Side by Side Graphic Setting Comparison - Microsoft Flight Sim 2020
A comparison between each Graphic Setting in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Comparisons are done side by side to show you the difference.
▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Building Quality
3:36 - Tree Quality
4:31 - Grass and Bushes
7:27 - Anti-Aliasing
10:23 - Terrain Level of Detail
12:48 - Objects Level of Detail
14:06 - Volumetric Clouds
19:48 - Volumetric Clouds (Thunderstorm)
22:00 - Water Waves
28:29 - Ambient Occlusion
29:45 - Anisotropic with Texture Supersampling
31:00 - Texture Synthesis
31:47 - Shadow Maps
32:50 - Terrain Shadows
34:29 - Lens Flare
35:06 - Bloom
35:27 - Light Shafts
37:53 - Windshield Effects
40:00 - Contact Shadows
41:11 - Reflections
44:23 - Depth of Field
45:45 - Lens Correction
46:09 - Texture Resolution
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Actual Graphics Settings - Low - Medium - Medium with Less FPS - Medium with least FPS
YES!
the difference from medium to ultra is way less than i thought.
@@HollywoodSnob_ the clouds are obvious actually
TTT
the only exception to this is volumetric clouds
Note to self: Set Building Quality to MEDIUM (edited: that's too short of an answer) (edited: Thanks for all the likes - never had that before. And thanks for all the super insightful replies!)
And object detail
@Christopher Mangels ...... I doubt Ultra to Medium gains you any frame rate ... so leave it on Ultra.
@@Redridge07 but if I can't see the difference? Guess, it's personal preference. I must say that that it performs pretty well in general with most stuff on ultra.
@@ChristopherMangels I get your logic. But my logic is if it doesn't impact frame rate then leave it on ultra.
@@Redridge07 Yeah, that's fine. And I DON'T (edited) think that performance is an issue anyway. At least on my 1080ti. I just want the autopilot to work.
you want your buildings with air conditioning units?? better update that graphics card
Its about to be winter. That 1080ti will be worked for a couple more months. XD
3090 if you want extra a/c units on them.
You can't visually see the AC units way above at 10,000 feet but, damn it, you know they ain't there!
@@justinkidd4425 no bruh 1080tis are getting old especially my gtx 1050ti need to upgrade that to an rtx 2060 super or an rtz 2070 or an rtx 2080ti
@@Kpeters better upgrade cpu and gpu for no bottleneck
Wow this was brilliant. I can’t imagine the effort that went into this. It’ll help out so many of us. Thanks!
You would be surprised actually how easy this is, just very time consuming
Yeah the amount of detail that went into this was great. Thanks!
photoshop makes miracles ...
@@CH1EFBL1TZ it's easy when it's already been made obviously
@@CH1EFBL1TZ So, effort.
This is the best graphics comparison I've EVER seen. Good work sir!
Thank you. I'm glad you like it
Basically high and ultra are a waste of time lol
@@sergiosanchez6237 unless you have a nasa super computer
recap: (prefered settings imo) building settings above medium have no effect (medium) tree settings above medium just adds more trees no change in tree quality (medium) grass settings just adds more grass (high) anti aliasing anything below taa is blurry mess (taa) terrain detail just adds more buildings and trees farther away (100 is fine) object level of detail just adds more defined shadows to objects but after 100 nothing changes (100) volumetric clouds settings just adds more detail to clouds (high) water waves make water resolution higher (high since doesnt effect fps) ambient occlusion gets darker every setting till high (medium) anisoptropic and supersampling make texture resolution higher further away (8x and 4x4) texture synthesis more defined textures again but doesnt really effect anything (low) shadow maps increase shadow accuracy (1024) terrain shadows (512) lens flare is cool (on) bloom (on) light shafts lights passing through clouds etc (med) windshield effects medium if you want performance ultra if you want the reflections of the cockpit as well contact shadows dont change anything (low) reflection creates more defined reflections (medium) depth of field just blurs everything and decreases fps (off) texture resolution (high)
What gpu do you have?
@@baileyploughe9361 1070ti
Thank you for this.
Replying to bookmark this comment
Great
Ok i was so pissed off about playing on medium but now i have achieved inner peace !!
Why be pissed on playing medium? It means ur pc is about average. And if you can run medium on flight sim 2020, you have the least of problems. Learning how to optimize your games and not be so picky will save your wallet and get you bigger upgrades for the future. Not every game is meant to run on ultra.
@@user-fe5bi7ul4t I can run all ultra with only 120 FPS
@@disc3698 you are lying.
@@disc3698 stop lying
@@disc3698 Even a fucking 3090Ti can't run this game in 120fps
Settings that I find that doesn't have a major difference/can live with low or medium settings based on observation: • Texture Synthesis (>/= Low) • Terrain Shadows (Off or 128) • Windshield effects (>/= Medium) • Contact shadows (>/= Low) • Depth of Field (Low, but depends on your preference, I think this can complement the Render Scaling setting) • Ambient Occlusion (>/= Medium or High if it won't impact performance) • Shadow Maps (>/= 768) • Buildings, Trees, and Bushes (>/= Medium) • Texture Resolution (>/= Medium) Settings that I find that makes a major difference/must live with at least high: • Anisoptropic (>/= 16x) • Texture Supersampling (>/= 8x8) • Reflections (>/= High) • Volumetric Fog (>/= High) • Water Waves (>/= High) • Terrain Level of Detail (>/= 175) • Object Level of Detail (>/= 100) I find that these settings really make a difference or they pop out, so I'm not taking PC specs into consideration here EDIT: Terrain Shadows do make a huge difference if you'll mostly be flying on terrain, but doesn't make much of a difference if you are flying on cities kzhead.info/sun/pLiCj7WgsJ2Ohok/bejne.html
thanks for this.
Was thinking this. Thanks for the TLDR ;)
thank you so much
I'd be curious to know what it looks like and the perf you get with this configuration (and of course, your specs) :)
Did this and got 5-10 fps, now i have around 40, very nice
So low is garbage Medium is fine and High and Ultra are just a waste of time.
Seán O'Nilbud wrong. In which resolution are you watching? You have to watch it at 4k to see the difference of course. I see it on my ipad at 480p and don‘t even see a difference between low and med. 😄
@@losmosquitos1108 uh. this video doesn't have 4k
cityuser that‘s why you can‘t see much difference, as I just wrote....
@@cityuser lol
@@losmosquitos1108 Sotiuqsom sol.
Me: WOW IS THIS ULTRA GRAPHICS Co Pilot: pass out Passenger:screaming Me: wait this isnt simulation
Me: the computer burning 🔥.
The reason I play this sim at 20 FPS is because I’m in denial.
Well, at least it is playable at 20fps :)
There's ways of system optimization that you can get 10-15fps out of the sim. Jay's two cents has a video on it.
@@rkan2 787 cockpit: am I a joke to you?
@@milanwitham6360 With the cockpit screens refresh rate fix, 20fps should be more than possible :)
This doubled my fps: pop up the vfr/gps window and pop it out to make it a standalone window
19:48 The reason why I have clouds on High, at all cost. A lot is quite decent at mid ranges, but clouds have to be high.
@@Thylonx xD
@@Thylonx Do clouds get the munchies, too?
Clouds are the biggest fps hit though. So if one is struggling knock em down a notch
water same
I found clouds at medium to be adequate, but yeah higher is nicer
Thanks for your time to create this very useful settings comparison. I'm sure you're helping a lot of (future) simmers to get the best quality settings for their individual system.
Thank you for this! Very useful and appreciated! I know this took tons of your time! The community high fives you in unison!
Absolutely phenomenal job with this video! This is what I call a true Direct comparison between the different graphic settings. I can only imagine how much time it took you to record the scenery 4 different times in exactly the same position as well as doing all the editing after. I've seen some of your other videos and you always put a lot of work into them and you deserve a lot more subscribers and recognition, this is one of my favorite videos when it comes to doing comparisons in general. This is, in my mind, a perfectly done video, because its exactly how I would want to see it being compared, literally pixel for pixel where you can follow the line and clearly see any and all of the differences, both big and small. So again, outstanding job with this video as usual :)
Outstanding and incredibly helpful - thank you for this !
Not only is it an organized video, I know how much work it took, but it still released the used songs in an organized manner ... congratulations for the impeccable work
Excellent work. Thank you. This will help all of us who are struggling obsessively for hours trying to get the best graphics versus frame rates. I’m off to try these settings now.
This is the best graphics comparison I’ve ever seen. It really helps me evaluate optimal visual tweaked vs performance. Thanks so much for taking the time to produce this!
Thank you for taking the time to produce this!!! Very cool and informative. I know this took a ton of time to record.
So as I see. At almost every options, the medium is the way, at least in 1080p res.
Quite probably the best graphics comparison I've ever seen. Many thanks for the time and considerable effort in doing this!
Thanks!
Very beautiful video. I've seen so many videos about MSFS 2020 settings, but none of them could really show what each setting does! Thank you for the effort and the valuable work.
Very precious! Thanks for taking the time to show all these settings.
This is exactly the graphics video I've been looking for. Thanks so much for making this!
No problem! Glad it helps.
Great ! Thanks. Almost no noticeable difference between high and ultra in most aspects. Probably not worth it in regards to resources pulled. But the Rtx3080 I will have in 3 weeks vil chew through tings regardless. 👍👌
Awesome Job! This helps me a lot to Setup my FS. Thank you so much for this great work!👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks for putting this together! made many adjustments to try out tonight from your results!
One of the most useful videos about MSFS settings that I've seen so far. Thank you !
The difference from low to medium is crazy, after that you’d be hard press to tell the difference - even with a side by side comparison
Depends on which setting. Clouds look much better on ultra for example.
Because there is no difference at close range from medium to ultra settings... Most people here like yourself are so focused on just the object itself and are missing that those settings also change the draw distance of the buildings from more far ranges. So if you choose high or ultra you will see objects at farther distances and with more detail.
Grass is getting more (not better, just more. :D) when going from Medium to High, water reflections are better when going to High and clouds even get better at Ultra. Most other settings are just fine at Medium indeed.
@@bluemamba5317 Yeah, i mean clouds are like Fluffy in medium
After watching this video it seems clear and aligns with what I’ve been seeing - you don’t need more than medium for this sim to look great and your performance will thank you!
Thank you so much, this is exactly what I needed! And also thank you for listing all the songs you used, it's a major pet peeve when I hear a song I like in a video and they don't say what it is so I can find it.
Champion job, not rushed, well constructed and thought out, great presentation all round. Kudos.
I really didn't think even "Low" was bad, and I struggled to see any real difference between "Medium" and "High", nor between "High" and "Ultra." Maybe it's just my present monitor is just OK and not the best but, with my current setup, looks to me like "Medium" settings are hardly distinguishable from "Ultra", so "Medium" looks like the way to go. Thanks for the excellent and very useful video!
I agree with you. Everything on medium looks good to me too. Except volumetric clouds. I absolutely put them on ultra.
Thanks for the effort, great stuff!
No words to describe how well made and helpful this video is ! You can fine tune your graphic settings to optimize the game for your computer and your own preferences. Amazing work !
Amazing. Definitely the best way of showing what each setting does. I made changes as I watched and noted which ones could be adjusted with minimal impact if needed. Great video man.
Amazing work mate, I I get anxious just thinking about it 🤣
Awesome job ! Will help me in the fine tuning of my graphic settings (like medium building quality being very close to high & ultra so no need for more)
Awesome. Glad it will help!
@@VRFlightWorld Not sure but the higher qualities of building settings are more for distance buildings. Might be an idea to get some wider shots.
Thanks for the feedback. I do plan to do another video to cover a few other suggestions. I'll give this a try for the new video if it makes a difference.
@@Qubie1 same with trees, forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-graphics-settings-and-performance-guide-8-18-2020/132407
Qubie, you got it right. I had to test this, and I might release a video on this since there have been a few people saying different things about draw distance and buildings. Ultimately you get to keep the finer building details from a further distance when increasing the level from medium to high and ultra. Essentially you will keep the roof shape and objects around the building for distances that are almost impossible to see unless you are zoomed in with the drone zoom. Some people have said that the entire building will pop up at a closer distance if you have this set lower, however this is not the case. That is controlled by a different setting. I also tested that theory.
Wow, thank you for making this video, really appreciate your efforts putting into this one.
Amazing video! It helped me understand exactly what all these settings do, even in games other than FS. Thanks!
30 years of desk flying, countless hours of tweaking. AT LAST I can reach nirvana in just one hour. You Sir... have strengthen my enjoyment of this addiction. You deserve high recognition for this. Hopefully somebody from the annual flightsim events around the world and manufacturers are reading this. He deserves an award!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Outstanding work. Truly a graphics fine-tuning reference for MSFS users.
Thanks. I appreciate the comment!
I like your style of editing, thanks for the video!
Just found your channel after a very frustrating 20+ hours on YT trying to get some decent VR headset quality, this is just the visual aid to demonstrate settings, fantastic, new subscriber here 👍
This video was awesome ❤️ I took notes of my findings watching it for what I would use; which I will leave below 🤓 Building quaity - med or high Tree quality - med or high Grass & bushes - med or high Anti-aliasing - TAA best Terrain level of detail (Mid & high height) - 125 to 200 (Diminishing returns after 125) Objects level of detail (low height) - 50 to 200 (diminishing returns after 50) Volumetric clouds - high or ultra Water waves (Low height) - high (High height) - medium or high Ambient Occlusion (Low height) - medium or high Anisoptropic - 4x min up to 16x (Diminishing returns after 4x) Texture supersampling - 4x4 min up to 8x8 (Diminishing returns after 4x4) Texture synthesis (High height) - Medium (Can't tell difference between low & high) Shadow Maps (Low height) - 1536 to 2048 Terrain Shadows - 1024 (Can barely notice any difference going from off - 2048) Lens flare - I prefer off Bloom - I prefer on Light shafts - medium (hard to tell difference from low to ultra) Windshield effects - medium to ultra (Ultra if you want dashboard reflections) Contact shadows - medium (Could barely tell difference from low to ultra) Reflections - Medium or high Depth of field - I prefer off Lens correction - I prefer on, but difference is super subtle Texture resolution - high
Very informative, the one thing I would have added to each one, is a frame rate counter, so we can tell the performance hit the different settings would cost. As we can see, many settings don't make a very big visual difference, but I bet some may hit frames pretty hard for little gain visually while others may gain visually but not cost much in frames.
I might create a second version of this in the near future where I add a frame rate benchmark to it. It's definitely a good idea.
@@VRFlightWorld Also, you could add the hardware configuration you have for the frame rates. Many of us are upgrading our machines soon for MSFS 2020.
@@VRFlightWorld Have you ever tried downloading the scenery manually with a high setting?
@@TheGbelcher The system specs are listed in the description.
That wouldn't necessarily make sense - you would still have all of the other settings to consider and they interact...
Excellent. Thank you for taking the time to put this together. Very insightful.
That's great. Thanks. I'm going to try up the detail on the clouds on my setup after watching this because it looks like that's where some of the best visual gains are to be seen
I just want to say this one is the Bible of MSFS. Jesus, you did a great job! Thank you so much🙏🏻👍🏻😝
Thanks! Really glad you like the video.
Fascinating and very very useful. Thanks!!!
Glad you like it! Thanks.
This video is incredible. Very very impressive work. Very informative and should be a landmark for anyone trying to improve performance in the sim. I take my hat off to you
Thank you for this video! As someone who is planning to make content with MSFS footage, this helps A TON. Much appreciated!
Beautiful video, I wish more reviewers did this with games. I could actually see the changes as the slider moved, and determine how much the LoD actually matters. (Since it's a flight sim, not a building sim, I'd easily choose Medium)
Note to myself. HAVE CLOUDS ON ULTRA
Supra
RaiD 😏
This is absolutely the best flight sim video on all of KZhead! I watched it twice -- the second time with paper and pen in hand to write down what settings I wanted to use in the sim. A huge THANK YOU from a new and very impressed subscriber!
That's great! Glad you liked it.
The most valuable video on the impact of MSFS settings on KZhead. Thanks for such a great video! Liked and Subscribed.
0:20 Me: ... *Cancels plans for new pc*
I like how the second the video starts he gets right to it
This is the best and most comprehensive graphics comparison video I have ever seen. Outstanding! Thank you for the work put into this for all to see.
Thanks!
Absolutely excellent content! This has provided a visual method for understanding what settings can be had and the results obtainable. It has given me a perspective regarding the diminish of returns when going past Medium and thus sacrificing performance in the process. Well done! Thanks very much.
Awesome sir! Although there was a huge delta between "off" and the next level up the difference between the higher levels were barely discernible. Currently have everything on "Ultra" - think I will go down to "High" to see if I can see any difference.
Thanks! I'm glad my video could help you out.
Me: stares at my computer My computer: Don't even think about it
Thankyou for the effort you put into making this... it is greatly appreciated by the community! :) I've religiously always run my sims on ultra, it seems like such a waste to have a sim like this and not eek out every last detail we can... though it looks like there are some happy mediums we can reach here to balance frame rate/visual quality. I'm really pleased that this sim in general is beautifully optimised.
That's a tremendously helpful video for performance tuning!! Much appreciated!
I experienced water waves HIGH DOES affect fps extremely when there'S a lot of water. I had like 17 fps and when I changed it to medium it was 35.
Yep and you still get nice waves on medium
“ULTRA LOW” yeah that’s my settings.
My PC would probably still not run it
I have played all of the flight simulators. I have a 3090, full set of accessories such as yoke, and I have an intel i9 10th generation ultra
@@royyark2896 wow thanks for flexing
@@jordzking6330 my old computer was an hewlett packard from 1998.there
@@royyark2896 me trying to know who asked
Thanks for the time and effort you put into planning and creating this video. Hugely useful!!!!
Brilliant work thank you very much. I recognise that must have taken ages but it is a real asset to the community. Well done !
It's remarkable how good everything looks even at lower settings. The biggest change I noticed was in the quality of the clouds. On low, the clouds look awful .... but still better than we're used to seeing in previous simulators while on higher settings the clouds look nearly perfect.
Agreed! The clouds being set on ultra actually was noticeable to me even over high.
amazing video dude. I've already seen the tremendous amount of support in the comments, so u must be used to it, but WOW.
Wow great video, thanks so much for taking the time to make it. Really helps me decide what’s important when I’m trying to balance smoothness and graphics in vr👍👍👍
Thanks a lot! We have now an idea of the differences between the presets. You have do a great effort and It is rewarded with a sub! Thanks!
The law of diminishing returns is strong in this one.
This is very true.
Draw distance!
@@VRFlightWorld not so much for the clouds, anything below high looks awful.
Medium adds detail to buildings, high adds detail to cars on top and ultra just maxes out
Amazing comparison - great job! Thanks for that.
Best comparison video I have seen. Thanks for posting this.
To be honest, volumetric clouds and that effect of a rain on a windshield is why I bought this game.
My settings based on this video: Building Wuality: medium Tree Quality: low/med Grasses and Bushes: low/med Anti-Aliasing: TAA Terrain LOD: 50/75 Object LOD: 0/50 Volumetric Clouds: med/high Water Waves: low/med Ambient Occlusion: low Anisoptropic: 4x Texture Supersampling: 4x4 Texture Synthesis: low Shadow Maps: 768 Terrain Shadows: 128 Lens Flare: on (personal preference) Bloom: on (personal preference) Light Shafts: low/med Windshield Effects: med/ultra (for realism) Contact Shadows: low Reflections: low Depth of Field: low Lens Correction: off Texture Resolution: med
This doubled my fps: pop up the vfr/gps window and pop it out to make it a standalone window
Unbelievable work thank you buddy. I have shared this on the forums, hope it brings a few subs your way. You got one here, thanks!
Thanks! I really appreciate that.
Thank you for taking the time to do this. 👍🏻🍻
Is it just me that thinks "High" And "Ultra" look the same?
Ultra looks better for VFR flying more LOD in the distance.Clouds also look better on Ultra and SSAO shadows look more realistic in overcast conditions. Otherwise everything else looks identical on high and ultra.
If you look at just one setting then you are probably right, but when you combine all high vs all ultra then the final picture has noticeable quality gain.
Play at 2x speed. 👌
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
This was incredible. Must have taken so much work - thank you for doing it and sharing it with us
Glad you like it
Hey man thanks for the video this helps so much in understanding what settings to put my graphics on and hopefully making my performance better.
Don't even have my computer on and my GPU is sweating
There will come a day when we won't be able to decipher the difference between reality and what's artificial
Its called DMT
Thank you for the effort put into making this video. I can only imagine the time it took you to complete it. Keep it going. Greetings from Mexico
Amazing video! Thank you for your dedication in helping all of us in the Flight Simulator community!!!
everyone really should appreciate how well optimized this game is
With terrain shadows, wouldn't it make more sense to set the time of day to some point where there actually are shadows caused by the terrain?
Hi Jon, I completely agree with you and have actually went ahead to create a new video with lots of scenery shadows. If your interested in taking a look, here is the link. kzhead.info/sun/pLiCj7WgsJ2Ohok/bejne.html. I appreciate the honest feedback. Helps me to improve.
Excellent video!!! Great work... this will help many simmers! I will be posting a link to this video on my channel! I’ve kept most of my settings on medium throughout my episodes. Thank you!
Honestly I started skimming this video just for the settings I wanted, but the music sucked me in and I chilled out to the whole thing. Well done!
RIP to everyone that cant play on good graphics... yeah RIP to my self
Also CPU and RAM
Is this just real life ? Or is this just fantasy
Thank you for the diligent effort it went into doing this. outstanding !!
Thank you so much for this great video. This saves so many of us so much trial and error!! Keep up the good work. Liked and subscribed. Well deserved! 😊
Lol I died when I saw the low quality clouds, I was like what duh.. r those supposed 2 b clouds?
Thank you so much for sharing this will definately allow me to balance quality vs performance of my gpu settings and make my flight experience more fluid.
Thank you for the time spent putting this together (As mentioned by others)
Thank you so much for this. I re-tuned my graphics settings to align to what I observed as the 'best bang for buck' settings from your video (e.g. the benefit of choosing High or Ultra over Medium seems very marginal in most cases) and now the sim looks visually amazing and is mostly running above 60FPS in visually complex settings (e.g. NYC with scattered clouds) - A vast improvement of about 20-25 FPS over what I was getting by just playing around with different settings for the last for two weeks. Awesome, very useful content. Thanks again.