Flight Simulator Blog

Performance Boost Tricks

UPDATE – Added a new trick: Add an exclusion in Windows Defender to give applications more CPU usage. Also, added a new path to remove cache folder from, the last path on the list.

After performance drop issues with several official updates during 2021, the community around Microsoft Flight Simulator started to hunt down all kinds of tweaks to enhance the flying experience. The official troubleshooting site is good to check out frequently for new updates. If experiencing slow download speed while downloading the MSFS or its big updates such as Sim Update, do the following steps before starting to update. A loop issue during in-sim downloads can be fixed by force quitting the MSFS installer. The update download situation will resume where left off after relaunching the sim.

  1. In the Windows search bar, type “Delivery Optimisation”.
  2. Select “Delivery Optimisation Advanced Settings”.
  3. Set both Percentage of measured bandwidth limiters to 100%.
  4. In the Windows search bar, type “Command Prompt”.
  5. In the menu select “Run as administrator”.
  6. Run: sfc /scannow and wait for the progress to complete.
  7. Run: netsh interface tcp show global
    • If Receive Windows Auto-Tuning Level is Disabled
    • Then run: netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=normal
  8. Run: ipconfig /flushdns
  9. Reboot your computer for changes to take effect.

Tips & Tricks

Here we have gathered some of the MSFS performance boost tricks I’ve tested, and I think you could also try and see if it helps to gain a bit smoother performance and fewer problems at your own risk. If you realize that the performance goes worse than before, always change the settings you made back to default ones. I’m using all the tricks introduced below with everything as described on the Best Graphics Settings Guide as well, and I’m really happy with the overall performance of MSFS.

Remove Cache Files & Folders

By removing the cache files and folders of Microsoft Flight Simulator regularly, you are essentially deleting temporary files that have been generated by MSFS. This helps to free up hard drive space, and also improves the in-sim performance. There might be some folder locations that doesn’t exist for every user so just delete those you can find. Folders bolded below, can be deleted. USERNAME is your Windows username. If you are unable to find the AppData folder below, go to File Explorer – Options – View – Show hidden files, folders and drives and Apply.

  1. MSFS – OPTIONS – GENERAL OPTIONS – DATA – DELETE ROLLING CACHE FILE
  2. C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MicrosoftFlightSimulator\ cache
  3. C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages
    – Do not delete Official and Community folders inside Packages folder, only the others.
  4. C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ PC
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ cache
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ SceneryCache
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ SceneryIndexes
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\ DCE
  5. C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\ D3DSCache
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\ DXCache
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\ GLcache
    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\NVIDIA\PerDriverVersion\ DXCache