X-Plane 11 - perhaps hold off a bit

[kneighbour 32]

I have been an X-Plane user for years and fully expect to upgrade to XP 11, so I recently bought the full XP11 version. I know it is a beta, but it has so many obvious bugs I really wish I had waited a bit longer.

 

I have a CH Yoke and rudder pedals and an X-55 throttle. All very standard and known to XP11. It took me AGES to calibrate them. The system crashed 99% of the time after I calibrated an axis. Multiple reboots of XP allowed me to at last calibrate the hardware (I think, I am too wary to go back into those screens).

 

After a few hours spent getting it to load and with a few basic commands in the system, I flew the default Cessna around my home scenery. Pretty awful. While the framerates were about normal (30 or so), the screen was jerky and looked little different to XP10. By this time I was sick and tired of all the crashes, so perhaps I was just worn out. But was not impressed. Also had HUGE weather vaning effects - practically could not take off. Actually took off over the grass as could not keep the plane lined up. XP10 had the same problem quite often. Totally unrealistic and I had hoped that they had fixed this.

 

Anyway - I have just seen so many glowing reports of XP11 I thought I would throw in a contrary viewpoint. If you are on the fence, I would wait a bit longer. One thing I did like - you can simply drag a lot of stuff from XP10 across and it will work. All the scenery seems to work just fine. I understand the aircraft do not. The GUI interface is nice (in some ways), but frankly I don't really care. The old menu system worked just fine and the new one is only incrementally better. No big deal. What I would have loved to see is a good fault trapping system (ie no more CTD) or weird fatal errors. That and the framerates issues are really the only 2 things I care about.

 

It is so hard to get a decent experience in XP10 (and now XP11, I guess) that fully most of my flight sessions is spent tweaking and monitoring the framerate. The rest of the time I am just on the edge of my seat waiting for an error to happen. In hindsight, and having done hundreds (if not thousands) of flights, a CTD is not that common at all. But it is always there in the back of your mind. But the framerate issue is there 100% of the time, every flight.

 

Ok, rant over. I know it is a beta and am going to wait for the full release before I try anything again. I am pretty confident that things will settle down, so take my comments in the spirit they were meant.

[MarioDonick 752]

It is so hard to get a decent experience in XP10 (and now XP11, I guess) that fully most of my flight sessions is spent tweaking and monitoring the framerate. The rest of the time I am just on the edge of my seat waiting for an error to happen. In hindsight, and having done hundreds (if not thousands) of flights, a CTD is not that common at all. But it is always there in the back of your mind. But the framerate issue is there 100% of the time, every flight.

You mentioned 30 FPS are normal for you - isn't that decent enough?

 

Maybe you should just relax and not think so much about FPS or CTD risk (esp. since you made the experience that in your hundreds of flight CTD was not common). I stopped monitoring VAS usage in P3D, too (but I don't use a lot of stuff anyway there.)

 

Also, I wonder why you have CTDs in XP10 in the first place. This is VERY rare under normal circumstances.

[Patriot3810 182]

i haven't had a single crash, i get around 40fps on the ground in populated airports and 80fps and up once off the ground.the only problem i have is addon planes not being ready for 11

[kneighbour 32]

i haven't had a single crash, i get around 40fps on the ground in populated airports and 80fps and up once off the ground.the only problem i have is addon planes not being ready for 11

Sure, and a lot of other users seem to have a similar experience. But unfortunately your experience does not help me all that much. I have a top line system and still 30fps with a fresh XP11 install. Not unusual - but apart from the framerate issue, the jerkiness is an issue. It did not seem related to fps, but was almost unflyable. I certainly gave up.

You mentioned 30 FPS are normal for you - isn't that decent enough?

 

Maybe you should just relax and not think so much about FPS or CTD risk (esp. since you made the experience that in your hundreds of flight CTD was not common). I stopped monitoring VAS usage in P3D, too (but I don't use a lot of stuff anyway there.)

 

Also, I wonder why you have CTDs in XP10 in the first place. This is VERY rare under normal circumstances.

30fps is ok, but you really need a fair bit more. Won't get into why here. Would be more than happy if it stayed there though, but unfortunately it does not. It varies from 10 -70. Since so much effort is spent getting the average fps to 30, it is hard not to focus on it.

 

CTD in XP10 is very common. I have had probably dozens. There are whole threads in various forums devoted to this issue. It is such a hard thing to track down. I am a programmer myself, and none of my software EVER does this and it puzzles me greatly from a technical perspective. But I program in Delphi so perhaps that language has better error trapping or something.

 

And it is not a numbers thing. Even ONE CTD is enough to shatter you. If you have spent all day flight planning/prepping/flying, then on approach you get a CTD, you are shattered. That is precisely why I gave up FSX years ago - I was doing a flight from Singapore to Sydney, and multi hours into the flight, it crashed. Wiped FSX from my HDD the same day. I still don't do long flights to this day for this very reason.

 

If it is rare in your life, then think yourself lucky.

[MarioDonick 752]

It varies from 10-70. Since so much effort is spent getting the average fps to 30, it is hard not to focus on it.

 

 

 

30fps is ok, but you really need a fair bit more. Won't get into why here.

Well, I ask anyway: Why? X-Plane needs 20 FPS to keep up real-time simulation, and 30 FPS are more than your eyes can perceive. Do you do VR stuff?

 

 

CTD in XP10 is very common. I have had probably dozens. There are whole threads in various forums devoted to this issue. It is such a hard thing to track down.

And which reasons were stated at the end of log.txt? Or none at all?

 

 

Well, maybe I'm lucky, but I have rarely problems with my computers anyway. But I also don't "optimize" using obscure software, I keep conservative settings, and I'm happy with 25 FPS under all circumstances. (When you set your rendering settings, do that under the heaviest scenery and weather conditions possible. When you get there your 30 FPS, you should be way above that under lighter conditions.)

 

The only crashes I had in XP10 were on my old PC when I was moving the camera REALLY fast during twilight. Reason was that the old NVidia GT530 simply didn't cut it.

[FlyIce 354]

Man, you XP11 people are really spoiled by thinking 30fps is just "ok".

 

In P3D I'd be in heaven if I get consistent and smooth 30fps! It took me endless tweaks and hours to stick with that magic number with high settings! 

[kneighbour 32]

Well, I ask anyway: Why? X-Plane needs 20 FPS to keep up real-time simulation, and 30 FPS are more than your eyes can perceive. Do you do VR stuff?

Well, I have seen it described better elsewhere, but let me try. You are comparing XP10 (or any game) to a movie framerate of 24fps, I suspect, and thus thinking that anything better than that is acceptable. The problem is the movie system is analog. ie each frame is an incremental change from the one before and your eye tracks and records that. ie you might be filming a person walking - it records every small movement in the whole scene. Digital images on a screen are not like that or so I am led to believe. It is a graphics design/hardware issue. Your eye does not track and record each image in the same way as it does images on a movie screen. So you need a much higher digital framerate than 24 to make the motion blur in the same way.

 

That is the gist of it - do a Google search. There are threads on the ORG that goes into this as well and much better than I can.

Man, you XP11 people are really spoiled by thinking 30fps is just "ok".

 

In P3D I'd be in heaven if I get consistent and smooth 30fps! It took me endless tweaks and hours to stick with that magic number with high settings! 

Trust me, getting 30 fps in XP is a challenge as well. And keeping it there is a constant challenge. I have a $1000 video card and I still strive to get that.

[Patriot3810 182]

Sure, and a lot of other users seem to have a similar experience. But unfortunately your experience does not help me all that much. I have a top line system and still 30fps with a fresh XP11 install. Not unusual - but apart from the framerate issue, the jerkiness is an issue. It did not seem related to fps, but was almost unflyable. I certainly gave up.

 

30fps is ok, but you really need a fair bit more. Won't get into why here. Would be more than happy if it stayed there though, but unfortunately it does not. It varies from 10 -70. Since so much effort is spent getting the average fps to 30, it is hard not to focus on it.

 

CTD in XP10 is very common. I have had probably dozens. There are whole threads in various forums devoted to this issue. It is such a hard thing to track down. I am a programmer myself, and none of my software EVER does this and it puzzles me greatly from a technical perspective. But I program in Delphi so perhaps that language has better error trapping or something.

 

And it is not a numbers thing. Even ONE CTD is enough to shatter you. If you have spent all day flight planning/prepping/flying, then on approach you get a CTD, you are shattered. That is precisely why I gave up FSX years ago - I was doing a flight from Singapore to Sydney, and multi hours into the flight, it crashed. Wiped FSX from my HDD the same day. I still don't do long flights to this day for this very reason.

 

If it is rare in your life, then think yourself lucky.

my current t system. Is only a 6600k at 5ghz,have you tried turning the ai traffic off and turning reflections down? In the Nvidia control panel turn off threaded optimization,that should give you a big boost in fps.reflections hammer your cpu.

[kneighbour 32]

my current t system. Is only a 6600k at 5ghz,have you tried turning the ai traffic off and turning reflections down? In the Nvidia control panel turn off threaded optimization,that should give you a big boost in fps.reflections hammer your cpu.

Of course, Have spent years tweaking every single parameter known to man. Never use AI traffic (out of the question).

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

I think a lot of people who want 50+ framerates are comparing this simulator to FSX and, by association, P3D.  My computer will fly FSX (yes, I still have it installed) at 80 to 100 FPS.  X-Plane will rarely show those figures, usually getting 35-50 and sometimes down into the lower 20s in heavily populated areas.  If I was not looking at the data display, I would never know it had gotten that low.  Reason - FSX was developed in an era when computers were much less powerful and the highest demands are a piece of cake for newer computers.  X-Plane, with its 64 bit capability and its constant updates to stay on the "bleeding edge" while handling all three operating systems, blows the popular, but obsolete platforms out of the water.

 

John

[Patriot3810 182]

Ai is on by default unless you turn it off

[MarioDonick 752]

 

 

Trust me, getting 30 fps in XP is a challenge as well.

 

I just noticed your signature. 5 monitors? Well. That can be hard, I guess. I'm using one 1920x1080 screen, everything fine with that.

 

 

 

ie you might be filming a person walking - it records every small movement in the whole scene.

 

As far as I know, a "classic" movie camera takes 24 "photos" per second, and everything between two of these photos (frames) is lost. It is your brain that fills the gaps, be it a movie or be it a video game.

 

I guess the problem with games is that the FPS is not constant, but always changing (hard to avoid that), and that digital displays do not blur movements as CRT displays did.

[Paraffin 2,197]

Trust me, getting 30 fps in XP is a challenge as well. And keeping it there is a constant challenge. I have a $1000 video card and I still strive to get that.

 

All I can say is that your experience isn't universal. I've been enjoying frame rates in XP10 at a minimum of 40fps and it often shoots up to the 80's and 90's over something like a cloud deck. This is with a GTX 970 video card, Windows 10, i7 6700 4.0 GHz, 32 Gig RAM. 

 

Now, that's with careful adjustment of all the various settings. I dial up what's important to me, and dial down the stuff that isn't. I can still run HDR. I'm using SkyMaxx Pro clouds that help a little with frame rate. More importantly I suspect, I'm not going nuts with monitor resolution. My full screen is 1920x1200 and I often fly in a slightly smaller window so I can tab back and forth to Plan-G or just web browse during cruise. I also keep a fairly stripped-down PC, careful with too many background processes running, etc. For me anyway, X-Plane 10 has been perfectly stable delivering 40+ fps. I can't remember the last time I had a CTD. 

 

In the XP11 Beta I'm getting similar 40+ fps  frame rates even with the new eye candy like pbr reflections, which is great. Although it's hard to compare directly, because we only have that stupid quality slider now, where I can't adjust things like number of cars.

 

And guess what... I can crash the beta. All I have to do is choose "Save Default Configuration" on my Thrustmaster Warthog controllers and it will lock up. But hey, it's a Beta and Laminar knows about this multiple USB controller issue. 

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

These were the first three of Ben's known bugs:

 

Known Bugs 

• Low frame rate – we are still optimizing rendering; please do not report low framerate unless you see < 5 fps on low settings.
• If the visibility seems too low, set the visibility higher in Weather Customize screen.
• Setting up networking configurations may crash the sim. (XPD-6857, 6864)
•  
• They seem to constitute 80% of the complaints I am seeing on these boards and are being addressed by the devs.
•  
• John

[Paraffin 2,197]

I just noticed your signature. 5 monitors? Well. That can be hard, I guess. I'm using one 1920x1080 screen, everything fine with that.

 

Not just five monitors, his sig lists the main monitor as 4k. 

 

I can understand why people want to do this. On the other hand, complaining about not getting high enough frame rates running a rig like that, isn't going to draw much sympathy about achievable frame rates.

 

Personally I think 4k monitors are nuts right now, considering what's needed in flight sims and games to push those pixels. But that doesn't stop the monitor companies from pushing them, or the enthusiasts from buying them. It's not just flight sims. The game boards are filled with people complaining that they can't get 60fps with the latest AAA PC game on their 4k monitors.