Getting a Huge Performance Loss Recently in MSFS 2020

[Dave68]

I just can't figure out what is causing a huge performance loss in my system in MSFS 2020 since the last time I played it without the performance loss which was about 2 months ago then I uninstalled MSFS and reinstalled Windows 11 and reinstalled MSFS yesterday and copied the packages folder from my backup drive to Drive E which is a 2TB NVMe that I dedicate for just games.  Before I got around 82 fps sitting at runway 8R at Vancouver International Airport in the default 747-8i.  Now I"m getting around 65 fps in the same scenario.  I did try 2 versions older graphics card drivers which I think were the ones I was using when I didn't have this performance drop, and actually lost around 2 more fps than the latest ones.  However, in my experience graphics cards driver version does not make much of a difference in performance in MSFS.  The only hardware change I did was upgrade from 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 to 64GB DDR-3200 CL22 a month ago but I doubt the increased memory latency is causing this performance drop of this calibur, especially on a Ryzen 7 5800X3D.   It didn't in X-Plane 11 or 12 and performance is still around the same in those games, or at most within a 0.5 fps delta.  The scenario I experienced the huge performance drop recently is a Main Thread Limited scenario (both before and after the recent huge performance drop) according to the developer mode FPS display.  Another thing different is that I did this time is installed MSFS core in Drive C but kept the packages (the bulk of the MSFS installation) folder on Drive E (my dedicated Games drive) because I didn't want the installation to add the MS folders (WindowsApps, Program Files, etc) to Drive E where my games are installed.  I doubt that installing MSFS this way is causing the issue.  Should the MSFS packages folder be on the same drive as these MS folders despite that during the installation it gave me an option of where to install the MSFS packages folder?  So anyone here have any idea of what would cause MSFS to go from 82 fps to 65 fps in this scenario recently?  

 

My system:  Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 64GB DDR-3200, RTX 4090, 2x2TB NVMe, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

 

[Dave68]

I also want to add that another factor that is different is that I updated my BIOS recently.

[chicagorandy]

I'm not 'techie' enough to repond, but I do wonder if you can see any difference in actual game play at 65fps over 82? I "think" most movies run at about 24fps and am not sure if I would be able to notice a difference if a film went to 50fps?

 

Does the sim 'stutter' or exhibit 'jerky' motions with the slightly reduced frame rate?  Or is it just that your rate counter shows the reduction? In truth I've never bothered to check what my current fps rate is flying MSFS2020 so that is my perspective in this situation.

[Dave68]

43 minutes ago, chicagorandy said:

I'm not 'techie' enough to repond, but I do wonder if you can see any difference in actual game play at 65fps over 82? I "think" most movies run at about 24fps and am not sure if I would be able to notice a difference if a film went to 50fps?

 

Does the sim 'stutter' or exhibit 'jerky' motions with the slightly reduced frame rate?  Or is it just that your rate counter shows the reduction? In truth I've never bothered to check what my current fps rate is flying MSFS2020 so that is my perspective in this situation.

Well, it's running smoothly and I keep the frame rate at half the vsync rate anyways when I'm actually playing the game. I can't tell the difference between 65 and over 82 fps but I have a 60Hz monitor, so that may have something to do with it.  However if there is a more complex situation, that 82 fps might turn into 30 fps and that 65 fps might turn into 24 fps, and I then can easily tell the difference in smoothness, especially at a 60Hz refresh rate.  I can easily tell the difference between 24 and 30 fps when the screen refresh rate is 60Hz.

[Dave68]

Well I just installed Windows 10 to make sure it was not a Windows 11 issue and I'm having the same performance loss in Windows 10 as well, so it's not an OS issue.  I also tried a graphics card driver that I used to used 2 months ago, and the performance loss was still there.  Is there a way I can roll back to the version I was playing 2 months ago, just to see if it's an update that caused it?

[grimsel]

You said, you have updated your BIOS. From my experience updating the BIOS may result in a reset of certain settings back to default. So in case you have e.g. modified core frequencies or similar, these may now be back to default after the update.

 

Maybe you double check.

[Dave68]

Come to think of it, I did forgot to set Performance Bias to Off in the BIOS after I updated the BIOS.  So I did that and actually lost even more performance, went from 65 fps to 59 fps.  I have an Asus ROG Strix B550-F (Wi-Fi) motherboard.  The release notes mention that the World XIV update has improved flight models for the 747-8i and 787.  Could the improvements in the flight models be more demanding on the CPU, especially on the main thread, and that could explain the majority of the performance drop?  I'm not saying that I don't welcome the improvements at the cost of CPU performance in the flight models but I would like an understanding of the root cause of this performance drop that I'm getting in MSFS 2020.   Also I doubt that going from 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16-18-18 to 64GB DDR4-3200 CL22-22-22 will cause a huge performance drop like this, at most I would think I would be going from 82 fps down to 78 fps from the increased memory latency.  I did attempt to tighten the timings to the same settings as the XMP timings of the previous DDR4-3200 kit I had installed and increases the memory voltage to 1.35V (XMP memory voltage used by the previous memory kit that was installed) to see if it was actually the increased memory latency that was causing this huge performance drop but I was unsuccessful as MSFS 2020 crashed out back to the desktop interface during loading and my PC froze after that, requiring a hard reset.

[Dave68]

I reverted back to the previous BIOS version and I'm still getting the huge performance drop in MSFS 2020.  So it's not the BIOS that is causing the issue.  It's not the graphics card's drivers.  It's not the OS. I also have Windows power management set to performance and my graphics card's power management mode set to performance as I always do.

[grimsel]

There are not many things I could think of, that influence fps in such a way. For NVidia systems using / not using DX12 and DLSS may be - or a very complex add-on scenery may be. Other than that all changes I ever experimented with, resulted in marginal performance changes only. So I am afraid, I can't help.

[Dave68]

I just installed MSI Afterburner and it showed that my CPU is running at 4350-4450 MHz, CPU temperature was 68 C, CPU usage was around 21-23%, GPU clock was 2520MHz, GPU usage was around 29-30% in that scenario I tested out in MSFS 2020.  I don't understand what is causing this performance loss based on what I gather from the MSI Afterburner readings as the readings look where they should be for my system.

[grimsel]

I think I heard somewhere, that the MSFS main thread is running on core 1 of the CPU. Should that be true, and should the 21-23% be an average over all cores, then these numbers would not tell a lot. If you use e.g. task manager, you could monitor the core 1 usage separately.

[grimsel]

Could be true. I did a quick test:

average cpu load is 35%, but core one is somewhere around 90%

[Dave68]

I tested a different aircraft, the BAe 146-200 (a 3rd party aircraft for MSFS 2020), and didn't experience a performance drop with that aircraft compared to 2 months ago.  About 2 months ago it was around 53 fps using that aircraft sitting at CYVR, runway 8R and just recently it is still around 53 fps with that aircraft.  Could the improved flight modelling of the stock 747-8i from a recent update cause the 747-8i to be much more demanding on the CPU?  The release notes of the most recent update mentioned improved flight modelling of the stock 747-8i and 787.

[grimsel]

Then let's take that as the solution...

[budreiser]

This probably has nothing to do with a solution for your problem, but I just noticed my last few (make-believe) flights gave me the "slide show" routine when landing at a few high density terminals, such as Rome. Now, the only change I recall doing lately is activating a tool by IOBIT called "Smart Game Booster". I just tried departing Rome without "Smart Game Booster" and FPS real smooth as it used to be. Just my two cents.

[Dave68]

Does the 3D cache of the 5800X3D become less important and raw CPU power become more important as a flight model becomes more complex?  For, example would a 13700k start to beat a 5800X3D if using an aircraft with a very complex flight model?  I read reviews on the 5800X3D and it showed the 5800X3D beating a 13700k in MSFS 2020, but now with the latest update that mentions that it improved flight modeling of the stock 747-8i (I did see a huge drop in frame rate with this aircraft as I mentioned earlier) and 787-10 is this still the case, at least when using those aircraft?  What about 3rd party aircraft such as the PMDG 737 (600-900) and the JF BAe 146, would the 13700k beat the 5800X3D when using those aircraft?  

 

 

[Dave68]

Should the PMDG 737-800 be about as CPU demanding as the stock 747-8i, at least inside the cockpit?  I get about the same fps in the PMDG 737-800 as the stock 747-8i when inside the cockpit (around 62-63 fps) sitting at CYVR Rwy 8R at 12:00 pm sim time and in Developer mode it shows that I'm Main Thread Limited.  I'm just wondering if something is out of wack in the stock 747-8i in my MSFS 2020 installation and if I should be getting much higher fps in the stock 747-8i than the PMDG 737-800?

[Dave68]

Well I deleted the 747-8i folder and associated liveries folders and had MSFS 2020 update restore them but that didn't restore the fps I was getting with that aircraft 2 months ago.  Is something broken in my CPU or is the stock 747-8i much more CPU demanding that it was 2 months ago?