X-Plane 12 & Laptops

[Seahawk72s 5]

I would like to hear from users who have X-Plane 12 and are running it on a laptop.

I know the minimum specs and have read of full end machines but what are the specs for running 12 at best speed but not over doing it.

[GoranM 3,799]

I run it on an M1 Max, 64GB MacBook Pro with no issues.

Settings medium-high and getting 100+ fps with the default C172 and 40-50 fps with the CL650.

[fluffyflops 1,864]

7 minutes ago, Seahawk72s said:

I would like to hear from users who have X-Plane 12 and are running it on a laptop.

I know the minimum specs and have read of full end machines but what are the specs for running 12 at best speed but not over doing it.

you could have the worlds best laptop, but if youve got some old xp11 scenery, for example UK2000 staff,  you wont get much over 30 fps and even less at night.  

 

[Bjoern 1,164]

Starting from $/€1500, you may find laptop models that deliver a usable XP12 experience.

On my 2020 laptop (4800H, RTX2060, 32 GB), XP11 and 12 framerates are acceptable at medium details, but the subjective experience is average at best as I'm spoilt by a top of the line desktop PC.

[tonywob 4,770]

Like GoranM, I run XP12 on a Macbook Pro, M2 Max with 96GB. Have no problems with performance, even in densely populated areas

However, the laptop was not cheap, so I'd expect it to work well :-)

[Bjoern 1,164]

If I can't find a good all-AMD laptop for my next one, I may just go for Apple as well. The AMD + NVidia combo prevalent on 90% of performance-oriented laptops is just junk outside of Windows.

[comair_04 1]

So far I have tried Asus Flow Z13 2022,  Asus Rog GA402, and Macbook Air M2 15.3. I think the best performance is indeed the mac. The Macbook, doesn't get hot and its lightweight. Whereas most gaming laptops are heavy and burns your lap when playing games. I would go the mac, but make sure you have enough storage.

[tonywob 4,770]

10 hours ago, comair_04 said:

So far I have tried Asus Flow Z13 2022,  Asus Rog GA402, and Macbook Air M2 15.3. I think the best performance is indeed the mac. The Macbook, doesn't get hot and its lightweight. Whereas most gaming laptops are heavy and burns your lap when playing games. I would go the mac, but make sure you have enough storage.

I also have an Asus gaming laptop with a 3080, and it does indeed get much hotter than the Macbook Pro and the Macbook also outperforms it with X-Plane.

The biggest problem with my Macbook Pro by far is simply that there are very few decent games for it, and those that do work tend to be poorly done ports or running under Rosetta. There is a lot of power to use in these devices, but nothing really (games wise) to use on them :(

[jcomm 6,004]

I've seen the performance on a friend's Macbook Pro 15 M2 and it was incredible.

I once thought going Macbook and restrict myself the use of other sims than XP and Aerowinx PSX, plus eventually Aerofly FS, but I am glad I didn't because I couldn't run either MFS or P3D then 😕 and Airlinetools A32x..

[brinx 276]

12 hours ago, tonywob said:

I run XP12 on a Macbook Pro, M2 Max with 96GB.

Out of curiously. Why is so much memory needed on a laptop? How much of that RAM is typically free?

 

[GoranM 3,799]

10 minutes ago, jcomm said:

I've seen the performance on a friend's Macbook Pro 15 M2 and it was incredible.

I once thought going Macbook and restrict myself the use of other sims than XP and Aerowinx PSX, plus eventually Aerofly FS, but I am glad I didn't because I couldn't run either MFS or P3D then 😕 and Airlinetools A32x..

https://www.parallels.com/au/products/desktop/

https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/

[tonywob 4,770]

2 minutes ago, brinx said:

Out of curiously. Why is so much memory needed on a laptop? How much of that RAM is typically free?

I use it for my job mostly, I work with large datasets etc, so it comes in useful and makes a big difference

[GoranM 3,799]

13 minutes ago, brinx said:

Out of curiously. Why is so much memory needed on a laptop? How much of that RAM is typically free?

 

Unified Memory Architecture is a fancy term for something used as RAM and VRAM, depending on the demands.  So the more unified memory you have, the more can be dedicated to graphics intensive applications as "VRAM".

Far better than traditional configurations, as unified memory is on the CPU, so bus speeds don't exist.  

A more detailed explanation:

Unified memory is the high-bandwidth and low-latency memory featured on Apple’s M-series of chips. The memory architecture brings together the memory resource available for both the CPU and GPU. This would traditionally be split between RAM and vRAM respectively. 

Instead, the CPU and GPU cores can access the same memory from the same resource avoiding the needs for data to be communicated between different memory locations. The result is improved performance and efficiency.

Like RAM and vRAM, the amount of unified memory in your device plays a key part in its performance. It is quickly accessed when the CPU and GPU cores are carrying out a task and, the more you have, the more complex and demanding loads can be performed e.g. multi-tasking and graphically-intensive work. If the unified memory is fully occupied, the CPU and GPU cores will then resort to slower methods to complete tasks, such as utilising the SSD storage or waiting until capacity is available within the unified memory.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by GoranM

[mjrhealth 836]

Sounds a bit like what nvidia and amd use, just differnt name.

[comair_04 1]

Those who have Macbooks has anyone been able to get MSFS 2020 successfully working?