Microsoft’s new Flight Simulator 2020, the latest version of the Microsoft Flight Simulator, has revealed to consist of several performance problems that impact those with older CPUs and graphics cards. Unfortunately, this means that the game will be unusually choppy and sometimes crash during extremely performance-intensive times, but it will have to be dealt with until Microsoft does something about it.
In the training sessions, the choppiness is almost unbearable when the “training lady” is giving instructions. The propeller on the aircraft will cease to turn occasionally, and you may even experience a crash. You see, this is a new thing, and it probably should have spent much more time in the shop before it was actually released. In addition, you may have an Intel Core i7-8900K and it would still be chopping (though maybe not as badly). The torpor of the game would become much more apparent if you were running an older generation Intel Core like the i5 2nd or 3rd gen.
During landing, I’ve noticed (in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, anyway) that it would crash once in a while while I was attempting to enter the landing pattern (and I say attempting because everything was not going well at all). This only happened one time, and it hasn’t crashed during that time in a while, but I have noticed that it gets extremely choppy when (A) it is displaying the pattern rectangles (the ones that help you land safely) and (B) when the ATC is talking. This is when the choppiness becomes most apparent. But, like I said, the level of choppiness depends on your processor.
In addition, you would need a pretty good graphics card like the GTX 1070 or higher in order to see amazing graphics, like high-quality renderings of mountains and trees. If you have an older series, like the 9 series or even the 8 or 7 series, then you’ll need to turn all your rendering settings to Low and turn off vSync to prevent your graphics card and processor from overworking themselves. You can access these options by clicking on the Options tab on the home screen of the simulator. This is where you can customize all your settings and (hopefully) make your game run better. However, we’ve tried adjusting some settings to lower preferences, and they didn’t seem to improve much of anything.
But, when the game runs properly and you’re in mid flight and everything’s going well, it really is an amazing experience. The instruments are rendered properly and you don’t have to deal with horrible cockpit rendering quality. Also, I’ve noticed that whenever you’re in cockpit view, the choppiness and performance gets much better than when you’re outside the aircraft. This is most likely because it has to render a bunch of surroundings when you’re looking around, and it’s overall more performance intensive than just looking at the gauges.
Overall, the game has not been a complete disappointment. I’m sure Microsoft will continue to update the game frequently and will eventually solve all problems that occurred relating to performance, and other things. However, it also depends on your hardware. Older hardware means worse performance. And that’s where we are right now on the state of the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.