MS Flight Simulator (2020): the 2021 PC graphics performance benchmark review

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VRAM Utilization and CPU Scaling


Graphics memory (VRAM) usage

How much graphics memory does the game utilize versus your monitor resolution with different graphics cards and respective VRAM sizes? Well, let's have a look at the chart below compared to the three main tested resolutions. The listed MBs used in the chart are the measured utilized graphics memory during our testing.


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Flight Simulator fills up graphics memory as much as it can, and it likes 8GB cards. Above an 8 GB GeForce RTX series card. 

Graphics memory usage can fluctuate per game scene and activity in games. This game will consume graphics memory once you start to move around in-game, memory utilization is dynamic and can change at any time. Often the denser and more complex a scene is (entering a scene with lots of buildings or vegetation, for example) results in higher utilization. With your close to the max "High" but not "Ultra" quality settings this game tries to stay at a five towards 5~6 GB threshold. We noticed that 4GB cards could have more difficulties running the game at our settings, and that presents itself in stutters.


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But what happens if you have a graphics card with even more graphics memory? As you can see only at Ultra HD is starting to fill up that kerosine data-tank in our own created benchmark when graphics cards have more memory available. We max out at roughly 11 GB. Flight Simulator really likes to use your graphics memory. I'll operate subtle at 8GB framebuffers. However terrain is responsible for extensive further VRAM usage, and with so many locations worldwide, there's no conclusive answer here. Extra framebuffer memory does not make the sim noticeably less stutter-free, neither went performance upwards. But it will cache as much as needed and as much as possible and surely that can only be a positive thing.


CPU Core Scaling

You are wondering, what would be the effect of a four-core versus an eight-core processor for this game? Well, I have a quick chart I would like to show you, the results below are based on default clock frequencies. We apply the very same image quality settings as used throughout this article, Ultra. Here the processor used is the Core i9 9900K for which we can manually disable cores.


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CPU Core Scaling AMD Ryzen 9 vs Intel Core i9

A much-asked question is, how well does a specific game actually run on either an AMD or Intel processor. And that is a valid question as there can be significant differences. Below you can see the 9900K from Intel and a Ryzen 9 3800XT from AMD. The difference is measured with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.


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Though Flight Simulator does utilize all cores, it certainly does not stress them all equally. As you can see four cores do the most work, which explains why quad-core processors would keep up reasonably well. We'll look a bit more at Ryzen 9 CPU behaviouristic in our frame time analysis later on in the article. 

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