Advice

Slow performance / limited by CPU

August 2022

Not sure if this may help you girls and guys but its yet another variable among thousands to consider when you are troubleshooting .. I had a graphics card vendor provided "utility" that I installed (d'oh) to allow tweaking, overclocking and presenting the card's performance metrics on a dashboard (e.g. fan speeds, GPU temperature etc.) and it was auto-loading minimised when the PC started so I missed it completely.

It must have been developed by monkeys (i.e. shockingly bad programming skills) as with it running the FBW A32NX was running at 9-10 fps (unplayable as it dropped to 5-6fps at certain airports) and with that utility's process killed off in the Task Manager, up to 60fps! I wasted weeks scratching my head on this, testing all kinds of unrelated things .. now I can play the damn game again!

Its the Asus(tek) GPUTweak III app, v1.5.0.0. My PC is an old Gigabyte GA-170X Ultra Gaming mobo running an 4-core Intel Skylake Core i7 6700K oveclocked to 4.4GHz (stock CPU is 4GHz). Memory is 32GB DDR4 and the GPU is an Asus TUF GeForce RTX3080Ti.

Good luck with your troubleshooting!

NVidia graphics drivers without the cruft

October 2022

See here for full instructions. Simplified process:

Step 1. Download and run DDU (for me: C:\Users\user\Downloads\DDU v18.0.5.5\...) in Windows 10 safe mode:

  • Shift + Restart, Troubleshoot, Advanced options, Startup settings .. etc.

  • Device type = GPU, Device = NVIDIA,

  • Clean & restart

  • Disable internet connection

NOT NEEDED - Step 2. Download NVidia drivers from here ... in case you wish to view the files Step 3. is going to use!

  • Extract to an empty folder, e.g.

  • C:\Users\user\Downloads\NVidia clean drivers\DisplayDriver\516.59\Win11_Win10-DCH_64\International\

Step 3. Download and run NVCleanstall from here ...

  • Select "driver files on disk", select desktop driver file downloaded

  • Select recommended, then remove ALL GeForce Experience components

  • Select "Disable telemetry", "Unattended", ""Enable DLSS indicator, "Show expert tweaks" --> disable "driver telemetry", disable "NVIDIA HD audio device sleep timer", enable "message signalled interrupts", disable "HDCP",

  • Select rebuild digital signature and select "use method compatible with Easy-Anti-Cheat"

  • Create a folder, name it as the driver version, then select "show in folder"

  • Copy contents of this temp folder to the folder created above

Step 4. Run setup.exe from the folder above.

Step 5. Nvidia Control Panel / Manage 3D settings (see here):

  • Global Settings:


    • CUDA GPUs = All

  • Program (FS2020) Settings:

    • Anisotropic filtering = Application controlled

    • Antialiasing - FXAA = OFF

    • Antialiasing - Gamma correction = ON

    • Antialiasing - Mode = Application controlled

    • Antialiasing - Transparency = OFF

    • Background application max frame rate = OFF

    • CUDA GPUs = whatever GPU you have, e.g. "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti" .. or ALL

    • Low latency mode = ULTRA (not for VR!)

    • Max frame rate = OFF

    • OpenGL rendering GPU = whatever GPU you have, e.g. "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti"

    • Power management mode = Max performance

    • Texture filtering - anisotropic sample = ON

    • Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias = Clamp

    • Texture filtering - Quality = Quality

    • Texture filtering - Trilinear optimisation = ON

    • Threaded optimisation = Auto

    • Triple buffering = OFF

    • Vertical sync = Fast and VSync = OFF in FS2020 (if you get screen image tearing, change this)

Step 6. Fs2020 config file:

C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\UserCfg.opt:

  • Version 66

  • {Video - .. Raytracing = 1

  • {Graphics ..

  • {PostProcess ..

  • Enabled 1

  • EyeAdaptation 1

  • ColorGrading 0 (oversaturation with 1?)

  • Sharpen 0 (oversharpening with 1)

  • Fringe 1

  • LensDistortion 0

  • Dirt 1

  • LensFlare 0

  • FilmGrain 0 (over-grainy with 1)

  • Vignette 1

  • LensBlurMultiplier 1.000000

  • FringeMultiplier 1.000000

Step 7. In FS2020 settings, Display settings:

  • Advanced settings

    • Terrain LOD = 100

    • Volumetric clouds = HIGH or ULTRA (test it!)

    • Texture resolution = HIGH or ULTRA (test it!)

    • Texture supersampling = OFF

    • Bloom = OFF

Step 8. See here for full instructions:

  • High precision event timer - disable in device manager as per the instructions in the video (link in Step 8. above)

  • ISLC (see here for settings) - "current timer resolution" set to 0.5ms, "free memory is lower" set to 16k, "ISLC polling rate" set to 500 etc.

  • Nvidia Resizable BAR -

Step 9. Reboot

Done!