If purchasing a new PC, this video gives some guidance on what to look for in a system for X-Plane. It is most similar to our Comet system that we sell. Link below. xforcepc.com/super.html
The timing of this video couldn’t be better! Just started to look for a new system and this video saves me a lot of reading as all my questions are adressed! Many thanks for uploading this!
Thanks a lot for the clear explanation. I’m in the process of selecting a new PC for X-Plane 12 triple 1080p for the external view and couldn’t find clear requirements. Based on other comparisons and after several changes I came to a configuration of i7-12700, 3070, 32 GB today and it’s good that I found this video to confirm that configuration for X-Plane. And after seeing it will probably make a last change to DDR4 and 3070Ti 😊
I found you by chance and followed your suggestions back in 2017 when I decided to build my new PC for X-Plane 11. I built it with i7 7700K, GTX1080, 16GB RAM and SSD drive. Until today the machine is rocket! It loads X-Plane 11 in maximum settings, it covers X-Plane 12 recommended specs and even FS2020 in Ultra settings! So, I would like to thank you very much for that!
I'm running XP11 on SteamVR under Linux Ubuntu 20.04 with a Valve Index headset and a RTX 3080, Intel i7-7700K. XP11 runs great except for one issue: clouds in VR. _Clouds in flatscreen run well!_ No complaints there. Clouds in VR are performance hogs, and more VR clouds means more VR stutter. I'm hoping the new clouds in XP12 will make better use of resources, so I don't have to keep deleting the cloud layer when I run in VR.
Interesting! One Flatscreen might be ok - on my 3 projector setup, a low stratus layer can really kill performance of the otherwise very performant setup & on moderate airport scenery (ie. Leipzig or Liverpool standard scenery when preparing pilots for their assessements). And that with a boring, grey, not very volumetric looking layer...Hope it will be better in 12.
Thanks so much for such a thorough treatment of the subject Michael! Question: I'd LIKE to do triple 4k for flight sim, but I'm sure I'd be satisfied with triple 1080p. However, I need to get double duty from this computer station, actually triple duty: 1) General work-related things with spreadsheets, browsers & PDFs, 2) Photo & video editing, and 3 Flight sim work. The only application I'd like to not give up 4k for is photo & video editing. So my question is, can I connect the PC to three 4k monitors, but choose 1080p as the output resolution from the X-Plane program so that the GPU is only working with 1080p? That way I could take advantage of 4k for non flight sim tasks and yet not overwork the computer for flight sim work. The displays WILL upconvert 1080p to 4k, right? Then when better GPUs and CPUs become affordable the displays are already in place, right?
I've been runnning x-plane 11 with the original 5K imac from 2014. I maxed it out at the time so, 32 GB ram, Radeon R9 and a core i7 at 4ghz. Pretty old at this point but it ran x-plane well. I mostly kept it at 1080p resolution but have launched into 5k mode for giggles a couple of times. It's not fast, obviously but it looks pretty and it could actually do it. Vulkan was a big upgrade with this setup. I've been getting around 20-30 fps, up to 50 in less densely populated areas. Clouds and objects can kill it. Vulkan helped; and I understood that the v12 clouds should be a lot less of a framerate hit. I also used a lua thingy to manage the view distance that made a lot of difference for me in visual quality and performance. This allowed me to max out objects. I tried running without it but it seems to still be relevant even after vulkan was released. Getting rid of reflections made a huge difference as well. I would recommend getting 64 or more GB of ram if you are going to install any scenery. And with a high end setup, why wouldn't you do that? Scenery packages are massive and all the ram x-plane does not use is going to be used for file caches. I have a few hundred GB of ortho4xp scenery. And I use sim heaven as well. Actually works and it's so pretty. But it's a lot of data. Also high resolution meshes tend to be memory and IO intensive and you should not even attempt that with less than 32 GB. Another good reason to max out memory in general is that it extends the life of your setup. 32 GB was a lot in 2014. It's kind of sad that it's still considered a lot. But if I had gotten only 8GB, I'd have been very unhappy with this thing a very long time ago.I'd consider 32GB a minimum. I'd probably shoot for 64 or more if I was going to buy right now. I'll wait until v12 is out and then buy something that will serve me for many years to come. I've been hearing good things about the M1 Pro and I might get myself a nice mac mini with a 4k screen. Maxing that out is not going to be cheap. But if it lasts me 8 years like my iMac, it will be worth it.
I am interested to know, what is the sweet spot for X-Plane 12 specifications will be on a Linux operating system that is Arch based. I keep coming back to Windows for my X-Plane experience because of availability of my addons and more importantly speech synthesis. Linux is severely lacking with speech synthesis allowing voice dictation and quality read back voices for your ATC interaction experience. My thoughts cheers Dion
Nice video, thanks for the info! One question.... Would it be right to infer, from your comment about the GTX 1080 running THREE displays and dropping below 20 with weather, that the same card with just ONE monitor @ 1080p would be ok-ish with weather?
Hello, a question that may be a bit silly, but why persist with vulkan or open gl? Wouldn't DirectX be better? I know it's too late and it would cost too much money to redo everything, but why openGl or Vulkan, but doesn't directx open more operating windows on our machines?
Michael. Great overview…would like to details on several specific aircraft used ( ie xplane 172, B737 Zibo Mod) with specific xplane graphics settings used to show how fps varies with aircraft & graphics settings.
Haven’t looked at Xplane in detail - when you say “triple” do you mean 3 viewports generated on a single PC or a single image stretched over 3 monitors like MSFS2020 has to do with its attendant distortion?
Is this just for the default aircraft in XP12? Generally add-ons have always had a big performance hit and a lot of us are going to be running complex aircraft that reduce performance further.
Im currently running with Macbook Pro M1 Max and typically get >70 fps at max settings. Will x-Plane 12 also use metal? So I can expext the same basic performance.
Michael i love your videos,ill be getting xplame 12 for sure,In the system requirements vulkan is not mentioned it says a GPU capable of rendering direct x 12 but also direct x 11 be supported,Also like you said if you building anew computer get the best,but you don't need a 12 gen intel CPU but I wouldn't go below a 8700 or 8700k mine runs at 4.2 out of the box the rest does not matter like you said unless your a graphics designer.
I thought in the original video (may be thinking wrong) that the way clouds are now as lots of single flat images was not efficient and that the new clouds will be? Get they will be volumetric, but with newer cards they should be able to manage that sort of effect? I'm hearing that *may* not be the case? Well it's alpha, but based on the requirements shown here, I'll be best using xp11 and xenviro for now.
Hello Michael, amazing explanation and cant wait to have x-plane 12! I have a pc with 12900k, 3080ti, 32gb ram...i have 5 monitors connected, 3x 55inch tv running 1440p for wraparound view, and 2x1080p monitors for airmanager, and Im averaging around 30 to 55fps depends on density..my cpu count is 0.0320 and gpu is 0.0050... seems like i have cpu bottleneck and it sometimes cause stuttering, especially looking at side monitors, the objects dont run by smoothly while flying low. Is there any settings i should mess with to overcome that issue? Having 55 fps and still stuttering is bit of a heartbreak i must admit
OC isnt really dead but the 12 series can be under volted and then have there all core multi bumped up a bit. Intel was VERY conservative with voltage on new CPUs. but a 12900k will do 5.0 on all cores at 1.28v core with high load line and not ever top 80c with the right cooling
Can you comment on the current state of 1 beefy PC for triple 1080p screens vs 3 PC's networked 1080ti each in networked config, 1 master and 2 slaves? I would prefer 1 PC for simplicity but with add-ons the CPU is always the bottle neck on 1 PC 3 screens setup even with a friend's borrowed 3090 using AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. In my tests (about a yr ago) the 3 networked PC's each with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and 1080ti (each at 1080p) had better performance then 1 PC with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and a 3090 doing 3 screens of 1080p
Hi Mike , not sure if i Fully understand you processor advice but I can't find one that is base of 4.8 but I think this one would be able to do well running with turbo boost on ? 12th Generation Intel Core i9 12900KF 3.20GHz Socket LGA1700 CPU/Processor
Excellent video thank you very much Mike. Im watching this on a PC with a 2008 1st gen i7 920 😀, it just keeps going but I know I need to upgrade now and these 12gen Intels look great! Very well explained. Ive also moved to nVidia and will never go back to AMD cards. I find the nVidias so much nicer , even their software is better designed.
Hey Michael, You built my machine 3 years ago. It is an i7 8086K with 16GB Ram and Nvidia 1060 6GB. I'm only running one 1080P monitor and get frame rates sometimes over 100 FPS, but routinely 80+ FPS. I assume with this hardware configuration, I will still be able to run X-Plane 12 with a decent frame rate unless I want super realistic cloud effects. I think I can get by with this processor and ram, would you recommend upgrading the GPU at that time or will I be able to dial back the X-Plane 12 settings to achieve similar frame rates?
With similar graphics settings, you should be OK. I would keep my eye out for a GPU as they should be coming down over the next several weeks as crypto mining winds down. The GPU is your weak link.
So I have a question. My pc has the following specs: Intel Core i7-10700K, XFX 8GB D6 RX 5700 XT THICC III Ultra, 32GB RAM. Does this mean I won't be able to run XP 12 well because I have an AMD?
Thanks M. Brown, Is the typical speed the processor or memory speed? Sorry for the lack of knowledge, I am searching for a pc and would like a gaming pc using at least a 3080 gpu with the 4.8 typical speed. Regards, J Anyone with knowledge please respond. Using 3 1080p tv's.
I use two screens at 1080p. But a single screen for X-Plane and the other one for other things like Little Nav Map etc. Will a RTX 3060 or 3060ti be sufficient? Does the second screen which only use moving maps etc. reduce my FPS ?
Hi Michael sorry to bother you but can you send me the link of your video on how to fix when you touch one screen but it response on another thnx heaps
Michael I bought a computer from you probably four years ago for x plane 11 now looking to upgrade for x plane 12 but i also want the Microsoft flight also on the computer do you have a build for both. R Starnes
Have you actually tried it with triple 1440p screens? That's what I am trying to use with XP11, but performance is quite bad. Dipping down to 20fps at EGLL London Heathrow. I have a Ryzen 5950X and RTX 3080. So really my hardware should not be struggling.
@@xforcepc Hi. Thanks for quick reply. Unfortunately that's not the issue. I am beginning to think it is either Windows 11 or my nVidia drivers. I plan on installing Windows 10 to see if that helps
Any comment on VR? Right now, in XP11 with Reverb G2 and RTX2080 with 8Gb of VRAM, the ammount of VRAM memory is running short for full resolution. If we put the new clouds on top..... Will 3080ti and 12GB VRAM be enough?
It all depends on what graphics settings and 3rd party addons you want, here is one new X-Plane 12 video, it should help you!😀 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0ixGD8zKpSA.html
@@swiss001leaks 1.- Because XP12 is under NDA for the few alpha testers that have it. 2.- Because this is not the latest alpha (is is the one leaked some time ago). 3.-Because it has nothing to do with VR and you put the link to get some views in your video.... should I continue? I think your video should be denounced and removed from RU-vid.
@@uadre This video can't be removed, even if they somehow remove it, then I'll make more google accounts and upload it again, I already uploaded it to many websites
Given AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D, is there any indication of which would benefit X-Plane 11 (and 12) FPS more: The 5800X with it's higher GHz, or 5800X3D with its extra cache? You were pretty clear about GHz being most important, but I thought AMD's claim of 15% performance gain with the 3D version was interesting. Of course, XP would at least have to use it. -thanks
It's not GHz that's most important for xplane, it's single core/instructions per clock that matters most. The main thing that limits single core performance these days in games is slow memory access (system ram is very very slow compared to a CPUs internal cache memory), the 3d vcache in the 5800x3d allows it to have both a faster and larger cache which benefits both games in general and xplane massively
Hey Michael, i can't afford that setup, do you think with a Nvidia gtx 1070ti 8gb ddr5 and a i7-8700 3.2ghz i will struggle too much? Thank you for your time
Just an AMD user here but that looks fine. By the looks of it, XP12 is going to be more GPU bound than CPU bound (unlike XP11) so the GFX Card will typically matter more than the CPU.
XP11 runns very well at max settings on my AMD R5 3600, B450, 16GB 3600, RTX2070s at UWQHD 3440x1440 with Headtracking + secondary 1080p Touchscreen for Instruments …. also as DCS without any stuttering. So I‘m not affraid of what‘s comming
@@geraldgray1892 you'll enjoy it. Especially for other programs/games you use. I know someone else that got a 6800xt for xplane11 and runs great for him too in Vulkan. OpenGL in XP11 isn't good for AMD cards but in XP12 won't an issue since it's Vulkan anyway
hello please can you put the airbus a330 to x cell phone please because there are very few planes and I pay every month and I'm already bored of the 737 thank you!!
Yes. The graphics and fps that MSFS achieves compared to X-Plane is better. Although I still like X-Plane more. But I have the impression that XP is not very optimized.
I know you only recommand PC because you sell them, but aren’t you curious of the latest Apple CPU/GPUs in xPlane? i’d love to see real world comparison with your high end hardware!
Regarding the 3060, not every product is specialized for gaming. This product probably suits a video editor better, holding bunches of 8k or 4k uncompressed clips in a timeline or when rendering final video output, or mixing cgi with live footage.
Hello guys, I need you to recommend me a 3080ti 12gb to use xplane in a 2k monitor and vr, there are many brands, models and series on the market... thanks!
@@xforcepc thanks Michael, it was one of the ones i had looked at, my pc: i9 9900k 32ram 1080ti 11gb, but i think i need to update gpu, with toliss products i have vulkan crashes...
