Our Flight Simulator benchmarks show that Microsoft keeps its word: The new patch increases the performance significantly. However, the visuals may have suffered as a result.
Update 2: We have added the section “Graphics comparison: August 2020 vs. July 2021” to the article, which takes a closer look at the graphics with the performance patch. However, online data that did not work at the time of the test also lead to limitations.
Update 1: There are indications in the comments, among others, that the patch brings problems such as more frequent crashes and poorer visuals. We haven’t noticed any crashes so far and visual differences haven’t jumped out at us, but we’ll take a closer look. At the same time, we thank you for your comments on this update.
Original report: It happens every now and then that the performance in games improves somewhat with a patch. But what Microsoft delivers with the latest patch for Flight Simulator is, to our recollection, unprecedented: we measure an increase in FPS of over 70 percent at best!
At yesterday’s release of the patch, there were probably temporary problems with the servers and logging into the game. In our tests today, however, we did not encounter any difficulties of this kind.
In addition to the performance improvements, which we will take a closer look at in a moment, the patch also brings the so-called “Discovery Flights” or exploration flights in particularly attractive areas into the game. You can read more about this in the official article on the patch.
Why are the FPS so much higher with the patch?
We already discussed in our performance impressions of the preview version that Flight Simulator often cannot utilise the hardware and especially the graphics card well. This has improved with the new patch.
While it was not uncommon before that the graphics card was only used half or less, the game can now use a GPU heavily even in a rather low resolution such as Full HD. However, visual degradation could also contribute to this (more on this below).
Flight Simulator Patch: Benchmarks
For our benchmarks, we use the hardware from our tuning guide and preset comparison for Flight Simulator. In addition to the Geforce RTX 2070 Super, Intel’s Core i9 9900K and 16.0 GB RAM are used.
The measurements were taken in Full HD during a flight in the direction of Munich’s city centre and via exterior view. The scene is demanding, but not an absolute worst-case scenario. In general, the closer we are to the ground, the lower the FPS.
As the benchmarks below show, the new patch brings an extreme performance boost, especially in the lower detail levels. However, the FPS gains are also more than respectable at the higher detail levels.
Flight Simulator – 6000 feet altitude
Flight Simulator – 2000 feet altitude
When looking at the values, however, keep in mind that your experience with the patch may clearly differ from this depending on your exact hardware, game scene, resolution and level of detail.
Measurements with an RTX 3080
As a supplement, we also looked at the FPS with the performance patch using an even significantly faster Geforce RTX 3080 in various resolutions.
In Full HD, Flight Simulator cannot fully utilise the very fast RTX 3080 even with the patch. This explains the fact that the performance in WQHD is practically identical in the benchmarks below despite the higher pixel count.
In 4K, the FPS clearly drop due to the high requirements, but Flight Simulator is no longer too far away from the 60 FPS limit.
Graphics comparison: August 2020 vs. July 2021
We used the new patch to recreate two screenshots with the “Ultra” preset at lunchtime, taken from an August 2020 release. The supplementary online data were also always fully activated, but they did not function properly at the current test time.
This explains some, but not all, of the visual differences, whereby we are referring in particular to the lighting. However, the major world updates as well as general changes, for example to the trees (thanks for pointing this out in the comments), should also be taken into account.
August 2020 without performance patch
July 2021 with Performance Patch
August 2020 without performance patch
July 2021 with performance patch
When readjusting at the same time, we have taken care as much as possible to choose all parameters exactly the same. However, it cannot be ruled out that we have overlooked something.
It is also conceivable that some of the visual differences are related to bugs in addition to the missing online data and that they are therefore not as intentional. We will also verify the new screenshots on a second system.
We are also contacting Microsoft about the visual differences and ask for more detailed insights into the changes made by the latest patch. If you have your own impressions of the visual differences, you are also welcome to share them with us in the comments.
