X-Plane 11 My Verdict

[Bjoern]

Bjoern, it's worth it - the overall experience with X-Plane is so much better than P3D; no blurries, no popping autogen, no popping terrain, no stutters. The only down side and it is quite a big one is the investment in P3D and all those aircraft not transferable or yet made for XP.

FSXSE runs quite well and I don't have large sums of money invested in FSX either, it's more about voiding the thousands of hours of development that'll hurt.

I'm most intrigued that there's still potential in X-Plane's platform, that's it's available for all relevant operating systems and that the development roadmap is more tailored to the average simmer instead of professional (government) organizations.

Oh, and I wouldn't have to get a credit card just for buying it.

Bjoern, it very much depends on what suits you best, I could have gone to P3D and taken many aircraft from FSX with me but chose to go to X Plane and will no doubt spend more money but over a longer period of time. As for hardware upgrades I am only running an i5-4690 CPU @ 3.50GHz with 8GB RAM and a NVIDIA G-Force GTX 760. Admittedly I am only running Ortho and X Europe 2 but still getting good frame rates and as Chris wrote:

no blurries, no popping autogen, no popping terrain, no stutters.

Much the same for me in terms of hardware. Intel i5 4670 @ 4.2, 8 GB, GTX1060 or i7 6700HQ @ 3.1, 8 GB, GTX960M.


Downloading the demo at the moment. Let's see what it can do on the laptop.

[Nigel H-J]

Hope that you find X Plane enjoyable, with the setup you showed i7 6700HQ @ 3.1, 8 GB, GTX960M. it will run extremely well but even with the lower spec you can run it comfortably.

Let us know how you get on with it.

Regards
Nigel.

[Bjoern]

Installed the demo, but at the moment, I'm only succeeding in making it crash while playing with the graphics settings.

[grumpyoldb]

I'm struggling with frame rates at the moment, but from what I've read, it used to be about cpu and graphics card. I seems to be more about cpu and ram these days. I have a 3.10gb AMD A8-9600 Radeon R7 Quad core cpu. Only 2 memory strips. Originaly fitted with one strip of Crucial 4gbs, I've added an 8gb to it. I'm about to remove the 4gb and replace it with a 16gb strip giving me 24gb. It'll cost me around £120 for the 16gb but I can put the 4gb on ebay and get around £30 for it.

[ChrisHunt]

Steve, you're probably better getting two matching DIMMS of 8Gb each rather than a mismatched pair.

[Bjoern]

Ah, got it working. HDR, FXAA, medium textures, high amount of world objects, minimal reflections and static planes. With 12 AI aircraft, it's 30 FPS straight out of KPAE. Not bad. Not bad at all!

It even has a MSFS keyboard layout and the UI is terribly easy to use with some nifty features like "Send to NAV1" for navaids.


I still have money stored in the bank at a flight sim shop, but XP11 retails for 90€ (75€ boxed) there.

[grumpyoldb]

Steve, you're probably better getting two matching DIMMS of 8Gb each rather than a mismatched pair.

I'll look into that Chris. I read that they don't have to be matched these days. It just goes to show not to beleive everything these days. Cheers.

[grumpyoldb]

Ah, got it working. HDR, FXAA, medium textures, high amount of world objects, minimal reflections and static planes. With 12 AI aircraft, it's 30 FPS straight out of KPAE. Not bad. Not bad at all!

It even has a MSFS keyboard layout and the UI is terribly easy to use with some nifty features like "Send to NAV1" for navaids.


I still have money stored in the bank at a flight sim shop, but XP11 retails for 90€ (75€ boxed) there.

I paid £49-00 direct from XPlane for mine.

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Bjoern, I bought it directly from X Plane at $59.99 which in sterling is £44.73 and is around 50.95 Euro. I would honestly suggest it is best to go straight to the developer (if my sums in exchange rates add up) and buy it which I did.

https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/buy-it/

Regards
Nigel.

[Bjoern]

Simple rules for memory modules: If the module is supported by the mainboard, the slowest one in the mix sets the overall pace.

I paid £49-00 direct from XPlane for mine.

Hi Bjoern, I bought it directly from X Plane at $59.99 which in sterling is £44.73 and is around 50.95 Euro. I would honestly suggest it is best to go straight to the developer (if my sums in exchange rates add up) and buy it which I did.

https://www.x-plane.com/desktop/buy-it/

Thanks, guys. After checking other retailers (could not find significantly lower prices), buying directly from Laminar seems to be the best way.


I'll need to think this through though. I must be part scottish since these investements are always a huge mental battle.