Use the best graphics settings for Prepar3D, with balanced choices for anti-aliasing, autogen, shadows, clouds, traffic and smoother FPS.
The best graphics settings for Prepar3D are native resolution, 4x MSAA, 16x anisotropic filtering, High textures, medium-to-high scenery detail, Dense autogen, medium clouds and water, and restrained shadows, reflections and traffic. Start with a 30 FPS limit, then change only the settings tied to your actual bottleneck.
This is a balanced starting point for Prepar3D v4 through v6 at 1080p or 1440p. A detailed add-on airport, complex aircraft and overcast weather can be far more demanding than a default-aircraft flight, so there is no universal maximum preset.
Balanced Prepar3D graphics settings
| Setting | Recommended starting point | When to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Display resolution | Monitor's native resolution | Lower only as a last resort; reduce anti-aliasing first at 4K. |
| Frame-rate target | 30 FPS | Use 45 or 60 only if the simulator maintains it in demanding airport conditions. |
| Anti-aliasing | 4x MSAA | Try 2x at 4K. Avoid SSAA unless substantial GPU headroom is available. |
| Anisotropic filtering | 16x | Leave high unless diagnosing an unusually weak or unsupported GPU. |
| Texture resolution | High | Use maximum only when add-on textures justify it and VRAM remains comfortably within budget. |
| Level-of-detail radius | Medium to High | Lower it for approach stutters or slow scenery loading. |
| Mesh resolution | 5–10 m | Finer settings help only where installed terrain mesh contains that detail. |
| Ground texture resolution | 30 cm | Use 7 cm for detailed airport or photo scenery that provides suitable source textures. |
| Scenery complexity | Very Dense | Use Extremely Dense only when an add-on airport requires it; lowering this can remove airport objects. |
| Autogen density | Dense | Lower buildings and vegetation when the main CPU thread is saturated. |
| Shadows | Low or Medium | Keep useful aircraft and cockpit shadows; disable vegetation and extensive scenery shadow casting first. |
| Dynamic lighting | On | Useful at night; disable only after reducing shadows, reflections and airport complexity. |
| Dynamic reflections | Low or Medium | Include only the reflected elements you notice during normal flying. |
| Water and clouds | Medium | Reduce cloud density, draw distance and water effects when the GPU struggles in bad weather. |
| AI aircraft | 10–20% | Increase only with spare main-thread performance; AI packages may also use this slider to gate schedules. |
| Road and boat traffic | Low | These consume resources without adding much during normal cockpit operations. |
Maximum settings rarely produce the best overall image because several sliders consume resources without adding detail to the installed scenery. A 7 cm ground-texture setting cannot create detail in a source image supplied at a lower resolution, and ultra-fine mesh does nothing where no matching mesh data exists.
Prepar3D v4 versus v5 and v6
Prepar3D versions should be tuned separately rather than sharing an old configuration unchanged. The renderers respond differently to dynamic lighting, shadows and video-memory pressure, while atmospheric and cloud options also vary by release.
In v5 and v6, watch the displayed VRAM budget when selecting textures, scenery and anti-aliasing. Exceeding that budget can cause severe stuttering, missing textures or device-related errors. Do not copy an old Prepar3D.cfg line for line into a newer major version; let the new version generate its own file and reproduce only the settings you need.
Which Prepar3D settings should I lower first?
Lower traffic, shadows and reflections first, followed by autogen, clouds and anti-aliasing; reduce texture resolution only when VRAM is the problem.
- Traffic: Reduce AI aircraft, road vehicles and boats. These are common causes of poor performance at large airports.
- Shadows and reflections: Disable vegetation shadow casting and reduce dynamic-reflection quality before removing useful cockpit shadows.
- Autogen and scenery complexity: Lower autogen first. If airport terminals or objects disappear, restore scenery complexity and keep autogen lower instead.
- Clouds and dynamic lighting: Reduce cloud draw distance and quality for weather-related GPU load. Dynamic lighting is valuable for night flying, so treat disabling it as a later step.
- Anti-aliasing: Move from 4x to 2x MSAA when GPU utilisation is high, especially at 4K.
- Textures: Lower texture resolution when VRAM is near its limit, not simply because the CPU-limited frame rate is low.
Total CPU utilisation can be misleading: Prepar3D may be limited by one busy main thread while the overall CPU percentage looks modest. Our guide to matching Prepar3D settings to CPU, GPU, RAM and VRAM explains how to identify which component is holding the simulator back.
| Symptom | Likely limitation | Settings to reduce |
|---|---|---|
| Low FPS while GPU load remains moderate, with the frame cap removed | Main CPU thread | AI traffic, autogen, scenery complexity and scenery shadow casting |
| GPU load stays at or near maximum | Graphics processor | MSAA or SSAA, shadows, clouds, reflections and resolution |
| VRAM budget is nearly exhausted or device errors appear | Video memory | Texture resolution, high-resolution add-on scenery and anti-aliasing |
| Smooth in the air but uneven around a large airport | Traffic, scenery loading or VRAM | AI density, autogen, scenery complexity and texture resolution |
What anti-aliasing should I use in Prepar3D?
Use 4x MSAA at 1080p or 1440p, and start with 2x MSAA at 4K. MSAA gives a good balance between smoothing aircraft edges and preserving cockpit display clarity.
FXAA is inexpensive but can soften instrument text. SSAA produces cleaner edges and reduces shimmering more aggressively, but its GPU cost makes it unsuitable as a general recommendation. Resolution changes the amount of anti-aliasing required, as explained in our comparison of 1080p, 1440p and 4K displays for Prepar3D.
Should I lock Prepar3D to 30 FPS?
A stable 30 FPS limit is usually better than an unrestricted frame rate that swings between smooth and sluggish. The limit leaves processing time for scenery loading, aircraft systems and traffic instead of allowing the renderer to consume every available cycle.
Use the simulator's frame limiter first. Set it to unlimited briefly when diagnosing CPU or GPU load, then choose a target the system can maintain during the most demanding part of the flight. If 60 FPS is sustainable at a busy airport, cap at 60; otherwise, 30 is the safer target. Enable vertical synchronisation only to control screen tearing, and avoid running competing simulator and driver-level limiters at the same time.
How should I test Prepar3D graphics settings?
Test one setting group at a time in the same demanding flight so that each change has a measurable result.
- Build a repeatable scenario: Park a demanding aircraft at a detailed airport, use the cockpit view and select weather representative of normal flying.
- Apply the balanced baseline: Begin with the settings above rather than a maximum preset.
- Identify the constraint: Remove the frame cap temporarily and check main-thread behaviour, GPU load and VRAM use.
- Change one group: Adjust traffic, scenery, shadows, clouds or anti-aliasing separately. Reload the scenario when an option does not apply cleanly during flight.
- Keep performance headroom: Tune for the approach and gate, not the easier cruise segment.
A mistake we see constantly is tuning in fair weather at a simple default airport, then finding the simulator stutters at an add-on hub. Weather and traffic packages may also control their own density or cloud generation, so their settings must be checked alongside Prepar3D's sliders. For persistent problems, use our repeatable Prepar3D FPS and stutter tuning method rather than changing several unrelated options at once.