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Flight Simulator 2024 is the most visually stunning — and most demanding — consumer flight sim ever made. It can bring a top-end PC to its knees while simultaneously producing scenery that looks like real aerial photography. The good news is that with the right settings, you can get smooth, consistent frame rates without turning everything into a blurry mess.
This guide walks through every graphics setting in the sim, explains what it actually does, tells you how much FPS it costs, and gives you concrete recommendations for three hardware tiers. No vague advice, no "it depends" cop-outs. Just numbers and settings you can apply right now.
Before You Touch Anything: How MSFS 2024 Performance Works
Before diving into individual settings, you need to understand something that catches a lot of people out: FPS alone does not tell the whole story in flight simulation.
Two systems can both show 40 FPS, yet one feels silky smooth and the other feels like a slideshow. The difference comes down to frame pacing, bottleneck type, and scenery loading consistency. A rock-solid 35 FPS with even frame times will always feel better than a jittery 50 FPS with constant micro-stutters.
MSFS 2024 can be bottlenecked by three things:
- CPU (MainThread) — terrain processing, traffic AI, flight model calculations
- GPU (RenderThread) — rendering clouds, shadows, reflections, textures
- Network/streaming — downloading terrain data, photogrammetry, weather
The dev mode FPS counter (accessible via the Developer menu) shows you exactly which thread is limiting your performance. Enable it, note whether you see "Limited by MainThread" or "Limited by GPU", and use that to decide which settings to prioritise.
System Requirements: What You Actually Need
Microsoft published three specification tiers. Here is what they mean in practice.
| Component | Minimum | Recommended | Ideal |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | i7-6800K / Ryzen 5 2600X | i7-10700K / Ryzen 7 2700X | i7-14700K / Ryzen 9 7900X |
| GPU | GTX 970 / RX 5700 | RTX 2080 / RX 5700 XT | RTX 4080 / RX 7900 XT |
| RAM | 16 GB | 32 GB | 64 GB |
| VRAM | 4 GB | 8 GB | 12 GB+ |
| Storage | 50 GB | 50 GB (SSD) | 50 GB (NVMe SSD) |
| Internet | 10 Mbps | 50 Mbps | 100 Mbps |
| Target | 1080p Low, 30 FPS | 1080p-1440p Medium-High, 30-40 FPS | 4K Ultra, 40-50 FPS |
A few practical notes:
32 GB of RAM is the real minimum for a good experience. The official minimum is 16 GB, but MSFS 2024 routinely uses 14-18 GB in dense photogrammetry areas. With 16 GB, Windows starts swapping to disk, which causes stutters. If you are still on 16 GB, a 32 GB DDR5 kit is the single best upgrade you can make.
An NVMe SSD is not optional. The sim streams terrain data constantly. A SATA SSD works, but an NVMe drive dramatically reduces terrain pop-in and loading times. Put both the sim installation and your rolling cache on the fastest drive you have.
Internet speed matters more than you think. MSFS 2024 streams nearly all scenery data from the cloud. A 10 Mbps connection technically works, but you will see blurry terrain that slowly resolves. 50 Mbps is where it starts feeling responsive. 100 Mbps or faster gives you consistently sharp scenery even when flying fast at low altitude.
Display & Anti-Aliasing Settings
Display Mode
Always use Full Screen, not Windowed or Borderless. Full Screen gives the GPU exclusive access to the display output, which reduces input latency and improves frame pacing. Borderless Windowed is convenient for alt-tabbing, but costs you a few percent of performance and can introduce micro-stutters.
Anti-Aliasing
Options: Off, TAA, DLSS Super Resolution, AMD FSR 3
TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) is the baseline. It smooths jagged edges and also denoises ambient occlusion, volumetric clouds, and reflections. The FPS cost is negligible — roughly 1.5% versus having AA turned off entirely.
Recommended: TAA unless you are using DLSS or FSR upscaling (covered in the next section).
Render Scaling
Range: 30% to 200%
This controls the internal rendering resolution. At 100%, the sim renders at your display's native resolution. Below 100%, it renders at a lower resolution and upscales — useful if you want more FPS without changing individual quality settings. Above 100% is supersampling, which looks sharper but is extremely expensive (125% render scale can cut FPS by over 70%).
Recommended: 100%. If you need more FPS, use DLSS or FSR instead of lowering render scaling manually — the AI upscalers produce far better image quality at the same internal resolution.
Anisotropic Filtering
Options: 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x
Controls texture clarity at oblique viewing angles — think taxiway markings stretching into the distance. The performance cost of 16x versus 2x is around 3%, which is essentially free on modern GPUs.
Recommended: 16x. Always. There is no reason to lower this.
DLSS, FSR, and Upscaling Explained
This is the single biggest lever for performance on modern hardware, and it is widely misunderstood. Here is how it actually works.
What Upscaling Does
Instead of rendering every frame at your monitor's native resolution (e.g., 3840x2160 for 4K), the sim renders at a lower internal resolution and then uses AI to reconstruct the image at full resolution. The result looks close to native — sometimes indistinguishable — while costing significantly less GPU power.
NVIDIA DLSS (RTX GPUs Only)
MSFS 2024 supports DLSS Super Resolution for upscaling. If you have an RTX 40 or 50 series card, you also get DLSS Frame Generation, which synthesises additional frames between real rendered frames to increase perceived smoothness.
DLSS quality presets control the internal render resolution:
| DLSS Mode | Internal Resolution (% of native) |
|---|---|
| DLAA | 100% (anti-aliasing only, no upscaling) |
| Quality | 67% |
| Balanced | 58% |
| Performance | 50% |
| Ultra Performance | 33% |
Recommended for 4K: DLSS Quality or Balanced. At 4K, the upscaling has enough pixels to work with and the result is nearly indistinguishable from native.
Recommended for 1440p: DLSS Quality. Going below Quality at 1440p starts to introduce visible softness, especially on cockpit instruments.
Recommended for 1080p: DLAA (native resolution, anti-aliasing only) or DLSS Quality at most. At 1080p, aggressive upscaling produces a noticeably blurry image.
AMD FSR (All GPUs)
MSFS 2024 supports AMD FSR for upscaling and frame generation. FSR works on any GPU — including NVIDIA cards — though DLSS generally produces better image quality on RTX hardware.
FSR uses the same quality preset tiers as DLSS. The recommendations are the same: Quality mode at 4K, Quality at 1440p, minimal upscaling at 1080p.
Intel XeSS
XeSS is not natively supported in MSFS 2024. Intel Arc GPU owners should use FSR instead.
Frame Generation
Frame Generation is available for RTX 40 and 50 series GPUs via DLSS, and via AMD FSR 3 (which works on both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, though results vary by hardware). It works by generating intermediate frames between real rendered frames, effectively doubling (or more) your perceived frame rate.
To enable it: go to Graphics settings, find Frame Generation, and select NVIDIA DLSS or AMD FSR3. On RTX 50 series cards, you can set the Framerate Multiplier to x3 or x4.
Important: Frame Generation adds at least 1 GB of VRAM overhead. If you have an 8 GB card, you will struggle at 1440p and above with frame gen enabled. Also note that Windows Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling must be enabled for DLSS Frame Generation to appear as an option.
Recommended: Enable Frame Generation if you have a supported card. The input latency increase is minimal in a flight sim (unlike competitive shooters), and the smoothness improvement is substantial.
For RTX 20 and 30 series owners, third-party tools like OptiScaler can enable FSR 3 frame generation, but this is unsupported and may cause instability.
The Big Hitters: Settings That Actually Matter
These settings have the largest impact on FPS. Get these right first, then fine-tune the rest.
Terrain Level of Detail (TLOD)
Range: 10 to 400
This is the single most impactful setting in the entire sim. It controls how far the sim draws detailed terrain, mountains, trees, autogen buildings, and photogrammetry. Cranking this to 400 can drop your FPS by 36% compared to the default.
The performance impact is not linear. Going from 10 to 100 transforms the landscape — hills become mountains, cities become recognisable. But going from 200 to 400, the visual improvement is subtle while the FPS cost remains steep.
| TLOD Value | Relative FPS Impact | Visual Quality |
|---|---|---|
| 10-50 | Best FPS | Noticeable terrain pop-in, flat look at distance |
| 100 | -10% from minimum | Good detail, solid sweet spot for most systems |
| 200 | -20% from minimum | Excellent detail, diminishing returns above here |
| 300 | -30% from minimum | Marginal improvement over 200 |
| 400 | -36% from minimum | Maximum detail, massive FPS cost |
Recommended: 100 for balanced systems, 200 for high-end systems. Going above 200 is not worth it for most people. At cruise altitude, the difference between 200 and 400 is nearly invisible.
TLOD is also one of the biggest VRAM consumers. At TLOD 400, expect to use around 2.5 GB more VRAM than at TLOD 100.
Volumetric Clouds
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
Clouds are one of the defining visual features of MSFS 2024 — and one of the most expensive to render. Going from Low to Ultra costs around 22% FPS when GPU-limited.
The critical threshold here is High. The difference between Medium and High is dramatic — Medium clouds look like lumpy mashed potatoes. The difference between High and Ultra is subtle and mostly visible in close-up cloud formations during weather flights.
Recommended: High for virtually everyone. Ultra only if you have GPU headroom to spare.
Trees
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
Trees have a surprisingly large impact — up to 34% FPS difference between Low and Ultra when GPU-bottlenecked. The main differences are draw distance, density, and shadow quality.
The jump from Medium to High adds tree shadowing, which makes forested areas look dramatically more realistic. Ultra extends draw distance further but at a steep cost.
Recommended: High. The visual improvement over Medium (tree shadowing) is worth the few percent of FPS. Ultra is expensive for marginal gain.
Raytraced Shadows
Options: Off, On
Ray-traced shadows provide more accurate shadow detail, primarily visible in cockpit interiors and around complex geometry. The cost is 8-12% FPS depending on the scene.
Here is the thing: with Shadow Maps set to 2048, the standard shadow quality is already very good. The improvement from raytracing is mainly visible if you spend a lot of time looking at cockpit details.
Recommended: Off for balanced and performance builds. On only if you have a high-end GPU with FPS to spare.
Medium-Impact Settings
These settings matter, but less than the big hitters above. Adjust these after you have dialled in the major settings.
Objects Level of Detail (OLOD)
Range: 10 to 200
Controls the draw distance and detail of buildings, vehicles, parked aircraft, and other man-made objects. Reducing from max to minimum saves about 14% FPS. At busy airports, high OLOD is also a significant VRAM consumer.
Recommended: 100-150. You want enough detail that airports look populated, but the distant objects you never see up close are not worth rendering.
Displacement Mapping
Options: Off, On
Adds 3D texture to ground surfaces — rocks, terrain, runways get visible bumps and depth rather than looking flat. Costs 4-10% FPS.
Recommended: Off for airliner flying (you are at altitude, you will not see it). On for VFR bush flying where you are low and slow over terrain.
Water Waves
Options: Low, Medium, High
Controls wave detail and complexity on water surfaces. Low to High costs about 8% GPU performance.
Recommended: Medium. Unless you are doing a lot of coastal or seaplane flying, you will not notice the difference between Medium and High from the cockpit.
Windshield Effects
Options: Medium, High
Controls rain and ice effects on the windshield. High costs about 7% more FPS than Medium.
Recommended: Medium for most systems. The difference is subtle.
Ambient Occlusion
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
Adds subtle darkening where surfaces meet — around landing gear struts, under wing roots, at the base of buildings. The FPS impact is minimal (under 4%), and it adds significant visual depth.
Recommended: High. The cost is tiny and it makes everything look more grounded and realistic.
Low-Impact Settings (Turn These Up)
These settings cost very little FPS and should generally be set high. Free visual quality.
Texture Resolution
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
This affects texture and PBR (physically-based rendering) map resolution. The important thing to understand is that Texture Resolution primarily affects VRAM, not FPS. Low uses about 5.4 GB VRAM, Ultra uses about 8.2 GB — nearly 3 GB more — but the frame rate impact is negligible.
Recommended: Ultra if you have 10+ GB VRAM. High for 8 GB cards. Medium for 6 GB cards.
One note: at 4K, the visual difference between Medium and Ultra textures is surprisingly small because your display resolution already limits how much detail you can perceive per texel.
Shadow Maps
Options: 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048
Controls the resolution and sharpness of standard shadows. With raytracing disabled, this is your main shadow quality control. The FPS impact is minimal — less than 1% between settings when raytracing is off.
Recommended: 2048. Essentially free.
Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate
Options: Low, Medium, High
Controls how frequently glass cockpit instruments (PFD, ND, ECAM/EICAS) update their displays. Testing shows no measurable FPS impact between Low and High.
Recommended: High. Always. There is zero reason to lower this.
Light Shafts
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
God rays through clouds and around light sources. Minimal performance impact and adds a lot of visual atmosphere, especially during sunrise/sunset flights.
Recommended: High or Ultra. Nearly free.
Anisotropic Filtering
Already covered above — 16x, always.
Depth of Field
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
Blur effect mainly visible in drone camera and the hangar menu. Costs about 2% FPS at Ultra.
Recommended: Personal preference. Most pilots keep it Off because it can blur instruments when panning around the cockpit.
Motion Blur
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
Recommended: Off for most people. Motion blur in a flight sim feels unnatural, especially when scanning instruments. Some people like it for external camera sweeps.
Buildings
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
The FPS impact is surprisingly small — only 2-4% between Low and Ultra. Buildings mainly affect LOD transitions and distant building detail.
Recommended: High or Ultra. Cheap to run.
Contact Shadows
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
Adds shading where objects touch surfaces. The visual improvement is subtle.
Recommended: Medium. Diminishing returns above this.
Cubemap Reflections
Options: 128, 192, 256, 384
Controls reflection resolution on surfaces. Small FPS impact.
Recommended: 256. Good balance.
Raymarched Reflections
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
Screen-space reflections with variable resolution. Costs about 6% FPS at Ultra.
Recommended: High for a good visual with moderate cost.
Traffic Settings and Their Hidden FPS Cost
Traffic settings are often overlooked, but they have a meaningful impact, especially on CPU performance.
Aircraft Traffic Quantity and Variety
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
Each AI aircraft requires CPU calculations for position, altitude, and flight path. At busy airports, having this on Ultra can cost 10-15% FPS on mid-range CPUs. The CPU is the bottleneck here, not the GPU.
Recommended: Low or Medium. Unless you specifically enjoy watching traffic patterns, the FPS cost is not worth it. If you fly on VATSIM or IVAO, other players' aircraft appear regardless of this setting.
Road Traffic
Options: Off, Medium, High, Ultra
Animated vehicles on roads. Costs CPU cycles and adds visual clutter at low altitude.
Recommended: Off or Medium. The visual benefit is minimal from cockpit altitude.
Fauna
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
Animals in the world. Multiple community reports indicate that Fauna is a significant cause of micro-stutters, with some users reporting up to 95% stutter reduction after turning it off.
Recommended: Off. Seriously. Unless you are specifically doing a safari flight, turn this off. The stutter reduction is worth more than occasional deer near runways.
Parked Aircraft and Airport Services
Options: Low, Medium, High, Ultra
These add visual life to airports but cost CPU and VRAM. At major hubs, lots of parked aircraft and ground vehicles add up.
Recommended: Medium for both. Airports look alive without hammering performance.
Frame Rate Management: VSync, Frame Limiting, and Smoothness
Getting smooth performance in MSFS 2024 is not just about hitting a high FPS number. Frame pacing — the consistency of time between frames — matters more than raw frame count.
VSync
Recommended: Disable VSync in-game. MSFS 2024's built-in VSync implementation can introduce frame pacing issues. Instead, force VSync through your GPU driver (NVIDIA Control Panel or AMD Software) or use an external frame limiter for better results.
Max Frame Rate (In-Game Limiter)
Range: Off, or 20-120 FPS
The in-game frame limiter works well in MSFS 2024. Set this to your target frame rate. Common targets:
- 30 FPS — perfectly playable for airliner operations, achievable on modest hardware
- 40 FPS — the sweet spot for most simmers on 60Hz monitors
- 60 FPS — smooth but requires high-end hardware, especially at 1440p+
Recommended: Set to your realistic target. A capped 40 FPS with even frame times feels better than an uncapped frame rate bouncing between 30 and 60.
NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency
Options: Off, On
Reduces the delay between your input and the result on screen by optimising when the CPU submits work to the GPU. In a flight sim this matters less than in competitive shooters, but it does help when GPU-bottlenecked.
Recommended: On if you have an NVIDIA card. No downside.
Dynamic Settings Frame Rate Target
Range: 10-120 FPS
This is MSFS 2024's built-in automatic quality adjustment. Set your target frame rate, and the sim dynamically lowers LOD and visual quality to maintain it. When performance headroom exists, it brings quality back up.
It works, but the quality transitions can be visible — you might notice terrain detail popping in and out during descents. Third-party tools like MSFS AutoFPS offer finer control over the same concept.
Recommended: Enable it if you want set-and-forget simplicity. Set the target to your desired FPS. Disable it if you prefer full manual control over every setting.
Data Settings: Rolling Cache, Manual Cache, and Photogrammetry
Rolling Cache
Rolling cache stores recently-downloaded terrain, textures, and photogrammetry data on your disk so the sim does not need to re-download it when you fly over the same area again.
Default size: 16 GB. This is too small for serious flying.
Recommended: 32-64 GB on your fastest NVMe SSD. Going above 64 GB provides diminishing returns — the cache only needs to hold the high-resolution data within visual distance of your aircraft. For a fast NVMe SSD, something with at least 2 TB gives you plenty of space for the sim, rolling cache, and add-ons.
If you experience sudden stutters, try deleting and recreating your rolling cache file — corrupted cache is a known cause of performance issues.
Manual Cache
Manual cache lets you pre-download specific regions for offline use or faster loading. This is especially useful for areas with photogrammetry — cities like London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo benefit enormously from being pre-cached.
Recommended: Cache your most-flown areas. A transatlantic pilot might cache the New York metro area and London. A VFR pilot might cache their local region.
Photogrammetry
This should be enabled in your Data settings. Photogrammetry provides 3D-scanned representations of real buildings and terrain. Disabling it replaces real buildings with generic autogen, which looks dramatically worse.
If photogrammetry looks poor, make sure your Terrain LOD is at least 100 and your internet connection is stable. The official MSFS support page recommends using Manual Cache for areas where photogrammetry quality seems low.
Quick Fixes for Common Problems
Stuttering Despite High FPS
If your FPS counter shows 40+ but the sim feels rough:
- Turn Fauna to Off — this is the most commonly reported stutter source
- Delete and recreate your rolling cache — corrupted cache causes intermittent hitches
- Check VRAM usage with GPU-Z — if you are at 95%+ VRAM utilisation, lower Texture Resolution or Terrain LOD
- Set Windows power plan to High Performance — prevents CPU downclocking during load transitions
- Try toggling Windows Game Mode — some users report better performance with it off, others with it on. Test both on your system
- Check for Windows 11 25H2 issues — some users report this update specifically causes stuttering in MSFS
Low GPU Usage (MainThread Limited)
If your GPU is sitting at 30-50% utilisation while FPS is low:
- Lower Terrain LOD — TLOD is processed on the CPU
- Reduce Aircraft Traffic — AI traffic calculations are CPU-bound
- Lower Objects LOD — object culling and placement uses the CPU
- Increase Render Scaling slightly (e.g., 110-120%) — this shifts more load to the GPU, balancing the bottleneck. Only do this if you have GPU headroom.
- Consider enabling DLSS or FSR at Quality mode — even though this is a GPU feature, it can reduce the total render pipeline time and help frame pacing
Blurry Scenery or Terrain
- Increase Terrain LOD to at least 100
- Check internet bandwidth — MSFS streams terrain data in real time. Run a speed test.
- Increase rolling cache size and place it on an NVMe SSD
- Make sure Photogrammetry is enabled in Data settings
- Try Manual Cache for the area — pre-downloading eliminates streaming bottlenecks
- Set Render Scaling to 100% — values below 100 make everything softer
Out of VRAM (Texture Streaming Stutters)
If you see visual hitches when panning the camera or textures that take seconds to load:
- Lower Texture Resolution (the biggest VRAM consumer: Ultra uses ~8.2 GB, Medium uses ~5.4 GB)
- Lower Terrain LOD (TLOD 400 uses 2.5 GB more VRAM than TLOD 100)
- Reduce Objects LOD — complex airports with many objects eat VRAM
- Disable Frame Generation — it adds at least 1 GB VRAM overhead
- If you are on an 8 GB GPU, consider a GPU upgrade — 12 GB VRAM is the new comfort zone for MSFS 2024 at 1440p+
Recommended Settings by Tier
Here are three complete settings profiles. Start with the tier that matches your hardware and adjust from there.
Balanced (Target: 60 FPS at 1080p / 40 FPS at 1440p)
For: RTX 3060-4060 / RX 6700 XT-7700 XT, 8-12 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Anti-Aliasing | TAA (or DLSS/FSR Quality at 1440p) |
| Render Scaling | 100% |
| Terrain LOD | 100 |
| Objects LOD | 100 |
| Off Screen Terrain Pre-caching | Medium |
| Volumetric Clouds | High |
| Trees | High |
| Buildings | High |
| Texture Resolution | High |
| Raytraced Shadows | Off |
| Shadow Maps | 2048 |
| Ambient Occlusion | High |
| Displacement Mapping | Off |
| Water Waves | Medium |
| Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate | High |
| Anisotropic Filtering | 16x |
| Aircraft Traffic | Low |
| Road Traffic | Off |
| Fauna | Off |
| Frame Generation | Off (or FSR3 if available) |
| Max Frame Rate | 60 (1080p) or 40 (1440p) |
Quality (Target: 40 FPS at 1440p / 30 FPS at 4K)
For: RTX 4070-4070 Ti Super / RX 7800 XT-7900 GRE, 12 GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM
An RTX 4070 Super sits in the sweet spot for this tier — enough VRAM for high settings at 1440p with room for add-ons.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Anti-Aliasing | DLSS Quality / FSR Quality |
| Render Scaling | Managed by DLSS/FSR |
| Terrain LOD | 150 |
| Objects LOD | 150 |
| Off Screen Terrain Pre-caching | High |
| Volumetric Clouds | High |
| Trees | High |
| Buildings | Ultra |
| Texture Resolution | Ultra |
| Raytraced Shadows | Off |
| Shadow Maps | 2048 |
| Ambient Occlusion | High |
| Displacement Mapping | On |
| Water Waves | Medium |
| Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate | High |
| Anisotropic Filtering | 16x |
| Aircraft Traffic | Medium |
| Road Traffic | Medium |
| Fauna | Off |
| Frame Generation | DLSS (RTX 40+) or FSR3 |
| Max Frame Rate | 40 |
Ultra (Target: 40-50 FPS at 4K)
For: RTX 4080 Super / RTX 4090 / RX 7900 XT-XTX, 16 GB VRAM, 64 GB RAM
At this tier, a high-resolution 4K monitor or a 1440p ultrawide lets you appreciate the visual fidelity these settings produce.
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Anti-Aliasing | DLSS Quality |
| Render Scaling | Managed by DLSS |
| Terrain LOD | 200 |
| Objects LOD | 200 |
| Off Screen Terrain Pre-caching | Ultra |
| Volumetric Clouds | Ultra |
| Trees | High |
| Buildings | Ultra |
| Texture Resolution | Ultra |
| Raytraced Shadows | On |
| Shadow Maps | 2048 |
| Ambient Occlusion | Ultra |
| Displacement Mapping | On |
| Water Waves | High |
| Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate | High |
| Anisotropic Filtering | 16x |
| Aircraft Traffic | Medium |
| Road Traffic | Medium |
| Fauna | Off |
| Frame Generation | DLSS |
| Max Frame Rate | Off or 60 |
What Changed in Sim Update 4
Sim Update 4 (version 1.6.32.0, released 8 December 2025) brought meaningful performance improvements that affect how you should approach settings:
- Terrain engine optimisation — the main CPU thread is faster, meaning TLOD values that previously caused MainThread bottlenecks are now more viable
- Improved texture quality management — fewer stutters from texture streaming, especially at complex airports
- Grass rendering optimisation — the Grass setting is now less expensive than it was at launch
- Better frame pacing — frame-time spikes are noticeably less frequent
- Foveated Rendering Scale — a new slider for VR users to balance performance and clarity in headsets
- Reduced visual artifacts — fewer instances of flickering, black water patches, and LOD popping
If you tuned your settings before SU4, it is worth revisiting them. You may be able to push Terrain LOD or cloud quality a notch higher than before.
Xbox Series X|S and PS5 Settings
If you are playing on console, you have fewer settings to adjust but the same principles apply. The console version handles most of the heavy lifting automatically, but there are still meaningful choices.
Xbox Series X / PS5: Both target 30 FPS at up to 4K with dynamic resolution scaling. The sim looks excellent out of the box, but you may notice stutters in dense photogrammetry cities. The main setting to watch is Data — make sure Online Data Streaming is enabled, and set Rolling Cache to at least 32 GB if your console has enough free storage. This caches terrain data locally and dramatically reduces pop-in on repeat flights.
Xbox Series S: Targets 1080p at 30 FPS. The S has less RAM and a weaker GPU, so you will notice lower terrain detail and more aggressive LOD scaling than the Series X. If you experience stutters, reduce Traffic settings (AI and multiplayer aircraft are expensive) and consider turning off Live Weather in extreme storm scenarios, as heavy precipitation adds GPU load.
Key console settings to check:
- HDR — enable if your TV supports it. MSFS 2024's HDR implementation is excellent for sunsets and cloud lighting
- VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) — enable on your TV if supported. This smooths out frame pacing without vsync input lag
- Rolling Cache — set to 32 GB or higher (Options > General > Data)
- Graphic Mode — if available, choose "Quality" over "Performance" for flight sim. The extra visual fidelity matters more than hitting 60 FPS in a sim where you are not making fast camera movements
PS5 DualSense: The gyro controls add a natural feel to flight inputs. If the sensitivity feels off, adjust the dead zones under Options > Accessibility > Controller. Many players find reducing gyro sensitivity to 60-70% gives better control authority without overcorrecting.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best MSFS 2024 graphics settings?
There's no single answer — it depends on your GPU. The framework is: max out the cheap settings (Anisotropic Filtering 16x, Glass Cockpit Refresh High, Shadow Maps High, Light Shafts), then tune the expensive ones to fit your hardware budget. Terrain LOD, Volumetric Clouds, Trees, and Raytraced Shadows are where 80% of your FPS goes — start with TLOD 100-200, Clouds High, Trees High, and adjust from there. Use DLSS or FSR if you have an RTX 20+ or RX 6000+ card; it's effectively free performance.
Should displacement mapping be on or off in MSFS 2024?
Off for airliners, on for VFR. Displacement mapping adds geometric depth to terrain — beautiful when you're flying low in a Cessna 172, invisible at 30,000 ft in a 737. It also costs significant GPU time. Turning it off in airliner ops typically gains 5-10 FPS with no visual loss; turning it on for low-altitude general aviation is worth the hit because that's the flying where it shows.
What does anisotropic filtering do in MSFS 2024?
Anisotropic filtering controls texture sharpness on surfaces viewed at oblique angles — runways, taxiways, distant terrain. Set it to 16x. It's one of the cheapest settings in the game (under 1 FPS on modern GPUs) and the visual difference between 1x and 16x is dramatic. Anything below 8x leaves runway markings looking blurry as you taxi.
What MSFS 2024 graphics settings should I change first to fix stutters?
Three fixes in order: (1) lower Terrain LOD to 100 — TLOD over 200 is the single biggest stutter source on most systems, (2) drop Traffic (AI and multiplayer) to Low or Off, especially around busy hubs, (3) set Off-Screen Terrain Pre-caching to High and Rolling Cache to 32 GB+ — both reduce streaming-induced stutters. If still stuttery, Volumetric Clouds is next: drop from Ultra to High for ~10 FPS back.
Are MSFS 2024 graphics settings different on Xbox or PS5?
Yes — consoles have a curated subset of settings managed by the platform. You can't tune individual sliders the way you can on PC. The settings that matter on console: Rolling Cache (set to 32 GB+), HDR (enable if your TV supports it), VRR (enable on TV side), and Online Data Streaming (must be on). Full console section above covers the differences between Series X, Series S, and PS5.
Do DLSS and FSR hurt image quality in MSFS 2024?
DLSS Quality mode is essentially free — output is often sharper than native TAA at the same render scale, with 30-40% better performance. DLSS Performance mode is more aggressive and shows shimmer on glass cockpits and EFB screens; use Quality unless you're VR-bound. FSR 3 is comparable to DLSS Quality on AMD GPUs but slightly softer at 1440p; both are dramatically better than running at 70-80% render scale without upscaling.
Final Thoughts
The key to good MSFS 2024 performance is knowing which settings matter and which are essentially free. Terrain LOD, Volumetric Clouds, Trees, and Raytraced Shadows account for the vast majority of your FPS budget. Get those four right, turn up everything that is cheap (Glass Cockpit, Shadow Maps, Anisotropic Filtering, Light Shafts), and you will have a stunning sim that runs smoothly.
Do not chase 60 FPS at 4K Ultra with a mid-range card — you will make everything look worse trying. Instead, find a frame rate you are comfortable with (30-40 FPS is genuinely fine for flight simulation) and maximise visual quality within that budget. A locked 35 FPS with beautiful clouds and sharp terrain will always beat a stuttery 55 FPS with everything on Low.
If you are still building or upgrading your sim PC, check our best hardware for airliner operations guide for specific peripheral and hardware recommendations.
