Asking Better Questions at 30,000 Feet (and 40 FPS) - Part One of Two

I’ve been having problems with FS2024 running on my Alienware laptop. 

Crashing — a lot. 

Not the occasional hiccup, but the kind that interrupts flow, breaks immersion, and frankly, makes you question why you booted it up in the first place.

So, like many of us, I went to YouTube. 

Plenty of videos. Plenty of opinions. Plenty of “best settings” that seem to assume unlimited hardware and a tolerance for 12 different variables changing at once.  I watched more than a few. 

And to be honest, I walked away more confused than when I started.

Then I decided to do something different.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my young assistant — ChatGPT. And it occurred to me: instead of searching broadly, why not ask Chat for a little help?

The part that makes the difference.

The value of AI, at least the way I was taught to use it, is not just in the answer — it’s in the question. 

If you’re vague, you’ll get vague. If you’re generic, you’ll get generic. But if you take the time to frame the problem precisely, clearly — hardware, software, use case, constraints — you get something entirely different.

So, I laid it out:

• Alienware laptop.
• 13th Gen i7-13700HX.
• 16GB RAM.
• 8GB GPU.
• Windows 11 Pro.
• Running FS2024
• TrackIR
• Air Manager
• Saitek yoke and pedals
• 4K TV.

And then the most important part — the mission:

I told Chat that I'd be flying VFR cross-country under FAA rules. That I wouldn't need 60 FPS rates. That I wanted smooth, stable, repeatable performance — say 30 to 40 FPS — with an emphasis on what actually matters in VFR: terrain clarity, visual cues, and cockpit usability.

Note: Framing changes everything.

What came back wasn’t a generic “set everything to High” response. 

It was a prioritization strategy.

• Terrain level of detail (LOD) was set around 100–130.  Remember, we specified VFR — Being able to accurately read the terrain is as important as accurately reading and interoperating the chart.  
• Minimize the performance killers: clouds, shadows, traffic, and anything that spikes CPU load — especially with TrackIR and Air Manager already in play.  In other words, stop trying to make it look like a postcard and start making it behave like the training tool it is.
• Lock in the frame rate to 30-40 FPS.  Performance steadies out.  Smoothness over speed!

Many or probably most of us, tend to approach simulators the same way we approach our new hardware — push everything to the max and then troubleshoot the fallout. But if the goal is proficiency and supporting real-worldlike flying — then consistency is key.

This is the end of part one.  Part two will have the actual ChatGPT response.

Your thought,

Kenneth (Ken) Butterly, Founder