Paul_Blythe wrote:Rather than start a new thread asking questions about XP-11. Thought it best to ask them here, keeping things neat and tidy
I use P3D v3.4, but find getting the thing loaded is becoming tiresome. I can lose 15-20 minutes easily on loading times ... feel like I've been spoilt after getting Aerofly FS2 and DCS world. How well does XP-11 do with loading times?
Onto VR ... this one's a bit more subjective, and it's difficult to compare apples with apples here... how is X-Plane 11 currently performing in VR? Frame rate consistency, frame rate trade off's for visual impact etc ...
Really feel that P3D is in need of a major engine overhaul to bring it up to date. In this respect X-plane looks to have stolen the march. However, I can't decide if XP-11 is the way to go, or hold out and see what P3Dv4 brings to the table. Either way, It'll be a re-investment in planes and scenery...
Ever since Dan added X-Plane Support to Fly Inside, I find I've been flying more and more in X-Plane than P3D, especially since v1.8, which fixed the HDR bug (Thanks Dan!).
If you fly online with VATSIM and load epic numbers of plane matching models, or have tons of custom scenery, your load times will suffer. My load time breakdown goes something (roughly) like this:
0:00 Launch X-Plane
2:30 Plugins Loaded - Could be reduced by removing CSL models from Squawkbox ( would be nice if it could load in the background )
3:25 Loading Airports and Nav Data - I have latest custom Navigraph data for sim and GPS loading.
4:30 Starts loading the Aircraft and Flight config screen appears here.
5:00 Loading Scenery - Have the full global scenery plus tons of extra free scenery mostly for Australia -
http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/8246-aussiepak-scenery-packages/9:40 Asyncronous loading completed and interface can start. Some stuff still loading in the background.
Would be interested to know how long others are waiting..
If you have good hardware, X-Plane will push it harder and give better results, and also conversely, when my GPU melted it's own cooler fans and I had to send it away for repair, X-Plane was the only sim that would give me workable framerates (at low settings) with an embedded intel HD 4600 GPU. No matter how low I set my rendering options in P3D, I could not get framerates that were flyable with the same hardware.
Scenery and Autogen density and Clouds/Weather seem to produce the hardest hit to VR performance IMHO. There's a really good short video tutorial that explains X-Plane rendering settings here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8941QQr4pS4The suggestion of optimising your rendering settings to the most complex scenery and weather you tend to use is a good one.
Cheers,
Ande