Above and Beyond: Intel’s Leading Performance in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
Author: Ryan Shrout, Chief Performance Strategist at Intel
Although air travel hasn’t been possible for many people this year, escaping into a virtual world can help satisfy persistent wanderlust in the wake of canceled trips and vacation plans. Fortuitously timed, Microsoft recently released its newest entry in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. And Intel has been a partner with Microsoft during its development to bring leading game performance to our platforms.
While players won’t actually be flying to far-off destinations, the game offers a close second: photorealistic landscapes and the opportunity to explore almost every inch of a digitally mapped planet. Developed by Asobo Studio and published by Xbox Game Studios, this simulation game is the eleventh major release in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series.
With this newest release, game developers have managed to create a simulator that delivers jaw-dropping realistic scenery, high-powered gaming, and colossal levels of performance.
High-Octane Visuals with Real-World Data and High-End Technology
Microsoft Flight Simulator leverages data from Bing Maps and accesses more than two petabytes of data from the cloud on demand. Three-dimensional renderings of trees, buildings, water, and other landscape features are generated through that data. To render the rich world of Microsoft Flight Simulator, the Microsoft Azure cloud was combined with Blackshark.ai artificial intelligence to analyze Bing Maps data and 3D photogrammetry.
For the terrain, the game’s engine leverages imagery from satellites or fly-by image scans to texture the in-game universe. An offline AI reads the textures based on their own parameters to fill in the game. Although there’s already a base of textures, the game utilizes an internet connection to stream more photorealistic data to populate the landscape in real-time onto the gamer’s PC.
Besides realistic terrain, players will also experience accurate physics and weather systems. Even single clouds exhibit individual behavior that impacts your aircraft’s performance in the game. A 370-mile draw distance gives players a view of storms and weather conditions hundreds of miles in the distance.
Intel Game Enabling Work on Flight Simulator 2020
Microsoft Flight Simulator lives up to its name and truly simulates the world as never before in a game. Bringing this immersive experience to everyone is an impressive feat made possible with the support of talented Intel Software Engineers and by implementing several state-of-the-art technologies developed by Intel.
The biggest area of support Intel provided was with terrain optimization. As mentioned before, much of the data in the game is being pulled real-time and interacts naturally with the broader environment. Flying over the rural landscapes of Norway highlights simulated wind turbulence and other weather effects that can be visible on trees as you fly by. This is incredible to think about as it takes a significant amount of processing power to pull off.
Intel’s 10th Gen enthusiast desktops and gaming laptops show incredible performance when compared to previous generations and to the competition, which I’ll demonstrate below.
Some of the most demanding workloads in the game come from major cities like Paris. With detailed buildings stacked on top of each other, block after block, there are an incredible number of pixels rendered in any given frame. Many of those objects (buildings, trees, etc.) are hidden behind others and don’t need to be processed and rendered for the final image. Intel’s unique solution, Software Masked Occlusion Culling, makes this work by effectively only rendering the pixels, and the objects they create, that are visible to the player. This dramatically increases performance of the game and is one reason why Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 plays great even on Intel’s newest 11th Gen Core™ Processors with Xe Graphics.
Leadership Gaming Performance on Intel Core Processors
Intel announced the Core i9–9900K as the World’s Best Gaming Processor back in October of 2018, and we took that crown again based on independent reviews with the Core i9–10900K. Gaming is in our blood, it’s what drives a huge part of why we build what we build and invest where we invest. Our work with Microsoft on Flight Simulator 2020 is another example of that, and the leadership gaming performance that our platforms provide back it up.
For this testing, we cranked up the visual quality settings to Ultra, giving us as much detail and wow-effect as possible. All systems were configured with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (the fastest option when our testing was done!) and the results again demonstrate our leadership for gamers. The Core i9–10900K results in just under 42 FPS and is 21% faster than the measured performance of AMD’s Ryzen 3950X and 25% faster than the Ryzen 3900XT processor. Even the Core i9–9900K maintains a 16% lead over the best competitive options shown here, proving that not all cores are created equal.
If you want to build a system for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 today, clearly the Intel CPUs offer optimal performance for your rig!
Taking Flight: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020
At a time when air travel has taken a serious hit, flight simulators like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 offer an escape into a virtual world filled with photorealistic landscapes and landmarks. Create your own routes or drop a pin anywhere in the world. Powered by revolutionary technology, and accelerated by Intel hardware and engineers, the only thing keeping you from feeling like you’re actually on a plane is the distinct lack of pretzels or peanuts. But beyond that, flying with the Microsoft Flight Simulator is almost indistinguishable from the real experience of flight.
Notes & Disclaimers
Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors.
Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchases, including the performance of that product when combined with other products.
Performance results are based on testing as of Sept 21, 2020 and may not reflect all publicly available updates. No product or component can be absolutely secure.
System Configurations:
- Intel Core i9–9900K 3.6GHz/5.0Ghz 8C/16T, 95W; Measured on Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z390-A; BIOS Ver: 1502; OS: Windows 10 RS6 (Defender OFF); Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti (Driver Version: 27.21.14.5638); Memory: G. SKILL DDR4 2x8GB 2666Mhz; Screen Size: 1920x1080
- Intel Core i9–10900K 3.7GHz/5.3Ghz 10C/20T, 125W; Measured on Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z490-A; BIOS Ver: 403; OS: Windows 10 RS6 (Defender OFF); Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti (Driver Version: 27.21.14.5638); Memory: G. SKILL DDR4 2x8GB 2933Mhz; Screen Size: 1920x1080
- AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 3.5GHz/4.7Ghz 16C/32T, 105W; Measured on Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero; BIOS Ver: 1302; OS: Windows 10 RS6 (Defender OFF); Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti (Driver Version: 27.21.14.5638); Memory: G. SKILL DDR4 2x8GB 3200Mhz; Screen Size: 1920x1080
- AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT 3.8GHz/4.7Ghz 12C/24T, 105W; Measured on Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero; BIOS Ver: 1302; OS: Windows 10 RS6 (Defender OFF); Graphics: Nvidia RTX 2080Ti (Driver Version: 27.21.14.5638); Memory: G. SKILL DDR4 2x8GB 3200Mhz; Screen Size: 1920x1080
Workload Configuration:
- Microsoft Flight Simulator — 1.8.3.0–1080P Ultra Settings — Average FPS
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