What is the real system requirements for XP 11

[jfri 42]

For now I have X plane 10 (and FSX SE P3D 2.5) and consider buying X Plane 11 when it is on sale. But will my computer be able to benefit from the improved features ?
I have seen some contradictory information about what it require.

My system is
CPU I7 4770K OC 4.5 GHz
RAM 16 Gb 2200 MHz
Video card Nvidia GTX 970 4 Gb

The listed recommended requirements is stated as

CPU Intel Core i5 6600K at 3.5 ghz or faster
I will be fine here as I can see

Memory: 16-24 GB RAM or more
First this is unambiguous. Which is it 16 or 24 or more ? Are my 16 Gb sufficient ?

Video Card: a DirectX 12-capable video card from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel with at least 4 GB VRAM (GeForce GTX 1070 or better or similar from AMD)
Again unambiguous. Is it a card with 4 Gb like my GTX 970 or is it a GTX 1070 which has 8 Gb VRAM ?

I am aware that the user interface is much improved. Although that is a significant advantage I still feel that something more needs to be better to justify the price even if its reduced by 33%.

[turnandbank 243]

16GB of system RAM is fine. Your video card is the weakest link.

I have the same CPU, but my OC is only 4.2 GHZ. I upgraded from a GTX980 3GB to a GTX1070 TI 8GB and it made a significant difference. I can now enable shadows and upped the AA from 2X to 4X. I can use 8X AA in many areas, but it is not as smooth in major cities or with dense forests. This is on a 2560x1080 display. 4K is another story.

X-Plane can take plenty of advantage of VRAM with some addons such as ORBX TE using more than 8 GB if you use the high texture setting. I still keep my texture setting at medium.

[Paraffin 2,197]

What monitor resolution are you using? That will be the major limiting factor with your current video card. And by the way, the GTX 970 only has 3.5 GB of usable VRAM in X-Plane. It's a weird design where the last 0.5 of VRAM is slower, and most flight sims and games won't touch that last 0.5 GB of VRAM in that card. 

That said, the GTX 970 can work okay in XP11 if you don't use a high monitor resolution, and don't go nuts with the slider settings.

That's the video card I'm using (see full specs below), and I get an average 30-45 fps on my 1920x1200 monitor over most scenery in XP11. It only goes much lower (but still above 25 fps) if the ActiveSkyX plugin is injecting multiple cloud layers. My settings with the GTX 970 and my 1920x1200 monitor:

Visual Effects: High (HDR)
Texture Quality: High
Antialiasing: 2x SSAA+FXAA
Draw shadows on scenery: Off
Number of World Objects: Maximum
Reflection Detail: Minimal

I'm using 32 GB of system RAM which is a nice cushion for multitasking (Web browsing in Chrome during cruise, etc) and it's what you might want if you use the UHD terrain mesh. But otherwise you should be fine with 16 GB RAM. Your next upgrade (like mine) should eventually be a better video card.

[jfri 42]

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

What monitor resolution are you using?

I have a 27" monitor using 2560*1440

[Paraffin 2,197]

7 minutes ago, jfri said:

I have a 27" monitor using 2560*1440

That's going to tax your 970 more than mine at 1920x1200, but it might still be okay if you reduce the eye candy.

What you can do right now is download the XP11 demo. You can fly around KSEA in any of the default aircraft, and re-start it when the timer runs out. The demo is exactly the same as the full simulator, just restricted in area and with a timeout. 

Start with the settings I listed above and see how it goes. Then back down the Visual Effects and Texture Quality if you don't get an acceptable frame rate (you need to be above 20 fps or the sim gets weird). Maybe back down World Objects too if you have to. And start saving for that new video card. 🙂

[sanh 823]

Surprised at the high spec requirements. I have a i5 3570k at 4.4ghz and 970 gtx card and 8gb ram and run xplane with most settings 3/4 of the way across with no problem. I fly the zibo and have no addon airports and it is smooth. Running at 2.5k with 2x aa +faa

Edited July 6, 2019 by sanh

[turnandbank 243]

6 minutes ago, sanh said:

Surprised at the high spec requirements. I have a i5 3570k at 4.4ghz and 970 gtx card and 8gb ram and run xplane with most settings 3/4 of the way across with no problem. I fly the zibo and have no addon airports and it is smooth. Running at 2.5k with 2x aa +faa

Sure that will work, but not with UHD mesh and ORBX TE or equivalent scenery and 4x aa. I can easily exceed the 8GB VRAM of my 1070TI with addon scenery unless I keep the texture slider at medium (which I do, and it still looks great). It ultimately comes down to what type of scenery and mesh is used, as well as display resolution. Default scenery and 2x aa is rarely a problem even on an older card.

[Bjoern 1,153]

Desktop: i5 4670 @ 4.2 GHz turbo, 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR3 RAM, GTX1060 6GB, SSDs

Laptop: i7 6700HQ, 8 GB 2133 MHz DDR4 RAM, GTX960M 2 GB, SSDs

 

Both devices run XP11 just fine.

[jfri 42]

4 hours ago, Paraffin said:

That's going to tax your 970 more than mine at 1920x1200, but it might still be okay if you reduce the eye candy.

Start with the settings I listed above and see how it goes. Then back down the Visual Effects and Texture Quality if you don't get an acceptable frame rate (you need to be above 20 fps or the sim gets weird). Maybe back down World Objects too if you have to. And start saving for that new video card. 🙂

I have reduced the visual sliders somewhat in XP 10 and after reducing AA I got over 20 fps. Question is the visual sliders the same in XP 11 and does the settings mean the same as in XP 10 ? Does XP 11 require more of the system with the same amount of detail (i.e same AA AF number of objects etc).

Of course it must be better if it is going to be worth the money.

I want to wait with video card upgrade until I know more about MS FS2020 and P3D V5 and their requirements.

[jfri 42]

3 hours ago, sanh said:

Surprised at the high spec requirements. I have a i5 3570k at 4.4ghz and 970 gtx card and 8gb ram and run xplane with most settings 3/4 of the way across with no problem. I fly the zibo and have no addon airports and it is smooth. Running at 2.5k with 2x aa +faa

When I bought XP 10 I also had 8 Gb RAM. And then I run in trouble with out of memory ( RAM ) after trying some freeware scenery addon. That has never happened before in any program

[Paraffin 2,197]

1 hour ago, jfri said:

I have reduced the visual sliders somewhat in XP 10 and after reducing AA I got over 20 fps. Question is the visual sliders the same in XP 11 and does the settings mean the same as in XP 10 ? Does XP 11 require more of the system with the same amount of detail (i.e same AA AF number of objects etc).

I think the general consensus is that XP11 was a re-write of a big chunk of the core engine from XP10, and we now have better lighting and other visual effects at about the same frame rates, on the same hardware, that we had with XP10. 

Laminar has been putting a big push on performance in this cycle, and we may get a further boost when XP11 moves the graphics API from OpenGL to Vulkan (for Windows) and Metal (for Mac) in the next few months. You can see exactly what the difference is by downloading the free demo here. 
 

Quote

Of course it must be better if it is going to be worth the money.

It is, believe me. I've been with XP for several recent versions, and the jump from XP10 to XP11 was a big one, well worth the money.

[Airboeing 87]

As others have already noted, it's highly dependent on which addons and settings you use. It might work perfectly well - or it might give you constant stutters.

I wouldn't go with less than 8GB VRAM, but that's just me.

 

I can someties get my rig (4790K @4.4Ghz, Titan X with 12GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM, SSDs, single screen @ 1920x1200) well below 30fps, even with no scenery or weather addons at all and no setting above 3/4, when I use a highly detailed aircraft addon in a dense area close to the ground.

[jfri 42]

1 hour ago, Airboeing said:

As others have already noted, it's highly dependent on which addons and settings you use. It might work perfectly well - or it might give you constant stutters.

I wouldn't go with less than 8GB VRAM, but that's just me.

 

I can someties get my rig (4790K @4.4Ghz, Titan X with 12GB VRAM, 32 GB RAM, SSDs, single screen @ 1920x1200) well below 30fps, even with no scenery or weather addons at all and no setting above 3/4, when I use a highly detailed aircraft addon in a dense area close to the ground.

What are these dense areas I should stay away from ? For example in FSX there is huge difference taking of from KSEA in Seattle compared to just a little bit outside this city. I think the same apply to New York.

Also which planes can tax performance that hard ?