Use these balanced MSFS 2024 RTX 4060 settings for clearer cockpit displays, smoother airports and fewer 8 GB VRAM stutters at 1080p or 1440p.
For an RTX 4060, start Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 at 1080p or 1440p with DLSS Quality, High textures and clouds, Terrain LOD 100–125, Object LOD 100, medium shadows and reflections, and Frame Generation enabled only when the ungenerated frame rate is already stable above roughly 30 fps.
These recommendations target a desktop RTX 4060 with its usual 8 GB of VRAM and a conventional monitor, not VR. Processor speed, aircraft complexity, airport scenery and traffic can matter more than the graphics card, so treat this as a balanced baseline rather than a guaranteed frame rate.
Recommended RTX 4060 settings for MSFS 2024
These are our balanced non-VR settings for clear instruments, sensible VRAM use and stable performance around detailed airports.
| Setting | 1080p recommendation | 1440p recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Global rendering quality | Custom | Custom |
| Anti-aliasing | DLSS Quality; try TAA if displays look soft | DLSS Quality |
| Render scaling | 100 | 100 |
| DLSS Frame Generation | On if base performance is stable | On if base performance is stable |
| Terrain Level of Detail | 125 | 100 |
| Objects Level of Detail | 100 | 100 |
| Volumetric Clouds | High | High |
| Texture Resolution | High | High |
| Anisotropic Filtering | 16x | 16x |
| Buildings and Trees | High | High |
| Shadow Maps and Contact Shadows | Medium | Medium |
| Ambient Occlusion | High | Medium |
| Reflections | Medium | Medium |
| Water | High | Medium |
| Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate | Medium | Medium |
| Airport, road and worker traffic | Low to Medium | Low to Medium |
At 1080p, native TAA at 100 render scale can produce sharper glass-cockpit text than DLSS Quality. Use it when the GPU has headroom. At 1440p, DLSS Quality is normally the better compromise; switch to Balanced only after confirming that the GPU, rather than the processor, is limiting performance.
Avoid Ultra texture resolution as a default on an 8 GB card. It may appear fine over sparse terrain but cause VRAM pressure, delayed textures or sharp frame-time spikes at detailed airports, particularly with complex aircraft and high-resolution liveries.
Which settings matter most on an RTX 4060?
Clouds, shadows, reflections and output resolution place the most direct pressure on the RTX 4060, while LOD, traffic and cockpit refresh settings often expose a processor limit.
- Terrain LOD: Keep it near 100 at major hubs. A fast processor may handle 125–150 away from cities, but the RTX 4060 itself does not remove the MainThread cost.
- Objects LOD: Values around 100 preserve useful building and airport detail without making dense scenery unnecessarily expensive.
- Volumetric Clouds: High retains most of the visual quality. Ultra is one of the first settings we would remove when weather causes GPU slowdowns.
- Texture Resolution: High suits the card's 8 GB VRAM better than Ultra. Lower it to Medium only if the simulator shows clear VRAM-related stuttering or texture-loading trouble.
- Traffic: Ground vehicles, workers, road traffic and live or AI aircraft can collectively create a processor bottleneck. Raising them all together is a common mistake.
For a closer explanation of those trade-offs, our breakdown of how scenery and LOD controls divide work between the CPU, GPU and VRAM shows which setting to change for each limitation.
Should I use DLSS and Frame Generation?
Use DLSS Quality for 1440p, but enable Frame Generation only after the simulator already feels responsive without generated frames.
DLSS Frame Generation can make camera movement look much smoother on the RTX 4060, especially when the displayed frame rate is the main concern. It does not fix a MainThread bottleneck, improve the underlying control response or turn an unstable 20–25 fps workload into a genuinely smooth one. It can also introduce small artefacts around cockpit displays, labels and rapidly moving geometry.
Temporarily turn Frame Generation off when tuning. If the ungenerated rate stays around 30 fps or better with even frame pacing, switch it back on. If its option is unavailable, check that Windows hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling is enabled, restart the PC and verify that the NVIDIA driver supports the feature.
A stable 30, 40 or 45 fps target often feels better than repeated swings between much higher and lower rates. Use only one limiter rather than stacking the simulator's V-Sync, a driver cap and another limiter; our guidance on choosing a single, sensible MSFS 2024 frame-rate cap covers the refresh-rate and Frame Generation complications.
What should I lower if MSFS 2024 still stutters?
Identify the limiting component before reducing settings, because GPU, processor, VRAM and scenery-streaming problems require different fixes.
- Check the built-in performance display. Use the Developer Mode FPS counter temporarily and look for messages such as
Limited by MainThreadorLimited by GPU. - If MainThread-limited, reduce simulation-heavy settings. Lower Terrain LOD to 80–100, Objects LOD to 80–100, traffic density and Glass Cockpit Refresh Rate. Reducing texture quality will not solve this bottleneck.
- If GPU-limited, reduce visual effects. Lower clouds first, followed by shadows, ambient occlusion, reflections and water. At 1440p, DLSS Balanced is the next step if those changes are insufficient.
- If VRAM-limited, avoid Ultra textures. Use High or Medium textures and check high-resolution airport scenery and liveries. VRAM pressure often appears as severe pauses or texture degradation rather than a modest, consistent frame-rate loss.
- If scenery loads slowly, check streaming. Photogrammetry and world-data interruptions can cause pauses that graphics reductions do not cure. Review network use, online-data options and the rolling cache separately.
Our bottleneck-first MSFS 2024 performance checklist covers these CPU, GPU, VRAM and streaming symptoms in more detail.
Do NVIDIA Control Panel tweaks improve performance?
NVIDIA Control Panel should complement the simulator rather than override its rendering options.
Leave anti-aliasing application-controlled, avoid forcing conflicting V-Sync or frame limits, and make changes in the Microsoft Flight Simulator profile rather than globally. Maximum-performance power mode can help if the card is incorrectly dropping clocks, but it is not a substitute for reducing an overloaded in-game setting. Use our recommended NVIDIA driver profile for MSFS 2024 to configure the remaining options without duplicating controls.
Can an RTX 4060 run MSFS 2024 at 4K?
An RTX 4060 can output MSFS 2024 at 4K, but 1440p is the better target for image quality, responsiveness and 8 GB VRAM stability.
For 4K, start with DLSS Balanced, Terrain and Objects LOD at 100, High textures, Medium clouds, Medium shadows and Medium reflections. Frame Generation can smooth presentation, but busy airports and demanding airliners will still expose processor and VRAM limits.
Laptop RTX 4060 performance varies significantly with its configured power limit and cooling. Begin with the more conservative 1440p column even on a 1080p laptop display, then raise clouds, ambient occlusion or LOD one setting at a time after checking temperatures and the ungenerated frame rate.