Hi everyone,

I’ve recently started experiencing a major performance issue in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, specifically during nighttime operations.

 

 

Issue Summary

• During the day, performance is stable at around 116 FPS
• At night, FPS drops significantly to around 90 FPS (or lower)
• This happens consistently at all major airports, regardless of location or aircraft

 

Tested Locations

I’ve tested across multiple major airports, including:

• VHHH (Hong Kong)
• KJFK (New York JFK)
• EGLL (London Heathrow)
• OMDB (Dubai)
• YSSY (Sydney)
• EHAM (Amsterdam)
• EGCC (Manchester)
• EFHK (Helsinki)

The issue occurs universally across all of them.

 

Troubleshooting Already Done

• Cleared the Community folder (no add-ons)
• Tested with default aircraft only
• Completely removed and reinstalled NVIDIA drivers using DDU
• Monitored thermals and VRAM usage (everything normal)
• No signs of CPU/GPU throttling or spikes

 

Key Observation

• The issue is strictly tied to nighttime
• Daytime performance remains perfectly stable
• Night performance is consistently degraded regardless of settings or scenario

 

System Specs

• CPU: i9-14900K (water-cooled)
• GPU: RTX 5070 Ti
• RAM: 32GB DDR4 @ 3600MHz
• Storage: 4TB (2× SSDs)
• Monitor: Alienware AW3418DW (G-SYNC)

Additional Notes

• This issue started suddenly, without any clear change on my end
• No recent hardware changes or known system instability
• Performance drop feels rendering-related (lighting?) rather than hardware limitation

 

Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Does it fit into this? 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/high-gpu-usage-at-night-with-apron-floodlights/753784?u=guenseli

I find it rather amusing that a framerate drop down to 90fps is considered to be a cause for concern 

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

I find it rather amusing that a framerate drop down to 90fps is considered to be a cause for concern 

I understand your point of view but it’s a choppy stuttery 90fps.. 

 

and yes it’s a cause for concern losing 26fps for only during night is something that should be alarming to anyone.. image someone having 60fps losing 20+fps and dropping to the 40~30s is not gonna look good.. not everyone can afford such loss.

6 hours ago, guenseli said:

Does it fit into this? 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/high-gpu-usage-at-night-with-apron-floodlights/753784?u=guenseli

With DLSS it never happens but with TAA or DLAA or no anti aliasing seems it trigger it! 

A lot of lights to render does indeed reduce performance.  I guess this is only to be expected.  The alternative is for ASOBO and the addon developers to reduce the lighting (but that would be less immersive) or for the OP to lower his settings a little or upgrade his hardware.