Do you guys have the old saying: "Gotta eat a little crow"? It's classically used when you really screw up and you have to apologize. Sometimes you gotta apologize to a lot of people. I find myself in that un-desirable position today. I've been very vocal (and adamant) that I based my SmoothFlight tool on the original code base that Muumimorko and Fragtality made. To be very quick about it... I was wrong. I thought I was being careful to only use from that code base until I had explicit permission to use anything from ResetXPDR. But I screwed up and had some cross-pollination. I could come up with lots of reasons how or why that happened ... but let's cut to the chase. I screwed up - and I screwed up with proof right in my code. I'd make a lousy criminal. Freakin' brilliant. It's like committing a crime and leaving your business card at the scene with a blood sample. So it's no wonder that ResetXPDR was upset with me. And I was clueless. Because... as of about an hour ago, I still thought I hadn't used his code. But we had a chat, and there it is. I have to admit that it really makes me look like a scumbag. I humbly ask for forgiveness. I have broken a trust. It's also my first red flag that I might have cognitive decline - so that's a wonderful diagnosis... old age sux but that's a story for another time. At any rate, I need to amend my earlier statements: I have 3 people to thank for my ability to have an idea like this... build the mod, and then share it with you guys. Muumimorko, Fragtality and ResetXPDR. As a famous guy once said: "We stand on the shoulders of Giants"
Thanks for this posting, it clarify the situation. I would be nice that you also describe how you software do better that the 2 others. How do you differentiate?
Thank you for owing up to this, and publicly too. It takes real guts to do that. In response, I am completely satisfied that it was inadvertent and I forgive you. If I can do that being the one most affected, I hope that others can too and continue to use and support your app into the future.
@@eaglefirestudioI'm hoping that in the future, the differences in our 2 approaches will begin to separate us a bit more. Now that we have a more open line of communication, I expect a bit more of a difference to emerge. Also, I've already been in contact with 2 people that tell me my version doesn't do anything for them..and I find it's refreshing to be able to point them to ResetXPDR's version as an alternative. I could agree with the messy comment, except that they both use the exact same "mobiflight-event-module" that goes in the Community folder, so running comparisons with them couldn't be easier. It's kind of the opposite of messy.
@somewhereelsestudio6342 While I was quick to criticise you yesterday, I applaud you for coming back publicly and apologising....well done! After thinking about it more, I believe the VR Flight Sim Guy jumped the gun a bit and could have maybe have done a tad of research before posting....he did that once before with an initial Windows11 and G2 being wiped out video he posted then retracted when he realised he had created unfounded panic....anyway, alls well that ends well eh?
@VRFlightSimGuy mentioned something during his review that I feel I should address: The "Landing Mode" setting caused a quick stutter when he crossed the threshold. and that's due to an intentional decision. If the difference between your current graphics settings and the ones you have selected in the "Landing Mode" are too much, then yes, you will see the change happen. That's because "Landing Mode" is designed to be a "safe space" where no automatic adjustments are allowed. A "Sterile cockpit" if you will... So I give you 2 choices. 1. Force those settings at the altitude threshold (that you can set as high as 500 ft above the runway). Because one quick quarter-second stutter and then butter-smooth for the rest of the landing is better than a slide-show that lasts all the way down. 2. Or...use the "Freeze" option. Freeze will just stop updating graphics as you cross the threshold. The settings might still be too high, but at least you have a choice of how to handle it. On the other hand, the issue that he saw during landing wouldn't have been a problem if he was following a normal glide path, as that would have given the SmoothFlight tool enough time to invisibly adjust the graphic quality on the way. That being said, if this continues to be an issue then I'll be writing a new algorithm for approaches. This is most assuredly a work in progress. The ability to do this kind of a mod has only recently been available. So (as my good friend continues to say: "More to come" on this subject)
Outstanding effort, I’ve tried running both of the apps together, it seemed to work ok, good fps. I’ll give this app a good test tomorrow at some point.
@@goochygoochoutdoors.1913 Definitely don't do this. Both programs will be competing to modify the variables that represent the TLOD and OLOD. One of the other, not both!
Why no admission that you just piggy backed onto the original developers app and the major improvement that Reset XPDR published a few days before you released this...not good to imply its all your work, you should definitely give credit to the 2 guys who were there before you
@@GunPilotI never implied that it was *all* my work. And I have given credit to the 2 guys before me. But you're making accusations you know nothing about. Those 2 guys are Muumimorko and Fragality. With the exception of their code that talks to and from MSFS, this program *is* all mine. My design... my code. Both ResetXPDR and I branched off the same code that was built by Muumimorko (the MobiConnect part) and Fragality (the rest of the proof of concept code known as DynamicLOD) after both of them had abandoned the project and announced there would be no further updates. It was at that point that both of us each created a new fork and began to work on our own ideas. (By the way, I originally asked ResetXPDR to collaborate on the project, but he declined. ) After a short discussion, we agreed that our different approaches were unique enough that it would be difficult to collaborate. At the time, ResetXPDR's version was nearly identical to the latest version of the Fragality code... in that it was all based on AGL with a couple of spreadsheets and hard coded AGL = LOD pairings. The version of the original DynamicLOD that I used as a base for the communication with between the tool and MSFS has none of ResetXPDR's code in in it. So yes, I'm using Muumimorko's very slick communication engine to talk to MSFS. The majority of the remainder of the code I'm assuming belongs to Fragality - and it is pages (and pages) of code to manage the spreadsheets that correlate AGL to LOD settings. And since I was not about to base my idea on AGL, that was entirely discarded. But to claim I piggy-backed off of Reset's code? That has no basis in reality.. You must think I saw Reset's autoFPS tool and then built (and tested) mine in 4 days??? I'm flattered that you think I'm that fast, but no. This took time. It's a design I've had ever since MSFS came out with VR support three and a half years ago. Without Muumimorko's amazing Memory Injection code, it wasn't possible until just recently. While we're on the subject, the original design for this came from a title that Papyrus came out with in 1995 (I think) called Indy Car Racing 2, that would change the number of cars you could see based on FPS. Back then getting 12-14 FPS was considered decent performance.
Yes, Yes, Yes... An explanation of each setting, what it attempts to accomplish, and what reasonable values might be considered for low-end, mid-range, and high-end graphics cards would be helpful. I've been playing with AutoFPS for a few days now with decent results. Now spending time with this new app. Having this capability embedded in the sim would be awesome but KUDOS to the persistence of the author. I will definitely contribute some $$.
Darren; the short answer is this: You should know 3 things about your current settings. Your current Terrain LOD, Object LOD, and what FPS you normally hit with those settings. 1. Set the FPS to a value your video card can hit. It won't do you much good if you set it so high that the SmoothFlight tool continually tries to lower your graphics settings to get you above that FPS threshold. That would look ugly. This doesn't give your computer more power. It does however very intelligently adjust your settings to make the best use of what you have.... all without cooking your video card. (check your video card temperature while this is running - you'll be surprised) 2. In the "Limits" section, set the maximum values to roughly the same as what you now use in normal MSFS flight. In other words, DON"T set these to maximum. This is important, unless all you want is the best visuals at all costs. Note: Once SmoothFlight has found how far it can push the TLOD and OLOD settings without your FPS dropping below your FPS threshold... it will have found the optimum settings for that moment in time. The good news is, it's going to keep double-checking to make sure you are *still* using the optimal settings during your entire flight... so yes, you can go from flying over the ocean to flying low over Lower Manhattan with 3,000 x 3000 supersampling in VR and this beast will auto-compensate and keep you smooth. When you leave the city, the higher graphics come back and you never leave too much power on the table. 3. If you have the maximum values set low enough, and SmoothFlight was able to reach those maximums without dropping below the minimum threshold, the remaining power / headroom is not wasted. It will be converted back into higher FPS. It's not uncommon for me to have my minimum set to 40 FPS, TLOD set to 125 (for scenery out as far as I can see anyway), OLOD set to 85 (because if I miss a baggage cart at the airport, I really don't care) and actual FPS is in the 70's. In VR. Don't be suckered into setting a high FPS number. This number won't limit your FPS. It only sets a threshold by which lots of calculations start happening.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342What do you recommend for landing settings? Seeing what Steve set for his landing settings seems a bit low no? Also...for alitude...if I set it to 33 does that mean 3,300 feet is the altitude at which the settings lock in for landing?
@@JM1701ABCDAs mentioned elsewhere, you can disregard the "Landing Mode" and just let it adjust based on performance. but for those who really love tweaking and want a bit more control for landings, the option is there.
What I would really love to see is something that stops MSFS spontaneously adjusting the terrain mesh when close up to mountains - as you are here. There's hardly ever improved visual fidelity when that happens, but it is a total immersion breaker in VR, at least when you're ridge soaring.
100% agree with you @bulversteher. As a creator of some race tracks for MSFS, I find it insane that Asobo can get the X-Y coordinates of those mountain peaks correct from 20 miles away, but is continually adjusting the elevation right up until you get within arms reach. but it's the limitations of the current sim ...and we all deal with them. The only thing you can do to help alleviate that is to set your TLOD setting higher. This will cause the levels of detail to be drawn at a greater distance. (I was able to gather that Asobo has 14 different LOD levels for terrain) But as we all know, if you set that too high, it gets like a slide-show and that's another immersion breaker.
I think with 2024 they've all but given up on 2020. I have high hopes for the new version built from the ground up with the lessons learned. I think we'll come to view 2020 as a paid beta, with 2024 hopefully being absolutely amazing 🙏Shame we have to pay twice, but worth every penny
I would really appreciate a head-to-head or comparison between this and AutoFPS. I assume you can’t run both at the same time, so basically which one is ‘better’ for general uses. Since they both seem brilliant, it’s hard to know which one to go for
Thanks so much! This app is amazing. I don't use VR but got only ~20-25 FPS (3080/i5 11400) fsr frame gen pushed it to 40 but still micro stutters, now im at around 70, no stutters at all. Just Amazing.
Incredible.. Without tweaking the standard settings it made a huge difference in stutter. Not flown it yet but sitting on the tarmac was far better than ever. 3080 Graphics card, Quest 3 VR. First impressions were excellent.
it's good. Still seeing micro stutters at edge of performance limits but the frame pacing seems much better. Low Flying and looking down the Wing cord, you get a smoother experience.
Nice job on the approach in Innsbruck! As a pilot, I can't pass by without mentioning, landing must be done from the opposite side. Noise amendment procedures 🙄 Keep up the great work! ✈👏
AFAIK The reason you want 45 fps (half of 90) is for the motion re-projection, consistent interpolated artificial frames. Then MSFS added a triple option so 30/90 IIRC, been a while for me. See vid here from a year ago etc for more details.
Frame rate and stuttering has never been an issue even with my old 2070 super. The issue is clarity, definition and blurriness. All things that still exist in VR even with my new 4070ti.
Great video Steve, I also would like a comparison between auto fps and smooth flight with a settings guide. It’s amazing we have these tools to improve our VR.
Great solutions for getting More FPS and less stutters, but Microsoft shame that your Engine is so bad that we need all those Addons, hopefully MFS 2024 will be much better for VR performance
It would have been so much easier if they had just implemented it inside the box. It's quite a trick to get this to work using an outside application. Imagine how slick it would be if it was embedded??
I love AutoFPS and gave this a try. Both are identical apart from AutoFPS using cloud detail change when needed to maintain FPS. Both great programs and Asobo need to take note !
I’m so out of the loop that I’m so happy you keep me / us In the loop. I’ll have to give this a try but I’m happy I get 25fps so I’ll try 30? and see what performance gain I get at what noticeable details loss. Thanks for showing
@@somewhereelsestudio6342which HW do you use? And much more interesting what linking SW do you use? I got a quest 2 and have horrible stutters likely due to linking SW
@@Alexander-hk5ke I replied to this hours ago but it's not showing up. I don't know what you mean by HW and linking SW. Please explain. Could you be referring to HardWare and SoftWare? I have a Quest 3 and use the link cable. If you mean something different.. I'll try to answer once I know what HW and SW mean. Also, It's important to realize that stutters are generated by lots of different things. .. and at no time have I ever claimed that this eliminates stuttering. It's true that almost everyone who uses it (and has reviewed it) reports a dramatic decrease in stutters, but in reality, there are causes for stutters that I have no control over. It's designed to automatically adjust graphics within the limitations of your hardware. So the bottom line is: If you set unreasonable expectations of a tool like this, it's going to disappoint ya. :) For instance if you never got more than 30 FPS on medium settings, but you installed SmoothFlight and cranked up your options to "ultra" and then demanded 65 FPS, it's going to get ugly. That's an extreme example, but I want to reiterate that the best setup advice I can give is this: Leave your system options alone and setting a reasonable FPS that your system can hit - - and you'll probably be in the ballpark.
Tried this after viewing vid. I wouldn't say game changer, but it seems to help somewhat, worth trying and tinkering with. I'm going to try throwing some real fps killer sceneries at it and see how it does. The concept is great, everyone should try it.
There is a better add on for butter smooth frame rates, it’s called Aerofly FS4. I never understood why people keep trying to tweak MSF2020 when you have a perfect out of the box sim built for VR with really good graphics and flight decks that mimic the actual size of the flight deck.
More in depth please. Sounds fantastic. Problem with Auto fps is, that it is not aware where and what you fly. Takeoff in the alps with TLOD 50 and flying in mountain regions with GA or helicopter is a difficult to handle usecase
Hi Steve. Thank you for always bringing the VR community cutting edge info. As a big fan of Almalence( i know you don’t care much for it) have you tried running this app with that mod? Ty in advance
Thank you for keeping us so informed. Does this one also adjust the clouds like the other one does? And also are you able to minimize so you don't see it in your screen all the time? Thank you
Clouds are not yet implemented. Changing cloud detail is VERY noticeable and was therefore not included ... but the more I read about cloud manipulation, the more I'm tempted to add it. I did some performance testing myself with cloud adjustments, and found the results to be rather un-impressive. That might have to do with the fact that I'm using a 4090 card but I saw no more than one FPS difference between Low detailed clouds and Ultra. Yet I read how everyone else thinks that clouds are "da bomb". So back to the test bench for me. Still, some rather impressive results are possible without such visually obvious changes. And I value invisible mods more than the things that reduce immersion. Yes, this can be minimized... or better yet, the "secret" mini-mode. check the upper left hand corner of the app window. There's a tiny silver button up there that will shrink the app to post-it note size. You can "paste" that anywhere in the cockpit in VR - totally out of the way, but still able to read how it's doing.
yes i would like to see a further in depth tutorial, but please enable the ingame FPS display to show the framerate and info whats still limiting the performance. thanks
Do the same clip over London and the Heathrow payware airport. Totally different and imo the additional tools don’t help anything, raw Nvidia power does.
Awesome, you always blow us away by finding new software that makes the game better! What would we do without you...:) Is it possible to use SmoothFlight together with AutoFPS? If not, which one do you prefer?
It is so weird with this program in particular how different it runs on similar machines with similar settings. I think the only hardware difference between my rig and yours is I have the high-end Ryzen chip and if I remember correctly, you have a high-end Intel chip. Yet since the last Beta build and tweaking the settings, my experience is butter smooth 98% of the time and this program did nothing to improve it (I think mostly because there is so little left to improve). In fact, my stutters out the side never seemed to be about FPS, as my FPS are almost always within 3 frames of 45. I'll be darned if I know what was causing them, but they are gone! Still, I ROUNDLY applaud the folks making these add-ons to help people still struggling and I applaud you for making such great videos of them! S!
re: "as my FPS are almost always within 3 frames of 45" Is that because you're running ASW or some other frame generation? In that case, you're right. SmoothFlight will not do what you want it to do if the framerate never changes. Edit for clarity: If you use ASW or MR, and your sim reports 45 FPS all the time: One of these 3 things will happen: a) If your minimum FPS slider is set to a value higher than 45, the sim will never reach it. Therefore, SmoothFlight will continually lower the graphics settings until both TLOD and OLOD are at their minimum... because if the FPS never changes, SmoothFlight will not know when to stop. This would look horrible. Don't do it. b) If your minimum FPS Plus Deadzone are LOWER than 45, SmoothFlight will decide that you've got excess power, and you want to put it to use by increasing graphics fidelity. So it will continually raise the TLOD and OLOD settings until they are at their maximum because it won't know when to stop. This would likely become a slide show, and you're not going to like it. Don't do it. c) If your minimum FPS setting is lower than 45 and the upper threshold (FPS + Deadzone) is above 45, then SmoothFLight will do nothing. You will not cross either of the thresholds, so you're in the DeadZone. And you'll complain to me that you don't see any difference. You won't like it. I won't like it. Don't do it. (see a pattern?) :) So turn off MR/ASW, etc. let the sim report what the real FPS is... and then SmoothFlight has a chance to do what it was created to do.
There are so many reasons / causes for stuttering. An overworked graphics engine is only one of them. Another very popular one is connecting to the USA West server on a Friday night. ;) But don't be surprised if the stuttering problem seems to be completely fixed on one day only to return the next. It may not have anything to do with your settings.
I'm not using ASW and it stumps me why currently I am pegged at 45-48 but it is so smooth though I don't want to chase more FPS for no reason! Sometimes after I mess with settings, I get 90fps and it is rock solid on FPS, but the stutters return. Weird. @@somewhereelsestudio6342
Not using ASW and I am stumped as to why I am pegged there now - was getting a solid 90fps before, but there were stutters. It is so butter smooth now at 45 I hate to try and chase any additional FPS for no useable reason!@@somewhereelsestudio6342
Wow. Sounds amazing, Steve. I will try this, even though I'm very close to 100% stutter free as is, running the 4090 at half, like yourself. A very clever piece of software, and I will definitely donate 🙂 Have a great week, buddy. Love from Norway ♥♥♥♥♥
Thanks to continued updates and optimizations from Asobo, it's true that many of us can run stutter free. However, the settings you use to get stutter free are truthfully only good when flying in the same kind of environment that you created them in. Take those settings to one of the major cities (NYC, Tokyo, Paris, London, etc) and your hard-coded stutter-free existence falls short. Take those same settings to the Alps in nice weather and you're leaving a lot of horsepower on the table and not using to it's full advantage. Do you find yourself wondering if you could add a bit of eye candy?? I know I and many friends do every day. And that's the reason why tools like this exist. So you can be assured you're getting the best performance and/or visuals based on your preference.... no matter where you are. Heavy Rain storm? No problem. Joined a group flight with 30 other planes? Got it covered. :) Myself, I'm very susceptible to low frame-rates, so I set mine to give me blistering FPS numbers in VR. My flying buddy would rather have amazing visuals and happily runs at 10 FPS below me. We use the same tool, different settings, and we are both blissfully happy.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342 Very good point. The feeling of having extra grunt unused can be somewhat annoying sometimes. I am one of those who accepted high 20s in the G2, so for me to be satisfied probably takes less than it does for you. But the settings I use now pretty much allow me to fly a fighter between the skyscrapers in NY with all high/ultra, even clouds. But I know for a fact that I'm missing out on even greater results when in less demanding scenarios. I',m using the Crystal, so that makes up for a lot for it regardless. The clarity is amazing. I will definitely try the software out tomorrow 👍
@@poolhallshark re: "The feeling of having extra grunt unused can be somewhat annoying sometimes." If you had asked me about this in the early days of MSFS2020, I would have denied it. But after tweaking on settings for over 3 years, I suppose the "quest for the perfect setup" is now taking over. It has become a lifestyle.
For some reason, for me, auto fps works really well and smooth flight does not. I understand they are very similar, so I don't understand why smooth flight isn't working well. But I'm so happy with auto FPS. I think I'll just stick with that for now. I'll keep an eye on both products and updates and either way, I'm very excited that we have options to make flight simulator better! Many thanks to the developers that make these kind of things for us!
@@VRFlightSimGuy Good evening, I just tried this application in VR mode and for me it changes absolutely nothing, I don't see any difference in terms of increase in fps!!!
Great video and potentially very useful tool. Would you be able to make another video of how to set this software, please? Which setting are more important, which are less and so on. Thanks
For AutoFPS on a 2080TI is best with 30 cap Repro in OpenXR Toolkit. For my other 3080 is good with 45 Repro. With this it may still need Repro all the same. Only thing is Repro will make calcs slower is all. Would not like an abrupt change. AutoFPS may suffice.
Give it a try. It costs nothing. And you might find that the equally-spaced frames are actually smoother looking than what you get with motion reprojection technologies.... so it's worth a shot.
Wow a 3rd utility now, thanks Steve! I use first one: DynamicLOD for VR and works with Fixed FPS play. For me, that's at 30 FPS with MR. First time in years getting this sim to be butter smooth with almost zero micro-stutters; what an awesome feeling while flying now!!! (Cant quite get to 45 consistently in my new rig because of the 3080Ti.) Based on your suggestion, I will try this and see if I can disable Motion Reprojection now at 30 FPS. Thanks again:)
In this current iteration, the SmoothFlight tool is designed to work without motion reprojection only. With ASW or MR, the sim continually reports that it is always at half-native-framerate. So without accurate FPS data coming from the sim, SmoothFlight cannot accurately assist.
So you are auto-varying 3 settings based on the UI window= TLOD, OLOD and RA. What is RA? By the way too; I don't know why on my PC but the utility was accurately picking up the correct Motion Reprojection FPS and was adjusting the 3 variable settings as I flew just fine. So also tried in non MR as well, was auto-correcting in the same fashion in both modes just fine.@@somewhereelsestudio6342
@@MrEDETGood question. Because of the way that all reprojection technologies work, I think they'll all be problematic. Because my experience with them is that they either will report 45 FPS or 90. (assuming this is on a headset that's set to 90hz refresh) . The most important part of this is that no matter which one they report, it will never change. And watching that number change is how SmoothFlight works. So if you MUST use reprojection, then maybe a different solution is better for you. But in my testing, as long as I can set the minimum FPS to 38 or higher, I can have a successful result. YMMV of course... and that's why we pre-release these types of tools so we can get a better handle on what works (hopefully the vast majority of it) and what doesn't.
I am going to try this, I don't know if this will help but I notice that 99% of my stutters in VR come from when I am flying over add on scenery created by users. I feel like a lot of the time the scenery is just not optimized and while it may work OK in 2D mode it is a no go for VR. For example, I had Boston add on scenery from enjoy it fly installed. In 2D it is great but in VR I was getting MASSIVE stutters. I deleted it and added the Boston Scenery from the Modern US Cities add on scenery from the Markey place and just like that 99% of the stutters were gone. I believe we could be looking at a data throughput bottleneck where the sim is trying to download too much data and inject it into the sim and it just can't in real time. That is my working theory at least lol.
Will check this out tonight. I do find when there’s lots of other aircraft around Valley my quest 3 frame rate drops lots. I was getting 30fps last night then when I came into land I was getting 8fps. Bloody scary. You have no real idea when you have actually touched down at 8fps. lol. So any software that can help will be good.
Have you tried turning AMD FX Sharpening down? I run mine at zero and I get a much clearer image in VR, especially in the cockpit looking at the instruments.
Interesting video. My only question is will these tools work with any gaming - not just flight games? I do SIM racing and other VR sports games and with the Quest 3 now. Looks like these are specific to Flight Sim games.
Auto FPS was working amazing although i surprisingly had stuttering on my last use of it with a glider in the Alps??? Ill give this a try and look forward to any settings advice you can give?
My best advice would be to set some reasonable limits. The worst thing you can do is set FPS to 90 and TLOD maximum to 400. This will NOT give your video card superpowers and magically give you the ability to run everything on Ultra. So, try this as a starting point. Look at what you currently have your Terrain LOD and Object LOD set to. Set the TLOD max limit and OLOD Max limit to the same numbers. Then set FPS to a value that's a bit lower than what you can normally hit. Set Deadzone to 3 or 4 FPS higher than FPS minimum. This will give you a comfortable zone where no changes are necessary. Then go fly. You should have some room to auto-adjust to varying conditions whether that's higher or lower. Edit for clarification: Some are still confused to the real function of the FPS setting. It does not limit your FPS. It''s merely a directive to SmoothFlight that says: "Please don't let FPS fall below THIS". It's very common for me to have my FPS set to 40 and my actual FPS to be fluctuating between 70 and 80. This is where SmoothFlight really shines. Sometimes I'll just head for a large city and dial up a blizzard to watch SmoothFlight handle it. I can hear it faintly say: "Is that all you got? "
Thanks so much for sharing, exciting stuff! So do you turn off ASW / Space warping when you using Smooth Flight? If all this add-on does it adjust the TLOD and OLOD then why cant it work with ASW do you suppose? About to test this and will certainly make a donation, what a legend @Michael Manthei
The majority of questions seem to be focused around some type of setup guide, so would it be a benefit if I did a Twitch stream and went through that? I'm not much on making RUclips videos but a stream would allow for some interaction.... a question and answer session type of thing.
@@VRFlightSimGuyI guess the trick is to find a good time. With users all over the planet, when would be the best time to do this? I suppose the VOD will be around for viewing later, but getting in on the active questions would be beneficial. Anyone have ideas?
It's awfully kludgy - as I don't know how to get a user interface to show up on the in-game ribbon menu... but here's how I've been doing it: First I get all my windows set up and the in-game windows placed where I want them. I don't know how everyone else does it, but I guess we all end up in the same place. But basically, do your normal method to get the SmoothFlight window into the VR space with you. Just before you launch VR, Alt-Tab to the SmoothFlight app by holding the Alt button down and tap Tab until the app is highlighted: then release Alt key. Then one more Alt-tab to go back to MSFS . Because of the default way Microsoft windows works (and has since W95) your most recent 2 windows will always be the default windows to focus. While in VR, you can alt-tab again and it will bring the SmoothFlight app into focus. Alt-tab again to go back to MSFS. I mapped alt-tab to a button on my StreamDeck so I don't have to fumble around to find the keyboard in VR. So yea, it's a bit of a kludgy workaround for now. But it lets me make changes while flying without leaving VR. To be fair though, the main focus of SmoothFlight is that you find your settings and then leave it alone. So hopefully you'll adopt that workflow soon and this will be a non-issue.
@somewhereelsestudio6342 Cool. I will give it a try. To be honest, I was hoping you had some clever way to bring Windows apps into VR. 🙂 I wrote an in-game popup for my app (rsFirstOfficer) but it seems to cause stutters so I don't promote that feature. Thanks for all your efforts on this handy tool.
Interesting addon! But the real test would be over NYC City and LGA add on’s. I bet it still won’t perform at a decent level. I’ll try it there and report back (4090, Crystal).
Are there really some of you who obtain better performance with this tool even with a 4080 or a 4090 because for my part I do not see any improvement in VR with my rtx4080?
Stuttering has ruined MSFS VR for me so tried both of these. They both report a frame rate of around 40-60 (target 32), don't apply much lowering of details, and the stutter is still wild. Can you have a high frame rate and stutter?
Great info and ap! I think I know the answer but wondering if I should still use OpenXR together with Smooth Flight? Smooth Flight is showing 9FPS on my low spec system but seems like it might be getting 3x.
Thanks for sharing this with all of us. I followed all the instructions for installing Smooth Flight but the app only shows "sim running" but not "Connected" or "Controllable". Please do an installation video for Smooth Flight including all the steps necessary. If you have any specific suggestions for me, please advise. And thanks again for all the useful flight sim video topics that you present.
I can't imagine an installation video would be necessary. You should put the "mobiflight-event-module" in your Community folder. MSFS must be rebooted after this step. If this is not done, you will see the symptoms you describe. Otherwise I've not seen that issue.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342 I did what you suggested and I am still getting the same results as before. Once more people try this product you may find that there are other issues that need to be addressed. If there is anything else you can suggest to troubleshoot the problem, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342 Well, my problem was an installation issue. I resolved it by downloading and installing AutoFPS. The install program of that product automatically checks for and installs the latest versions of the other utilities needed. It It determined that the Mobi module (which I DLd from the Smooth Flight page link) was out of date. It installed an updated version and now Smooth Flight runs as expected.
Some payware airports which are using custom ground textures provide very very ugly looking textures when setting TLOD to 50 or lower. Even below your airplane position. So it's not always the best way to use low TLOD
Couldn't agree more. That's why I have included the ability to set a custom lower limit for TLOD (and OLOD). Having a low limit set to 10 can be really ugly, but when you fly like I do, sometimes you need it to be a bit heavy handed to get you back to a flyable framerate. I like to fly faster than mach 1 downtown Manhattan. Not many do. On the other hand, I know many of you are more "polite" and like to follow procedures and treat the sim like an actual "Simulator". And so you are probably going to be happier setting the low limit to something that looks a bit better. I know there are already 20 or so questions asking "What are the proper settings?" Well, if there was such a thing as a "proper setting" then I wouldn't have spent the time making these things adjustable. For those who still feel like I owe them a preset ;) Try this: * Set the Upper maximum for TLOD to 100 (or to whatever you had it set to before you tried SmoothFLight) * Set the Upper maximum for OLOD to 100, (or whatever you would set it to manually as above) * Set the desired FPS to something around 5 FPS lower than what you think your video card can do on average... Now Go Fly. Don't spend all day in a menu. This is supposed to stop that. Remember that SmoothFlight isn't going to give you more power. Its job is to turn down some settings when you get into a difficult area, and then them back up when you return to an "easy" area. The "goal" if there is such a thing, is to set your upper maximum (TLOD especially) so that you can reach it. Once reached, SmoothFLight will turn all the rest of the extra horsepower into higher FPS. It's not uncommon for me to have a minimum FPS set to 40, the LOD's are maxed out and the sim is running at 70+ FPS. It sounds lot more simple than it really is. What you get as a benefit is: * less stuttering because your computer now has a bit of headroom to play with. * you might discover the mouse even seems a bit more responsive as you try to adjust things on your dash (because your computer has more headroom now)... * Lower temperatures on your video card (it's not being pushed to 100%) ...and the list goes on
msfs/sim rig dof h3 pimax crystal and all the other open xr pimax xr opencomposite.. to open when I want to start it. thank god for batch files to open them all at once.. another one added to the queue.
He does not own the source code, he just piggy backed on the app that the original developer made and the huge improvement to that base app by ResetXPDR who released the dynamic LOD app b4 somewherelsestudio
So Steve thanks again for a very informative video. Quick question, for us Pimax Crystal users who lock the framerate to 1/2, do you still advise doing that when running Smooth Flight? Also can you share your exact Smooth Flight settings? Thanks!
I know I'm not Steve, but locking the frame rate at half native resolution doesn't give Smooth Flight any information to work with. So no, Smooth Flight is designed to run with motion reprojection or ASW turned off. The good news though is that the resulting smoothness can be even better than what you get with a locked frame rate.... Between that and the fact that you have eliminated all of the ASW artifacts, you might just like it better.
I'm still not Steve, and I do hope he replies still but.... if your computer can consistently give you 45 FPS so that lock mode works, then I would set it for 40 in SF. And then I would set the dead zone to three or four, and I would go for a flight. At some point in the future you can go back into settings and turn down your upper limits for the lods to get a higher frame rate..... but for your first test flight you can certainly start with those two settings. This assumes of course that you have shut off ASW or lock mode and are allowing the Sim to report the actual FPS it's able to get
I had a perfectly good sim before the last updates but now a stuttering mess in VR. My closest major airport is Gatwick and once got 30fps in VR and now 13fps in VR with the Q3 headset. In 2d it's 40 fps. Up north say Edinburgh it's fine. Thanks MS.3070 GPU.
I flew out of Gatwick today out of curiosity just to see if maybe there was some errant scenery glitch that would cause such bad performance. At first the sim reported 29-30 FPS and I thought "Wow, there it is!" but then I realized that I hadn't checked my ASW settings and pushed the "Diable" button. Suddenly I was at 52-57 FPS and no problems. So the famous Gatwick Immersion Stalker appears to be a hoax. :)
Well, I didn't have any problems with Gatwick and didn't alter any settings then came that update and now i have problems. Work that out . This is only in VR just wondering if that update changed my settings somehow I'll have to go take a look. Could you explain ASW settings thanks.
![Natanael Cano - Amor Eterno [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EO4prCs6WpM/mqdefault.jpg)
Do you guys have the old saying: "Gotta eat a little crow"? It's classically used when you really screw up and you have to apologize. Sometimes you gotta apologize to a lot of people. I find myself in that un-desirable position today.
I've been very vocal (and adamant) that I based my SmoothFlight tool on the original code base that Muumimorko and Fragtality made. To be very quick about it... I was wrong. I thought I was being careful to only use from that code base until I had explicit permission to use anything from ResetXPDR. But I screwed up and had some cross-pollination. I could come up with lots of reasons how or why that happened ... but let's cut to the chase. I screwed up - and I screwed up with proof right in my code. I'd make a lousy criminal. Freakin' brilliant. It's like committing a crime and leaving your business card at the scene with a blood sample.
So it's no wonder that ResetXPDR was upset with me. And I was clueless. Because... as of about an hour ago, I still thought I hadn't used his code. But we had a chat, and there it is. I have to admit that it really makes me look like a scumbag. I humbly ask for forgiveness. I have broken a trust.
It's also my first red flag that I might have cognitive decline - so that's a wonderful diagnosis... old age sux but that's a story for another time.
At any rate, I need to amend my earlier statements: I have 3 people to thank for my ability to have an idea like this... build the mod, and then share it with you guys. Muumimorko, Fragtality and ResetXPDR. As a famous guy once said: "We stand on the shoulders of Giants"
Thanks for this posting, it clarify the situation. I would be nice that you also describe how you software do better that the 2 others. How do you differentiate?
Thank you for owing up to this, and publicly too. It takes real guts to do that. In response, I am completely satisfied that it was inadvertent and I forgive you. If I can do that being the one most affected, I hope that others can too and continue to use and support your app into the future.
It would make a lot of sense to consolidate this FPS project into one sensible project,
It’s messy having two different projects…
@@eaglefirestudioI'm hoping that in the future, the differences in our 2 approaches will begin to separate us a bit more. Now that we have a more open line of communication, I expect a bit more of a difference to emerge. Also, I've already been in contact with 2 people that tell me my version doesn't do anything for them..and I find it's refreshing to be able to point them to ResetXPDR's version as an alternative.
I could agree with the messy comment, except that they both use the exact same "mobiflight-event-module" that goes in the Community folder, so running comparisons with them couldn't be easier. It's kind of the opposite of messy.
@somewhereelsestudio6342 While I was quick to criticise you yesterday, I applaud you for coming back publicly and apologising....well done! After thinking about it more, I believe the VR Flight Sim Guy jumped the gun a bit and could have maybe have done a tad of research before posting....he did that once before with an initial Windows11 and G2 being wiped out video he posted then retracted when he realised he had created unfounded panic....anyway, alls well that ends well eh?
@VRFlightSimGuy mentioned something during his review that I feel I should address: The "Landing Mode" setting caused a quick stutter when he crossed the threshold. and that's due to an intentional decision. If the difference between your current graphics settings and the ones you have selected in the "Landing Mode" are too much, then yes, you will see the change happen. That's because "Landing Mode" is designed to be a "safe space" where no automatic adjustments are allowed. A "Sterile cockpit" if you will...
So I give you 2 choices.
1. Force those settings at the altitude threshold (that you can set as high as 500 ft above the runway). Because one quick quarter-second stutter and then butter-smooth for the rest of the landing is better than a slide-show that lasts all the way down.
2. Or...use the "Freeze" option. Freeze will just stop updating graphics as you cross the threshold. The settings might still be too high, but at least you have a choice of how to handle it.
On the other hand, the issue that he saw during landing wouldn't have been a problem if he was following a normal glide path, as that would have given the SmoothFlight tool enough time to invisibly adjust the graphic quality on the way. That being said, if this continues to be an issue then I'll be writing a new algorithm for approaches. This is most assuredly a work in progress. The ability to do this kind of a mod has only recently been available. So (as my good friend continues to say: "More to come" on this subject)
Outstanding effort, I’ve tried running both of the apps together, it seemed to work ok, good fps. I’ll give this app a good test tomorrow at some point.
@@goochygoochoutdoors.1913Both together? I hate to break it to you, but you're not actually testing what you think you're testing.
@@goochygoochoutdoors.1913 Definitely don't do this. Both programs will be competing to modify the variables that represent the TLOD and OLOD. One of the other, not both!
Why no admission that you just piggy backed onto the original developers app and the major improvement that Reset XPDR published a few days before you released this...not good to imply its all your work, you should definitely give credit to the 2 guys who were there before you
@@GunPilotI never implied that it was *all* my work. And I have given credit to the 2 guys before me. But you're making accusations you know nothing about. Those 2 guys are Muumimorko and Fragality. With the exception of their code that talks to and from MSFS, this program *is* all mine. My design... my code.
Both ResetXPDR and I branched off the same code that was built by Muumimorko (the MobiConnect part) and Fragality (the rest of the proof of concept code known as DynamicLOD) after both of them had abandoned the project and announced there would be no further updates. It was at that point that both of us each created a new fork and began to work on our own ideas. (By the way, I originally asked ResetXPDR to collaborate on the project, but he declined. ) After a short discussion, we agreed that our different approaches were unique enough that it would be difficult to collaborate. At the time, ResetXPDR's version was nearly identical to the latest version of the Fragality code... in that it was all based on AGL with a couple of spreadsheets and hard coded AGL = LOD pairings.
The version of the original DynamicLOD that I used as a base for the communication with between the tool and MSFS has none of ResetXPDR's code in in it. So yes, I'm using Muumimorko's very slick communication engine to talk to MSFS. The majority of the remainder of the code I'm assuming belongs to Fragality - and it is pages (and pages) of code to manage the spreadsheets that correlate AGL to LOD settings. And since I was not about to base my idea on AGL, that was entirely discarded.
But to claim I piggy-backed off of Reset's code? That has no basis in reality.. You must think I saw Reset's autoFPS tool and then built (and tested) mine in 4 days??? I'm flattered that you think I'm that fast, but no. This took time. It's a design I've had ever since MSFS came out with VR support three and a half years ago. Without Muumimorko's amazing Memory Injection code, it wasn't possible until just recently.
While we're on the subject, the original design for this came from a title that Papyrus came out with in 1995 (I think) called Indy Car Racing 2, that would change the number of cars you could see based on FPS. Back then getting 12-14 FPS was considered decent performance.
You wait 4 years for a bus... then 3 come along all at once
😂😂
Exactly my thoughts!
3?
What’s the third one? I’ve got the autoFPS, what else is there?
@@JanStrojil DynamicLOD Tool
Would love to see more in dept settings video
Yes, Yes, Yes... An explanation of each setting, what it attempts to accomplish, and what reasonable values might be considered for low-end, mid-range, and high-end graphics cards would be helpful. I've been playing with AutoFPS for a few days now with decent results. Now spending time with this new app. Having this capability embedded in the sim would be awesome but KUDOS to the persistence of the author. I will definitely contribute some $$.
Thanks Steve. Great news with these new fps optimisers! Would love a settings guide when you are able to.
They're coming thick and fast now mate, thanks for the support :)
Darren; the short answer is this:
You should know 3 things about your current settings. Your current Terrain LOD, Object LOD, and what FPS you normally hit with those settings.
1. Set the FPS to a value your video card can hit. It won't do you much good if you set it so high that the SmoothFlight tool continually tries to lower your graphics settings to get you above that FPS threshold. That would look ugly. This doesn't give your computer more power. It does however very intelligently adjust your settings to make the best use of what you have.... all without cooking your video card. (check your video card temperature while this is running - you'll be surprised)
2. In the "Limits" section, set the maximum values to roughly the same as what you now use in normal MSFS flight. In other words, DON"T set these to maximum. This is important, unless all you want is the best visuals at all costs.
Note: Once SmoothFlight has found how far it can push the TLOD and OLOD settings without your FPS dropping below your FPS threshold... it will have found the optimum settings for that moment in time. The good news is, it's going to keep double-checking to make sure you are *still* using the optimal settings during your entire flight... so yes, you can go from flying over the ocean to flying low over Lower Manhattan with 3,000 x 3000 supersampling in VR and this beast will auto-compensate and keep you smooth. When you leave the city, the higher graphics come back and you never leave too much power on the table.
3. If you have the maximum values set low enough, and SmoothFlight was able to reach those maximums without dropping below the minimum threshold, the remaining power / headroom is not wasted. It will be converted back into higher FPS. It's not uncommon for me to have my minimum set to 40 FPS, TLOD set to 125 (for scenery out as far as I can see anyway), OLOD set to 85 (because if I miss a baggage cart at the airport, I really don't care) and actual FPS is in the 70's. In VR. Don't be suckered into setting a high FPS number. This number won't limit your FPS. It only sets a threshold by which lots of calculations start happening.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342
Excellent! Thanks for this explanation!
@@somewhereelsestudio6342What do you recommend for landing settings? Seeing what Steve set for his landing settings seems a bit low no? Also...for alitude...if I set it to 33 does that mean 3,300 feet is the altitude at which the settings lock in for landing?
@@JM1701ABCDAs mentioned elsewhere, you can disregard the "Landing Mode" and just let it adjust based on performance. but for those who really love tweaking and want a bit more control for landings, the option is there.
Absolutely would love a more in-depth look at this, when you have the opportunity. Thanks for sharing!
What I would really love to see is something that stops MSFS spontaneously adjusting the terrain mesh when close up to mountains - as you are here. There's hardly ever improved visual fidelity when that happens, but it is a total immersion breaker in VR, at least when you're ridge soaring.
Totally agree 💯
100% agree with you @bulversteher. As a creator of some race tracks for MSFS, I find it insane that Asobo can get the X-Y coordinates of those mountain peaks correct from 20 miles away, but is continually adjusting the elevation right up until you get within arms reach. but it's the limitations of the current sim ...and we all deal with them.
The only thing you can do to help alleviate that is to set your TLOD setting higher. This will cause the levels of detail to be drawn at a greater distance. (I was able to gather that Asobo has 14 different LOD levels for terrain)
But as we all know, if you set that too high, it gets like a slide-show and that's another immersion breaker.
Totally agree. In VR you really notice these changes much more than on a regular monitor.
I think with 2024 they've all but given up on 2020. I have high hopes for the new version built from the ground up with the lessons learned. I think we'll come to view 2020 as a paid beta, with 2024 hopefully being absolutely amazing 🙏Shame we have to pay twice, but worth every penny
@MichaelBarry-gz9xl "From the ground up," now where have we heard of that phrase before? 😂
Very much thank you. Excellent job and I would really enjoy seeing an review of both 'AutoFPS' and 'SmoothFlight'. 👍
Excellent video, a walkthrough setup would be great.
I would really appreciate a head-to-head or comparison between this and AutoFPS. I assume you can’t run both at the same time, so basically which one is ‘better’ for general uses. Since they both seem brilliant, it’s hard to know which one to go for
This works totally fantastic. Go buy the dev a coffee if you use this, he deserves it.
Couldn't agree more!
Thanks so much! This app is amazing. I don't use VR but got only ~20-25 FPS (3080/i5 11400) fsr frame gen pushed it to 40 but still micro stutters, now im at around 70, no stutters at all. Just Amazing.
Would love a deeper dive into Smooth Flight.
Auto fps didn't stop my big fps fluctuations, but thanks for sharing this, I will definitely be trying this out.
Unfortunately it didn't work for me.
Incredible.. Without tweaking the standard settings it made a huge difference in stutter. Not flown it yet but sitting on the tarmac was far better than ever. 3080 Graphics card, Quest 3 VR. First impressions were excellent.
it's good. Still seeing micro stutters at edge of performance limits but the frame pacing seems much better. Low Flying and looking down the Wing cord, you get a smoother experience.
100%
@@VRFlightSimGuy ruclips.net/video/s8TOeU2vEiw/видео.htmlsi=CM0EbO797QkNIhuf
Thank you very much for the tutorial, this addon also works for those of us who play VR
Nice job on the approach in Innsbruck!
As a pilot, I can't pass by without mentioning, landing must be done from the opposite side. Noise amendment procedures 🙄
Keep up the great work! ✈👏
Thanks for the tips! ❤️😁
Thank you. Trying this now. Would love to see an in-depth settings guide.
Thanks for the update. Can you make a video showing us how to set it up please Cheers.
AFAIK The reason you want 45 fps (half of 90) is for the motion re-projection, consistent interpolated artificial frames. Then MSFS added a triple option so 30/90 IIRC, been a while for me.
See vid here from a year ago etc for more details.
But this is no sense because Frame generation brake vsync? No?
Frame rate and stuttering has never been an issue even with my old 2070 super. The issue is clarity, definition and blurriness. All things that still exist in VR even with my new 4070ti.
Great video Steve, I also would like a comparison between auto fps and smooth flight with a settings guide. It’s amazing we have these tools to improve our VR.
Thanks for the update mate, very keen to see your more in depth settings review on this and trying it out myself :)
Great solutions for getting More FPS and less stutters, but Microsoft shame that your Engine is so bad that we need all those Addons, hopefully MFS 2024 will be much better for VR performance
It would have been so much easier if they had just implemented it inside the box. It's quite a trick to get this to work using an outside application. Imagine how slick it would be if it was embedded??
Please, please explain how to get it working! :)
Thanks Steve, will definitely give both a try. Keep em coming!
Would love to see a download/ install/ set up guide too! Thanks so much for showing this. Great video :)
Agreed 👍
This would be good. I’ve downloaded it and it doesn’t seem to do much and still got just as much stuttering.
Yes please. Love some setting help for this with a 4090.
I love AutoFPS and gave this a try. Both are identical apart from AutoFPS using cloud detail change when needed to maintain FPS. Both great programs and Asobo need to take note !
I’m so out of the loop that I’m so happy you keep me / us In the loop. I’ll have to give this a try but I’m happy I get 25fps so I’ll try 30? and see what performance gain I get at what noticeable details loss. Thanks for showing
It will definitely help you out Sven, especially since the software tries to better match frame timing at lower FPS values.
Hey Steve. This looks really interesting. I can’t wait for the day we get smooth 90fps with high fidelity visuals in vr
I had over 80 this morning with TLOD at 150, 30% supersampling (2500x2100) into a Quest 3 this morning. So we're close. :)
@@somewhereelsestudio6342which HW do you use? And much more interesting what linking SW do you use? I got a quest 2 and have horrible stutters likely due to linking SW
@@Alexander-hk5keYou lost me. I don't know what HW is ... or what linking SW is.
@@Alexander-hk5ke I replied to this hours ago but it's not showing up. I don't know what you mean by HW and linking SW. Please explain. Could you be referring to HardWare and SoftWare? I have a Quest 3 and use the link cable. If you mean something different.. I'll try to answer once I know what HW and SW mean.
Also, It's important to realize that stutters are generated by lots of different things. .. and at no time have I ever claimed that this eliminates stuttering. It's true that almost everyone who uses it (and has reviewed it) reports a dramatic decrease in stutters, but in reality, there are causes for stutters that I have no control over. It's designed to automatically adjust graphics within the limitations of your hardware.
So the bottom line is: If you set unreasonable expectations of a tool like this, it's going to disappoint ya. :) For instance if you never got more than 30 FPS on medium settings, but you installed SmoothFlight and cranked up your options to "ultra" and then demanded 65 FPS, it's going to get ugly. That's an extreme example, but I want to reiterate that the best setup advice I can give is this: Leave your system options alone and setting a reasonable FPS that your system can hit - - and you'll probably be in the ballpark.
Tried this after viewing vid. I wouldn't say game changer, but it seems to help somewhat, worth trying and tinkering with. I'm going to try throwing some real fps killer sceneries at it and see how it does. The concept is great, everyone should try it.
Heathrow airport and NYC
Wow I just installed Auto FPS when I went to sleep and now there's this smooth motion when I woke up😊
There is a better add on for butter smooth frame rates, it’s called Aerofly FS4. I never understood why people keep trying to tweak MSF2020 when you have a perfect out of the box sim built for VR with really good graphics and flight decks that mimic the actual size of the flight deck.
Reminds me of the days when OpenXR Toolkit came out, and suddenly everything opened up
Are you using them together? What is the difference between them? Hope to see some test.
Great work, keep on rocking! Your work is very much appreciated! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thankyou so much!
More in depth please. Sounds fantastic. Problem with Auto fps is, that it is not aware where and what you fly. Takeoff in the alps with TLOD 50 and flying in mountain regions with GA or helicopter is a difficult to handle usecase
With AutoFPS, you can quickly change your TLOD Min to be higher and even a higher Alt TLOD Base if you want for such flights.
Off topic I know, but I would really love to know your thoughts of your motion rig having used it for some time. The good but also limitations.
Video coming very soon!
Hi Steve. Thank you for always bringing the VR community cutting edge info. As a big fan of Almalence( i know you don’t care much for it) have you tried running this app with that mod? Ty in advance
My pleasure Kam :) Funny enough, I'm about to try it!
Not sure all the hype is justified. Auto-fps is still the benchmark. Got a feeling a lot of this code from others.
Great find, looks awesome. I'll start messing around with it, but please provide some settings stats, will be really useful.
Cheers for video mate 👍
Hope he has plans to develop this for DCS
Awesome thanks Steve!
Hey Jose, I hope you are well :)
Thank you for keeping us so informed. Does this one also adjust the clouds like the other one does? And also are you able to minimize so you don't see it in your screen all the time? Thank you
Clouds are not yet implemented. Changing cloud detail is VERY noticeable and was therefore not included ... but the more I read about cloud manipulation, the more I'm tempted to add it. I did some performance testing myself with cloud adjustments, and found the results to be rather un-impressive. That might have to do with the fact that I'm using a 4090 card but I saw no more than one FPS difference between Low detailed clouds and Ultra. Yet I read how everyone else thinks that clouds are "da bomb". So back to the test bench for me. Still, some rather impressive results are possible without such visually obvious changes. And I value invisible mods more than the things that reduce immersion.
Yes, this can be minimized... or better yet, the "secret" mini-mode. check the upper left hand corner of the app window. There's a tiny silver button up there that will shrink the app to post-it note size. You can "paste" that anywhere in the cockpit in VR - totally out of the way, but still able to read how it's doing.
yes i would like to see a further in depth tutorial, but please enable the ingame FPS display to show the framerate and info whats still limiting the performance. thanks
Hi thanks, I usually would be there is currently a bug in SU15 whereas enabling the FPS counter causes stutters. How ironic.
@@VRFlightSimGuyironic. maybe the frametime display within MSI afterburner works as a workaround.
@@VRFlightSimGuyI'm shaking my head at that one.
Do the same clip over London and the Heathrow payware airport. Totally different and imo the additional tools don’t help anything, raw Nvidia power does.
Need something like this in DCS
I haven't tried either Steve but im sure one of them will help my 2060!
What a great time to be a flight simmer 😊
I can hardly keep up mate, not that I'm complaining :D
Awesome, you always blow us away by finding new software that makes the game better! What would we do without you...:) Is it possible to use SmoothFlight together with AutoFPS? If not, which one do you prefer?
Thankyou :) Best to use one or the other, I prefer smooth flight so far as I really like the fps smoothing feature. Best wishes.
Thanks for this video. Will try it asap. Cheers, Ron :))
It is so weird with this program in particular how different it runs on similar machines with similar settings. I think the only hardware difference between my rig and yours is I have the high-end Ryzen chip and if I remember correctly, you have a high-end Intel chip. Yet since the last Beta build and tweaking the settings, my experience is butter smooth 98% of the time and this program did nothing to improve it (I think mostly because there is so little left to improve). In fact, my stutters out the side never seemed to be about FPS, as my FPS are almost always within 3 frames of 45. I'll be darned if I know what was causing them, but they are gone! Still, I ROUNDLY applaud the folks making these add-ons to help people still struggling and I applaud you for making such great videos of them! S!
Oh and I forgot to mention I'm using the Quest Pro as well. That may just have something to do with it!
re: "as my FPS are almost always within 3 frames of 45" Is that because you're running ASW or some other frame generation? In that case, you're right. SmoothFlight will not do what you want it to do if the framerate never changes.
Edit for clarity: If you use ASW or MR, and your sim reports 45 FPS all the time: One of these 3 things will happen:
a) If your minimum FPS slider is set to a value higher than 45, the sim will never reach it. Therefore, SmoothFlight will continually lower the graphics settings until both TLOD and OLOD are at their minimum... because if the FPS never changes, SmoothFlight will not know when to stop. This would look horrible. Don't do it.
b) If your minimum FPS Plus Deadzone are LOWER than 45, SmoothFlight will decide that you've got excess power, and you want to put it to use by increasing graphics fidelity. So it will continually raise the TLOD and OLOD settings until they are at their maximum because it won't know when to stop. This would likely become a slide show, and you're not going to like it. Don't do it.
c) If your minimum FPS setting is lower than 45 and the upper threshold (FPS + Deadzone) is above 45, then SmoothFLight will do nothing. You will not cross either of the thresholds, so you're in the DeadZone. And you'll complain to me that you don't see any difference. You won't like it. I won't like it. Don't do it. (see a pattern?) :)
So turn off MR/ASW, etc. let the sim report what the real FPS is... and then SmoothFlight has a chance to do what it was created to do.
There are so many reasons / causes for stuttering. An overworked graphics engine is only one of them. Another very popular one is connecting to the USA West server on a Friday night. ;) But don't be surprised if the stuttering problem seems to be completely fixed on one day only to return the next. It may not have anything to do with your settings.
I'm not using ASW and it stumps me why currently I am pegged at 45-48 but it is so smooth though I don't want to chase more FPS for no reason! Sometimes after I mess with settings, I get 90fps and it is rock solid on FPS, but the stutters return. Weird. @@somewhereelsestudio6342
Not using ASW and I am stumped as to why I am pegged there now - was getting a solid 90fps before, but there were stutters. It is so butter smooth now at 45 I hate to try and chase any additional FPS for no useable reason!@@somewhereelsestudio6342
Autofsp did not work for me at all. But this Smooth Flight works great. More Indepth review is need please.
Wow. Sounds amazing, Steve. I will try this, even though I'm very close to 100% stutter free as is, running the 4090 at half, like yourself. A very clever piece of software, and I will definitely donate 🙂 Have a great week, buddy. Love from Norway ♥♥♥♥♥
Thanks to continued updates and optimizations from Asobo, it's true that many of us can run stutter free. However, the settings you use to get stutter free are truthfully only good when flying in the same kind of environment that you created them in. Take those settings to one of the major cities (NYC, Tokyo, Paris, London, etc) and your hard-coded stutter-free existence falls short. Take those same settings to the Alps in nice weather and you're leaving a lot of horsepower on the table and not using to it's full advantage. Do you find yourself wondering if you could add a bit of eye candy?? I know I and many friends do every day.
And that's the reason why tools like this exist. So you can be assured you're getting the best performance and/or visuals based on your preference.... no matter where you are. Heavy Rain storm? No problem. Joined a group flight with 30 other planes? Got it covered. :) Myself, I'm very susceptible to low frame-rates, so I set mine to give me blistering FPS numbers in VR. My flying buddy would rather have amazing visuals and happily runs at 10 FPS below me. We use the same tool, different settings, and we are both blissfully happy.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342 Very good point. The feeling of having extra grunt unused can be somewhat annoying sometimes. I am one of those who accepted high 20s in the G2, so for me to be satisfied probably takes less than it does for you. But the settings I use now pretty much allow me to fly a fighter between the skyscrapers in NY with all high/ultra, even clouds. But I know for a fact that I'm missing out on even greater results when in less demanding scenarios. I',m using the Crystal, so that makes up for a lot for it regardless. The clarity is amazing. I will definitely try the software out tomorrow 👍
@@poolhallshark re: "The feeling of having extra grunt unused can be somewhat annoying sometimes." If you had asked me about this in the early days of MSFS2020, I would have denied it. But after tweaking on settings for over 3 years, I suppose the "quest for the perfect setup" is now taking over. It has become a lifestyle.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342 Indeed 😅
For some reason, for me, auto fps works really well and smooth flight does not. I understand they are very similar, so I don't understand why smooth flight isn't working well. But I'm so happy with auto FPS. I think I'll just stick with that for now. I'll keep an eye on both products and updates and either way, I'm very excited that we have options to make flight simulator better! Many thanks to the developers that make these kind of things for us!
I think you've just done a fine job of explaining why we need multiple solutions for the same problem. Pick the solution that works best for you.
You've discovered something beautiful again :)
I do try :D
@@VRFlightSimGuy Good evening, I just tried this application in VR mode and for me it changes absolutely nothing, I don't see any difference in terms of increase in fps!!!
Great video and potentially very useful tool. Would you be able to make another video of how to set this software, please? Which setting are more important, which are less and so on. Thanks
For AutoFPS on a 2080TI is best with 30 cap Repro in OpenXR Toolkit.
For my other 3080 is good with 45 Repro.
With this it may still need Repro all the same. Only thing is Repro will make calcs slower is all. Would not like an abrupt change. AutoFPS may suffice.
Give it a try. It costs nothing. And you might find that the equally-spaced frames are actually smoother looking than what you get with motion reprojection technologies.... so it's worth a shot.
Wow, this seems very interesting!
It is always good to see such tools🎉🎉🎉
Thanks friend. Can you do a detailed review and also a comparison between smooth flight and auto fps. Thanks
Wow a 3rd utility now, thanks Steve! I use first one: DynamicLOD for VR and works with Fixed FPS play. For me, that's at 30 FPS with MR. First time in years getting this sim to be butter smooth with almost zero micro-stutters; what an awesome feeling while flying now!!! (Cant quite get to 45 consistently in my new rig because of the 3080Ti.) Based on your suggestion, I will try this and see if I can disable Motion Reprojection now at 30 FPS. Thanks again:)
In this current iteration, the SmoothFlight tool is designed to work without motion reprojection only. With ASW or MR, the sim continually reports that it is always at half-native-framerate. So without accurate FPS data coming from the sim, SmoothFlight cannot accurately assist.
Understood; the plan was to try it with no MR anyways, thanks.@@somewhereelsestudio6342
So you are auto-varying 3 settings based on the UI window= TLOD, OLOD and RA. What is RA? By the way too; I don't know why on my PC but the utility was accurately picking up the correct Motion Reprojection FPS and was adjusting the 3 variable settings as I flew just fine. So also tried in non MR as well, was auto-correcting in the same fashion in both modes just fine.@@somewhereelsestudio6342
@@somewhereelsestudio6342Is that also the case when enabling MR in ToolkitXR and not in FS2020 itself?
@@MrEDETGood question. Because of the way that all reprojection technologies work, I think they'll all be problematic. Because my experience with them is that they either will report 45 FPS or 90. (assuming this is on a headset that's set to 90hz refresh) . The most important part of this is that no matter which one they report, it will never change. And watching that number change is how SmoothFlight works. So if you MUST use reprojection, then maybe a different solution is better for you. But in my testing, as long as I can set the minimum FPS to 38 or higher, I can have a successful result. YMMV of course... and that's why we pre-release these types of tools so we can get a better handle on what works (hopefully the vast majority of it) and what doesn't.
I am going to try this, I don't know if this will help but I notice that 99% of my stutters in VR come from when I am flying over add on scenery created by users. I feel like a lot of the time the scenery is just not optimized and while it may work OK in 2D mode it is a no go for VR. For example, I had Boston add on scenery from enjoy it fly installed. In 2D it is great but in VR I was getting MASSIVE stutters. I deleted it and added the Boston Scenery from the Modern US Cities add on scenery from the Markey place and just like that 99% of the stutters were gone. I believe we could be looking at a data throughput bottleneck where the sim is trying to download too much data and inject it into the sim and it just can't in real time. That is my working theory at least lol.
Will check this out tonight. I do find when there’s lots of other aircraft around Valley my quest 3 frame rate drops lots. I was getting 30fps last night then when I came into land I was getting 8fps. Bloody scary. You have no real idea when you have actually touched down at 8fps. lol. So any software that can help will be good.
Have you tried turning AMD FX Sharpening down? I run mine at zero and I get a much clearer image in VR, especially in the cockpit looking at the instruments.
Thankyou for the tip, it used to be the other way around. I'll give this a try now 👍
Looks very interesting! Will try this for sure (4090) Thx! 😊
Thanks for another great video. So do you recommend using this AND the auto FPS app?
Use only one. Try them both :)
thanks. Appreciated :)
@@VRFlightSimGuy
Great video friend, congratulations, you always have news for everyone. Friend, does this also help for sim racing games?
Interesting video. My only question is will these tools work with any gaming - not just flight games?
I do SIM racing and other VR sports games and with the Quest 3 now.
Looks like these are specific to Flight Sim games.
Auto FPS was working amazing although i surprisingly had stuttering on my last use of it with a glider in the Alps??? Ill give this a try and look forward to any settings advice you can give?
My best advice would be to set some reasonable limits. The worst thing you can do is set FPS to 90 and TLOD maximum to 400. This will NOT give your video card superpowers and magically give you the ability to run everything on Ultra.
So, try this as a starting point. Look at what you currently have your Terrain LOD and Object LOD set to. Set the TLOD max limit and OLOD Max limit to the same numbers. Then set FPS to a value that's a bit lower than what you can normally hit. Set Deadzone to 3 or 4 FPS higher than FPS minimum. This will give you a comfortable zone where no changes are necessary. Then go fly. You should have some room to auto-adjust to varying conditions whether that's higher or lower.
Edit for clarification: Some are still confused to the real function of the FPS setting. It does not limit your FPS. It''s merely a directive to SmoothFlight that says: "Please don't let FPS fall below THIS". It's very common for me to have my FPS set to 40 and my actual FPS to be fluctuating between 70 and 80. This is where SmoothFlight really shines. Sometimes I'll just head for a large city and dial up a blizzard to watch SmoothFlight handle it. I can hear it faintly say: "Is that all you got? "
Thanks so much for sharing, exciting stuff! So do you turn off ASW / Space warping when you using Smooth Flight? If all this add-on does it adjust the TLOD and OLOD then why cant it work with ASW do you suppose? About to test this and will certainly make a donation, what a legend @Michael Manthei
please settings guide. do we need both?
The majority of questions seem to be focused around some type of setup guide, so would it be a benefit if I did a Twitch stream and went through that? I'm not much on making RUclips videos but a stream would allow for some interaction.... a question and answer session type of thing.
Great idea 😃
@@VRFlightSimGuyI guess the trick is to find a good time. With users all over the planet, when would be the best time to do this? I suppose the VOD will be around for viewing later, but getting in on the active questions would be beneficial. Anyone have ideas?
Thanks for the info Steve. Is there a way to open the Smooth Flight window while in VR? (Quest 3)
It's awfully kludgy - as I don't know how to get a user interface to show up on the in-game ribbon menu... but here's how I've been doing it:
First I get all my windows set up and the in-game windows placed where I want them. I don't know how everyone else does it, but I guess we all end up in the same place. But basically, do your normal method to get the SmoothFlight window into the VR space with you.
Just before you launch VR, Alt-Tab to the SmoothFlight app by holding the Alt button down and tap Tab until the app is highlighted: then release Alt key. Then one more Alt-tab to go back to MSFS . Because of the default way Microsoft windows works (and has since W95) your most recent 2 windows will always be the default windows to focus.
While in VR, you can alt-tab again and it will bring the SmoothFlight app into focus. Alt-tab again to go back to MSFS. I mapped alt-tab to a button on my StreamDeck so I don't have to fumble around to find the keyboard in VR.
So yea, it's a bit of a kludgy workaround for now. But it lets me make changes while flying without leaving VR.
To be fair though, the main focus of SmoothFlight is that you find your settings and then leave it alone. So hopefully you'll adopt that workflow soon and this will be a non-issue.
@somewhereelsestudio6342
Cool. I will give it a try.
To be honest, I was hoping you had some clever way to bring Windows apps into VR. 🙂
I wrote an in-game popup for my app (rsFirstOfficer) but it seems to cause stutters so I don't promote that feature.
Thanks for all your efforts on this handy tool.
Interesting addon! But the real test would be over NYC City and LGA add on’s. I bet it still won’t perform at a decent level. I’ll try it there and report back (4090, Crystal).
I always ensure that I can hit half of the fps of my refresh rate in areas like that, so that I'll be good anywhere. Thanks for watching.
I'm using quest 3 with virtual desktop. Same results.. No more stutters
In depth settings guide please
Are there really some of you who obtain better performance with this tool even with a 4080 or a 4090 because for my part I do not see any improvement in VR with my rtx4080?
Hey i use quest 3 for my vr. Not sure how to make it show up when im flying so i can tweak it. Any help would be appreciated please. Thank you.
Thanks for the heads up, looks like a great tool, fancy having a choice of two. By the way, interested to know why you’re using TAA with your 4090? 😊
I know right! Crazy how these two addons were released so close together. I use TAA as it's the best image quality setting :)
@@VRFlightSimGuy OK thanks I’ll have to do some more comparisons
Great video!!
Thankyou :)
Should be embraced by Asobo and put into the base sim.
Stuttering has ruined MSFS VR for me so tried both of these. They both report a frame rate of around 40-60 (target 32), don't apply much lowering of details, and the stutter is still wild.
Can you have a high frame rate and stutter?
Yes. Higher FPS is not always good for VR. Try and match half of your refresh rate
Thanks for putting the hard work in so I don't have to.
Great info and ap! I think I know the answer but wondering if I should still use OpenXR together with Smooth Flight? Smooth Flight is showing 9FPS on my low spec system but seems like it might be getting 3x.
Thanks for sharing this with all of us. I followed all the instructions for installing Smooth Flight but the app only shows "sim running" but not "Connected" or "Controllable". Please do an installation video for Smooth Flight including all the steps necessary. If you have any specific suggestions for me, please advise. And thanks again for all the useful flight sim video topics that you present.
Same here!
I can't imagine an installation video would be necessary. You should put the "mobiflight-event-module" in your Community folder. MSFS must be rebooted after this step. If this is not done, you will see the symptoms you describe. Otherwise I've not seen that issue.
Still doesn't work. And what about in game settings? Do we leave those alone, at whatever we had? There needs to be far more instruction here.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342
I did what you suggested and I am still getting the same results as before. Once more people try this product you may find that there are other issues that need to be addressed. If there is anything else you can suggest to troubleshoot the problem, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
@@somewhereelsestudio6342
Well, my problem was an installation issue. I resolved it by downloading and installing AutoFPS. The install program of that product automatically checks for and installs the latest versions of the other utilities needed. It It determined that the Mobi module (which I DLd from the Smooth Flight page link) was out of date. It installed an updated version and now Smooth Flight runs as expected.
Some payware airports which are using custom ground textures provide very very ugly looking textures when setting TLOD to 50 or lower. Even below your airplane position. So it's not always the best way to use low TLOD
Couldn't agree more. That's why I have included the ability to set a custom lower limit for TLOD (and OLOD). Having a low limit set to 10 can be really ugly, but when you fly like I do, sometimes you need it to be a bit heavy handed to get you back to a flyable framerate. I like to fly faster than mach 1 downtown Manhattan. Not many do.
On the other hand, I know many of you are more "polite" and like to follow procedures and treat the sim like an actual "Simulator". And so you are probably going to be happier setting the low limit to something that looks a bit better.
I know there are already 20 or so questions asking "What are the proper settings?" Well, if there was such a thing as a "proper setting" then I wouldn't have spent the time making these things adjustable.
For those who still feel like I owe them a preset ;) Try this:
* Set the Upper maximum for TLOD to 100 (or to whatever you had it set to before you tried SmoothFLight)
* Set the Upper maximum for OLOD to 100, (or whatever you would set it to manually as above)
* Set the desired FPS to something around 5 FPS lower than what you think your video card can do on average... Now Go Fly. Don't spend all day in a menu. This is supposed to stop that.
Remember that SmoothFlight isn't going to give you more power. Its job is to turn down some settings when you get into a difficult area, and then them back up when you return to an "easy" area. The "goal" if there is such a thing, is to set your upper maximum (TLOD especially) so that you can reach it. Once reached, SmoothFLight will turn all the rest of the extra horsepower into higher FPS. It's not uncommon for me to have a minimum FPS set to 40, the LOD's are maxed out and the sim is running at 70+ FPS. It sounds lot more simple than it really is.
What you get as a benefit is:
* less stuttering because your computer now has a bit of headroom to play with.
* you might discover the mouse even seems a bit more responsive as you try to adjust things on your dash (because your computer has more headroom now)...
* Lower temperatures on your video card (it's not being pushed to 100%)
...and the list goes on
Thanks Steve, I aways enjoy your videos. Would this also work for AMD video cards?
Absolutely! 😁
msfs/sim rig dof h3 pimax crystal and all the other open xr pimax xr opencomposite.. to open when I want to start it. thank god for batch files to open them all at once.. another one added to the queue.
Asobo should buy him out and install it in the next MFS2024. It will make way more happier sim pilots!
He does not own the source code, he just piggy backed on the app that the original developer made and the huge improvement to that base app by ResetXPDR who released the dynamic LOD app b4 somewherelsestudio
Well virtual desktop usually does the job
the last FPS tool would start but would read Not compatible with this version of MSFT flight sim and go into read mode only. Maybe this one will work.
Cheers Steve I’ll give it a go
So Steve thanks again for a very informative video. Quick question, for us Pimax Crystal users who lock the framerate to 1/2, do you still advise doing that when running Smooth Flight? Also can you share your exact Smooth Flight settings? Thanks!
I know I'm not Steve, but locking the frame rate at half native resolution doesn't give Smooth Flight any information to work with. So no, Smooth Flight is designed to run with motion reprojection or ASW turned off. The good news though is that the resulting smoothness can be even better than what you get with a locked frame rate.... Between that and the fact that you have eliminated all of the ASW artifacts, you might just like it better.
I'm still not Steve, and I do hope he replies still but.... if your computer can consistently give you 45 FPS so that lock mode works, then I would set it for 40 in SF. And then I would set the dead zone to three or four, and I would go for a flight. At some point in the future you can go back into settings and turn down your upper limits for the lods to get a higher frame rate..... but for your first test flight you can certainly start with those two settings. This assumes of course that you have shut off ASW or lock mode and are allowing the Sim to report the actual FPS it's able to get
I had a perfectly good sim before the last updates but now a stuttering mess in VR.
My closest major airport is Gatwick and once got 30fps in VR and now 13fps in VR with the Q3 headset. In 2d it's 40 fps.
Up north say Edinburgh it's fine.
Thanks MS.3070 GPU.
I flew out of Gatwick today out of curiosity just to see if maybe there was some errant scenery glitch that would cause such bad performance. At first the sim reported 29-30 FPS and I thought "Wow, there it is!" but then I realized that I hadn't checked my ASW settings and pushed the "Diable" button. Suddenly I was at 52-57 FPS and no problems. So the famous Gatwick Immersion Stalker appears to be a hoax. :)
Well, I didn't have any problems with Gatwick and didn't alter any settings then came that update and now i have problems.
Work that out .
This is only in VR just wondering if that update changed my settings somehow I'll have to go take a look.
Could you explain ASW settings thanks.
Indepth settings guide please
Quick question. Are you still using the OpenXR toolkit to do this? And is this add on added on to every game?
I'm not using the Open XR Toolkit to do this, but I do use it in conjunction with this addon. (If that's what you mean)?
I’d love a deeper dive into the possible combinations and optimal use for each.
@@VRFlightSimGuy Yes, that’s what I mean. Thank you for your prompt response! I’ll definitely subscribe to your channel. Great content!