Poor performance on 2019 iMac (Windows 10 dual boot)

Manuel Díez · Aug 26, 2020

After some nasty troubles downloading, installing and getting to run Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on my superyoung iMac, I'm going through a horrible performance of the game. Before I dive in to the problem itself, here is my configuration:

iMac 2019 27" (Retina 5K)

3,7 GHz Intel Core i5 (6 cores)

32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 memory

AMD Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB graphic card (w/ GPU)

Windows 10 (Windows To Go) running on an external disk

I didn't install Windows 10 via Bootcamp Assistant because in Catalina 10.15.6, it is PLAGUED with problems when you try to create a new partition, so I went with an alternative method (Windows To Go) and installed the Bootcamp drivers afterwards. My Windows
10 has been working flawlessly, even with other games (Beam NG comes to mind).

So what is my experience with MFS2020? It goes as follows:

- The overall performance of the game, even before starting a flight, is quite bad. Even menus are slow to load, and mouse clicks are occasionally ignored.

- The FPS are ridiculously low. I've monitored the game using several tools and it's kind of stuck at 10 FPS, which renders the game almost unplayable.

- I'm not sure if it's entirely related to graphics, because half of the times I press a key, the game ignores it. It would seem it's struggling to run the whole thing.

- GPU is being actually used. In fact, it's showing a 100% use almost all of the time. CPU usage varies, but it averages 50%.

- Sometimes the game crashes when it's really struggling.

- The performance varies, of course, depending on the complexity of the scenery. I've tried all possible graphic configurations, both in-game and in the Radeon Pro configuration, and the performance doesn't change much.

Before you suggest it, yes, every driver is updated (graphic card, Bootcamp, etc). And, as I said before, every other game runs smoothly.

I know it's a very specific situation, but is anyone else experiencing anything similar?

Thanks in advance.

:)

ngocphi

https://technical.city/en/video/Radeon-RX-590-vs-Radeon-Pro-580X

You are running barely minimunal specs you generally want to surpass minimunal specs

Rx is a.gaming gpu

The pro series is a work station gpu

With amd you have to update your drivers alot

Generally you want to.go with recommended with them

A.nvidia is usually a bettrr option

Also should be noted puting an os on an external drive does affect performance

Just a note nvidia and amd do make non gamimg gpus they are fire gl or quatro and they dony preform so well with gaming but great for 3d

Shaggy2000

As someone else has said your GPU is barely even meeting the minimum requirements for the game to run.

This is purely my opinion but iMacs aren't great for gaming on, you can get a better performing PC for gaming cheaper than using an iMac, iMacs are great at work and creativity, but only so-so for gaming.

dempup

Hi Manuel

Glad to hear you got your issue solved, and thank you very much for sharing your solution with the forum. Hopefully that can help other fellow gamers.

Have a great day

Manuel Díez

I solved this, but not exactly sure how. Here's what I did:

1. Install UNOFFICIAL AMD Radeon drivers I found. Go figure...

2. Clean reinstallation of the game.

3. Set a lower resolution.

4. Play in full screen.

After installing the drivers and the game, and then launch it, the image looks slightly re-scaled on the screen, and now I can choose to play in full screen. Prior to this, the game crashed if I tried.

The game now plays smoothly and allows for a great level of detail.

TumidDuckling57

I am having the same problem. I get streaming to work for a couple minutes and then it quits. I am running Windows 10 on an iMac with boot camp.

Poor performance on 2019 iMac (Windows 10 dual boot)