[Majo]

The main driver of this problem could be the "Effects" setting value in the Graphic Options in the game menu. The difference between "medium" and "high" is almost inexistent. The FPS impact is quite high in very specific situations with both settings. Setting this value to "low" will solve the problem of FPS impact the easy way. That is the total absence of effects, no dust, no smoke, no explosions, no fire, no nothing....

Not even high end GPUs are able to handle this elegantly at this stage of the game.

We must all consider that the reference for a good graphic setting evaluation should not be the recurrent low level flight over London, since this situation (INHO) does not add much value to the game. We should consider the “Back death” track as reference, with a significant amount planes, multiple combat like situations at different levels, ground pounding, fast view/camera changes.

Most of you will find out that being able to fly smoothly over London, while playing the “Back Death” track, will still suffer from dramatic FPS lows (<10 FPS) specially during explosions, flying around smoke columns, fires and so on.

Being such a specific issue, one tends to think that it would be relatively easy to optimize, but what do I know?
We will see.

Salutes Majo.