Best Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 PC Settings

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the most demanding consumer sim ever shipped. Even an RTX 4090 can struggle to hold 60 fps at 4K Ultra — not because the game is broken, but because it’s streaming and rendering a photorealistic Earth in real time. If you’ve loaded up MSFS 2024 on a solid gaming PC and hit a wall with frame rates, you’re not alone.

The good news: you don’t need new hardware. Smooth, visually stunning performance comes down to knowing which settings cost the most fps, which are free visual upgrades, and which Windows tweaks actually move the needle. This guide covers the best MSFS 2024 PC settings for every hardware tier, with a clear FPS impact breakdown so you can make informed trade-offs instead of guessing.

System Requirements — Know Your Tier

Before touching settings, it helps to know which hardware tier you’re working with. MSFS 2024 has three official tiers, and your tier determines your realistic performance ceiling:

One important nuance: MSFS 2024 is GPU-bound at 1080p and 1440p — your graphics card is the bottleneck in those resolutions. At 4K, the equation flips and the sim becomes CPU-bound, because managing and streaming photogrammetry data at that detail level creates serious CPU overhead. If you’re at 4K with high CPU usage but still disappointing frame rates, no GPU upgrade will fully fix it.

If you’re not sure how graphics settings work under the hood, our game settings explained guide is a solid primer before diving in.

The FPS Impact Table — Which Settings Cost the Most

Not all settings are equal. Some will cut your frame rate nearly in half; others you can max out for free. This table lays out the FPS impact for every major setting so you know exactly where to compromise:

The key insight: Terrain LOD and Volumetric Clouds are your two primary FPS levers. Everything else is refinement. If you’re chasing frames, start there — not with textures or shadows.

Graphics Settings — Detailed Recommendations

Anti-Aliasing and Render Scaling

The anti-aliasing dropdown in MSFS 2024 is also where you pick your upscaling method. Your options are:

• TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing) — native resolution, best image sharpness, no FPS gain
• NVIDIA DLSS — AI-powered upscaling for GeForce RTX owners; Quality mode delivers roughly 26% more fps
• AMD FSR 2 — spatial upscaling that works on any GPU, slightly softer than DLSS at equivalent quality modes
• Intel XeSS — performs like DLSS on Arc GPUs, closer to FSR quality on other hardware

Set Render Scaling to 100 when using TAA. If you’re using DLSS or FSR, those handle resolution internally — don’t reduce Render Scaling further unless you’re on very limited hardware, as you’ll get compounding blur.

One thing most guides skip: both DLSS and FSR can cause blurring on glass cockpit instruments — PFDs, MFDs, and ECAM displays. If you fly IFR and panel readability matters to you, TAA is worth the fps cost. For VFR or casual flying, upscaling is the better choice.

Terrain Level of Detail

Terrain LOD is the single most influential setting in the sim. It controls how far out photogrammetry scenery is rendered and at what resolution — and because MSFS 2024 streams scenery in real time, higher LOD values demand both GPU compute and network bandwidth simultaneously.

The sweet spot for most systems is LOD 100–150. Pushing to LOD 200 gives noticeably sharper ground textures during low approaches and pattern work. Pushing to LOD 400 (the maximum) inflicts a 30%+ frame rate penalty with diminishing visual returns — you’d mainly notice it during very low-altitude flying over dense photogrammetry cities.

If you’re short on fps, drop Terrain LOD before anything else. The gain is immediate, and at cruising altitude the visual difference is nearly invisible.

Volumetric Clouds

MSFS 2024’s clouds are fully ray-marched 3D volumetric objects — every cloud is rendered in full 3D space, not as a billboard sprite. The result looks extraordinary, but it hits GPU fill rate hard, especially flying through or beneath overcast layers.

In overcast conditions, Ultra clouds are nearly 27% slower than Low. The visual jump from Low to High is significant; from High to Ultra is subtle, especially from cockpit height. High clouds are the right choice for almost every player. If you primarily fly in clear or scattered conditions, Ultra is viable on a capable GPU. During instrument approaches in solid IMC, you’ll feel the difference.

Trees and Vegetation

Trees are deceptively expensive in MSFS 2024. Each one is a 3D model, and in temperate or tropical regions the sim renders thousands of them per frame. Ultra vegetation adds roughly 14% overhead versus High, with minimal visual improvement from cockpit altitude — you’d need to be low and slow over a forest to notice.

High is universally the right setting for trees. Ultra is only worth considering if you specifically fly low-and-slow bush planes and want maximum immersion in forested terrain.

Shadows and Reflections

Set Terrain Shadows to 256. Shadow quality improvements above this value are nearly impossible to notice in motion, but the FPS cost grows steadily. On a high-end rig with headroom to spare, 512 is fine — but 1024 or 2048 are not worth it.

Raymarched Reflections adds realistic water and wet-surface reflections. Low or Medium is the right setting for most players — the visual gain from High or Ultra is subtle when you’re moving at 250 knots, and the GPU cost is real. If you fly floatplanes or spend time at low altitude over water, Medium is worth the trade.

For Raytraced Shadows: if you’re on an RTX 30 or 40 series card with comfortable headroom, enabling this improves interior cockpit lighting quality at roughly an 8% fps penalty. It’s a nice-to-have, not a priority.

Texture Resolution and Object LOD

Texture Resolution is one of the gentlest settings in the sim. Provided your GPU has 8 GB+ of VRAM, you can set this to Ultra with minimal fps impact — it’s a VRAM bandwidth setting, not a GPU compute one. Only drop it if you’re seeing texture pop-in or stutters during VRAM-heavy scenarios like dense photogrammetry cities.

Object LOD controls building and ground object draw distance. Reducing it to the minimum (10) gives around a 14% fps boost but leaves airports and cities looking sparse. A value of 80–100 balances populated-looking environments against GPU draw call overhead. Airports with complex custom scenery are where you’ll feel this setting most.

Upscaling in MSFS 2024 — DLSS, FSR, and Frame Generation

Upscaling is the highest-value single optimization in MSFS 2024 for most players. DLSS Quality mode adds approximately 26% fps over native TAA with minimal visible quality trade-off at 1440p and 4K — it’s the first thing to enable on a capable NVIDIA card.

Beyond standard upscaling, Frame Generation is available for RTX 40 and 50 series owners via DLSS 3.7. It generates AI-interpolated frames between rendered frames, adding 30–35% more on top of the standard DLSS gain. Microsoft has confirmed DLSS 4.0 support — including Multi Frame Generation, which generates up to three AI frames per traditionally rendered frame — is coming to MSFS 2024. If you’re on an RTX 50 series card, check for a patch update.

AMD GPU owners on RX 6000 and 7000 series can access FSR 3-based Frame Generation via the community Nukem mod (copy two .dll files into the MSFS install directory). It’s not officially supported, but it’s stable and widely used in the sim community.

For a complete breakdown of how DLSS, FSR, and XeSS compare — quality modes, supported GPUs, and which games benefit most — see our DLSS vs FSR vs XeSS guide.

Hardware-Tiered Presets

Use these presets as a starting point. For stress testing, load into a complex payware airport (or try KJFK or EGLL) in overcast weather at dusk — that combination exercises every expensive setting simultaneously. Adjust Terrain LOD and Clouds first if you need more frames; they offer the best fps-per-visual-cost trade-off.

These presets target 45–60 fps in demanding conditions. Budget preset assumes 1080p; mid preset targets 1440p; high-end preset targets 1440p to 4K depending on the specific GPU. If you’re below 45 fps on your stress test, reduce Terrain LOD by 25–50 points first — it’s almost always the right first move.

Windows and System-Level Optimizations

In-game settings get you most of the way there, but the system underneath matters too. MSFS 2024 responds well to several OS-level tweaks that most games don’t benefit from as noticeably:

• Resizable BAR (ReBAR) / Smart Access Memory (SAM) — enable in BIOS if your motherboard and GPU support it. Allows the CPU to address all VRAM directly, cutting latency in open-world streaming titles. MSFS 2024’s constant scenery streaming makes this more impactful here than in most games.
• Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling (HAGS) — enable in Windows Settings > Display > Graphics Settings. Reduces CPU overhead in GPU command scheduling, which matters in a CPU-intensive sim.
• High Performance Power Plan — switch from Balanced to High Performance (or AMD’s Ryzen Balanced on AMD systems) to prevent CPU frequency stepping under sustained load.
• Windows Game Mode — enable it. MSFS is one of the titles that actually benefits, as Game Mode prioritises CPU resources for the foreground process and reduces background interference.
• Disable Xbox Game Bar DVR — if you’re not using it, disable background recording in Xbox Game Bar settings to reclaim CPU cycles that MSFS can use for scenery processing.

For a complete system optimisation checklist — driver settings, NVIDIA Control Panel tweaks, GPU overclock headroom, and per-game profiles — our guide on how to optimize your PC for better FPS covers everything in detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does MSFS 2024 use more CPU or GPU?
It depends on resolution. At 1080p and 1440p, MSFS 2024 is primarily GPU-bound — your graphics card is the bottleneck. At 4K, the sim shifts toward CPU-bound behaviour due to photogrammetry streaming overhead. If your GPU usage is near 100% and CPU is low, you’re GPU-limited. If both are moderate but fps is still low, check for CPU throttling or background processes eating clock cycles.

Is DLSS worth it in MSFS 2024?
Yes, for most players. DLSS Quality mode delivers roughly 26% more fps with minimal visible quality trade-off at 1440p and 4K. The main exception is serious IFR flying, where glass cockpit instruments can appear subtly blurred — in that case TAA is the better choice for panel readability.

What causes sudden FPS drops in MSFS 2024?
The most common cause is photogrammetry streaming. When you fly into a dense city at high Terrain LOD, the sim simultaneously streams large amounts of texture and mesh data — creating a brief GPU and network bottleneck. Reducing Terrain LOD to 100–150 is the most effective fix. Also ensure your internet connection is stable; MSFS 2024 requires a minimum of 10 Mbps, and higher LOD settings benefit from 50 Mbps or more.

Sources

• Microsoft Flight Simulator — Official PC Requirements
• Microsoft Flight Simulator Support — How to Improve Performance
• MSFS Forums — FS2024 Graphics Settings and Performance Guide
• MSFS Addons — DLSS 4.0 and Multi Frame Generation Support Confirmed
• MSFS Addons — Unlock the Best Visuals and FPS in MSFS 2024

Michael R.

I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.