My Brief Affair With X-Plane 11 is Over - I'm Back With My Wife (FSX)

I recently thought I would give X-Plane 11 a try. I am back with FSX, feeling like a guy who has just had a brief fling with a floozie and who is now back with his wife. For me, it was a pretty good waste of sixty bucks. I guess my computer isn't strong enough to handle X-Plane 11 but, even if it was, there are so many things about the program I don't like, find annoying, are not as good as FSX, etc.

If you haven't tried X-Plane 11, I'm not saying don't do it. Just make sure you have a super-strong CPU and graphics card and be prepared for some significant differences between the two simulators - oh yes, and you also have sixty bucks you don't really care about. The main thing I did not like is the virtual cockpit aspect of X-Plane 11. I understand what they are trying to do, which is make the cockpit experience as real as possible but what it translates into is every time you want to adjust anyting on the panel, you have to reach for the hat knob on your joystick and physically bring it over so that you can see it and handle it. That gets tiresome in a big hurry.

Distant scenery shimmers in annoying yellow, green and purplish lines. Jet liners pump huge glomps of smoke out of their engines at 5K feet. They are very limited in the number of aircraft available for flight.

I'm sure that there are ways around the things I don't like about X-Plane 11. Compared to FSX however, I'm not sure I want to go to the trouble of finding a way around all of them.

Merely a single affair?! By comparison I suppose that I am a FS serial bigamist, what with FSX, FSXSE, XPlane 10, XPlane 11 and Aerofly FS2 all loaded on my computer and all in use at one time or another, depending upon what I am interested in doing! Although I must emphasize that in the non simulated world I am singularly faithful to She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed (this in the unlikely event that She happens upon this missive!).

Having said all of that with tongue in cheek, I would offer this advice - leave XPlane on your computer, at least for awhile, and play around with it. You may find, as I did under similar circumstances, that it will grow on you. The virtual cockpit can be dealt with using the ability to assign views to each of the number keys. As to having to have a super computer, it runs well on my Dell Dimension XP with I-7 3770 at 3.4ghz with an Nvidia GTX 1050T, a retrofit video card that works stunningly well at getting good performance out of mediocre machines like mine! It replaced a GT 640, with which I was getting 6-8 fps on XP11 and it turns out anywhere from 50 to around 25 fps now, depending upon the complexity of the scenery. So it may be merely a replacement video card you may need.

As to all of that smoke, consider it a time machine in a way - in the 1960's jets did exactly that!

Good Luck!

Tony Vallillo

Merely a single affair?! By comparison I suppose that I am a FS serial bigamist, what with FSX, FSXSE, XPlane 10, XPlane 11 and Aerofly FS2 all loaded on my computer and all in use at one time or another, depending upon what I am interested in doing! Although I must emphasize that in the non simulated world I am singularly faithful to She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed (this in the unlikely event that She happens upon this missive!).

 

Having said all of that with tongue in cheek, I would offer this advice - leave XPlane on your computer, at least for awhile, and play around with it. You may find, as I did under similar circumstances, that it will grow on you. The virtual cockpit can be dealt with using the ability to assign views to each of the number keys. As to having to have a super computer, it runs well on my Dell Dimension XP with I-7 3770 at 3.4ghz with an Nvidia GTX 1050T, a retrofit video card that works stunningly well at getting good performance out of mediocre machines like mine! It replaced a GT 640, with which I was getting 6-8 fps on XP11 and it turns out anywhere from 50 to around 25 fps now, depending upon the complexity of the scenery. So it may be merely a replacement video card you may need.

 

As to all of that smoke, consider it a time machine in a way - in the 1960's jets did exactly that!

 

Good Luck!

 

Tony Vallillo

Thanks, Tony. I'm not giving up on X-Plane. It stays on my computer, and I will go back to it from time to time. It may grow on me. I wish I knew how to increase my frame rate. I can't get it any higher than 20 and it's usually in the high teens or lower. Things aren't jerky, but I think the rate should be a lot higher. In FSX, my frame rate is in the mid, to high 30's. Any suggestions on upping the FR in X-Plane? I have cranked everything down to zero on all of my sliders. What else can I do?

Why didn't you try the X-plane demo before you bought it? I did, and while it has some good things going for it in terms of scenery. I wanted certain A/C. The night vision mode was more like a green overlay. Interesting concept. I guess that would come in handy flying a Heli.

I did try the demo before I bought it. But it quickly ran out of time and I wasn't fully aware of all the problems. I forgot to mention the lengthy load time, which I don't like at all.

I did try the demo before I bought it. But it quickly ran out of time and I wasn't fully aware of all the problems. I forgot to mention the lengthy load time, which I don't like at all.

To enjoy X-Plane at its best requires a reasonably fast machine. Unfortunately it seems that you're slightly below that requirement which will have an adverse effect on your enjoyment (a fast CPU/GPU, coupled with an SSD makes all the difference).

Could you possibly post your computer specifications?

Thanks

Dominic

i totally agree....waste of sixty bucks....another fine scam.

Ridiculous comment.

There are thousands of users globally enjoying the sim, so I can only assume you're doing something wrong.

Thanks, Tony. I'm not giving up on X-Plane. It stays on my computer, and I will go back to it from time to time. It may grow on me. I wish I knew how to increase my frame rate. I can't get it any higher than 20 and it's usually in the high teens or lower. Things aren't jerky, but I think the rate should be a lot higher. In FSX, my frame rate is in the mid, to high 30's. Any suggestions on upping the FR in X-Plane? I have cranked everything down to zero on all of my sliders. What else can I do?

Why would you crank things down for higher numbers. Read Lesh's post. Enjoy the smoothness. Don't get caught up in these numbers. I now have all my sims set between 20 - 30. If I get stutters I know that the frame rates have decreased. They are usually 10 - 15.

We need to remain mindful of one thing in XPlane, and that is that it stays smooth well into the single digits of frame rate. What changes is time -- it slows down time! Although your airspeed may well read 140 knots you are moving over the ground at more like 80 when this kicks in.

I asked about it over on the XPlane forums and they said that it is an artifact of the fact that XP can actually be part of an FAA certified platform. Not as most of us have it, of course, because that also requires FAA certified hardware, but the software is capable of being used as the basis of an FAA certified rig. The FAA apparently requires a certain degree of smoothness overall, and XP apparently prioritizes that with the result being the slo-mo effect when the frame rates drop low. I used to see this all the time with my GT 640 video card, which was incapable of rendering XP11 any faster than 8fps or so!

So it will stay smooth far lower into the fps's than the other brand, but you may also be in slow motion!

Why didn't you try the X-plane demo before you bought it? I did, and while it has some good things going for it in terms of scenery. I wanted certain A/C. The night vision mode was more like a green overlay. Interesting concept. I guess that would come in handy flying a Heli.

I tried the demo and removed it almost instantly. If the x-plane guys want to have people leave or not purchase x-plane, keeping the demo is the best way to do it. It’s repugnent. Yep, that bad.

I understand what the OP is getting at. For a FAR superior graphical experience AND with less hardware required, FSX blows x-plane out of the water and into oblivion.

I tried the demo and thought I was back in 1998 with flight sim....all at maybe 5fps.

I can run FSX with orbx ground scenery and airports and with traffic and PMDG NGX at graphical decent settings at 20-30fps. Easy choice to make unless you want to purchase a 50gb, GTX 3080.

I tried the demo and removed it almost instantly

(etc.)

What a bizarre report. Did it not occur to you that something might be wrong? Your description certainly doesn't match my experience. Perhaps you're talking about an older version of X-Plane.

I, too, have cheated. I recently bought X-Plane 11, and admit I'm impressed by a number of aspect of it. However, its ATC system is dumber than that of FSX. One sampling I've had of it was to set up a simple flight in the Hawaiian Islands. It was Honolulu to Kahului, via 2 VORs. Every time, as part of the approach, it vectors me directly into the mountain.

Because I've flown into Salt Lake City repeatedly (a favorite FSX destination, for some reason), I've seen better than this. Next.

What a bizarre report. Did it not occur to you that something might be wrong? Your description certainly doesn't match my experience. Perhaps you're talking about an older version of X-Plane.

Was the latest and greatest demo. It doesn’t even compare to fs2002 in my opinion visually. The hardware to run it exceeds every other sim out together.

If it looked and ran good, I’d be running it instantly.

I cannot get completely over my affair...it is with P3D v4.1.. but I miss FSX as everything works like it should in it...and addons are not always easy to install in other sims...so I miss you FSX my darling ...and I just flew with success a pmdg 777 from Seattle to Tucson using a missed approach and did the go around and landed on RWY 11L,,,,,thanks my darling FSX for taking me back...al v

Have you sought medical attention for your issues with software? Did you tell "my darling" you "cheated" on it?:rolleyes:

Rupert