How to Make X-Plane 11 Look Amazing For Free | Q8Pilot Recommendations

[Karl]

I tried the additions discussed in this video. I think that it was definitely was worth the 5 or 6 minutes of effort. Hard to put my finger on it but the XP11 world does look better.

[Wingman]

Thanks for the share, Karl. Not an XPlane user here, but based on what I see in this video, I think I get the 'hard to put my finger on it but the XP11 world does look better" comment.

[Bluejay]

Hey hey Karl - thanks!

Isn't X-Plane fantastic now - and especially in VR. They've really nailed button, lever and yoke pushing and pulling in VR. And the ongoing development means the future is bright!

I found this entry in the developers blog requesting not to change lights.txt due to ongoing shader development, https://developer.x-plane.com/2007/0...ge-lights-txt/

So I've made the changes, but have a seperate vanilla x-plane also on my drive. Cheers to the X-Plane team for making it a standalone program that doesn't make any registry changes!

[Karl]

Bluejay,

Buck and I flew together in VR recently around 2NC0, Mountain Air. I also did some IMC flying later. Pretty amazing. The post about the lights.txt is 11 years old. Not sure it applies today. Of course, I'm not sure it doesn't either

[Bluejay]

Awesome - have you used the latest update which allows displaying txt files in VR space - so you can have checklists, flight plan notes etc.. I think that and voice recognition will be key to have a complete 'goggles on' flight.

Do you have any tips or tricks you use to stay entirely in VR on longer flights?

[Karl]

I've heard of the text/PFD feature. I haven't used it. For voice control, I use a program called VOICE ATTACK . Most of my experience with it is in DCS where I have a gazillion possible commands while I am flying. It does work with any program and is only $10US. A free demo is available.

In real life, I routinely take my head "out of the cockpit" to stare at the sectional, talk with people, etc... I don't think that it's too unrealistic to lift up the VR goggles to look at my moving map. I use FSTramp but most people use LilNavMap. I have real life going on around me so keeping the goggles on for long periods of time is not a priority for me.

[Bluejay]

Yeah fair point - I'm pretty sure that when flying in my VIVE both the cat and my girlfriend are pulling faces at me as they walk past.

You may find AviTab useful too..

https://github.com/fpw/avitab

"AviTab is a plugin for the X-Plane flight simulator. It displays a tablet like computer with a few apps in the cockpit. It is mainly used for flying in virtual reality."

[Bluejay]

Hey Karl, Buck and Hawg (and anyone else out there flying in VR),

Are you using the VIVE or RIFT?

Also - can I ask what system you have and roughly what frames you get at roughly what settings?

I've got a water cooled AMD 1700x (3.4GHz) overclocked to 3.8GHz with an MSI X370 carbon motherboard. My graphics card is a Radeon RX570. I have a VIVE headset which I will soon mod with the deluxe audio strap and gearVR lenses to remove god rays and reduce blur at the edges of the field view.

The latest Plane 11 update is impressive and smooth enough for me at low-medium settings with basic anti-aliasing. It reports about 30fps most of the time.

I'm still learning how to overclock - and I think that's my next best path to optimisation.

It's a little hard to judge where I am on the fps curve with the system I have. Am I doin' alright in terms of the VR experience in general and FPS more specifically? Any tips?

- now that my mind has been blown by flying in VR, I want to eek as much out of it as I can.

Thanks

[Karl]

I am using the Rift. I think Hawg is the only other VIVE user. I have an I-7 4770k and a GTX1080. I get 40+ fps in general based on the counter on the monitor.

[Bluejay]

Brilliant thanks - looks like an upgrade to the GTX 1080 is the way forward when the time¹ comes. Thanks - much appreciated.

ref:
http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare...580/3603vs3923
https://versus.com/en/amd-ryzen-7-17...-core-i7-4770k

¹ when the prices for video cards aren't so jacked up by demand from cryptocurrency, https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/01/do...any-time-soon/

[BUCK293]

I've got similar specs as Karl. i7-4790@3.9ghz, 24gb RAM, and GTX 1080. For X-Plane 11 I have Max World Objects and Max AA. Everything else is set to the left. Depending on the flight it ranges from 20-45 fps. Welcome to the world of VR!

[Bluejay]

Thanks Buck, helpful.

I'm also looking forward to X-Plane incorporating Vulkan to optimise 3d rendering using the multiple cores of the CPU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulkan_(API)

[Storm]

I've got similar specs as Karl. i7-4790@3.9ghz, 24gb RAM, and GTX 1080. For X-Plane 11 I have Max World Objects and Max AA. Everything else is set to the left. Depending on the flight it ranges from 20-45 fps. Welcome to the world of VR!

Buck, I strongly recommend changing your AA from max to zero (slider fully left) and instead doing all anti-aliasing on your graphics card. Set up the latter using the NVIDIA control panel. You will notice a significant improvement in frame rates. You could then choose to advance some of the other sliders like visual effects, texture quality or reflectional detail, or have the shadows checked, or just enjoy the faster frame rates.

The only downside, if it is one, is you will need to do screenshots using the NVIDIA keys (default Alt+F1, but that can be changed in GeForce Experience) and not using the X-Plane keys. If you do the latter, your pic will have no anti-aliasing and, for instance, all diagonal lines will look like zigzags and pixelated, because you moved AA to zero and it is before the graphics card has processed it. Using the NVIDIA keys captures the pic after all the graphics card post processing and it will look as smooth as you've made NVIDIA control panel settings.

[Bluejay]

Awesome - and here's how Radeon cards can do the same..

https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-art...es/DH-012.aspx