Ok, this helped a lot. Thank you. Why doesn’t MS turn off Windows Dynamic Thread priority in their freaking flight simulator code somehow? Why do I as a end user have to find this out and implement it with 3rd party software?

Hi James, glad you found the article useful.

I’ve continued my testing, your new system is basically perfect (well, it’s absolutely top tier so you’d hope so!). I’ve also been conducting VR testing on an RTX 3080 with the Quest 2 which has close to the same resolution as the HP REverb G2, I can report that once you’re past the UI (It’s still very beta!) the experience is fantastic. You’ll be playing at native resolution, High settings, with just some minor tweaks to level of detail (100-150) to get great performance and a highly immersive experience. The RTX 3080 is an absolute monster and more than capable.

Keep an eye out, we will be revisiting this topic with tests of all the latest kit to see how performance has evolved in this last 6 months.

I just purchased a new computer setup for gaming and VR. I purchased it rather than built it specifically because of the gut feeling I had that there were substantial complexities in marrying components to get a balanced, capable outcome that were well beyond my capabilities and understanding. Your article validated my gut was correct.

My new system is comprised of an i9-10900KF (10-core, 20MB Cashe, 3.2-5.3GHz w/ app based overclocking controls) CPU; 32 GB Dual Channel DDR4@3200MHz RAM; an RTX 3080 10 GB GDDR6X GPU; Liquid cooling and a 1000w Power Supply. My display is also new: a 3440×1440 ultra-wide.

I am waiting for my HP Reverb G2 to be delivered so currently I am using my Vive Pro headset. I am running FS2020 on Ultra settings and getting smooth graphics but am concerned the G2 with its huge increase in GPU demand will stall/stutter the system. Your article suggests I may be able to accommodate the added load.

If you have the bandwidth to comment on set-up issues I should be sensitive to, I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, skill and experience.

I am currently running intel i7 9700kf with a Asus Strix 3090 graphics card, i mainly use it in VR and was thinking in upgrading my CPU to AMD Ryzen 5800x or even better to 5600x( recommended by other forum for gaming) please let me know if that will worth the upgrade, currently getting 28fps in VR with high settings.

I have the GTX 1080 Ti 13G of ram and it does fine with high settings, occasionally has studder which I thought was the GPU but now I know it’s the CPU.Can’t tell the difference between high and ultra even on the ground.

This is really helpful, thank you. I think I had, rather embarrassingly, overlooked the fact there needs to be some processing power left for running other processes besides the sim!
I’m literally downsizing my pc from an ATX to ITX. I wondered about upgrading the processor at the same time as the motherboard but I’d always felt my 4790k was more than adequate for what I do – except for FS. Really I came here to learn about what sort of processing power FS relies on to get an idea whether it was worth it.

Hi Ben, glad you liked the article. To answer your questions, MS Flight 2020 appears to use 4 concurrent threads. Threads are dynamically allocated by Windows behind the scenes, and so if you’ve got 4 cores and 4 threads, any and all processes the PC needs to run as well (and if you open task manager you’ll likely find thousands of them) can impact those 4 key threads. That’s just one of many factors that can conspire to make performance fall apart in this sim. To a point, more cores is certainly better, normally visible in the ‘low’ statistics for frame rates and borne out by our testing. A pure four core CPU will struggle because threads have to be killed, other processes run, then restarted, and that can induce stutter as it happens. It can still happen even with more cores but it’s less likely and less severe. Your 4790K should actually be ok in this regard as it does have hyperthreading, meaning it presents 8 logical cores to the Operating system.

Flight 2020 is heavily limited by it’s underpinnings being DX11, which has limited capabliity to multithread. Even the promised upgrade to DX12 may not improve things much because the flight model is the complex bit, and it’s hard to split that into individual threads to run concurrently. That’s why ‘clock speed is king’ and a single cores speed actually dictates the ultimate performance in FS2020.

This brings my onto your last point: Whilst your 4790K may have a 4Ghz clock speed, you can’t compare that directly to current CPUs. Architectures have improved efficiency, so new CPU’s can execute more instrucitons per clock cycle and do more in the same time. So whilst you may think a 5GHz i9-9900K is only 20% faster, in fact it’s more like 30-35%. It’s also using DDR4 RAM not DDR3, and other system improvements that help enhance performance.

That said, I wouldn’t be in a rush to replace the 4790K unles sit’s really not performing for you. It should do OK still as a 4C/8T CPU with pretty decent single core performance.