Jul 21, 2018 Started a flight at KCOS (default scenery) with the Cessna 172. On the ground FPS 24-35. Changed over to a B707 by Michael Wilson, FPS 20-30. Changed airport to Newark Liberty (part of the Drzewiecki NYC addon) FPS with both the Cessna and 707 19 FPS on the ground. I tried turning off xEnviro and didn't see an FPS increase. To do this, launch X-Plane and: Move your mouse to the top of the screen (causing the menu to appear) and click Settings, then Data Input & Output. Check the far right box next to frame rate item 0, in the upper left corner of the window). This will cause X-Plane to display the current frame rate in the upper left of the screen during flight.
Need help understanding how to increase the frame rate of X-Plane 11 with the equipment you have? This guide will help you make the right decisions about what to turn up - and what to turn down.
Getting the Best Frame Rate Out of X-Plane 11
Did you know… That some people are richer than others? These richer people may buy more advanced and expensive equipment for their computer, particularly if it involves flight simulation. They may as well just buy a real plane and save the hassle of overclocking and crashing. Then again… Now, chances are, you’re not rich. This is why I created this guide - it helps you to get the most out of the computer you have for your flight simulation needs, or more specifically, X-plane 11.
The first thing you should know is that the more scenery that is visible in the sim, the more computing power you’ll need to view it all. So, if you’re flying around Pacific islands, you’ll have a whale of a time (see what I did there!) souping up the frame rate. But if you stick your aircraft somewhere else, such as London Heathrow for example (EGLL has great airport scenery - check it out!), things will go downhill quickly. With so much to render, it’s no wonder your frame rate will drop considerably with more stuff lurking around. Now, go ahead and open up X-Plane 11, click on settings, and navigate to Graphics.
- Visual Effects and Texture Quality: The level of detail and how everything looks, can be defined by these sliders. These depends mostly on how much memory your GPU has. A 4GB GPU will cope with this much better than a 2GB. Put simply: the further you ramp these up, the higher the quality of all the textures in the sim will be, and the more realistic it will feel.
- Antialiasing: You may have seen this setting and know what it does, but for those who don’t, increasing this slider will draw the sim a number of times (2x, 4x, 8x), which can help iron out the jagged edges present in the sim. The speed on which your GPU operates at is primarily responsible for this, so a more powerful GPU will allow you to draw everything a few more times and make everything super smooth.
- Draw shadows on scenery: Click on this button to destroy your GPU. Just kidding! If you want to draw shadows on everything with a reasonable frame rate, you’ll need the GTX 1080Ti overclocked to max - and it isn’t even available yet. Put simply: this should be checked for the views only. Don’t use it continuously if you don’t have a decent GPU.
- Number of World Objects: Self-explanatory. Be wary that this predominantly lies with the CPU. An Intel i7 6950X will be more than up to the challenge, but a Pentium may struggle to cope with the medium setting.
- Reflection Detail: A new addition in X-Plane 11, reflections will bounce light off the wing and at the 'camera”. This is part of the idea that energy must be conserved, hence why the brilliant fog effects were added to make lighting realistic (I still can’t get over how cool the fog looks!). This mainly affects the CPU. Overclock yours if you can to get the best out of it - reflections are well worth it in the Cessna 172!
- Draw parked aircraft: Low texture quality, completely stationary aircraft and thus, high performance make this option a must. Each ramp at custom airports is designed with a maximum and a minimum class in mind, so you won’t find Boeing 737s parked on in a small airfield with a grass strip in the middle of the country. Similarly, you won’t find a Cessna 172 parked at terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport. Not with a £650+ (~$810+) landing fee attached to each landing anyway…
- Two or more monitors: Adding monitors with the Full Screen Simulator option selected will drastically reduce your frame rate. Using the Instructor Operating System (with a very annoying acronym) is perfectly fine, and highly recommended! It’s best to use just one monitor for the views, but I’m not stopping you from using more. Also, increasing the field of view will bring more textures and objects into view, further reducing frame rate. Try keeping this value to 60-63.
- Flight Models per Frame: Another thing to bare in mind is the Flight Models per Frame, found in Flight Model under the General tab. Increase this if you are flying one light, fast or small aircraft; otherwise, keep it at 2. Turning this up to 10 with 20 AI aircraft crashing around you will SERIOUSLY reduce frame rate below double digits. So seriously - keep it down.
Referring back to the introduction, I'm not rich, but nonetheless, I have an i5 4690K and an MSI GTX 970. I find that the CPU struggles with basic reflections, and the GPU will cope with everything until I turn AA up to 8x, where the sim slows down to a crawl. I can't keep scenery shadows on either, as my PC won't cope.
The developers recommend an Intel 6700K/7700K and a GTX 1070 for the best value for money - any higher, and one will bottleneck the other, so it's money wasted.
Written by Draco.
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About the X-Plane Framerate Test
Contents
- 2 FPS Test Options And Commands In Detail
- 2.1 Running a FPS Test
- 3 Changes in Settings For 945
- 5 QA Scripts and Visual Output
X-Plane contains a built-in framerate test mode. In this mode the sim ignores preferences and loads a fully known and controllable configuration, runs some framerate tests (with user interaction disabled, e.g. no dialog boxes will block operation) and quits. Information is output to the Log.txt file.
The framerate test is aimed at two audiences:
- It allows Laminar Research to gather performance information from beta users’ machines without the risk of configuration error.
- It allows driver writers to run X-Plane as part of an automated regression system.
This document is written for programmers who want to use X-Plane in a production environment, like an automated regression harness.
FPS Test Options And Commands In Detail
The framerate test is controlled by command-line options. Please note that options and preferences discussed here are accurate for RC3 but may be subject to change in the future.
How To Increase Fps For X Plane On Mac Free
Running a FPS Test
To run a framerate test, you use the command-line option:
‐‐fps_test=N
Where N is a numeric code indicating the FPS test to be run. The FPS tests are pre-built settings.
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The basic framerate test has two modes, depending on the file type you pass it:
- For X-Plane “movies” (.smo files), the replay will run for 90 seconds, in 3 stages (each of which will be output its results individually to your Log.txt file):
- 30 seconds of a forward view with the panel.
- 30 seconds of a forward view with no panel.
- 30 seconds with a forward view, no panel, simulation paused.
- For flight data recorder (.fdr) files, the replay will run to completion in whichever view you specify (see “FPS Test Codes” below). At the end, your Log.txt will contain a single summary of the replay’s performance. You can add the
‐‐verboseflag to get output for every frame, if you’d like to run a more sophisticated statistical analysis on the data than just getting the mean frame rate.
FPS Test Codes
Currently the framerate test numbers are built from three digits (leading zeros can be omitted):
- Hundreds digits: Viewpoint. Supported values are:
- 0: default (cockpit view)
- 1: view from above
- 2: nighttime cockpit view
- Tens digits: Weather preset. Supported values are:
Value Clouds Visibility (miles) Rain 0 Clear 25 1 Light cumulus @ 2 km; cirrus @ 5 km 25 0 Clear 15 3 Broken cumulus @ 2 km; cirrus @ 5 km 10 4 Stratus @ 1 km; cirrus @ 5 km 3 Moderate 5 Overcast @ 500 m; cirrus @ 5 km 1 Heavy 6 Overcast @ 500 m; cirrus @ 5 km 0.8 Heavy 7 Overcast @ 500 m; stratus @ 5 km 0.8 Light - Ones digits: Rendering preset.
- Supported values are:
- 1: low
- 2: medium
- 3: high
- 4: very high
- 5: extreme
- This controls a range of rendering settings; use individual preferences for more control (see below). Note that 1 gives you “high” tex res (4x reduction in all dimensions, 2 gives you “very high” (2x reduction) and 3 gives you “extreme” (no reduction). This is useful because the _tex_res_ pref seems to not be command-line controllable.
- Supported values are:
Note that the fly-over interferes with some views—see preferences below.
Minimum FPS Mode
X-Plane can also be run in minimum-fps mode. In this mode, the sim will run one 30 second test (with flight model and panel on) and then return 1 on success or 0 on failure. Framerate is not logged. Typically this would be used to fail an automated regression test, e.g.
./X-Plane-i686 ‐‐fps_test=1 ‐‐require_fps=30 || echo 'X-Plane is running slower than 30 fps.'
Note that you must use ‐‐require_fps with ‐‐fps_test.
Playing Replay Movies
Normally the fps test will simply leave the plane on the runway; however you can also program X-Plane to load and play a “replay movie” (.smo file) – this is a binary file containing a replay of an X-Plane flight. Example:
./X-Plane-i686 ‐‐fps_test=1 ‐‐load_smo=Output/movies/test.smo
The .smo or .fdr file is a relative path from the root of the X-Plane folder. The timedemo test contains one movie, test.smo.
The fps test will run for 90 seconds (or 30 seconds for ‐‐require_fps) regardless of movie length; you should set your movie to about 90 seconds. Note that the .smo file format is fixed-size; you will not save disk space with shorter movies. (But shorter movies will zip more efficiently.)
One use of replay movies is to vary the viewpoint (by flying the plane) to get a more representative rendering load.
Controlling Individual Settings
You can override individual settings using the ‐‐pref command; the syntax is:
‐‐pref:=
For example:
./X-Plane-i686 ‐‐fps_test=1 ‐‐pref:_x_res_req_ALL=1440 ‐‐pref:_y_res_req_ALL=900
will run the sim with fps test 1 but at 1440×900 res.
Preference names are strings; you can find them by viewing the contents of the Resources/preferences folder (after running the sim normally to init preferences).
- Res X-System.prf contains a few resolution settings, global to all apps.
- Set X-Plane.prf contains most non-binary X-Plane prefs that can be set.
Here are some settings that are useful for testing X-Plane performance. Note that I have not tested all of these; this comes from dumping a prefs file to the terminal.
WARNING: if you use a fps test number, it will override settings set by individual preferences. When the FPS test is used, you can only control resolution-related preferences.
| Preference Name | Values | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| _alias_req | 0=none,1=2x,2=4x,3=8x,4=16x | ‐‐pref:_alias_req=2 | Actual FSAA may be lower due to hw limits. |
| _col_res_req | 16 or 32 (bit depth) | ‐‐pref:_col_res_req=16 | Bit depth – may be ignored. |
| _prefs_found | 0 or 1 (boolean) | ‐‐pref:_prefs_found=1 | This determines whether the first-time user fly-in happens; set this to 1 to skip the fly-in. |
| _set_res | 0 or 1 (boolean) | ‐‐pref:_set_res=1 | If true, X-Plane will try to reset the monitor to requested size. |
| _x_res_req_ALL | pixels | ‐‐pref:_x_res_req_ALL=1600 | Requested x resolution, must be at least 1024. |
| _y_res_req_all | pixels | ‐‐pref:_y_res_req_ALL=1200 | Requested Y resolution, must be at least 768. |
| _tex_res | 0-5 | ‐‐pref:_tex_res=3 | Sets texture resolution; each step below 5 cuts tex res by 2. Appears to not work from cmdline. |
| _FOVx | degrees | ‐‐pref:_FOVx=20 | Sets the field of view horizontally. Vertical FOV is slaved. |
| _LOD_bias_rat | ratio | ‐‐pref:_LOD_bias_rat=0.5 | This adjusts the distance calculations on objects; smaller numbers cause far-away objects to disappear. |
| _draw_objs_06 | 0-6 | ‐‐pref:_draw_objs_06=2 | This corresponds to the number of objects popup menu. |
| _draw_vecs_03 | 0-3 | ‐‐pref:_draw_vecs_03=2 | This corresponds to the number of roads popup menu. |
| _draw_cars | 0 or 1 | ‐‐pref:_draw_cars=0 | This enables cars on roads. |
| _draw_birds | 0 or 1 | ‐‐pref:_draw_birds=1 | This enables bird drawing. |
| _draw_detail_wrl | 0 or 1 | ‐‐pref:_draw_wrl_detail | This enables high-detailed features like airport light fixtures. |
| _draw_reflect_water05 | 0-5 | ‐‐pref:_draw_reflect_water05=3 | This sets the amount of detail rendered into the water reflection texture. |
| _draw_volume_fog01 | 0 or 1 | ‐‐pref:_draw_volume_fog01=1 | This enables the “volumetric fog” advanced fog shader. |
| _draw_shaders | 0 or 1 | ‐‐pref:_draw_shaders=1 | This enables pixel shader drawing. |
| _aniso_filter | ratio | ‐‐pref:_aniso_filter=4 | This sets the anisotropic filtering level |
| _draw_for_05 | 0 – 5 | ‐‐pref:_draw_for_05=3 | This sets the forest density popup. |
| _comp_texes | 0 or 1 | ‐‐pref:_comp_texes=0 | This enables or disables texture compression. |
Note: in X-Plane patches before 941, _alias_req will change FSAA but will not correctly show the results in the UI when ‐‐fps_test is in use.
Changes in Settings For 945
Window Management Changes
To use 945 in Windowed mode. (Note: window must be no larger than the size of the primary screen)
‐‐pref:_x_res_wind_ALL= ‐‐pref:_y_res_wind_ALL=
To use 940 in full screen mode at current monitor settings:
‐‐pref:_is_full_ALL=1 ‐‐pref:_x_res_full_ALL=0 ‐‐pref:_y_res_full_ALL=0
To use 940 in full screen mode at a specific res:
‐‐pref:_is_full_ALL=1 ‐‐pref:_x_res_full_ALL=1024 ‐‐pref:_y_res_full_ALL=768 ‐‐pref:_bpp_full_ALL=32
Note: X-Plane will not change the monitor res unless it can determine that the selected res matches a published resolution from the OS/driver. Usually this means supplying a bits per pixel (bpp) of 32.
However, X-Plane does _not_ actually put the device into full screen mode, so there is no advantage to running “full screen” vs. running in a window with the window size set to the monitor size.
Replay Movies
In X-Plane 945, replays are called .rep files and live in Output/replays/. Unlike the 900 time demo, the replay will play from start to end and the time demo will end with one framerate count output.
Custom Log Paths
The command-line option ‐‐log_path= will redirect the output file Log.txt to another directory. The very beginning of the file will end up in the x-plane dir (if writable) but most of the file, including all of the interesting parts) will be redirected. The path must be an absolute path including file name, e.g.
./X-Plane-i686 ‐‐log_path=/my_dir/log.txt
Changes for Version 10
Version 10 keeps the version 945 screen res format. Besides all v9 features, v10 allows the settings from “Resources/settings.txt” to be overridden using the ‐‐ren:XXXX=YYY syntax. An example:
X-Plane_NODEV_OPT.app/Contents/MacOS/X-Plane_NODEV_OPT ‐‐fps_test=2 ‐‐load_smo=Output/replays/test_flight.rep
‐‐pref:_is_full_ALL=1 ‐‐pref:_x_res_full_ALL=1024 ‐‐pref:_y_res_full_ALL=768 ‐‐pref:_bpp_full_ALL=32
‐‐ren:draw_HDR=1
X-Plane 10 contains a config file in the Resources folder called “settings.txt”. The line
SETTING category type name max
defines the setting parameter,s e.g
SETTING EFFECTS SLIDER shadow_quality 9
means that the shadow_quality setting will show as a slider, with a min of 0 and a max of 9. You can change these settings from the cmd line, e.g.
‐‐ren:shadow_quality=5
overriding the defaults from fps tests. You can use the command line to rapidly find all settings like this:
grep “^SETTING ” resources.settings.txt
The time demo is also data driven – you can view the default settings for each of the rendering settings as follows:
grep DEMO Resources/settings.txt
The TIMEDEMO lines define each time demo (1-X) and the DEMO_SETTING shows the deafults used.)
Note that the time demos affect the rendering settings in settings.txt, which are mostly engine related, but _do not_ set raw windowing factors like resolution and full screen anti-aliasing. Thus you should expect to use ‐‐pref to customize FSAA and use monitor controls to get the res you want.
As a general rule:
- EFFECTS settings tend to push the GPU harder, e.g. consume more shading power.
- DRAWING settings tend to push bus bandwidth and the CPU harder, e.g. they result in more geometry.
- EXPERT settings should be left at their default, under all conditions.
QA Scripts and Visual Output
X-Plane 945 features a simple script file engine to produce conformance tests. To run a test file, use the command-line ‐‐qa_script=. The X-Plane 945 time demo comes with a sample script (conformance.txt) that can be used for baseline driver testing.
The script commands consist of a series of single-line commands, with white space and lines starting with # as comments.
QA script commands
WAIT
causes the script to pause, letting the sim run, for a number of seconds.
NEXT_FRAME
causes the sim to render the next frame. When settings are changed, you will need to either wait or go to the next frame to see the changes.
CMND
executes one of X-Plane’s built in commands – any command that can be tied to a joystick or key binding can be executed by script. To find the commands, look in Resources/plugins/commands.txt
DREF
sets a sim dataref to a given value. Look in Resources/plugins/datarefs.txt for a list of datarefs.
LOOK
causes the sim to change the camera to be placed at x,y,z and look in a given heading. You can use the data outut screen to determine the current camera position for writing scripts.
RELOAD
causes scenery to reload – use this after changing settings to change scenery.
TIMEER_START
TIMER_STOP
measures an interval at a given framerate. Use this to measure fps for a given camera angle and framerate. The tag cannot have whitespace.
PUSH_APP_PATH POP_APP_PATH
Changes the current directory for the script to a new path (path should be a global path starting with /) for the purpose of taking pictures. Popping the path sets it back to the previous path.