Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the latest iteration in Microsoft’s long-running series of flight sim games, going back to 1982 for their first-ever release. It has come a long way since then, with the 2020 version introducing the entire Earth as a playable map, featuring real-time flight and weather data, utilizing the Azure cloud servers under Microsoft to stream the map details and reconstruct them locally with the help of AI. Unfortunately, there are some hardware utilization issues in the 2024 release, now available on all platforms including Xbox Game Pass.
Windows/System Settings to Optimize
- Enable Resizable BAR.
- Turn on Game Mode.
- Enable Hardware-accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) and Windowed Optimizations.
- Use the Windows “High Performance” power profile and set your GPU power management mode to the same.
- Disable Memory Integrity. Windows Menu->VBS->Device Security.
- Ensure you use the proper XMP/EXPO memory profile (if available).
- Overclock your GPU if you’re narrowly missing the 60 FPS mark.
- Here’s a guide with more detailed instructions.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: PC System Requirements
| Minimum Specs | Recommended Specs | Ideal Specs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 2600X Intel Core i7-6800K | AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Intel Core i7-10700K | AMD Ryzen 9 7900X Intel Core i7-14700K |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon RX 5700 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 | AMD Radeon RX 5700XT NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 | AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 |
| RAM | 16 GB | 32 GB | 64 GB |
| VRAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 12 GB |
| Storage | 50 GB | 50 GB | 50 GB |
| Bandwidth | 10 Mbps | 50 Mbps | 100 Mbps |
| Operating System | Windows 10 with the latest update | Windows 10 with the latest update | Windows 10 with the latest update |
Contents & Testing Methodology
- Contents:
- Resolution & Graphics Presets.
- Terrain LOD, Terrain Pre-Caching & Displacement Mapping.
- Buildings, Trees, Plants, Rocks & Grass.
- Object LOD, Volumetric Clouds & Texture Supersampling.
- Water Waves, RT Shadows, Contact Shadows & Shadow Maps.
- Ambient Occlusion, Cubemap & Raymarched Reflections.
- Air Traffic, Road Traffic & Sea Traffic.
- Upscaling & Frame Generation.
- VRAM usage.
- CPU bottlenecks.
- MS Flight Sim 24: Performance Summary.
- Best Graphics Settings for MS Flight Simulator 2024
- Hardware setup used:
- CPU: Intel Core i9-12900K @ 5.4 GHz (P-core).
- Cooler: Arctic Liquid Freezer III 420.
- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4090 FE.
- Motherboard: MSI PRO Z790-P WIFI.
- Memory: 16 GB x2 @ 6000 MT/s CL30.
Flight Simulator 2024: Resolution & Graphics Presets
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 scales fairly well with resolution, averaging 40 FPS at 4K, 50.5 FPS at 1440p, and 56 FPS at 1080p using the “Ultra” quality preset at 4K with DLAA. It’s worth noting that like Unreal Engine 5, Flight Simulator 2024 (likely) varies its draw distance or LOD with resolution, alleviating CPU bottlenecks on lower-end systems.
The graphics settings significantly affect Flight Simulator 2024’s performance. We recorded an average of 95 FPS at 4K “Low,” 72 FPS at the medium, 60 FPS at the high, and ~50 FPS at the ultra-quality graphics settings at 4K. These benchmarks were conducted over New York City during the daytime.
Terrain LOD, Terrain Pre-Caching & Displacement Mapping
Terrain LOD sets the level of detail and draw distance of terrain meshes, including mountains, and the earth’s surface. It’s among the most taxing graphics settings in Flight Simulator 2024, tanking framerates by nearly 30% at the highest-quality setting. Most users are advised to set the terrain LOD to 100.
Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching aims to improve performance and loading times by caching off-screen terrain data, thereby reducing stutters. It has a slightly negative impact on the average framerates but is best left at “Ultra” for an overall smoother experience. It reduces CPU performance, and users with lower-end CPUs should reduce this setting to “Medium” or “Low.”
Displacement Mapping adds 3D detail to otherwise flat surfaces using “displacement maps” that produce elevated points along the geometry to improve detail without tessellation or additional mesh complexity. It nominally impacts performance.
Buildings, Trees, Plants, Rocks & Grass
Buildings adjust the draw distance or LOD of buildings in Flight Simulator 2024. Lower settings slightly improve performance at the cost of increased pop-ins, while lower options render buildings much farther off from the viewport. Reducing this setting can improve the framerates by up to 7% at 4K.
Trees set the quality and density of trees and forested areas. The medium quality reduces the shadow quality, while the low-quality setting makes forests less dense. Trees can drastically reduce performance around tropical or temperate forests, by as much as 40% at the “Ultra” quality setting.
Plants set the draw distance of plants (other than trees or simple grass patches). They don’t substantially impact the game’s performance, and are best left at “High” or “Ultra.”
Rocks sets the draw distance and LOD quality of rocks, including the textures and density of such objects, including an option to completely disable them. Ultra seems to lower the performance by 5%. We recommend keeping this at “Medium” or higher.
Grass sets the draw distance of grass textures or completely disables them. Disabling or reducing it to “Low” can improve performance by up to 5% at 4K. We recommend setting Grass to “Medium” or higher.
Object LOD, Volumetric Clouds & Texture Supersampling
Object LOD sets the draw distance and detail of various objects in Flight Simulator 2024, including planes, vehicles, buildings, and other man-made objects. Reducing this setting to the lowest value (10) grants a 14% performance boost at 4K. We recommend setting it to 100.
Volumetric Clouds adjust the resolution and detail of 3D clouds, significantly affecting framerates even on the highest-end systems. In overcast weather conditions, the lowest quality setting is nearly 27% faster than the highest. We suggest setting volumetric cloud quality to “High.”
Texture Supersampling improves texture detail crispness similar to anisotropic filtering at the cost of a 5% FPS drop. The visual impact past 2×2 is unnoticeable, so it’s best to stick to 2×2 or 4×4.
Water Waves, RT Shadows, Shadow Maps & Contact Shadows
Water Waves set the complexity of ocean waves, producing more detailed waves and ripples at higher-quality settings. This drastically improves the realism of water textures by enhancing 3D detail and wave density. Water Waves can reduce the performance by up to 6% in Flight Simulator 2024. It’s best set to medium or the highest quality setting.
Ray Traced Shadows produce more accurate and well-defined shadow silhouettes at the cost of 5% or lower average framerates. Most players won’t notice the visual impact of this setting, so might as well disable it.
Contact Shadows increase the coverage and detail of object shadows, especially those cast by foliage. This setting enables the rendering of complex shadows cast by plants, branches, and trees that aren’t covered by standard shadow maps. It barely impacts framerates and is best left at the high or ultra-quality setting.
Shadow Maps set the resolution of pre-baked shadows, producing blurry, low-detail shadows at lower, and sharper, more defined ones at higher quality settings. Reducing it to the lowest option grants a 7-9% performance boost at 4K. We recommend setting it to 1024 or higher.
Terrain Shadows enable and adjust the quality of advanced shadows cast by terrain, including mountains, hills, craters, and cavities. Barring the highest quality option, it doesn’t substantially reduce performance. We recommend setting it to 1024.
Ambient Occlusion, Cubemap & Raymarched Reflections
Ambient Occlusion renders self-contained shadows cast alongside edges, crevices, corners, and other surfaces not directly illuminated by light sources. At the highest quality setting (Ultra), it reduces the game’s performance by 3-4%, and is best left at “High.”
Raymarched Reflections enable dynamic, screen-space reflections on shiny, metallic, and water surfaces. They dramatically improve the realism of certain scenes and should be set to “High” or “Ultra.” Fortunately, they only subtly impact framerates.
Cubemap reflections are pre-baked, low-resolution images, primarily used in the absence of raymarched reflections. They don’t noticeably impact performance and should be set to 256 or 384.
Air Traffic, Road Traffic & Sea Traffic
Air traffic adjusts the density, quality, and display distance for all forms of air traffic, either live from online data or randomly generated AI ones. Traffic airport quality is the same, except it includes not just planes but also trucks, ramps, and other vehicles inside the airport.
In our tests “traffic airport” quality had some impact, which makes sense considering how dense airports can get. We recommend keeping this at Medium as well.
Meanwhile, the air traffic setting did not provide much difference, due to air traffic being very few and far in between. Keep this at Ultra, unless you’re in a live multiplayer session with a lot of friends or strangers flying together, in which case medium should be a safe bet.
Road Traffic sets the density of civilian vehicles along roads and highways. It mainly impacts the 1% lows, by as much as 10%, and should be set to the medium or low-quality setting.
Sea Traffic similarly adjusts the density and draw distance of boats, ships, and other water transport. Reducing it to the low-quality setting can improve the average framerate by up to 5% at 4K.
Upscaling & Frame Generation
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 features popular upscaling technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS. Enabling the DLSS “Quality” preset grants a 26% performance boost, with balanced and performance modes conferring subtle single-digit percentage gains.
Frame Generation is limited to GeForce RTX 40 series owners in the form of DLSS 3.7. Although it offers a lofty 30-35% framerate bump, it doesn’t significantly alleviate the GPU-Busy deviation or CPU bottleneck.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: VRAM Usage
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 uses over 15 GB of graphics memory at 4K “Ultra,” dropping to 13 GB at “High,” 11 GB at “Medium,” and 9 GB at the “Low” quality preset. Upscaling slightly reduces the VRAM usage, but enabling frame generation tends to do the opposite.
The VRAM usage doesn’t vary much across resolutions, dropping to 10.5 GB at 1440p and 10 GB at 1080p. These numbers suggest that a 12 GB graphics card would perform well in Flight Simulator 2024.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: CPU Bottlenecks
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is GPU-bound at 1080p and 1440p while producing predominantly CPU-bound scenarios at 4K. This suggests that the game’s geometric detail or LOD is tied to the resolution. Upscaling only slightly reduces the GPU-Busy Deivation from 27% to 24% at 4K, while frame generation further decreases it to 22%.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: Performance Summary
- Trees: Can improve the average framerates by over 60%. Extremely CPU-taxing.
- Terrain LOD: Reducing it can grant a 36% performance boost. Quite CPU-intensive.
- Volumetric Clouds: Grants a 26% improvement when reduced to the lowest quality.
- Object LOD: Grants a 14% FPS bump. Mildly CPU-intensive.
- Ray-Traced Shadows: Disabling improves FPS by nearly 10%.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Optimized: Best Graphics Settings for MSFS 2024
| Optimized Settings | High-end | Midrange | Low-end PC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K (3840×2160) | 1440p (2560×1440) | 1080p (1920×1080) |
| FPS Target | 60 FPS | 60 FPS | 30 FPS |
| Anti-Aliasing/Upscaling | DLSS|FSR Balanced | Quality | Quality |
| Frame Generation | On (if avail) | On (if avail) | On (if avail) |
| V-Sync | Off | Off | Off |
| Terrain LOD | 400 | 100 | 10-50 |
| Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching | Ultra | High | Low |
| Displacement Mapping | On | On | On |
| Buildings | Ultra | High | Low |
| Trees | Ultra** | Medium | Low |
| Plants | Ultra | High | Low |
| Grass | Ultra | Medium | Low |
| Rocks | Ultra | Ultra | Medium |
| Objects LOD | ~200 | 50-100 | 10-50 |
| Volumetric Clouds | Ultra | High | Medium |
| Texture Resolution | Ultra (12GB VRAM or higher) | Ultra (12GB VRAM or higher) | Ultra (12GB VRAM or higher) |
| Anisotropic Filtering | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Texture Supersampling | 8×8 | 2×2 | 2×2 |
| Water Waves | High | Medium | Medium |
| Ray Traced Shadows | Off | Off | Off |
| Shadow Maps | 2048 | 1536 | 1024 |
| Terrain Shadows | 2048 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Contact Shadows | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Windshield Effects | High | High | Medium |
| Ambient Occlusion | Ultra | High | High |
| Cubemap Reflections | 384 | 384 | 384 |
| Raymarched Reflections | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Light Shafts | * | * | * |
| Depth of Field | * | * | * |
| Motion Blur | * | * | * |
| Cockpit Refresh Rate | High | High | High |
| Characters Quality | * | * | * |
| Traffic Airport Quality | Ultra | High | Medium |
| Air Traffic | Ultra | High | Medium |
| Road Traffic | Ultra | High | Medium |
| Sea Traffic | Ultra | High | Low |
| Fauna | * | * | * |
| CPU | Core i9-14900K/Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Core i5-13700K/Ryzen 7 7700X | Core i5-12600/ AMD Ryzen 5 5600 |
| GPU | RTX 4080/RX 7900 XTX | RTX 4070 Super/RX 7900 GRE | RTX 3060/RTX 3060 Ti/RTX 4060 |
| Memory | 32GB (dual-channel) | 16GB (dual-channel) | Less than: 16GB (dual-channel) |
| High-end | Midrange | Low-end PC |
| Optimized Settings | RTX 4090 | RTX 4080 | RTX 4070 Super|RTX 3080 Ti | RTX 4070 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 4K (3840×2160) | 4K (3840×2160) | 4K (3840×2160) | 1440p (2560×1440) |
| FPS Target | 60 FPS | 60 FPS | 60 FPS | 60 FPS |
| Anti-Aliasing/Upscaling | Performance | Performance | Performance | Balanced |
| Frame Generation | On | On | On | On |
| V-Sync | Off | Off | Off | Off |
| Terrain LOD | 400 | 400** | 200|100 | 100 |
| Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Displacement Mapping | On | On | On | On |
| Buildings | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra|High | High |
| Trees | Ultra** | High** | Medium | Medium |
| Plants | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Grass | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Rocks | Ultra | Ultra | High | High |
| Objects LOD | 200 | 200 | 200|100 | 100 |
| Volumetric Clouds | Ultra | Ultra | High | High |
| Texture Resolution | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Anisotropic Filtering | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Texture Supersampling | 8×8 | 4×4 | 2×2 | 2×2 |
| Water Waves | High | High | High | High |
| Ray Traced Shadows | On | Off | Off | Off |
| Shadow Maps | 2048 | 2048 | 1536|1024 | 1536 |
| Terrain Shadows | 2048 | 2048 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Contact Shadows | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Windshield Effects | High | High | High | High |
| Ambient Occlusion | Ultra | Ultra | High | High |
| Cubemap Reflections | 384 | 384 | 384 | 384 |
| Raymarched Reflections | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Light Shafts | * | * | * | * |
| Depth of Field | * | * | * | * |
| Motion Blur | * | * | * | * |
| Cockpit Refresh Rate | High | High | High | High |
| Characters Quality | * | * | * | * |
| Traffic Airport Quality | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra|High | High |
| Air Traffic | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra|High | High |
| Road Traffic | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra|High | High |
| Sea Traffic | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra|High | High |
| Fauna | * | * | * | * |
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: Best Settings for Low-end PC
Using our optimized settings, we can achieve an almost 200% boost in FPS compared to the “Ultra” setting, still maintaining visual fidelity. Flight Simulator 2024 is a very cinematic and grounded simulator experience; we believe a minimum target of 30 FPS should be the goal. However, with these settings, it’s possible to get a constant 60+ FPS in the skies, with the drops only happening closer to the ground.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 uses 7-8 GB of graphics memory at 1080p on the RX 6600 8 GB (using our settings). The GeForce RTX 3060 uses slightly less VRAM, hovering around 6 GB in most scenes. Here’s our in-depth optimization guide for low-end PCs and gaming laptops.
| Optimized Settings | AMD RX 6600 | NVIDIA RTX 3060 | NVIDIA RTX 4060|RTX 3060 Ti |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1080p (1920×1080) | 1080p (1920×1080) | 1080p (1920×1080) |
| FPS Target | 30 FPS | 30 FPS | 60 FPS |
| Anti-Aliasing/Upscaling | FSR 2 Quality | DLSS Quality | DLSS Quality |
| Frame Generation | Unavailable | Unavailable | On |
| V-Sync | Off | Off | Off |
| Terrain LOD | 10-50 | 10-50 | 10-50 |
| Off Screen Terrain Pre-Caching | Low | Low | Low |
| Displacement Mapping | On | On | On |
| Buildings | Low | Low | Low |
| Trees | Low | Low | Low |
| Plants | Low | Low | Low |
| Grass | Low | Low | Low |
| Rocks | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Objects LOD | 10-50 | 10-50 | 10-50 |
| Volumetric Clouds | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Texture Resolution | Medium | Ultra | Medium |
| Anisotropic Filtering | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Texture Supersampling | 2×2 | 2×2 | 2×2 |
| Water Waves | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Ray Traced Shadows | Off | Off | On |
| Shadow Maps | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Terrain Shadows | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Contact Shadows | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Windshield Effects | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Ambient Occlusion | High | High | High |
| Cubemap Reflections | 384 | 384 | 384 |
| Raymarched Reflections | Ultra | Ultra | Ultra |
| Light Shafts | * | * | * |
| Depth of Field | * | * | * |
| Motion Blur | * | * | * |
| Cockpit Refresh Rate | High | High | High |
| Characters Quality | * | * | * |
| Traffic Airport Quality | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Air Traffic | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Road Traffic | Medium | Medium | Medium |
| Sea Traffic | Low | Low | Low |
| Fauna | * | * | * |
