Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Best PC Settings for Sim Update 7

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024's Sim Update 7 landed on October 13, bundling a free expansion with the biggest graphics overhaul the sim has gotten all year. If you haven't touched your settings menu since launch, this is the patch that makes it worth a second look — DLSS has jumped a full version, frame generation can now multiply your output by six times, and several background fixes change how hard your CPU actually has to work. Here's what to set, and why, now that build 1.9.18.0 is live.

01What Sim Update 7 Changes On PC

Asobo Studio and Microsoft's official release notes for version 1.9.18.0 lead with the National Championship Air Races, a free mode that merges the historic Reno course with new circuits built around Roswell, New Mexico. It adds five race classes — Unlimited (P-51 Mustang), T-6 (T-6 Texan), Biplane (Aviat Pitts Special S1S), Jet (Aero Vodochody L-39), and a brand-new STOL class built around one-on-one drag races — plus a round of Lufthansa liveries for the A310-300, A320neo, A321 and A330-300.

The part that actually matters for your settings menu is quieter: a fixed crash affecting aircraft with more than 10 flap states, a patched memory leak in the visual transition system that used to make long flights look progressively worse, better canvas rendering performance for HTML/JS instrument gauges, and throttled update rates on several avionics displays (small gauge views now refresh at 10Hz, BDHIs at 20Hz, and hidden MFDs skip full redraws entirely). None of that is a slider you flip yourself, but it's the reason a cockpit full of glass panels should feel lighter on your CPU than it did before this patch.

The same build also reworks several aircraft systems that have nothing to do with graphics but are worth knowing before you blame a settings change for anything odd you notice: the Boeing C-17 gets a new flight control model with an FLC autopilot mode and manual trim under fly-by-wire, the 737 MAX 8 has a lateral path fix at flyover waypoints, and the L-39, Pitts, T-6 and P-51 all received collision, ground-contact and canopy fixes. If one of those aircraft suddenly feels different after updating, that's this patch's aircraft work, not a graphics regression.

02Minimum Vs. Recommended Specs

Steam's own listing hasn't changed its baseline requirements for Sim Update 7, so they're still the floor to check your rig against before you touch a single graphics option:

Those numbers predate Sim Update 7's biggest addition for NVIDIA owners. Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, the new automatic mode covered below, is built specifically for GeForce RTX 50 Series cards — an RTX 2080 clears the recommended bar for the sim itself, but you'll want a current-generation RTX card to get the newest frame generation mode rather than the fixed multipliers.

03Best Graphics Settings After Sim Update 7

With instrument rendering now lighter on the CPU, it's worth revisiting settings you may have turned down months ago just to keep frame times steady around busy airports. Terrain Level of Detail and Objects Level of Detail are the two sliders that scale hardest with your CPU rather than your GPU, so nudge them up one notch at a time and watch your frame time, not just your average FPS, around a dense airport like KJFK or EGLL. Clouds and Volumetric Lighting are the GPU-heaviest settings in the game; if you're running an older recommended-tier card, these are the ones to trim before you touch upscaling at all.

04Setting Up DLSS 4.5 And Multi Frame Generation

DLSS 4.5 technically arrived earlier, in Sim Update 6, as the sim's new default upscaler alongside Dynamic Frame Generation and in-game VSync — that same update tried to add AMD FSR 4 support in beta but pulled it after compatibility problems surfaced, so FSR remains on an older version for now and AMD or Intel owners should lean on the sim's existing upscaler tier rather than expect an FSR 4 toggle. Sim Update 7 is what pushes DLSS 4.5 further: NVIDIA's GeForce Game Ready Driver 617.42, released alongside the update, upgrades every DLSS technology the sim uses, sharpens Super Resolution image quality, and raises the Multi Frame Generation ceiling from 4X — added back in Sim Update 3 — to a new 6X multiplier.

The headline addition is Dynamic Multi Frame Generation, a mode built for RTX 50 Series cards that automatically adjusts how many frames it generates to hit your display's refresh rate or a frame rate you set yourself, rather than locking you into a fixed multiplier regardless of what the scene needs. NVIDIA's own testing puts average 4X gains around 4.2 times the base frame rate at 4K, with 6X scaling close to linearly up to roughly 6.4 times — numbers worth treating as the manufacturer's benchmark rather than a guarantee on your specific rig. If you want to go further than the baseline toggles here, this deeper look at tuning its new frame-generation sliders walks through every option DLSS 4.5 adds on RTX 50-series cards in more detail.

How To Turn On DLSS 4.5 And 6X Multi Frame Generation

1. 1Install GeForce Game Ready Driver 617.42 or newer if you have an RTX card and want Multi Frame Generation or Dynamic Multi Frame Generation. AMD and Intel GPUs just need a current driver for the existing DLSS-era upscaler tier.2 min
2. 2From the main menu, open General Options, then the Graphics tab where the upscaling and frame generation controls live.15 sec
3. 3Switch the Upscaling dropdown to DLSS and check that Super Resolution reports version 4.5 — if it still shows an older build, your driver hasn't installed correctly.15 sec
4. 4Choose Dynamic Multi Frame Generation if you own an RTX 50 Series card, or a fixed 2X/3X/4X/6X multiplier on older RTX GPUs that still support Multi Frame Generation.30 sec
5. 5Set your frame rate target or enable in-game VSync at your display's native refresh rate so Dynamic Multi Frame Generation has an accurate ceiling to aim for.30 sec
6. 6Fly a landing you know well and watch your frame time, not just the average FPS counter, before locking in a multiplier for long-haul flights.3 min

05Traffic, Scenery And Instrument Settings Worth Checking

A handful of smaller fixes in this update are easy to miss but worth a quick look in your settings menu regardless of which GPU you own. The Aircraft Traffic Variety option no longer lists choices that aren't actually available on your platform, so it's worth reopening that slider if you'd previously settled on a value just to make the menu stop showing broken options. Photo Mode also no longer captures the taxi ribbon or on-screen assistances in screenshots, which matters if you post cockpit shots, and aircraft light mask orientation has been corrected to match the previous simulator — worth a look if you fly night legs and your landing or strobe lights seemed off before.

If you'd gotten used to turning settings down mid-flight because long-haul legs seemed to degrade visually over time, that was almost certainly the memory leak in the visual transition system this patch fixes. It's worth testing your old settings again on a long flight before assuming you still need the lower values you settled on to work around it. The same release notes also call out better canvas rendering performance specifically for HTML/JS instrument gauges, which is the rendering path behind most glass cockpit avionics — aircraft like the G1000-equipped trainers or any add-on relying on that framework should see a small but real frame time improvement without you changing a single slider.

06Controls And Settings For The New Air Races

The National Championship Air Races put you through tight pylon turns at low altitude, so it's a good time to double check your camera and control settings rather than relying on whatever you set up for airliners. Head Shake and camera inertia both make close pylon work harder to read — turning them down, or off entirely, makes a real difference in the Biplane and STOL classes where you're constantly rolling and correcting. If you're flying with a controller rather than a yoke or stick, raise sensitivity on the roll axis specifically; the default curve is tuned for gentler airliner banking, not the snap rolls the Unlimited and Jet classes reward.

Microsoft Flight Simulator's National Championship Air Races: Launch Date Announce trailer, published August 27, 2026, ahead of the October 13 Sim Update 7 release.

None of the five race classes require you to own anything beyond the base sim — Asobo has confirmed National Championship Air Races is a free addition, unlike the paid Reno Air Races expansion for the previous Flight Simulator. Jump into the Activities menu after installing Sim Update 7 and the Unlimited, T-6, Biplane, Jet and STOL classes should all be available immediately, racing both the historic Reno course and the new Roswell circuits.