40 Jul 11 Guide will be left as is until release, Here is a detailed analysis of each setting’s visual and performance impact. I’ve benchmarked the effects of multiple different settings in a sterile scenario. This guide is supposed to help you make decisions on visual impact versus CPU / GPU impact in the simulator. System Specifications: i7 6700 BCLK overclocked to 4.335 GHZ 24GB of 2890MHZ CL16 DDR4 RAM GTX 1080 at 1974 / 5481 MHZ Windows 10 build 2004. Nvidia drivers 451.48 with HAGS On. MSFS Client + Packages is installed on a 7200 RPM drive. Test areas usually pre-cached once with a separate 7200 RPM RAID array. What is HAGS (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) and how do I enable it? Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling is a new feature that optimizes GPU scheduling (which is usually done on the CPU) by offloading it to a “GPU based scheduling hardware” on the graphics card itself. You require a Nvidia 10 series or newer / an AMD RX 5600 - 5700 series GPU in order to use this. Enabling procedure: 1. First, update your graphics drivers to latest. 2. You need at least Nvidia 450.98 or AMD 20.5.1 Beta to enable this feature. (AMD 20.5.1 Release or 20.7.1 Release lacks HAGS support as of now) 3. Then follow this guide 349: Tests: Testing Methodology Testing Methodology Screenshots are mostly taken at GPU Bottleneck settings with some exceptions. Framerate numbers are captured by MSI Afterburner. GPU usage and VRAM usage numbers are taken with a reasonable average through MSI Afterburner CPU usage numbers are only eyeballed numbers through Process Lasso and thus only referred to roughly from notes. If a setting seemingly requires a restart to take effect, a standardized position will be selected. CPU and GPU dependency of a setting is determined by comparing CPU bottlenecked settings and GPU bottlenecked settings in the same scenario. Traffic settings were benchmarked with only the tested traffic setting enabled. Testing Scenario Multiplayer: Off (Group Only) Air Traffic: Off Weather & Time: Custom, few clouds 12 PM Camera angles are kept static per each graphic setting. Test Settings: Please note that the settings below are not meant to be copied and are only meant as a point of reference for testing. Scroll down to “Settings Analysis” for recommended settings. Baseline Test Settings: GRAPHICS Display Mode: Fullscreen Full Screen Resolution: 1920X1080 HDR10: Grayed out (in on position) Global Rendering Quality: Custom Advanced Settings V-Sync: Off Render Scaling: 100 Anti Aliasing: TAA Terrain Level of Detail: 100 Tessellation Quality: Ultra Buildings: Ultra Trees: Ultra Grass and Bushes: Ultra Objects Level of Detail: 100 Volumetric Clouds: Ultra Texture Resolution: Ultra Anisotropic Filtering: 16x Texture Supersampling: 4x4 Texture Synthesis: Ultra Water Waves: High Shadow Maps: 2048 Terrain Shadows: 1024 Contact Shadows: Ultra Windshield Effects: Ultra Ambient Occlusion: Ultra Reflections: Ultra Light Shafts: Ultra Bloom: On Depth of Field: Ultra Lens Correction: Off Lens Flare: On Use Generic Plane Models: Off TRAFFIC Aviation Traffic Aircraft Traffic Type: Real-Time Online AI Airliners Traffic Density: 0 (grayed-out) AI General Aviation Traffic Density: 0 (grayed-out) Show Traffic Nameplates: On Airport Life Airport Vehicle Density: 50 Ground Aircraft Density: 50 Worker Density: 50 Land and Sea Traffic Leisure Boats: 50 Road Vehicles: 50 Ships and Ferries: 50 DATA Data Connection Online Functionality: On Bing Data World Graphics: On Photogrammetry: On Live Real-World Air Traffic: On Live Weather: On Multiplayer: On Data Bandwith Usage Limit Bandwidth: 40 Mbit/s Rolling Cache Settings Rolling Cache: On Rolling Cache Limit (GIB): 100 Rolling Cache pathed to separate RAID array GPU Limited Test Settings: Following baseline with following changes: GRAPHICS Advanced Settings Render Scaling: 200 CPU Limited Test Settings: Following baseline with following changes: GRAPHICS Advanced Settings Render Scaling: 30 … Terrain Level of Detail: 200 … Objects Level of Detail: 200 Foreword: Fullscreen typically nets you the lowest performance loss as the game does not have to pass through DWM, or in the case of UWP apps, it usually utilizes a different display model. HDR is known to potentially impact framerates on Nvidia cards, moreso if G-Sync is enabled. V-Sync is recommended to be disabled unless you can constantly maintain the same framerate as your display refresh rate, otherwise there will be frame pacing issues. G-Sync reportedly has framerate issues with majority of MSFS builds (including 1.6.11) Some settings were benchmarked at larger increments (eg. AF 0x, 4x, 16x only) to save time. Always set “Full Screen Resolution” to your native monitor resolution, and tweak rendering resolution with the “Render Scaling” slider. This ensures lowest input lag, and the UI will be as sharp as possible. Note that some settings are tested on old versions, and other versions may behave differently both visually and performance wise. Full retest will come with the release of Closed Beta Recommended Settings This is to be taken with a grain of salt as it is for the people who do not have the time to go through the individual settings analysis posted below. I highly suggest you do go through the individual settings analysis as CPU / GPU balance as well as personal taste can vary. GRAPHICS Display Mode: Fullscreen Full Screen Resolution: Native Monitor Resolution HDR10: *As desired* Global Rendering Quality: Custom Advanced Settings V-Sync: Off Render Scaling: 100 Anti Aliasing: TAA Terrain Level of Detail: 100 Tessellation Quality: See settings analysis Buildings: Ultra, Medium if necessary Trees: Medium Grass and Bushes: High, Off if desired Objects Level of Detail: As desired / Not benchmarked. Volumetric Clouds: Ultra, High / Medium if necessary Texture Resolution: Ultra, (VRAM Permitting) Anisotropic Filtering: 16x Texture Supersampling: 4x4 Texture Synthesis: As desired / Not benchmarked Water Waves: Medium Shadow Maps: 1536 Terrain Shadows: 512 Contact Shadows: Ultra Windshield Effects: High Ambient Occlusion: High, Medium / Low if necessary Reflections: 1080p - Ultra, 1440p - Ultra, high if desired, 2160p - Ultra, high / medium if desired Light Shafts: Ultra Bloom: On Depth of Field: Ultra Lens Correction: Off Lens Flare: On Use Generic Plane Models: Off TRAFFIC AI Airliners Traffic Density: 50 (0 if required) Settings Analysis (right click > view image in new tab, in order to full screen and see effects in full detail) * - indicates that further testing is required* Graphics Anti Aliasing Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 2.8 MB FXAA FXAA1920×1080 3.45 MB DLAA DLAA1920×1080 2.8 MB TAA TAA1920×1080 3.07 MB Recommended Setting: TAA Performance Impact: No impact on CPU performance. Off, FXAA, DLAA gives 34 FPS TAA gives 33 FPS (3% reduction) Visual Impact: Geometry aliasing is visible in motion on Off, FXAA, and DLAA, which is not present in TAA. – TAA removes this aliasing at the downside of motion artifacts and ghosting. I highly reccomend using TAA as it is the main denoiser for Ambient Occlusion, and Reflections, and as such these effects will not be displayed properly unless TAA is enabled. Terrain Level Of Detail Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 10 101920×1080 3.91 MB 100 1001920×1080 4.37 MB 200 2001920×1080 4.48 MB Recommended Setting: 100 Performance Impact: This setting impacts both CPU and GPU performance as it is increased. Under a CPU bottlenecked scenario, 10 at 110 FPS 100 at 98 FPS (11% reduction) 200 at 88 FPS (20% reduction) Under a GPU bottlenecked scenario, 10 at 42 FPS 100 at 38FPS (9.5% reduction) 200 at 36 FPS(17% reduction) Visual Impact: Linear quality increase up to 100, but going past 100 leads to lower framerates with smaller visual impact *Tessellation Quality Recommended Setting: Ultra* I was unable to get screenshots or benchmark tessellation quality in the sim specifically. Tessellation generally runs at an extremely low cost on modern GPU’s (Nvidia 900 series or newer), but a heavy cost on older GPU’s (Older than Nvidia 900 series). If your GPU is 900 series or newer, I recommend tessellation on Ultra, as there will be likely little performance impact. If your GPU is older than 900 series, I recommend lowering the tessellation value or turning it off completely. Please reply to the thread if you know where terrain tessellation is displayed. Buildings Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Low Low1920×1080 3.02 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 4.15 MB High High1920×1080 4.21 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 4.21 MB Recommended Setting: Medium (low end), Ultra (high end) Performance Impact: No impact on CPU performance. Low ran at 48FPS, Medium ran at 44FPS (9% reduction) High and Ultra both ran at 42FPS (14% reduction) Visual Impact: Main impact on synthesized buildings. Low has very barebones buildings. Medium adds clutter / objects to buildings. High and Ultra improve the shading on the buildings. Trees Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Low Low1920×1080 4.16 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 4.15 MB High High1920×1080 4.15 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 4.13 MB Recommended Setting: Low (low end), Medium (high end) Performance Impact: Slight impact to CPU performance on Ultra. Low ran at 44 FPS Medium ran at 41 FPS (7% reduction) High and Ultra ran at 40fps (10% reduction) with a 3% increase to GPU usage as well Visual Impact: Low has extremely high contrast appearing on the tree textures, and looks flat / billboard like. Medium makes the trees look significantly more lush and 3D, and somewhat fixes the aforementioned contrast issue. Ultra appears to have slightly higher tree density than Medium. Grass and Bushes Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.1 MB Low Low1920×1080 3.48 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 3.55 MB High High1920×1080 3.59 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 4.07 MB Recommended Setting: High Performance Impact: Small impact to CPU performance going from Off (67FPS) to Ultra (66FPS) in CPU bound scenario. Off gave 43 FPS, Low gave 41 FPS (5% reduction) Medium and High gave 40 FPS (8% reduction) Ultra gave 38 FPS (13% reduction) Visual Impact: The density and render distance of the grass changes as the settings increase. Off displays no sprite grass, Low displays low density with low render distance, Medium displays medium density with medium render distance, High displays high density with medium render distance, Ultra displays highest density with medium render distance. *Objects Level of Detail Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Recommended Setting: 100* I was unable to find any graphical differences between screenshots. Please reply to the thread if you know what this does. Performance Impact: CPU performance is greatly affected, – GPU performance is slightly affected. Very similar to Terrain Level Of Detail Volumetric Clouds Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Low Low1920×1080 2.77 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 2.86 MB High High1920×1080 2.81 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 3.57 MB Recommended Setting: Medium (low end), High (mid range), Ultra (High end) Performance Impact: No impact to CPU performance. Low ran at 40 FPS Medium ran at 39 FPS (3% reduction) High ran at 36 FPS (11% reduction) with 2% higher GPU utilization Ultra ran at 34 FPS (18% reduction) with 4% higher GPU utilization Visual Impact: Mainly affects cloud resolution (presumably noise texture resolution) Low looks terrible, whereas medium is where I’d start to call it acceptable. High and Ultra is where the clouds in this sim really shine. Texture Resolution Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Low Low1920×1080 3.01 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 3.37 MB Recommended Setting: Ultra* Performance Impact: Setting had no impact to CPU or GPU performance. 6175 MB of VRAM was used when on low. 7190 MB of VRAM was used when on ultra. If you run out VRAM on your GPU, consider lowering this setting. Visual Impact: Textures on low are generally blurry and pixellated. Textures on ultra more crisp Anisotropic Filtering Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 2.94 MB 4x 4x1920×1080 3.21 MB 16x 16x1920×1080 2.36 MB Recommended Setting: 16x* Performance Impact: HAGS has been reported to potentially reduce the impact of this setting. Off gave 37 FPS, 4x gave 36 FPS, 16x gave 35 FPS. Visual Impact: Removes some of the texture blur caused by mipmapping. Provides noticeable increases to quality up to 16x Texture Supersampling Tested on Closed Beta Preview 1.6.11.0 TAA On Off Off1920×1080 3.06 MB 8x8 8by81920×1080 3.91 MB TAA Off Off Off1920×1080 2.92 MB 2x2 2by21920×1080 2.91 MB 4x4 4by41920×1080 2.89 MB 8x8 8by81920×1080 2.89 MB Recommended Setting: Off Note: From my understanding, 2x2 = 4x SSAA / 200 Scaling, 4x4 = 8x SSAA / 400 Scaling, 6x6 = 12x SSAA / 600 Scaling, 8x8 = 16x SSAA / 800 Scaling Performance Impact: No impact on CPU performance. No impact on VRAM usage. Off gave 31 FPS 2x2 gave 30 FPS (3% reduction) 4x4 gave 29.5~ FPS (5% reduction) 8x8 gave 29 FPS (7% reduction) Visual Impact: Impossible to distinguish with TAA on Ground textures become smoother / clearer as setting increases With TAA off, small impact going to 2x2 compared to off, but little difference between 2x2 and 8x8. *Texture Synthesis Not benchmarked yet. Water Waves Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Low Low1920×1080 3.86 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 4.33 MB High High1920×1080 4.74 MB Recommended Setting: Medium Performance Impact: Slight impact to CPU performance going from Medium (73 FPS) to High (72 FPS) (1% reduction) Low gave 40 FPS Medium gave 39 FPS (3% reduction) High gave 37 FPS. (8% reduction) Visual Impact: Low is lower detail but does not look out of place. Medium and High look identical, with higher fidelity waves. Shadow Maps Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 768 7681920×1080 4 MB 1024 10241920×1080 4 MB 1536 15361920×1080 4 MB 2048 Ultra1920×1080 4 MB Recommended Setting: 1536 Performance Impact: No impact to CPU performance 768, 1024, and 1536 all gave 43 FPS. 2048 gave 41 FPS (5% reduction). Visual Impact: Shadows get crisper the higher resolution they are set to Terrain Shadows Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off960×540 1.03 MB 128 1281920×1080 4.39 MB 256 2561920×1080 4.36 MB 512 5121920×1080 4.3 MB 1024 10241920×1080 4.26 MB 2048 20481920×1080 4.87 MB Recommended Setting: 512 Performance Impact: No impact on CPU performance. Off, 128, 256 gave 43 FPS 512 gave 42 FPS (2% reduction) with 2% higher GPU usage 1024 gave 41 FPS (5% reduction) with the same 2% higher GPU usage. 2048 gave 38 FPS (13% reduction) with the same 2% higher GPU usage. Visual Impact: The screenshots were taken at very similar time of day. The shadow sharpness and therefore accuracy increases as the setting increases. Contact Shadows Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.69 MB Low Low1920×1080 3.7 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 3.7 MB High High1920×1080 3.7 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 3.71 MB Recommended Setting: Ultra Performance Impact: Off gave 39 FPS. Low, Medium, High, Ultra gave 38 FPS (3% reduction) Visual Impact: There seems to be less noise at higher settings. Windshield Effects Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Low Low1920×1080 1.82 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 2.87 MB High High1920×1080 2.85 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 2.96 MB Recommended Setting: High Performance Impact: No impact on CPU performance. Low, Medium, High, gave 38 FPS. Ultra gave 34 FPS (12% reduction) with a noticeable increase to quality. Visual Impact: Raindrops become more dense and smaller at higher settings. Low seemingly renders no raindrops on windshield. Ambient Occlusion Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.54 MB Low Low1920×1080 3.55 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 3.55 MB High High1920×1080 3.54 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 3.96 MB Off Off1920×1080 3.21 MB Low Low1920×1080 4.08 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 3.25 MB High High1920×1080 3.22 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 3.23 MB Recommended Setting: High Performance Impact: No impact on CPU performance. Off gave 52 FPS Low gave 51 FPS (2% reduction) Medium gave 50 FPS (4% reduction) High gave 49 FPS (6% reduction) Ultra gave 43 FPS (20% reduction) Visual Impact: No ambient occlusion is present at off setting. Resolution increases at higher settings. The amount of ambient occlusion increases at higher settings. Ghosting / Artifacting is present without TAA. Ghosting / Artifacts more severe on lower settings. Reflections Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.55 MB Low Low1920×1080 3.54 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 3.54 MB High High1920×1080 3.54 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 3.55 MB Off Off1920×1080 3.66 MB Low Low1920×1080 3.8 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 3.84 MB High High1920×1080 3.83 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 4.44 MB Recommended Setting: Ultra Performance Impact: Slight CPU impact going from Off (72 FPS) to Low (71 FPS) (1% reduction) Off gave 44 FPS Low and Medium gave 40 FPS (10% reduction) High gave 39 FPS (13% reduction) Ultra gave 37 FPS (19% reduction) Visual Impact: No screen-space reflections are visible when setting is turned off. Reflections artifact at lower settings. Resolution increases with higher settings. Maximum reflection length also increases with higher settings. Reflection resolution / quality scales with rendering resolution. – Ultra starts to become bearable at 1080p – High starts to become bearable at 1440p – Medium starts to become bearable at 2160p. Light Shafts Tested on Closed Beta Preview 1.6.11.0 Off Off1920×1080 1.7 MB Low Low1920×1080 1.74 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 1.72 MB Recommended Setting: Ultra Performance Impact: CPU impact not tested. Off gave 19 FPS Low and Ultra gave 18 FPS (5% reduction) Visual Impact: No light rays when turned off. Seemingly an on-off switch, – No difference between low and ultra Bloom Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.81 MB On On1920×1080 3.71 MB Recommended Setting: On Performance Impact: Immeasurable impact to CPU or GPU performance. Visual Impact: Adds a “blur / distortion” effect to exceptionally bright areas – Usually employed when bright areas cannot be displayed in a monitors color display range. Depth of Field Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.08 MB Low Low1920×1080 2.29 MB Medium Medium1920×1080 2.28 MB High High1920×1080 2.26 MB Ultra Ultra1920×1080 2.26 MB Recommended Setting: Ultra Performance Impact:: No impact on CPU performance. Off gave 39 FPS Low, Medium, High, Ultra, gave 38 FPS (3% reduction). Visual Impact: Depth of field seems to only be visible in drone camera and in main menu hangar, meaning it is probably harmless to have it on ultra. Depth of field is not present when setting is off. No noticeable difference between Low and Ultra Lens Correction Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 3.46 MB On On1920×1080 4.03 MB Recommended Setting: Off Performance Impact: No visible impact to CPU or GPU performance. Visual Impact: Removes some possible artifacting in camera caused by high FOV’s. Lens Flare Tested on Alpha 5 1.5.4.0 Off Off1920×1080 1.43 MB On On1920×1080 2.29 MB Recommended Setting: On Performance Impact: No visible impact to CPU or GPU performance Visual Impact: Simulates a camera lens artifact when looking at bright objects such as the sun. Traffic AI Airliners Traffic Density Tested on Closed Beta Preview 1.6.11.0 100 1001920×1080 3.93 MB 75 751920×1080 3.92 MB 50 501920×1080 3.92 MB 25 25960×540 975 KB 0 01920×1080 3.87 MB **Recommended Setting: 50 (high end), 0 (low end) Performance Impact: This setting heavily impacts the CPU performance and lightly impacts GPU the performance as it is increased. Under a CPU bottlenecked scenario, 0 at 66 FPS 25 at 57 FPS (16% reduction) 50 at 55 FPS (20% reduction) 75 at 49 FPS (35% reduction) 100 at 48 FPS (38% reduction) Under a GPU bottlenecked scenario, 0 at ~24.5 FPS 25 at 24 FPS (2% reduction) 50 at 22 FPS (11% reduction) 75 at 21 FPS (17% reduction) 100 at 21 FPS (17% reduction) Visual Impact: The higher the setting, the more planes that are parked at gate / aprons. Hardware-Based Benchmarks CPU Thread Scaling Tested on Closed Beta Preview 1.6.11.0 Graphs: 1700x (NVME SSD) image815×566 52.8 KB 2700x (SATA HDD) image816×567 52.1 KB 3700x (NVME SSD) image814×567 50.7 KB Tested at KJFK 31L, only CPU-limited settings benchmarked, TBM 930 As you can see from the following three graphs, the game does not heavily scale in both FPS and loadtng times past 8 cores and 8 threads, and performance even potentially degrades at 8c16t due to overhead caused by SMT. I recommend a CPU with 8 physical cores minimum for MSFS at it’s current state. Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling Tested on Closed Beta Preview 1.6.11.0 Typically, HAGS gives performance boosts of around 2-3% 3 in most games. From my testing at KJFK, I got 18fps when GPU bound at 34fps when CPU bound, with HAGS on or off (there was no difference). However from a past thread 11 by @OperatorLand468, it is shown that frametimes are much more stable with HAGS enabled. This does come with the tradeoff of pop out panels not working with HAGS enabled though. Turn on if you want more stable frametimes, turn off if you want pop-out panels. Wishlist to Asobo: Comparison images between Low and Ultra built directly into the sim (see Ghost Recon Wildlands, Watch Dogs 2) Ability to adjust post process shaders currently applied in the sim (such as sharpening, eye adaptation, bloom strength) Tips on CPU / GPU impact on performance (see Forza Horizon 4) Better denoising / accumulation on SSR and SSAO Clearer image with TAA (Feel free to add suggestions in thread replies) Made possible by help from @OddSobriquet - Thread Formatting @DeferredGull247 - Light Rays implementation @LadySil3337, @Zyonix007, @Matt987123 - CPU Benchmarks @nxtherLOL - Emotional Support and Forum Mod Team :slight_smile: Benchmark Spreadsheets: Alpha_5_1.5.9.0_Benchmark_7-11-2020.pdf (279.7 KB) Closed_Beta_Preview_1.6.11_Benchmark_7-20-2020.pdf (264.0 KB) 173 Reply Tweaks for 4K performance?23 Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS)11