Windows sim performance: Task Manager and Resource Monitor

blekenbleu · Nov 27, 2022

Trying to understand MS Flight Simulator 2020 triple 4K monitor issues,
I finally sorted a way to audit bottlenecks:

open Task Manager - Ctrl+Shift+Esc
(right-click on taskbar does not work on Win 11)
select "Performance" tab
select "Open Resource Monitor" at bottom
select "GPU" in Task Manager:
In Resource Monitor,
expand window width to reveal CPU history graphs;
click on "Views" to shrink vertical scales.
- click "CPU" tab
- expand "Processes" bar and click "Average CPU" column
- check boxes for Processes with high "Average CPU" values
  - e.g. for 12 CPUs, 8 (100/12) is nearly maximum value
  - expand "Associated Modules" bar to see busy module names:

For most users, understanding which individual processes are most nearly consuming most of some single logical processor will correlate with e.g. FPS limits,
provided that GPU is not also too busy. Simultaneously monitoring GPU in Task Manager and so-called CPUs made busy by modules in Resource Monitor should help suggest where tweaking is most wanted.