I really liked XP11 and hated it a lot too... But I must say now that with XP I have much less the GTA effect... after countless hours of flight. This is not the subject of the discussion, it was my little parenthesis.

 

How to improve xp11 today :

- XP11 Vulkan

- Ortho4xp ZL16 + xEurope or TrueEarth by orbx

- xEnviro 1.6

-Traffic global

-ShadeX

 

 

While we all know each has their own preferences for how to "improve" the look and feel of the sim, I thought I would give mention to the one I settled on.

Ultimate Weather, which also has abilities to manage the water.  So I now have weather affected water the changes with winds, wave hts, reflections and whatnot....I personally find it an absolute necessity. 

And, without a doubt, XPRealistic Pro is my number 1 must have addon.

These two give me superior performance and look and feel.  I'll see if I can add some recent screenies to demonstrate my flying experience out the window.  Of course I usually only fly ortho which I have by the ton.

11 minutes ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

While we all know each has their own preferences for how to "improve" the look and feel of the sim, I thought I would give mention to the one I settled on.

Ultimate Weather, which also has abilities to manage the water.  So I now have weather affected water the changes with winds, wave hts, reflections and whatnot....I personally find it an absolute necessity. 

And, without a doubt, XPRealistic Pro is my number 1 must have addon.

These two give me superior performance and look and feel.  I'll see if I can add some recent screenies to demonstrate my flying experience out the window.  Of course I usually only fly ortho which I have by the ton.

I agree that XPRealistic is an absolute must have. Can you post some pics of how the water looks with Ultimate Weather?

Can I assume that once the textures are installed that I can still use xEnviro and it will not affect the water or animation effects added by UW?

Here are some randoms, ortho with ultimate weather (again also has water settings).

Edited April 28, 20215 yr by 1st fltsimguy

27 minutes ago, filou said:

I really liked XP11 and hated it a lot too... But I must say now that with XP I have much less the GTA effect... after countless hours of flight. This is not the subject of the discussion, it was my little parenthesis.

 

How to improve xp11 today :

- XP11 Vulkan

- Ortho4xp ZL16 + xEurope or TrueEarth by orbx

- xEnviro 1.6

-Traffic global

-ShadeX

 

 

This here is EXACTLY what I was looking for. This is what I know X-Plane can look like. Could I get your reshade settings? I'll work on building it up to this point in the coming months. 

34 minutes ago, DJJose said:

Can I assume that once the textures are installed that I can still use xEnviro and it will not affect the water or animation effects added by UW?

Good Question:  I think your assumption is correct but I wouldn't take that to the bank. There is a active forum on this addon on the ORG and questions can be asked there for sure. There is a facebook page just search facebook for X-Plane Ultra Weather XP, it won't allow me to post a facebook link here.  Best to ask on the forums about compatibility.

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/forum/263-ultra-weather-xp/

https://store.xpmgraphics.xyz/?fbclid=IwAR1_KIeFhnqH1el1-V46z6efiJsQxEWxQ9KGhBY8LXRnDh63ibKydOmvECo

FROM THE MANUAL

Since UWXP has its own compatible skies, clouds, lights, and water textures, and additional storm sounds and ambient sounds like birds and wind, itmakes no need for any other extra files to be used. UWXP files will get UWXP working with full performance and better visualization.
Using any other external textures will cause a lot of issues and distorted visuals, so do not use any external textures with UWXP. On the other hand,UWXP textures are made especially for UWXP and it will be a bad idea to use those textures without UWXP.
Generally, other plugins are not compatible with Ultra Weather XP. Therefore, you need to disable any other plugins, scripts, or shaders that control  X-Plane weather visually to make UWXP work with its full performance. If it is necessary to use other plugins and have them working along with UWXP, then to avoid having any issues, e.g. bugs, visual errors, abnormal performance, or bad textures, you will have to disable some UWXP functions from the UWXP plugin interface.
For example: if you have a plugin that controls the atmosphere or horizon that you want to use along with UWXP, you will need to disable the “Dynamic Atmosphere” option in UWXP before installing the other external plugin. The same way with other available options in UWXP.
We are not responsible for any bugs or bad visuals or Ambient sounds conflicts that might be caused by any other external plugins or textures. You need to use UWXP only to make it work with full performance.

 

Edited April 28, 20215 yr by 1st fltsimguy

59 minutes ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

Good Question:  I think your assumption is correct but I wouldn't take that to the bank. There is a active forum on this addon on the ORG and questions can be asked there for sure. There is a facebook page just search facebook for X-Plane Ultra Weather XP, it won't allow me to post a facebook link here.  Best to ask on the forums about compatibility.

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/forum/263-ultra-weather-xp/

https://store.xpmgraphics.xyz/?fbclid=IwAR1_KIeFhnqH1el1-V46z6efiJsQxEWxQ9KGhBY8LXRnDh63ibKydOmvECo

FROM THE MANUAL

Since UWXP has its own compatible skies, clouds, lights, and water textures, and additional storm sounds and ambient sounds like birds and wind, itmakes no need for any other extra files to be used. UWXP files will get UWXP working with full performance and better visualization.
Using any other external textures will cause a lot of issues and distorted visuals, so do not use any external textures with UWXP. On the other hand,UWXP textures are made especially for UWXP and it will be a bad idea to use those textures without UWXP.
Generally, other plugins are not compatible with Ultra Weather XP. Therefore, you need to disable any other plugins, scripts, or shaders that control  X-Plane weather visually to make UWXP work with its full performance. If it is necessary to use other plugins and have them working along with UWXP, then to avoid having any issues, e.g. bugs, visual errors, abnormal performance, or bad textures, you will have to disable some UWXP functions from the UWXP plugin interface.
For example: if you have a plugin that controls the atmosphere or horizon that you want to use along with UWXP, you will need to disable the “Dynamic Atmosphere” option in UWXP before installing the other external plugin. The same way with other available options in UWXP.
We are not responsible for any bugs or bad visuals or Ambient sounds conflicts that might be caused by any other external plugins or textures. You need to use UWXP only to make it work with full performance.

 

Thanks.

For me, flying at dusk or night is where the sim really shines:

This coupled with the realistic FDs and effects by XPR, it's an absolute joy. The pics look a little dark, but the immersion is as real as it gets. There's nothing ugly about my XP11.

 

16 minutes ago, DJJose said:

For me, flying at dusk or night is where the sim really shines...

It is also my favorite time of the day for flights 😉

Do you use some kind of night lighting mod or default ?

Edited April 28, 20215 yr by Bulva

25 minutes ago, Bulva said:

It is also my favorite time of the day for flights 😉

Do you use some kind of night lighting mod or default ?

That's xEnviro.

These are my favorite freeware enhancements:

REALLife V9 _by Leale Ryan

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/46434-real-life-v9-1141-xvision-1150-vulkan-preset-by-leale-ryan/

Excellent Reshade preset

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/65607-excellent-reshade-preset-xp11-vulkan-opengl/

Beautiful Xplane Nights V2

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/59122-beautiful-xplane-nights/

 

6 hours ago, ShortFinal said:

but didn't have the PC power to run them. Now I do, (not using 10) and am working on moving on from FS9. 

So the two things I posted on page one are really the things to concentrate on to get the most out of it in my humble opinion. There is a ton of other things you can do, but none have the same overall impact.

I'm all the way back on default clouds, it really seems to me there is something different happening with cloud rendering in VR, they look quite different, VR is much more "fluffy", which is all I ever wanted

Ortho4XP as a freeware solution to replace the horror show that is xplane default terrain textures, that can be too much like hard work, OrbX did the hard work so you dont have to in some regions (UK, chunks of the US).

Those are enough, there are still others you may want to do (e.g. default xplane ATC is useless, but there are much better options for every preference available as plugins, autogate & autogate airports if you fly tubeliners, SAM for paying for a solution), but dont rush into them, its an insanely complex simulator, and its very easy to break things when you are still learning how to get it to do and look exactly as you want.

There's a good list of freeware plugins here

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/187888-library-of-freeware-plug-ins-x-plane-11-all-platforms/

Can't post the photos here for some reason, so i've linked them. I have done what you all said and It is getting better. In the ZIBO mod (737-800 4K not 2K) at LAX max graphics I pull 22fps, add the FPS tweak and it jumps to 32-35 with no visual loss. Over the coming weeks I will add the Forkboys ortho's, some sceneries, and that should be good. sadly cannot find any good free cloud addon so I may have to invest a bit. I've tried different textures but nothing catches my eye as looking "realistic". As for the water and vegetation I found FlyAgi to work well and provide pleasing visuals. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DskRaZbwkqBkr3IpuFrvdZV5F8YWNa67/view?usp=sharing, usp=sharing,https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R8y_yAvEOEzjRWWCBezg7qYlF7swO7ZH/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YyrxSDaihyh_5qCiy4F7FYTM2h9fM9br/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bE74eJkN8iBh3WOEl9FNTt-wfTeXpI8B/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iEfcXv0oMoxyd9bO9N2X0fYRBir6sc5q/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sAiEBgzt9lhhYwwIDo_Ha2ZxpesliQzV/view?usp=sharing, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1usmx426TpvQ6Z5OzaYqzaNYbvy04tQ0k/view?usp=sharing

Edited April 29, 20215 yr by ShortFinal
bad link

1 hour ago, ShortFinal said:

sadly cannot find any good free cloud addon

Nano has come a long way with

but for all the extra features, right now default clouds is roughly as good as it gets, at least once the novelty wears off and you just want something that works flawlessly 

As mentioned in a previous post, the results below are archived with just the following programs:

- xVision (about $23 SimMarket)

- ASXP (about $43 SimMarket)

- alpilotx HD Mesh and UHD Mesh (Free)

- SFD Global ($30 x-plane.org)

 

For those looking for better clouds:

 

I lot of great suggestions and gorgeous pictures that make XP 11 look beautiful and tempting to install again, but (and there's always a but) I rather just wait to see what LR brings to the table with XP12, hopefully they will bring enough improvements to make me come back.