Leaving FS9 totally out of the mix...for it has very low demands upon a modern system;

 

On my system, at max settings, as compared max settings to either MS-based flight sim platforms,  XPX.40b3 (this one...not b2, b1, XPX.36, .35...etc...)  this is the smoothest, best-performing flight simulator on my system.  Hand's down.

 

Since .b3 has come out...my FPS stays at 29-30 FPS, through cloud so thick, you could think it was custard!  I have SkyMaxx Pro cranked up to 90 percent on all the cloud sliders, and still...XPX.40b3 blasts through all complex W2XP and SkyMaxx Pro rendered scenes....  Yep...Laminar is pulling rabbits out of the hat (E-DSF!!!), at a steady pace, and 'feel'...for HDR (with true object illumination!) , this would be the one sim platform I would endorse, if a person could only own one.  True ATC MS-based immersion will come..and when that does...I truly pity ORBX in not making any moves towards this platform.  XPlane has matured...into one H*LL of a flight simulator....and I can't see the pace v11, 12, 13 slacking up anytime soon.

 

Congrats to Ben and the Laminar Team.   This very latest version even if still tagged 'beta'..is giving spectacular system performance on my system with was built in 2009, and except for swapping out a GTX 285 vid card, for a GTX 680...nothing has been upgraded, other than going from the purchased system RAM of 6 GBs...to the now 12, that is the tops for this system.

 

Laminar..I am in a flight right now, between Moncton, New Brunswick, and Toronto, Ontario...and my gawd...EVERYTHING....your sim engine, HDR, SkyMaxx Pro, SoundMaxx, RTH/LUA scripts, is giving me spectacular R.O.I. on my hobby.  XPlane, will NEVER be not used, on this guy's system....no way!  Back to the flight....Tony...W2XP below me,  is kicking butt, when todays, real-event/realtime cloud bases open up to let me see it playing out, lol!

 

...signed, one h*ll of a happy Xplane 10.40b3 User!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/470836-when-a-simulator-sends-shivers-down-your-spineyou-finally-know-you-have-arrived/

Hi  Sesquashtoo

Well, that's a very enthousiastic advertisement for X-Plane, I like it very much.
Being an X-plane 'Die Hard" myself I'm very interesed to know your system configuration.
I just ordered myself a new PC which will become the Master PC in a '2 PC visuals through 2 beamers' configuration.
Can you  tell some more about your config and settings?

Hi  Sesquashtoo

Well, that's a very enthousiastic advertisement for X-Plane, I like it very much.

Being an X-plane 'Die Hard" myself I'm very interesed to know your system configuration.

I just ordered myself a new PC which will become the Master PC in a '2 PC visuals through 2 beamers' configuration.

Can you  tell some more about your config and settings?

Hi Lizz,

 

Well, my AVSIM Profile has my system pretty much out there, (my system is a Dell XPS 730x built and ordered in 2009)  and if you mean my settings in-house for XPX.40b3, here they are...if you need anything more, just let me know, Lizz!  Cheers...oh..and the clouds are finally breaking a bit, as I enter over Cornwall, Ontario...lol  Yeeehawwwwwwwwwwwww!

 

Please remember, that when you use SkyMaxx Pro, your Laminar cloud setting slider is no longer in the picture...all is handled by SkyMaxx Pro.

 

Wow,  your running some seriously high settings Mitch, very good 

Wow,  your running some seriously high settings Mitch, very good 

Hi Elaine...yeppers..this is what I have always 'demanded'/LOL, from Laminar...

 

Elaine, I went from a nominal back-and-forth, low/high FPS readouts in XPX.36 from a median low of 17, to my locked 30 FPS.  After a bumpy start with .b1 and .b2......I now have a spectacularly performing flight simulator in v.40b3!  My FPS never goes below 29-30...as per my settings above. I just hope that nothing gets 'broken' lol...going from .b3, to .b4 and beyond, until R.C.   I'll have to make a back up.....

 

Mitch

Great pictures, Mitch, as usual. Laminar Research should hire you for their marketing department - you'd rake in the dollars!

 

Jokes aside, my system is *slightly* weaker than yours - an overclocked 860M with 2 GB VRAM. Yet I get really low frame rates, with settings very similar to yours. I do not use SkyMaxx - could that be a reason? I tried it, but I couldn't stand the rotating balls of clouds that followed my plane as I moved through - it reminded me of XP9. And somehow the clouds became really low-res as I passed through.

 

What other visual add-ons do you use, besides SkyMaxx, W2XP?

What happened to my sim...????

Well....I just upgraded my TEST version of X-plane to 10.40b3 (I always keep two versions, one that runs stable in my Sim and another one for testing purposes).
I was so exited about your posting here that I had to see it myself, and I must admit it is quite a change, woooow.

I made a testflight around KSEA and framerates are better (more solid around the 30's), seems that the landscape looks better and those default airports included in this release are great too more houses etc. I didn't chage any setting compare with version 10.36, only updated.
I didn't use SkyMaxx yet, will be the next step to install it into this test version as well. Seems also that framerates at night are much higher....
I saw the occasional stutter though, but maybe I have to switch ON extended dsf's.......

Need to do much more testing but this really looks promising I must say.

Will report back when I installed and tested SkyMaxx pro.

Great pictures, Mitch, as usual. Laminar Research should hire you for their marketing department - you'd rake in the dollars!

 

Jokes aside, my system is *slightly* weaker than yours - an overclocked 860M with 2 GB VRAM. Yet I get really low frame rates, with settings very similar to yours. I do not use SkyMaxx - could that be a reason? I tried it, but I couldn't stand the rotating balls of clouds that followed my plane as I moved through - it reminded me of XP9. And somehow the clouds became really low-res as I passed through.

 

What other visual add-ons do you use, besides SkyMaxx, W2XP?

You could turn off cloud rotations in the UI....

You could turn off cloud rotations in the UI....

Wait... You can??? Well, time to reinstall...

Wait... You can??? Well, time to reinstall...

Or slow them down, there is a slider....we tried to make smp very scalable and customizable.....

Off to update xp now as I gave up due to poor performance compared to p3d.

Fingers crossed!

 

Chris

Off to update xp now as I gave up due to poor performance compared to p3d.

Fingers crossed!

 

Well, normally you should not need to cross fingers with X-Plane, but instead set a few (usually really just a few) rendering settings reasonably(!) and you should get very smooth FPS/performance.

Why do the clouds spin? I was under the impression that xp10 and skymaxx had actual 3d clouds. Thus they shouldn't spin like the 2d billboards in MSFS do so that they appear "3d"

Another rousing endorsement... awesome. ^_^

 

I'm not on .40b.anything yet, since I'm a Steam user, but I get wonderful performance as it is with 10.36.  I can usually keep my locked 30fps in FSX, but keeping it above 30fps in XP is easily done (usually runs 40-50ish fps) on my machine, and has resulted in a smooth-like-butter feel that I've never honestly experienced in my other sims before.

 

If they lock down 10.40 with performance equal to what you're getting with the current beta, I'm very excited to see the future.

Why do the clouds spin? I was under the impression that xp10 and skymaxx had actual 3d clouds. Thus they shouldn't spin like the 2d billboards in MSFS do so that they appear "3d"

 

 

Yes the clouds SkyMAXX use are 3d, with V2 billboards were implemented so we could give the clouds more detail......Its a hybrid system.  Because of how the eye point is in X-plane, under extreme circumstances and drastic viewpoint changes the clouds will rotate.......  We adjusted this so the point at which this happens is overhead