In brief: Asobo Studio, the developer behind the latest iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator, has been working to iron out some of the wrinkles in the 2020 release. Based on what was shown in a recent demonstration of the game's pending update, they've hit a home run in terms of overall performance improvements.
In a video recently shared on YouTube, Asobo Studio co-founder Sébastien Wloch said they have rewritten parts of the game engine to squeeze out even more performance and used his own personal computer to highlight the gains.
His rig, powered by an Intel Core i7-9700K and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Super, averaged around 32-40 frames per second with the latest public update while running with ultra graphics settings and flying over New York City.
With sim update five (the one that is currently in development), the average climbed to around 55-60 frames per second. Digging in deeper, Wloch revealed that CPU utilization dropped around 25 percent and system memory usage was nearly cut in half. The GPU, meanwhile, was being better utilized as load on it went from around 75 percent to 100 percent.
With CPU utilization significantly lower, gamers have more headroom to run additional apps in the background should they choose to do so.
Sim update five will be released on July 27 alongside a version of the game for Xbox Series X/S.