Soldato
(Not sure this is the best forum, but as it's Gsync and Nvidia specific I figured best to start it in here....)
Anyway, why is no one talking about this? A fair chunk of people have Gsync monitors now and for me it's one of the best gaming solutions for years.
I'm a judder free/ smooth gameplay obsessive and without Gsync Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a frame pacing mess. In a nut shell...
At Launch, MSFS2020 does not support Gsync properly. This is because the game does not run in true fullscreen. Even though in the game's graphics options it has a 'fullscreen' listing, it is actually a "fullscreen borderless window" implementation! This never, ever plays well with gsync.
I've only found a few obscure forums mentioning the lack of proper Gsync support for this game, and a few vague references to using "Special K" to sort it. I had no idea what this is, and no one really told me how to set it up or use it for this game, so I've been on a bit of a mission to get it working and decided to try and write it down in case I forget it! And it might be useful for other people, so thought I'd share, enjoy.......
!!! NOTE: This is for the Xbox gamepass/ UWP version. I don't know if other versions have true fullscreen support that just works (I doubt it?) !!!
!!! Also - setting up gsync in the nvidia control panel to work for both fullscreen and windowed mode as a workaround does not work for this game! It will make it appear as though gsync is on, and it technically is, but it’s still Juddery and gsync typically works best when in true exclusive fullscreen mode, and the only way to do this is as below !!!
THE FIX IS
-------------
- Use a piece of 'injector' style software (a bit like reshade) called "SPECIAL K". This does all kinds of interesting stuff, (worth looking into more), but the key thing is you can easily 'force' PROPER FULLSCREEN so Gsync works as it should, for almost any game (even xbox gamepass / UWP ones like this!)
Special K appears to be a very Steam games focused piece of software, however it can also be used for non-Steam games by adding lines to the 'Injection Config' tab (as described below for this game), or manually adding dll files to the game folder (if accessible).
How to set it up/ use SPECIAL K for MSFS 2020 (easy version)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- I'm using the new Special K Injection Frontend version (SKIF) v0.7.0.3
- As it's a Windows game with weird annoying protected folders, I can't add files into the right folders to do the manual fix. So, Before launching the MSFS2020 game, start Special K (it defaults to the 'Steam Game Management' tab for some reason)
- (only need to do this once!): Go to the "Injection Config" tab and 'whitelist' the entire WindowsApps folder on your C drive - where 'part' of the MSFS2020 game resides/ is referenced from! i.e Add this line exactly to the "Whitelist Patterns" field:
C:\\Program Files\\WindowsApps\\
(Note: even though the game is not "installed" here on my C drive (it's installed on my NVME drive), it is still 'referenced' from here from WindowsApps on my C drive - and adding this exact path is what works after various testing by me!)
!!! EDIT - if adding the above line does not work (i.e. Special K does not 'hook') try removing that and adding this line instead:
FlightSimulator.exe
- Then, click the Global Injection tab and "Start Service". Should go green and 'Running' for 32bit and 64bit service. LEAVE THIS SPECIAL K WINDOW RUNNING!
- Then, launch game
> NOTE: Will know if Special K is running as it should be, as in the top left when the game loads you get a pop up message with lots of text info (a bit like reshade/ sweetfx), telling you about the hotkeys to bring up the menu i.e Ctrl-Shift-Backspace, etc. If you don't see this then Special K hasn't 'hooked' correctly.
- Then - WHEN IN GAME - bring up the Special K control panel menu with Ctrl-Shift-Backspace.
For the specific Gsync/ 'fake' fullscreen issue we have, SIMPLY CLICK ON "DISPLAY" ON THE TOP MENU AND IN THE 1ST DROP DOWN SELECT "FULLSCREEN MODE"
(TOP TIP: click the check box next to this dropdown ("force xyz") to save having to repeat this part of the process! i.e when Speical K launches if this box is checked it will start in proper fullscreen every time and Gsync will be on.)
> You should then see the Gsync indicator appear on your monitor as usual (assuming you have Gsync set up as "Enable for full screen mode" only, and the Gsync indicator display set on, as I always do in the Nvidia control panel - so you always know that a game is running in PROPER fullscreen!)
.....THAT'S IT. The game is now in 'proper' fullscreen, and Gsync is working its magic as it does. Smoooooth as butter most of time, with no framepacing judder (however there are some scenarios that have some stutter and occasional slight hitches, but this is due to other factors not Gsync! It's an early build, v complex sim as we know!)
----------------------------------
UPDATE: I'd missed this but the SpecialK dev himself put up a specific fix for the game on the forum a few weeks ago at:
https://discourse.differentk.fyi/t/microsoft-flight-simulator/649
Feel free to follow and try this method - I tried it just to test and to be honest found it very fiddly and tricky to get working as described in there, and with the recommended ini file settings he suggests on there also, it actually made panning jerky for me when testing (my simple test is panning around inside the cockpit using the right analogue controller stick).
I've therefore sacked it and gone back to how it was for me as it was super smooth.
Anyway, why is no one talking about this? A fair chunk of people have Gsync monitors now and for me it's one of the best gaming solutions for years.
I'm a judder free/ smooth gameplay obsessive and without Gsync Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is a frame pacing mess. In a nut shell...
At Launch, MSFS2020 does not support Gsync properly. This is because the game does not run in true fullscreen. Even though in the game's graphics options it has a 'fullscreen' listing, it is actually a "fullscreen borderless window" implementation! This never, ever plays well with gsync.
I've only found a few obscure forums mentioning the lack of proper Gsync support for this game, and a few vague references to using "Special K" to sort it. I had no idea what this is, and no one really told me how to set it up or use it for this game, so I've been on a bit of a mission to get it working and decided to try and write it down in case I forget it! And it might be useful for other people, so thought I'd share, enjoy.......
!!! NOTE: This is for the Xbox gamepass/ UWP version. I don't know if other versions have true fullscreen support that just works (I doubt it?) !!!
!!! Also - setting up gsync in the nvidia control panel to work for both fullscreen and windowed mode as a workaround does not work for this game! It will make it appear as though gsync is on, and it technically is, but it’s still Juddery and gsync typically works best when in true exclusive fullscreen mode, and the only way to do this is as below !!!
THE FIX IS
-------------
- Use a piece of 'injector' style software (a bit like reshade) called "SPECIAL K". This does all kinds of interesting stuff, (worth looking into more), but the key thing is you can easily 'force' PROPER FULLSCREEN so Gsync works as it should, for almost any game (even xbox gamepass / UWP ones like this!)
Special K appears to be a very Steam games focused piece of software, however it can also be used for non-Steam games by adding lines to the 'Injection Config' tab (as described below for this game), or manually adding dll files to the game folder (if accessible).
How to set it up/ use SPECIAL K for MSFS 2020 (easy version)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- I'm using the new Special K Injection Frontend version (SKIF) v0.7.0.3
- As it's a Windows game with weird annoying protected folders, I can't add files into the right folders to do the manual fix. So, Before launching the MSFS2020 game, start Special K (it defaults to the 'Steam Game Management' tab for some reason)
- (only need to do this once!): Go to the "Injection Config" tab and 'whitelist' the entire WindowsApps folder on your C drive - where 'part' of the MSFS2020 game resides/ is referenced from! i.e Add this line exactly to the "Whitelist Patterns" field:
C:\\Program Files\\WindowsApps\\
(Note: even though the game is not "installed" here on my C drive (it's installed on my NVME drive), it is still 'referenced' from here from WindowsApps on my C drive - and adding this exact path is what works after various testing by me!)
!!! EDIT - if adding the above line does not work (i.e. Special K does not 'hook') try removing that and adding this line instead:
FlightSimulator.exe
- Then, click the Global Injection tab and "Start Service". Should go green and 'Running' for 32bit and 64bit service. LEAVE THIS SPECIAL K WINDOW RUNNING!
- Then, launch game
> NOTE: Will know if Special K is running as it should be, as in the top left when the game loads you get a pop up message with lots of text info (a bit like reshade/ sweetfx), telling you about the hotkeys to bring up the menu i.e Ctrl-Shift-Backspace, etc. If you don't see this then Special K hasn't 'hooked' correctly.
- Then - WHEN IN GAME - bring up the Special K control panel menu with Ctrl-Shift-Backspace.
For the specific Gsync/ 'fake' fullscreen issue we have, SIMPLY CLICK ON "DISPLAY" ON THE TOP MENU AND IN THE 1ST DROP DOWN SELECT "FULLSCREEN MODE"
(TOP TIP: click the check box next to this dropdown ("force xyz") to save having to repeat this part of the process! i.e when Speical K launches if this box is checked it will start in proper fullscreen every time and Gsync will be on.)
> You should then see the Gsync indicator appear on your monitor as usual (assuming you have Gsync set up as "Enable for full screen mode" only, and the Gsync indicator display set on, as I always do in the Nvidia control panel - so you always know that a game is running in PROPER fullscreen!)
.....THAT'S IT. The game is now in 'proper' fullscreen, and Gsync is working its magic as it does. Smoooooth as butter most of time, with no framepacing judder (however there are some scenarios that have some stutter and occasional slight hitches, but this is due to other factors not Gsync! It's an early build, v complex sim as we know!)
----------------------------------
UPDATE: I'd missed this but the SpecialK dev himself put up a specific fix for the game on the forum a few weeks ago at:
https://discourse.differentk.fyi/t/microsoft-flight-simulator/649
Feel free to follow and try this method - I tried it just to test and to be honest found it very fiddly and tricky to get working as described in there, and with the recommended ini file settings he suggests on there also, it actually made panning jerky for me when testing (my simple test is panning around inside the cockpit using the right analogue controller stick).
I've therefore sacked it and gone back to how it was for me as it was super smooth.
Last edited:
