10 hours ago, ywg256 said:

Ok will do. 

When you're ready to start adding additional content the Payware X-Organiser (and to a less extent X-Toolbox) can help a lot in organising and checking your addons and enabling you to create sets you can easily switch between.

Just to add to this topic, I bought and installed XP12 about 2 weeks ago.  Long time simmer (Sublogic FS days) and only tried XP a couple times as I mostly used MS versions and P3D once that came out. I tried XP11 about 8 years ago but I really never gave it a chance for some reason and stuck with P3D.  So I got XP12 after seeing some of the Beta pics and installed the Zibo 738 (awesome btw). To be honest, I have not flown in MSFS since I installed XP12 (I am working on some scenery for MSFS24 though). The clouds/environment/shadowing/haze are fantastic and such a nice change and have really enjoyed the 5 or 6 flights I have done so far.  And also, it was the first time I can recall having to deviate around some big storms!  Seeing the towering CB's is quite the sight!  I did buy 4 airports but was surprised how good a few of the defaults were.  The only other addons I installed were X-Camera and Better Pushback. I am interested in the HotStart Challenger so that might be my first payware aircraft.  I have the full Fenix fleet in MSFS24 along with the A350 so I have the Airbus covered there.  It has really made me want to fire up the sim and fly.  Have not had this type of motivation lately in MSFS....

Edited April 28, 20251 yr by Flic1

XP12 has vastly improved this past few weeks, I’m impressed to be honest. I am a long time simmer to, since FS98…. I havent flown FS2020/24 for about 3 weeks now and I’m not missing it either, I have the Fenix and pmdg aircraft installed but I’m just not missing them……I’ve been patiently waiting for XP12 to improve and finally it has.

My go to aircraft installed XP12 is the Hotstart Challenger 650 mainly, what a fantastic simulation of the 650 it is, I bought it when it first came out prob 3 years ago now is it, maybe 4 years… it’s the best plane on any desktop simulator by far, go get it, you will not regret it I tell but have some patience has it has a bit of a learning curve to it I wud say. Don’t really know when I’ll be firing up FS20/24 now, I just don’t have the enthusiasm for the Microsoft sims….. I see myself back in XP12 for good….. it’s just the feeling it gives you and so much easier to set up, controls… just easier and just works doesn’t  it, so many frustrations with the Microsoft sims. 
 

It’s a great Sim for sure….. well done Austin and team! 👍🛫👏 

Lots of great testimonies of those who are new or returning to X Plane.

For those who are new and what to get the most out of Xplane who are unaware, go this link below. There is flying low series of ebook "Introduction of X Plane 12" and The X-plane 12 Handbook Setup Book, by Dave Britzius. 

https://store.x-plane.org/Flying-Low-Introduction-to-X-Plane-12_p_1789.html

https://store.x-plane.org/Flying-Low-The-X-Plane-12-Handbook--Setup-Book-1_p_1627.html

From a short description the introduction to X-plane 12:

"This book concentrates on the practical use of X-Plane. (Setting up information can be found in my other books.)

The idea is first to use the introductory tutorial flights included in X-Plane 12 to deal with questions that a newcomer to X-Plane would have. Then, as the tutorials become more complicated, I add more comments and explanations while keeping it very hands-on and practical."

From a short description of The Xplane handbook-- Setup Book-1  

"I have written this handbook to help you set up correctly X-Plane 12 correctly and optimally.

This is Version 1.2 of the handbook - It is free to all existing purchasers of previous versions – Just redownload from your store account.

This book is not a replacement for the official X-Plane 12 manual; but rather should be used in conjunction with it as a step-by-step guide to setting up X-Plane on a Windows PC. The handbook is a supplement to the official Laminar Research manual - primarily for Windows users although most of the book applies to MAC and LINUX versions as well.  The emphasis is on setting up X-Plane 12 correctly right at the start. I have approached the reader with a Windows 11 operating system in mind. Most of the tips are equally valid for a Windows 10 system. While all the X-Plane 12 information applies to the Apple Mac user, the Hardware and O/S setup are obviously not applicable to MAC users - the X-Plane contents of the book, however, certainly apply to Mac-based machines."

I counted about 11 different books covering many topics:

Scenery both payware as well as freeware is covered in 2 books with links to where they can be found from mostly on the org. Ortho4XP setups as well as third party utilities like xOrganizer or XToolbox. Also instruments like the G1000 basic G530/G430/S-TEC 55 (that was recently was release). Other book various types of navigation like GPS ATC & FMS.  

Key thing to remember, after your purchase a particular book, all updates of that book are free as many things are often updated, due to new scenery, hardware, X Plane or addons, etc.

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 20251 yr by BobFS88

I fired up the A330 for a test rip last night - didn't have too much time but XP12 is visually impressive and using Lossless Scaling means I am getting very good frames. We will see once I start throwing in AI Traffic etc but I am impressed thus far. I am looking forward to playing around tonight a bit more. Will probably try the Zibo 737 at some point. I haven't used a 737 in ages so will be interesting to see how I do!! I also like the file/folder structure of xplane. I admit I just bought the short final KLAX to try out since it was on sale and I typically fly United/Air Canada virtually. It's a good point for me to start out and then from there check out the plethora of freeware out there.

Seems my days of P3D could be slowly numbered...

Edited April 28, 20251 yr by ywg256

42 minutes ago, ywg256 said:

Will probably try the Zibo 737 at some point. I haven't used a 737 in ages so will be interesting to see how I do!!

If you want more variety in 737NGs: https://forum.thresholdx.net/files/file/3865-levelup-737ng-series/

Also freeware, same code base as Zibo's but a few releases behind (you won't notice much of a difference though).

 

45 minutes ago, ywg256 said:

I fired up the A330 for a test rip last night - didn't have too much time but XP12 is visually impressive and using Lossless Scaling means I am getting very good frames.

The default A330 is awful on FPS, so most other aircraft will run better.

 

Oh, and do not get any third party airports just yet.

7 hours ago, Bjoern said:

If you want more variety in 737NGs: https://forum.thresholdx.net/files/file/3865-levelup-737ng-series/

Also freeware, same code base as Zibo's but a few releases behind (you won't notice much of a difference though).

You can insert new zibo updates of core systems into LVUP, although some 3D updates (like new PA IN USE, CABIN READY lights) will missing.

18 hours ago, C2615 said:

You can insert new zibo updates of core systems into LVUP, although some 3D updates (like new PA IN USE, CABIN READY lights) will missing.

Tried that once, got systems breaking bugs in the -600 despite dong everything by the book. Maybe Zibo has made his plugin more adaptable to the other NG models by now, but once bitten...

Edited April 29, 20251 yr by Bjoern

I'm still in the fence, I've tried the demo, unfortunately XPlane 12 (appart from loading scenery) is still a single core simulator which is quite sad, I sincerely hope LR switches gear and moves to a multi-thread design, because they are definitely falling behind in this department, having said that, the environment lighting is espectacular, ahead of any sim I've tried, but this is just not enough for me to make the move.

I've seen youtubers with killer machines and I mean KILLER machines (Intel 14900/4090) barely sustaining 40fps, that's just not acceptable, I can crank up to ultra every single eye-candy option in FS2024 and my modest machine can still maintain 60fps (2k) at most airports with every single CPU core being utilized.

I rather be on the fence and just wait to see what LR decides to do (in this department) for the future iterations of XP.

Edited April 29, 20251 yr by CarlosF

12 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

rather be on the fence and just wait to see what LR decides to do (in this department) for the future iterations of XP.

Or just use lossless scaling. 

4 minutes ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

Or just use lossless scaling. 

I don't like to use mods (fake frames) I rather adjust settings to maintain 60 true frames and you can only adjust so much when you are limited by CPU, otherwise you end up with a sim that looks like FSX to put it one way.

2 hours ago, CarlosF said:

I've seen youtubers with killer machines and I mean KILLER machines (Intel 14900/4090) barely sustaining 40fps, that's just not acceptable, I can crank up to ultra every single eye-candy option in FS2024 and my modest machine can still maintain 60fps (2k) at most airports with every single CPU core being utilized.

Cranking up all the sliders is not necessarily the correct way to judge (and setup) the performance of a flight sim. Sure, LR is working to improve performance and multi-threading, but in addition to that, it's possible that its graphic settings are tuned differently from some other simulator.

With your PC, you should be able to get more than 40 fps in the demo area, provided you scale those few sliders which are the bottleneck in your specific use case (CPU - GPU - resolution). And the resulting visual quality might even be very close to having all sliders maxed.

Start from the CPU intensive settings: set a low resolution (to make sure the GPU is not the bottleneck), scale down "Cloud Quality", "Shadow Quality", "3d vegetation" and start from there. See how each of those sliders/features affect FPS, and do not max out those that are heavier. You might find out that some settings are very heavy in FPS terms but give very little to no improvement in visual quality.

Then move to the GPU settings: the biggest performance killer might be antialiasing, maybe lowering it a notch might de-bottleneck your GPU and produce a big spike up in FPS.

Edited April 29, 20251 yr by Murmur

I am used to lossless scaling which I am ok with if I have to for now. Will play around a bit more but I can see this sim becoming more utilized for me.

15 hours ago, Murmur said:

Cranking up all the sliders is not necessarily the correct way to judge (and setup) the performance of a flight sim

Thanks for your suggestions Murmur, I am quite familiar with XP settings, I have XP 9, 10 and 11 and so I can easily configure XP to my hardware.

My point is, nowadays no sim should be designed and limited to only one cpu core, that was fine in the FSX days, we didn't have that many CPU options back then, high-end pc's (referring to my previous comment on youtubers with killer machines) should be able to run XP with full settings without having to dial down eye-candy just because the sim code is designed to use one core for the most part, so I'm not willing to invest (today) on a sim that's not designed to take advantage of today's technology.

What is the point of spending $60 on the sim, then having to buy add-ons worth $80 bucks each, more or less (my addons from previous versions of XP don't work with XP12) , I might end up spending $350+ on XP, then to find out that the next version of XP (hopefully) will be multi-thread, this alone would make my $350+ investment obsolete, no thank you, I've spent $$$$$ on simulators and addons, not any more.

In my own POV, any high-end software that's not designed for the future and doesn't take advantage of its technology (like the use of all cpu cores) is inefficient and not cost-effective, this is my wallet talking and so I have no choice, I will just sit back and see what the future holds for XP.

A good example of what Im talking about:

I bought MS2020 when it came out, (flying XP11 back then) spend a few hundred bucks on addons, then 2024 came out with multi-thread design, decided to wait because all of the release issues but then my son got it for me for my BD, installed it and wow, to see all my hardware being used to it maximum potential, with all the eye-candy it offered, and not only that, the fact that all of my 2020 addons I bought showed up in 2024 and most work just fine, is a game changer.

I will buy XP to support it but not in its current state of design, not today.

 

Edited April 30, 20251 yr by CarlosF

35 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

My point is, nowadays no sim should be designed and limited to only one cpu core

Without reading through your whole post I just want to say that X-Plane was not designed nowadays, it was designed DECADES ago when CPU´s only had one core.

LR is working on shifting the code to be multicore, but this is very complex when you don´t want to start all over.

My personal hunch is that by the time they are done with that, CPUs have gotten fast enough to run X-Plane´s current code with 60fps natively, full details. I am almost there today (9950D3D).

Edited April 30, 20251 yr by Litjan