On The Glideslope

X-Plane 11 Update

I know there are a number of questions here and also at YouTube, and I’ll get to them as soon as I can. But in the meantime, here’s a quick report on my new adventures with the X-Plane 11 beta:

  • I’m pretty blown away. I used X-Plane for years on my Mac before using P3D for the Basement Sim, but with the immersive setup in the sim I’m really astonished by the look and feel of things. The UI is definitely first rate, and I just can’t get over how good and smooth everything is. Not seeing texture tiles resolve into a higher resolution is a very welcome thing in particular. Look out into the distance in XP-11 and it’s just a very different, and more realistic, feeling than it is in P3D, at least for me.
  • I’m more blown away after downloading two add-ons meant to improve the default airport scenery in X-Plane: Prefab Airports (which put accurate taxiways and some buildings at thousands of smaller airports, including my local strip – which is important to me, because it was just a runway in the default scenery), and Airport Environments HD (which adds all sorts of realistic airport textures, much like REX Direct does in P3d). Airports look great now. And the price for these additions? Free. Welcome to the XP community.
  • And I’m REALLY blown away after installing xEnviro. This is payware (and not cheap, at $69 US), but it injects realistic weather into X-Plane, and completely revolutionizes the cloud system. And if there is one thing that XP is weak at out of the box, it’s weather. But I’ll tell you, the first time xEnviro loaded my local weather I said, “Holy #x$5!” It looked just like outside my window. And get this: ZERO frame rate hit, at least for me. Astonishing.

Tonight’s mission is to get my Saitek panels working correctly. SPAD.neXt now has X-Plane support, but it’s been crashing on me, so I’m going to try some other options. I’ll report back, and as soon as I’m able, I’ll post how I got the visuals right, as I know some of you are waiting for that. But in the meantime, I think X-Plane 11 is a winner, and candidly, I can’t believe it’s a beta. The final product should be world class indeed.

Basement Fly Guy

10 responses to “X-Plane 11 Update”

  1. Tom Campbell Avatar
    Tom Campbell

    Thanks for the update. Always informative. I have the xp11 demo and I really like the way it handles my three 27″ monitors. I was able to link them together with seamless horizons, growing features and cabin features. Plus the hat switch moves all three together which suits my 45 degree 45 degree arrangement. Absolutely beautiful and much friendlier than P3D..

    I plan to wait for a while (or maybe not :)) to install the full beta.. My only sadness is leaving behind the money, time poured into Orbx scenery and its beauty. XP 11 basic scenery is still a bit cartoonish for my taste. But maybe these addons you mention will help.

    P3D is a wonderful program and beautiful to look at. Hopefully LM will improve on some of the raggedy bits such as multi screen management. I also find it quite high maintenance where I’m continually tweaking something to other.

    I am torn somewhat, but I am thinking I will go XP. My big need, though is for a viable offline ATC package. If you hear of anything let me know. I’m not ready for the online guys yet.

    1. N15JG Avatar
      N15JG

      I’m very pleased so far. And zero tweaking for performance, and no worries about memory. I don’t miss those at all. Nothing I’ve seen looks cartoonish so far, but I have been looking to get things closer to the ORBX I love so much. But P3D kills it in AI and ATC. There is plenty of great-looking AI aircraft at the airports now, but they don’t move with any realistic pattern. There was a 747 at Harrisburg Intl. yesterday, for example. The ATC seems OK so far, and I know there are add ons there, but I’m just getting into it. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t think I was ready for PilotEdge either, but the training program was fantastic and it’s a great experience. The new expansion is going to be awesome.

  2. Tim Spanoudakis Avatar
    Tim Spanoudakis

    Thanks for your update on xp beta. I am an xp 10 user and currently use 3 pcs to output 3 views. They are all i7 and one now has a gtx 1070 card the others are 970. Please can you remind us of your specs that are giving you your setup. The problem with 3 pcs is that ai traffic and weather does not coordinate across the views. So a plane will be in the main view and not the side views. Would like to upgrade 1 box to be able to get all onto one pc.

    1. Peter Avatar
      Peter

      Can you please include you GPU setup when get it running . Im having issues my nvidia settings, and HDMI

      1. N15JG Avatar
        N15JG

        Tim, I’m just running default NVIDIA settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel. My GPU settings in the game are one notch down from the max.

    2. N15JG Avatar
      N15JG

      Hi Tim. The full specs are up there in the “What’s In The Sim” tab, but I’m running about 4.6 gig overclocked and a single 980ti. All on one PC.

  3. ray Avatar
    ray

    lovely
    thanks for the blog updates and your time – it is such a great help and reads = looking forward to read all about xp11 !
    Nice to see support behind XP11 and Laminar certainly do deserve it all the way !

    ray

    1. N15JG Avatar
      N15JG

      Thanks Ray. I’m really liking it, especially now that I’ve figured out the visuals.

  4. Havo1977 Avatar
    Havo1977

    What can we do about plane shadow when we remove parts of the plane. It remove the same parts on the shadows during the day?

    1. N15JG Avatar
      N15JG

      I believe it does, although so far the shadows have looked fine to me, especially as the cockpit objects I removed are inside the plane. But I saw the plane’s shadow up close today and I could tell I’d messed around with it some. But if you weren’t looking for it I don’t think you’d notice it.

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