Beyond FPS - Finding non-GPU bottlenecks? (MSFS performance diagnostics)

D

DarkSideA8

Gawd
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Apr 13, 2005
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I've just plunked my new 3070 into my old Ryzen 7 system and I'm not satisfied with what I'm getting out of MSFS. (Mind you, I've tried to push up the settings globally after removing my 970 which ran the game fine at low detail) Now I'm seeing gawdawful shadows and textures, but good reflections.

Before we get into 'MSFS sux' or 'git a 3090' - I'd really like to see what is going on with the system I have and discover for myself where the bottlenecks are. I presume from reading the RTX 3k and AMD 6xxxx reviews that cover MSFS that the reviewers are able to see beyond mere FPS and see RAM usage and CPU loading. I'd like to do this too.

Is it really as simple as running PerfMon simultaneous with the NV overlay? Or is there a better software solution that could give me a total picture of what is going on with the game settings on the system I have to help me get the most out of the game?

Because the guessing I'm doing now is frustrating.






(FWIW - the current supply situation isn't a problem; I'm not ready to make any major hardware changes atm... but I'd like to know what to target when I do)
 
Really, you can just run NVIDIA Frameview 1.1 and see what's going on. It provides detailed reports of what's happening with your GPU. Also, GPU-Z can show you some of what's going on as well. It can write to a log file so you can review it later. It can also be set to show maximum CPU and GPU temperatures and power consumption, etc.
 
DarkSideA8 said:
I've just plunked my new 3070 into my old Ryzen 7 system and I'm not satisfied with what I'm getting out of MSFS. (Mind you, I've tried to push up the settings globally after removing my 970 which ran the game fine at low detail) Now I'm seeing gawdawful shadows and textures, but good reflections.

Before we get into 'MSFS sux' or 'git a 3090' - I'd really like to see what is going on with the system I have and discover for myself where the bottlenecks are. I presume from reading the RTX 3k and AMD 6xxxx reviews that cover MSFS that the reviewers are able to see beyond mere FPS and see RAM usage and CPU loading. I'd like to do this too.

Is it really as simple as running PerfMon simultaneous with the NV overlay? Or is there a better software solution that could give me a total picture of what is going on with the game settings on the system I have to help me get the most out of the game?

Because the guessing I'm doing now is frustrating.






(FWIW - the current supply situation isn't a problem; I'm not ready to make any major hardware changes atm... but I'd like to know what to target when I do)
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I know you're trying to bask in the new hardware glow. But I can't help but wonder how the game looks and performs at your old settings.
 
Tactlesss said:
I know you're trying to bask in the new hardware glow. But I can't help but wonder how the game looks and performs at your old settings.
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It was functional. And yeah, like most kids with a new toy - I want it to shine.

MSFS is a really weirdly optimized game; first time I've really heard 'CPU bottlenecking' being widely discussed came up when they were doing the 3080 benchmarks. That said, I don't have a bleeding edge system any longer. So, while I know 3070 isn't top end... it's certainly better than 970 and should unlock the settings more fluidly than I am seeing happen.

Dan_D - I'll check out Frameview. Oh - and damnit I forgot about GPU-Z. Derp.
 
cdabc123 said:
Overclock the GPU and see what happens?
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From what I've seen, NV is putting most of the new cards out at close to max anyway. IDK if that applies to the 3070, but it seems to be the case for the upper tier cards. Anyway; I am looking at non-GPU limitations, atm. before I go futzing around with the GPU.
 
DarkSideA8 said:
From what I've seen, NV is putting most of the new cards out at close to max anyway. IDK if that applies to the 3070, but it seems to be the case for the upper tier cards. Anyway; I am looking at non-GPU limitations, atm. before I go futzing around with the GPU.
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I only mentioned it as sometimes adjusting memory clocks can yield surprising results in certain workloads. Additionally if you have a little room for the core clock you could quickly determine if its a GPU bottleneck.

If it wasnt nvidia I would up the core voltage abit and mess with the clocks but nvidia makes that nice and difficult
 
cdabc123 said:
I only mentioned it as sometimes adjusting memory clocks can yield surprising results in certain workloads. Additionally if you have a little room for the core clock you could quickly determine if its a GPU bottleneck.

If it wasnt nvidia I would up the core voltage abit and mess with the clocks but nvidia makes that nice and difficult
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I don't disagree - especially under 'normal circumstances' that is a valuable method. The thing is, once you start reading into how MSFS works, you learn that it's got 'features' that a simple GPU tweak will not solve.
 
MSFS is very demanding on your CPU. This is probably your primary bottleneck but, in fairness, you have a pretty low powered system for trying to run flight sims at a decent fps.
 
Kubicide said:
MSFS is very demanding on your CPU. This is probably your primary bottleneck but, in fairness, you have a pretty low powered system for trying to run flight sims at a decent fps.
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No it is not, it just uses only a few cores and leaves the rest pretty much alone. On 3960x, 7%-10% CPU usage. It does like fast cores with decent IPC. So yes, demanding for the CPU cores being used, how many few they may be.
 
Kubicide said:
MSFS is very demanding on your CPU. This is probably your primary bottleneck but, in fairness, you have a pretty low powered system for trying to run flight sims at a decent fps.
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Oh - I know. I just built a killer system for a friend who is a dedicated sim 'pilot' and I can see every place mine lags behind.

That said, until I get my new monitor this summer (32" 4k fast IPS) I won't need to upgrade to push the 1080p I'm running now. I was lucky enough to snag a 3070, which is actually getting me 45 FPS atm with the settings I finally settled on... and that's okay for a flight sim. Not great, but okay. (According to Guru3d, the 3070 should still push 30 fps at 4k... with the 3080 only getting @ 42 ... and people say flight sims are playable at 30). I'm hoping the supply situation normalizes later this year and I can not only upgrade mobo/cpu but have a chance at one of the refreshed higher mem GPUs expected later this year (kid already has dibs on the 3070!)
 
the issue with a lot of these cpu usage monitoring is thath are hopeless to locate bottlenecks in a multihthreaded/multicore situations. and very often because people consufe instanst with over time they draw horrible incorrect conclussions.

even kyle came up in one of his game reveis and saw tha because there was some load on all cores the game was able to use all cores. that was simple not true, its a common misconception.
a thread might not be able to use more coare at the same time. but those measurements you see are NOT the same time. but an average over a time so it is very much possible for a thread to have jumped between cores during the avareaging time period

here is the optimal way in my regards when it comes to identifying cpu bottlenecks

grab process monitor from microsft.
fins the givine process you want to look into
check its THREAD load.
now since those measuremnt here are load compared to the entire cpu you need to know what is the max of a given cores. that is simple 100%/with number of logical cores. so if you are at a 8 core cpu with SMT it would be 100/16 = 6.6
now look at those thread utilisations. if any time one of those threads hits close to 6.6 usage it means that threads used up all avaiable cpu power for it. and you have a core speed bottlenecks

if all of the combiends threads uses clos to 100% itmeans you have a total cpu bottlenekcs

those are 2 highly different type of bottlenecks as the first CANNOT be solved by adding more cores only faster cores.
the later both ways might be able to solved


at the same time you need to monitor you gpu usage. if that one is low it shows that is is not the bottleneck but its being bottlenecked somewhere else ( most likely cpu)
if you gpu usage is contnatly in the 98-100% that would indicate you GPU/graphics card is being the bottleneck


Here is the kicker. it IS possible to play a game and during the playtime you experience both of these. so section A would have cpu bottlneck but on the next map it is a GPU bottlelneck.
its uncommon but it can happen
 
oh another bonus tip
if you noticed you only have a few threads (equal to physsical cores or lower) with high cpu usage AND you are usign a cpu with multithreading,
you might gain a speed benefint from disbabling SMT.

why this is is that if you have 8 cpu heavy threads on an 8 cre cpu with SMT you want to ensure each threads get a full core to run it.
with smt that does not always happend Thread might go to LgicalCore0 and Thread1 goes to LC0 and both of those are on the same physical core. now they cant use the same part of the core and have to wait for each othe
when you disable smt. Thread0 would go to Physsical core 0 and thread1 would go to another physsical core. giving both threads the full performance of a physsical cores.

the speedup from this has seen to give up to 23% boost in FPS.
 
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