Increase FPS and performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a realistic flight simulator. In this realistic flight simulator, Microsoft not only focused on planes, but also designed the sky, terrain and buildings in detail.

It is inevitable that some players will encounter low performance in a game that has such detailed graphics and looks good. That's why in this guide I've listed fixes and some tweaks for performance issues like freezing, lagging, fps drops, stuttering, low frame rate.

Can I run Microsoft Flight Simulator on my PC?

	Minimum System Requirements	Recommended System Requirements
CPU	Intel i5-4460 | AMD Ryzen 3 1200	Intel i5-8400 | AMD Ryzen 5 1500X
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 770 | AMD Radeon RX 570	NVIDIA GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 590
DirectX	DirectX 11	DirectX 11
RAM	8 GB	16 GB
Storage	150 GB available space	150 GB available space
OS	Windows 10 64 Bit	Windows 10 64 Bit

How to boost performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator

1) Update Your GPU Drivers

Ensure your graphics card drivers are up to date. Nvidia's newest GeForce Game Ready driver brings you support for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/drivers/
AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/radeon-software

Nvidia users can easily access updated drivers via Geforce Experience.

Geforce Experience > Drivers > Check for Updates > Download

You should also update your OS.

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2) NVIDIA Control Panel & AMD Radeon Settings

Nvidia users:

• Open NVIDIA Control Panel
• Go to the Adjust image settings with preview tab.
• Click the “Use my preference emphasizing“
• Put the bar in Performance mode.
• Apply

• Click the Manage 3D settings
• Click the Program Settings
• Click the Add
• Select the Microsoft Flight Simulator from the list, then click on the “Add Selected Program” button.
• After that, apply the settings below
  Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
• If you have a notebook, make sure you have selected the “High-performance NVIDIA processor” on preferred graphics processor.

• Apply and close the NVIDIA Control Panel.

AMD users:

With a simple change in AMD Radeon Adrenaline software, you can increase performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Just follow these: AMD Radeon Adrenaline Software > Gaming > Graphics > Advanced > Texture Filtering Quality > Performance

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3) DPI scaling

• Go to the folder where the game is installed ( Steam Library > Right-click on Microsoft Flight Simulator > Manage > Browse local files )
• Then right click on FlightSimulator.exe
• Select Properties
• Click on the “Change high DPI settings” button.
• Under the “High DPI scaling override” section, tick the “Override high DPI scaling behavior“
• Use the “Scaling performed by:” drop-down menu and select the “Application”
• Click on the OK and again OK.

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4) Memory Leak Fix

If you encounter stuttering after playing MFS for a few hours or the game crashes in mid-flight, it could be due to the memory leak issue.

You can fix this memory leak issue using a simple utility. Start using ISLC by following these steps.

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5) Power Options

If you are encountering poor performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator, it is possible to boost performance by changing the power plan in Windows settings.

• Type Power into the Windows search box
• Select the Power & sleep settings
• Click the Additional power settings
• Select the High performance (or Ultimate Performance if you have) on the Preferred plans section.
• Click on the OK

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6) GPU scheduling

• Go to Windows Settings > System > Display > Graphics settings
• Then switch the “Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling” option to “On”
• Restart PC to apply the changes.

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7) High CPU Usage Fix

If the CPU usage is around 100% while playing Microsoft Flight Simulator and you experience freezing/stuttering issues, it is possible to fix that by limiting your CPU.

• Download and install the Process Lasso
• Run the Process Lasso application.
• Launch the game.
• Go to the Process Lasso app and find the FlightSimulator.exe in “All processes” list, then right-click on it.
• Select the CPU Limiter

• Set the “When CPU use is” to 98
• Set the “Reduce by this many CPU cores” to 1
• Below the “Reduce by this many CPU cores”, set the “For a period of” to 1
• Click on the Add Rule button.
• Finally click OK button and play the game.

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8) Basic Tips

• Use Windows in best performance mode.
• Make sure the game mode is turned on. ( Windows 10 Settings > Gaming > Game Mode > On )
• You should also make sure that background recording is disabled. ( Windows 10 Settings > Gaming > Captures > Background recording > Off )
• If you want to run Microsoft Flight Simulator smoothly, you need an SSD. So if you have an SSD, definitely install the game on SSD.
• Clean up temporary files causing the system to slow down.
• Do not allow browser or any application to run while playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. You should also optimize your Discord and Google Chrome.
• You can increase the performance of CPU by using the CPU core parking manager.
• Also check out this post: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/improved-fps-but-how/160177

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9) Best Graphics Settings for Performance

These are the graphics settings I can recommend for performance.

Options > General > Graphics

	Minimum System	Performance
Display Mode	Fullscreen	Fullscreen
Global Rendering Quality	Low-end	Custom
V-Sync	Off	Off
Render Scaling		100
Anti-Aliasing		Off or FXAA
Terrain Level of Detail		100
Tessellation Quality		Medium
Buildings		High
Trees		Medium
Grass and Bushes		High
Objects Level of Detail		100
Volumetric Clouds		Medium
Texture Resolution		High
Anisotropic Filtering		8x
Texture Supersampling		Off
Texture Synthesis		High or Medium
Water Waves		Medium
Shadow Maps		1024 or 768
Terrain Shadows		512
Contact Shadows		High
Windshield Effects		High
Ambient Occlusion		Medium
Reflections		Medium
Light Shafts		Ultra
Bloom		Off
Depth of Field		Off
Lens Correction		Off
Lens Flare		On
Generic Plane Models AI		On
Generic Plane Models MP		Off

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10) Traffic Settings

Lowering the traffic settings will improve the performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Options > General > Traffic

If you have a low-end PC, set the Aircraft Traffic Type to Off.

Also lowering the Airport Life settings (Airport Vehicle Density, Ground Aircraft Density, Worker Density) and Land & Sea Traffic settings (Leisure Boats, Road Vehicles, Ships and Ferries) boosts your gaming performance.

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Have a safe flight!