What are the best VR settings for MSFS 2020 and 2024?
The best VR settings for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and 2024 are TAA at 80–100% render scale for clear instruments, or DLSS Quality when GPU-limited, with medium clouds, high textures, Terrain LOD 100–150 and Objects LOD 100. Lower traffic and LOD for CPU limits; lower resolution and clouds for GPU limits.
These are starting values rather than a universal preset. Headset resolution, refresh rate, aircraft displays, airport complexity and weather can change the workload dramatically. Before adjusting graphics, confirm that the correct OpenXR runtime and headset connection are working by following our PC VR setup and diagnosis checklist.
Best starting settings for MSFS VR
A balanced VR baseline should protect cockpit readability while leaving enough performance headroom for large airports and bad weather.
| Setting | Recommended starting point | When to change it |
|---|---|---|
| Headset/OpenXR resolution | Headset software's recommended or default value | Lower it only after checking the in-simulator render scale |
| Render scaling | 80–100% | Lower for GPU pressure; raise for clearer instruments |
| Anti-aliasing | TAA, or DLSS Quality | Choose TAA for clarity and DLSS Quality for performance |
| Terrain Level of Detail | 100–150 | Lower at busy airports or when limited by the main thread |
| Objects Level of Detail | 100 | Lower if dense terminals, cities or scenery cause stutters |
| Volumetric Clouds | Medium | Raise to High only with consistent GPU headroom |
| Texture Resolution | High | Use Medium when VRAM is tight or performance worsens over time |
| Anisotropic Filtering | 8x or 16x | Usually safe to retain because its performance cost is modest |
| Buildings, trees and grass | Medium | Raise individually after the simulator is running smoothly |
| Shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion | Low or Medium | Lower before sacrificing cockpit resolution |
| AI, live and airport traffic | Low to modest | Reduce when frame rate falls around major hubs |
| Cockpit display refresh rate | Medium where available | Use Low in display-heavy airliners when CPU-limited |
Motion blur and depth-of-field effects add little in a headset and should normally be disabled. Do not treat frame generation as a substitute for VR performance; headset motion reprojection is a separate process, and frame generation may not operate in VR.
Which anti-aliasing and render scale should I use?
Use TAA when reading glass-cockpit displays and small labels is the priority; use DLSS Quality when the GPU cannot maintain acceptable frame times at the required headset resolution.
DLSS can make instruments, distant buildings and thin power lines look softer or less stable. Balanced and Performance modes trade away more clarity, so we reserve them for unusually demanding headsets or hardware that cannot cope with Quality mode.
A mistake we see constantly is applying several resolution reductions at once: lowering the headset resolution, adding an OpenXR override, reducing in-simulator render scaling and selecting aggressive upscaling. Pick one main scaling control, test it, then change the next only if necessary. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to identify why the image is blurred.
A repeatable VR tuning order
Change one bottleneck at a time rather than moving every slider together.
- Create a repeatable test. Use the same aircraft, runway, weather and viewpoint at a demanding airport. A simple aircraft over open countryside will hide the settings that fail later.
- Establish a clarity baseline. Start with the headset's recommended resolution, TAA and 100% render scaling. Confirm that cockpit text is acceptably sharp.
- Reduce GPU load. If the performance display reports a GPU limitation, try DLSS Quality or lower render scaling in small steps. Reduce clouds, shadows, reflections and ambient occlusion next.
- Reduce CPU load. If the main thread is limiting performance, lower Terrain LOD, Objects LOD, road and airport traffic, parked aircraft and cockpit display refresh rate. Cutting render resolution will not solve a CPU bottleneck.
- Check VRAM pressure. Lower texture resolution and off-screen terrain pre-caching if high-resolution scenery produces heavy pauses, texture replacement or steadily worsening performance.
- Add detail selectively. Raise clouds, buildings or LOD one setting at a time. Keep a separate VR graphics profile rather than copying the monitor preset.
How do MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 VR settings differ?
MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 use the same tuning principles, but their busiest CPU, memory and streaming workloads are not identical.
| Simulator | Lower first when CPU-limited | Common VR gotcha |
|---|---|---|
| MSFS 2020 | Terrain LOD, traffic, Objects LOD and cockpit display refresh rate | Off-screen terrain pre-caching can reduce panning stutters but consumes more memory |
| MSFS 2024 | Terrain and object detail, airport activity and traffic | Streaming or network pauses may resemble a graphics problem but will not necessarily respond to lower render scale |
For deeper adjustment of the older simulator, use our MSFS 2020 graphics settings and bottleneck guide. The newer simulator has its own MSFS 2024 VR optimisation workflow, covering frame times, VRAM, LOD and reprojection without repeating the entire process here.
These detailed controls apply to PC VR. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 was never released on PlayStation. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 launched on PS5 and PS5 Pro on 8 December 2025, with PSVR2 support arriving through a free 2026 update; its console graphics controls may differ from the PC options above.
Should motion reprojection be enabled?
Enable motion reprojection when the simulator can hold a stable supported fraction of the headset refresh rate; leave it disabled when native performance is steady or its visual artefacts are distracting.
For a 90 Hz headset, a runtime may synthesise frames from a stable 45 fps, although available ratios vary by headset and OpenXR runtime. This often feels smoother than repeatedly moving above and below the reprojection threshold. Propellers, cockpit window frames and fast lateral movement can show warping, so test it during taxi and low-level turns rather than only in cruise.
Why does MSFS VR still stutter on low settings?
If reducing resolution barely changes the stutter, the problem is probably CPU load, VRAM pressure, scenery, traffic, streaming or an unstable frame-time threshold rather than raw GPU rendering power.
- Soft cockpit text: switch from aggressive DLSS modes to DLSS Quality or TAA, then raise render scaling.
- Low frame rate only at major airports: reduce traffic, parked aircraft, Terrain LOD and Objects LOD.
- Pauses while turning your head: check off-screen terrain pre-caching and VRAM use; raising the cache can help only when enough memory remains.
- Periodic pauses during flight: investigate streamed scenery, rolling cache, add-ons and background activity rather than lowering every graphics option.
- Black edges during rapid head movement: the renderer lacks headroom; reduce GPU-heavy settings or use a stable reprojection mode.
Persistent pauses need frame-time troubleshooting rather than another generic preset. Our MSFS stutter and micro-pause fixes cover shader caching, frame-time consistency and the settings most likely to address that specific fault.