If you want enough of the graphics left in Flight Simulator 2024, it's better not to set the terrain level of detail option to the minimum.
While working on the tuning guide for the new Flight Simulator 2024, which is expected to be released tomorrow on GameStar.de, I stumbled across an option with special effects.
Especially because in my 14 years as a hardware editor, I can't remember ever encountering a single graphics setting that, at the lowest setting, alone makes such a big difference to the visuals and the FPS.
It's about attitude Level of detail of the terrain
. Would you like an example of its effects on the graphics? Please:
If you set the option to the minimum of 10 as shown on the left, all that remains of Munich are strange shapes that can hardly be recognized as a city. On the right, the setting can be adjusted to 200 in increments of 5 using the slider.
I have to emphasize this again: The stark visual difference you see above is not caused by changing the entire preset, as one might think.
Instead, the sole responsibility for this is changing the level of detail of the terrain. All other settings are exactly the same in the two screenshots.
By the way, when I created the images, I no longer had any problems getting onto the servers. You can find out how things looked different last week in the following video:
16:02
Flight Simulator 2024 with a false start – That's not enough (yet), Microsoft!
What the option means for FPS
With such stark visual effects, it's no wonder that the FPS can also change enormously as a result of the option.
In the example of the comparison image shown above, they grow by an impressive 60 percent with an RTX 4070 in WQHD and Ultra with DLSS quality (44 FPS instead of 28 FPS).
The following table shows which values for the level of detail of the terrain are set on the various presets and where the minimum and maximum are:
| Minimum value | 10 |
| Preset »Low« | 25 |
| Preset »Medium« | 50 |
| Preset »Hoch« | 100 |
| Preset »Ultra« | 200 |
| Maximum value | 400 |
The lowest level looks so bad that I can't recommend it for an FPS boost, but there is good news: If you switch to the middle value of 50 instead of the minimum of 10, the visuals will suffer significantly less still high FPS gain (approx. 30 percent).
The following graphic shows how much performance improves when changing different values. It is based on measurements from several tested scenes with varying settings.
Flight Simulator 2024 – Level of detail of the terrain
Performance gain when changing settings
- 0,0
- 12,0
- 24,0
- 36,0
- 48,0
- 60,0
You can see the optical differences between levels 10, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 400 in the following pictures of two different scenes.
By the way, it's easy to see why the highest preset Ultra
The maximum value of 400 is not used: it only changes the graphics at a very large distance and is hardly noticeable. That's simply not worth the significant FPS loss in the region of 20 percent.
Before looking at the pictures, a note: For the best possible comparison, it is best to click on each picture once and then select at the bottom left View in original size
to download it in full size.
Comparison scene #1
Comparison scene #2
The option was also already available in the predecessor or Microsoft's Flight Simulator from 2020, but with significantly less impact on my measurements for the tuning guide at the time: here the FPS only increased by around 7.4 percent when changing from 10 to 200.
The fact that Flight Simulator was initially only released with DirectX 11 may also play a role. DirectX 12 was later patched and the new Flight Simulator also runs with this interface. It can often make better use of the hardware.
