Simmers using M1 Max

[tonywob 4,769]

I'm interested in hearing people's experience using X-Plane on the Apple M* chips. I have an older Intel I9 Macbook Pro but have recently ordered an M2 Max (the new ones), I'm curious how XP12 will run on it. Does anyone here use an M1 processor/gpu, what is your experience using them?

[jcomm 5,939]

Not my experience because I'm on ryzen, but a friend specifically upgraded to a MacBook Pro 16 with M1 to use xp12 because I told him it was going to be a better option than staying with xp11 and has since the first install of xp12 reported problems with certain areas of the World where he can't fly to or start flights from 😒

XP12 simply freezes.

Lisbon and surrounding airfields is one of the cases, and if he was able to fly from outside Lisbon and land there while not being able to start a flight from there after a few betas it simply became Impossible to fly to /from LPPT and surrounding airfields.

LR support started by answering and asking for additional log files but then never replied again and never offered a solution or a plausible explanation, and yes we have tried various fresh installs...

Other than the performance was ok for 16 GB RAM.

Edited January 20, 2023 by cagarini

[tonywob 4,769]

Thanks J, I spent a fair amount of money on getting the best model (I use it outside of simming as well). The LR devs seem to use these machines, so I'm going to presume it's going to do well, it should do at the wallet-draining price it cost 

[mSparks 2,086]

Running the updater now

EDIT:

M1 macbook air on an external display. Anything beefier really shouldn't have any problems by the looks of it.

Edited January 20, 2023 by mSparks

[Cameron XA 272]

1 hour ago, tonywob said:

I'm interested in hearing people's experience using X-Plane on the Apple M* chips. I have an older Intel I9 Macbook Pro but have recently ordered an M2 Max (the new ones), I'm curious how XP12 will run on it. Does anyone here use an M1 processor/gpu, what is your experience using them?

Hey Tony,

M1 Max in a 16 inch MBP here. X-Plane 12 runs quite stellar performance wise with it. You'll be quite pleased, especially coming from an Intel variant! 🙂

[soaring_penguin 428]

I am also in the market. One question, would 8GB be enough or do you guys think xplane needs 16GB of memory?

[jcomm 5,939]

That friend who upgraded to a macbook pro 16 had a previous macbook version with only 8 GB. 

While xp12 did run at minimal settings, well, some at mid / mid-low graphics settings, it was stuttering all over the place.

[soaring_penguin 428]

I suppose that this previous MacBook was also M1? Because I have also an intel MacBook and while it is more than adequate for work, it can’t handle xplane properly.

the memory management is completely different I heard when going with a M1.

[Bjoern 1,157]

6 hours ago, soaring_penguin said:

I am also in the market. One question, would 8GB be enough or do you guys think xplane needs 16GB of memory?

Go for 32, if available.

[jcomm 5,939]

Since there are at least two users here with Macbook Pro 16's, could you please confirm if you can select LPPT as departure or fly from, say, LPMT into LPPT without the sim freezing?

Thx!

[soaring_penguin 428]

1 hour ago, Bjoern said:

Go for 32, if available.

There is always the Apple tax, pocket resources are not infinite... 😉 

[Bjoern 1,157]

21 hours ago, soaring_penguin said:

There is always the Apple tax, pocket resources are not infinite... 😉 

Well, if you want a four-star dinner, you should have the funds to pay for the dessert as well. 😛

[tonywob 4,769]

Update... I tried it earlier on the M2 Max 16" Macbook Pro that I got this morning. (Maxed out config, except the SSD)

The difference between this and the I9 Mac is night and day, it runs super smooth on max settings and the laptop doesn't get too hot. So far, really happy with performance. 

 

[Colonel X 1,430]

My experience is that you can get decent performance out of it at pretty high settings, however it is nowhere near where Apple advertises it (basically as fast as a 3080). However my experience is limited to the demo, not buying until we get better AA.

My main pain points are a) I can't set resolution to 2560x1440 (that would be half of my 5K display), simply nothing happens when I set that resolution, the dropdown seems to be defunct, and b) there is no way on a Mac to lock to 30 FPS. So even when I am above 30FPS, frame times are all over the place and it's a shoddy experience fluidity wise.

[tonywob 4,769]

9 minutes ago, Colonel X said:

My main pain points are a) I can't set resolution to 2560x1440 (that would be half of my 5K display), simply nothing happens when I set that resolution, the dropdown seems to be defunct, and b) there is no way on a Mac to lock to 30 FPS. So even when I am above 30FPS, frame times are all over the place and it's a shoddy experience fluidity wise.

Yeah, there are a few utilities floating around that switches the screen to its native resolution (not using Retina scaling), once you set that, you'll need glasses to read your screen but you can then run X-Plane at native resolution. I was able to do this on my last mac, but the experience wasn't pretty 

As for performance.. I guess because it's such a massive improvement for me over my Windows 2080 laptop and my previous Macbook that I can forgive some issues for now, but I certainly did notice some issues such as flickering clouds and things like powerlines flickering like crazy.

However, what I failed to realise is how few games actually are compiled for the ARM64 platform (ignoring the iPad/iPhone games). In addition, Parallels advertises it can emulate/run Windows, but fails to mention clearly it's the ARM version of Windows that can barely run anything, including SQL database Server which I need for work. Docker luckily saved the day for me