faster.  It is fine to leave on, just be aware if you really want a full restart, power off.  Basically, when there's no problems, just leave it on.  

You have the reboot/power off mixed up here... If you want a clean system, reboot, do not power off. It sounds counter-intuitive, but shutting down the system with fast startup enabled will save the state to disk (similar to hibernation) and use that to speed up turning your system back on. If you want a clean slate, reboot.

As for Chat GPT's advice, I always push back on this one:

Quote

Turn off Core Isolation → Memory Integrity (unless needed), since it can add CPU overhead.

I would argue if your machine is online, Core Isolation is "needed". I would rather sacrifice a few FPS than leave my computer and personal data vulnerable to a zero-day attack that takes advantage of disabled security protections.