| | | Microsoft Flight Simulator Performance & Benchmark Analysis: Take flight with the best build possible.
September 3, 2020 by Jon 33 Comments
Since the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 we’ve put the PremiumBuilds test rig to work, analyzing the factors that have the most impact on performance in this sim. In this article, we’ll discuss what we’ve found and use the data to inform component recommendations – such as the CPU, GPU and memory – so that you can be sure of getting the best performance in Flight Simulator 2020.
GPU killer, CPU hater, or just plain badly coded?There’s been a lot of talk about Flight Simulator 2020’s performance since its release, and not all of it has been positive. In particular, people have pointed to benchmarks and testing showing frame rates in the mid 40’s on high-end hardware – indeed the highest-end hardware, and claimed that the game is a dog, or that no PC can run it well. This is unfair. It’s perfectly possible to specify a system that runs this game fluidly and at acceptable frame rates. It’s a more involved process than for a ‘normal’ gaming PC though: there are interdependent factors at play and imbalances between components or incorrect settings can be detrimental to the experience. This article uses the data to help you understand exactly what makes this sim tick.
Simulators: They’re not just toys. The first major issue is that whilst it can be achingly beautiful Flight Simulator 2020 is a simulator, not a game in the traditional sense. There is a complex flight model running behind the scenes, calculating the physics that dictate whether you’re flying or falling. Ultimately it is this physics model that constrains performance. Our testing shows that the game uses just 4 threads (and yet can still max out 8 core CPUs at times) and performance is primarily dependent on the single-core speed of the CPU.
That said, no current hardware will exceed around 60 FPS in this game using the full flight model. Frame rates are variable and we conducted our testing under the most challenging conditions because these place the biggest demands on the underpinning hardware. Where we’ve demonstrated a playable 35FPS over a busy city it translates to a buttery smooth 50 FPS+ flying high over less complex terrain on the same configuration. There are also still some consistency issues particularly as the sim initializes at a busy airport or when you overfly a complex urban area. You shouldn’t be surprised to see frame rates in the low teens in this situation but it smooths out after a few seconds. We experienced this across almost all configurations and have witnessed it in others testing too so it appears to be an ingrained issue with the code, not the hardware. Hopefully, such performance inconsistencies will be ironed out as the sim matures. In particular, it relies on the aging Direct X 11 API, one of the reasons it’s so constricted to 4 cores. There is a planned migration to DX12 in future and we’re hopeful this will bring substantial optimizations with it.
With those expectations set, let’s dig into the numbers and see what we can learn:
The testing protocol:
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