Aloha Chris, and Chris,

  So sorry for the absence, had back and shoulder surgery, but I rebuilt my PC for MSFS, so running nice. Hope to be pegging hours now I can sit for a bit. With all the medical, they disabled me from the job I had on the mountain, so more time to fly.

Thanks for your patience and keeping me on the Roster ,
Gary Anderson
Hilo, Hawaii
ICX1204

I've been watching his stuff. I also found a really good checklist over at https://flightsim.to/file/53885/atr-72-600-checklist-procedures

Most hours logged during June:
1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 5.7 )
2nd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 3 )
3rd Michael Reincken, 1705 ( 0.8 )

Most online hours logged during June:

1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 5.7 )
2nd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 3 )

Congratulations to all of Junes award winners! And as always, thanks to everyone whos logged flights this month.

Pilot awards earned during  
Logged 20 IVAO Hours - Jose Luis Anton ( 1851 )

You've got an nVidia RTX 4 series card and want to use Frame Generation (FG) and anti-aliasing in MFS; it's a bit of a faff with a lot of meaningless acronyms but you may double your framerate so it's worth trying out, here's how to do it:

• In your Windows graphic settings, you must enable "Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling" (HAGS) and you'll need to restart the PC for this setting to take effect
• The DLSS3 Frame Generation included with MFS is older but can easily be updated to reduce artefacts and blur. Simply drop an updated nvngx_dlssg.dll & nvngx_dlss.dll into your main MFS installation directory - if you're not prompted to overwrite you're putting it in the wrong place! Find the files at https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-3-frame-generation-dll/ and https://www.techpowerup.com/download/nvidia-dlss-dll/ . You should backup the original MFS version of these file just incase you need to revert. Theoretically these files should update any game with DLSS3.
• OPTIONALLY in the nVidia control panel (NVCP) you can enable higher than native rendering resolutions that the GPU then scales down to native before outputting, to produce a better image with less jaggies (aliasing). In the NVCP under Global look for "DSR- Factors" and then under "DL Scaling" select the first and second options. After a reboot, you can then select these oversampled resolutions in most games.
• In the nVidia control panel, just for MFS (although you can set global if desired) I suggest enabling VSync to fast as this will reduce screen tearing whilst moving the camera without introducing too much input lag (don't use VSync within the MFS settings, it's laggier). If you've got a posh FreeSync or GSync monitor don't use Vsync. All these options cap your framerate to make things smoother, if you are number chasing don't enable any of the options in this section.
• Now we can start MFS and twiddle the settings in-game. Firstly you'll need to be in DX12 mode for official supported FG (this is in MFS General Options, Graphics page). You may need to restart the sim after changing this before the other options appear.
• Back into MFS General Options > Graphics and we've got a lot to set:
  * Set the resolution to your monitor's native (or higher than native if desired).
  * Display mode to FULL SCREEN (this gives the best performance)
  * Render scaling at 100 (i.e. no scaling), you can turn this down a tad to gain performance and soften the image but it costs instrument clarity.
  * Set NVIDIA DLSS Frame Generation to ON (if this is greyed out or missing, refer to steps above)
  * Ensure Vsync is OFF
  * NVidia reflex low latency keep switched OFF as enabling FG forces this to be done elsewhere anyway, although you can experiment with this setting if you get issues. Enabling lots of low latency options can lead to stutters which is why I'm advising to keep this off initially.
• Finally there's lots of anti-aliasing options, I'm just going to cover the most pertinent:
  * TAA (Temporal anti-aliasing) is my preferred option as it keeps the instruments and gauges sharp. But it's also amongst the most taxing options on a computer. Sometimes it can create "shimmering" on scenery too.
  * nVidia DLSS Super Resolution (Deep learning super sampling) is less taxing on the system but not as sharp because it renders at a low resolution then upscales, this gives a soft look. The quality setting determines the scaling (performance runs at half output resolution, quality is 67% of your full resolution, with hacks you can enable 80%). DLAA is the same technology but without any scaling, this will tax your PC similarly to TAA. If you notice blurriness on moving altitude/speed tapes and dials, it's caused by DLSS and you should try TAA

You can also enable FG on AMD and RTX 3 series with various FSR3 mods and tools (NukeM9 etc) but YMMV as it's not officially supported. I've not covered it here.

So you've got your new machine, but how do you set the MFS's graphics? There is a fantastic guide at https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-graphics-settings-and-performance-guide-su12-update-7-26-2023/132407 where every graphics option is explained with images of each setting at each level, plus the likely framerate hit in both CPU and GPU bottlenecked situations.

See if you're GPU or CPU limited by looking at Windows Task Manager whilst using MFS and seeing which is hitting 100%

The big performance hitters are (FPS gains/drops based on a starting point of about 60 fps):

• Terrain level of detail, beyond 100 you start to get quite big performance drops relative to quality increase. This setting adjusts the detail of distant objects, the effects of going much beyond 150 are mostly only noticeable in photogrammetry (PG) areas. PG hits performance hard and looks terrible on lower tLoD settings so if you've got a slower system, go into the Data settings and turn off Photogrammetry (PG areas such as London will become autogen buildings on top of aerial photography like everywhere else)
• Grass and bushes at ultra you'll lose 2 FPS vs using high, and high looks nice anyway
• Object level of detail (LOD) doesn't seem very linear in terms of improvement, upto 100 you get big detail gains zooming into distant objects, beyond that things only sharpen a bit, so 100 is definitely a sweet spot. This only really affects the CPU though, so if you've got CPU headroom you can turn it up 200 without much FPS hit
• Volumetric clouds, there's a big GPU impact from High to Ultra (we're talking 7 FPS!) without that much improvement visually. You want to run High clouds if possible though as they look awful on medium!
• Water Waves look nice on High but you pay for them big time with framerate, you can easily gain 3 FPS in GPU limited scenarios by switching to Medium waves although there is a big drop in quality too
• Terrain Shadows stick to 1024 or lower, going to 2048 in a GPU limited scenario could cost 4 FPS but it's hard to spot the visual improvement
• Windshield effects Ultra looks gorgeous as it adds SSRT reflections to the windscreen (e.g. cockpit screens get reflected in the side windows), if you drop down to medium and lose the reflection plus some raindrops, you could gain 3 fps if GPU limited
• Ambient occlusion Use high if you can, otherwise medium. Ultra costs 3 FPS for a subtle upgrade, the visual difference between high and medium is quite significant though
• Raymarched reflections the difference between Medium and Ultra is a huge 6 FPS along coasts in a GPU bottleneck situation
• Depth of field basically a blurring of distant items this is very much a taste thing but you are paying for it with performance too. Low will give you much of the effect of Ultra but save you 1 FPS

Outwith graphics, the other heavy hitter is traffic, so keep those sliders to the left if you're struggling with framerate.

Most hours logged during May:
1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 7.6 )
2nd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 1.4 )

Most online hours logged during May:

1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 7.6 )
2nd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 1.4 )

Congratulations to all of Mays award winners! And as always, thanks to everyone whos logged flights this month.

Most hours logged during April:
1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 9.8 )
2nd Gary Anderson, 1204 ( 1.9 )
3rd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 1.2 )

Most online hours logged during April:

1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 9.8 )
2nd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 1.2 )

Congratulations to all of Aprils award winners! And as always, thanks to everyone whos logged flights this month.

Aloha,

   As usual, looks wonderful! Thanks for your continued support, just need our JS41 now in MSFS, lol.

Gary
ICX1204

Most hours logged during March:
1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 14.1 )
2nd Gary Anderson, 1204 ( 3.2 )
3rd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 2 )

Most online hours logged during March:

1st Richard Cuthbert, 1573 ( 14.1 )
2nd Jose Luis Anton, 1851 ( 2 )
3rd Michael Reincken, 1705 ( 0.9 )

Congratulations to all of Marchs award winners! And as always, thanks to everyone whos logged flights this month.