X-Plane PC Specs or P3D

[PaulCankaya 0]

Hi all,

I'm sick of FSX and want a new 64 bit platform to build a new sim on. However I'm stuck between choosing X-plane 11 or P3D V4. 

What would you recommend and what sort of performance can I expect with the following specs (I know not to go max settings so I'm happy with medium settings):

Intel Core i5 4690K Processor 3.50 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.3GHz)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Graphics Card

16 GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHz RAM

Seagate 1000GB SSHD Hybrid Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Assuming my sliders aren't maxed out and sitting in the middle, is it even worth buying X-Plane 11?

Kind Regards

Paul

[Guest]

Both P3D and XP11 are very hungry for performance, especially single core CPU performance. That might get better once XP11 moves to the Vulcan API next year or so. That said, your system looks well up to the task and I do not see any obvious weak points. In my mind, XP11 delivers the way more beautiful rendering out of the box. I have switched from FSX to XP11 a year ago and have never regretted it. Just try the XP demo to see for yourself!

[Desaix 235]

Well I run XP11 with a Nvidia 770 and 6600 oc 4.3 with enough satisfaction.

It really depends on how much money you're ready to shed after the initial package. If you have plenty to waste you can think PR3D as a good alternative to XP11, you get overall better and numerous payware aircrafts and sceneries, although for this latter in the end (look at Orbx topic on netherlands) you can realize that XP11 freeware is considered as the goal even by PR3D4 followers, and this for daylight, XP11 night lighting is on another planet.

[Chock 17,770]

I'd say the choice is largely dependent on what you like in terms of flight simulation and how much you like to buy things/make thing/tweak stuff, because the focus of the two sims is a little bit different in these regards.

P3D add-ons are typically more expensive than XPlane ones because (unless you go out of your way to buy the 'pro' version of XPlane), you're looking at a product which is for entertainment, as indeed is FSX, whereas P3D on the other hand is not marketed as a game and so the add-ons are a bit more expensive generally. Not only this, the culture of P3D is geared toward 'buy your way better with add-ons and have an easy one click to install ride', whereas in XPlane, it's more generally a case of 'make and download your way better with freeware'.

Thus XPlane has a bit of a DIY aspect to it and a community which is a little more inclined to that since XPlane includes a plane-maker utility and a nice photo-scenery making utility is available for it too. There is plenty of payware for XPlane, but there's a lot of really good freeware for it too because of that more DIY-oriented player base, certainly moreso than is the case with P3D. You can of course make stuff for P3D yourself as well, and it's not as if there is no freeware for it, but it's not quite as obvious how to go about that in P3D for a casual user, and so I think it is fair to say that you'll be more likely to be getting your hand in your pocket with P3D than you will with XPlane, but you do find yourself having to manually tweak and install some things in XPlane if you want the best out of it, not that this is hard to learn, but you might have to do so, if you really want to push and improve how it looks.

As far as what you like to fly and where is concerned, there's no doubt that at present, P3D is a bit better geared up for IFR operations with big airliners than XPlane is. You'll get arguments from people which say that isn't the case, and they are partially correct because there are indeed some great airliner add-ons for it and one or two that are every bit the equal of anything you can get for FSX or P3D, but they are somewhat let down by the lack of supporting utilities which make those great airliners truly usable (i.e. the weather and season depiction in XPlane is not a patch on that of P3D if you buy some add-ons for it, ATC and flight planning utilities are not quite so good for XPlane either). That is changing, albeit slowly, and because there are some great airliners available for XPlane, it will eventually be as good for that kind of thing, but it's not got anywhere near as many of the supporting utilities which are available for P3D at present, so right now, and for a while yet, you'll be better served with P3D if you like flying heavy metal.

If you like night flying, it's a no brainer, XPlane is several orders of magnitude better at night lighting than P3D will ever be, even when P3D is tweaked and souped up with add-ons. This is because it uses a more capable 3D engine which is just better able to depict that kind of thing; this is also why it runs a bit better than P3D too, since even with the tweaks LM are making to P3D, it is still built upon an older method of hardware usage. You can see this even if you use old add-ons in XPlane 11, for example, the Aerosoft CRJ (no, not that one lol, the one for XPlane 10 which came out years ago) works straight out of the box in XPlane 11 and has beautifully realistic raindrops working on its windshield (and this is an add-on which came out in 2012 and wasn't even made for XPlane 11), whereas when somebody pulls that off in a brand new P3D add-on, they bang on about it like they've just cured cancer or something.

As far as flight modeling goes, the ground handling in XPlane is, and always has been a bit iffy, not that it is brilliant in P3D either in terms of ground friction at least, but of the two, it is far less problematic in P3D. That said, and note that this bit is my opinion and not necessarily a fact, I think choppers fly better in XPlane (if well modeled) and once in the air, GA aeroplanes fly a bit better in XPlane than they do in P3D (again if well modeled), although the same is not true for airliners in my experience at least, which I find generally fly a bit better in P3D.

There really is nothing stopping you from having both sims though, and you could have one for VFR GA (XPlane 11 is best for that) and one for IFR airliner flights (P3D is best for that) and then you'd be using both sims to their relative strengths.

Keep in mind too that coming up on P3D and FSX'S tailpipe is the other ESP-based sim, Flight Sim World, which is looking better all the time.

[chelmo 42]

On 03/11/2017 at 1:13 PM, PaulCankaya said:

Assuming my sliders aren't maxed out and sitting in the middle, is it even worth buying X-Plane 11?

You do realise that there is a demo of X-Plane 11 so why not try that? I think you are limited in flying time to 15 minutes or so and you are also restricted to the Seattle area but that will show you whether it is worth it.

You might also bear in mind that if you are happy to go down the Steam route rather than direct download it will undoubtedly be cheaper than its current £54.99 later this month. I think I got mine at 50% off in the last Steam sale.

[Guest John_Cillis]

I run both sims with a high degree of contentment.  One thing I found with Xplane is the need for a good controller.  My old controller wasn't working too hot, I bought a Thrustmaster but it did not perform well.  So I went for a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, it works extremely well, has the twist rudder which I like plus several well-placed buttons so I can trim the aircraft and set the flaps.  The throttle has a great feel, it just seems perfect for Xplane and my performance with Xplane improved quite a bit.  My system specs aren't ultra high end, but I think my GPU is well matched to my CPU.

John

[Susu986 76]

55 minutes ago, Cactus521 said:

I run both sims with a high degree of contentment.  One thing I found with Xplane is the need for a good controller.  My old controller wasn't working too hot, I bought a Thrustmaster but it did not perform well.  So I went for a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, it works extremely well, has the twist rudder which I like plus several well-placed buttons so I can trim the aircraft and set the flaps.  The throttle has a great feel, it just seems perfect for Xplane and my performance with Xplane improved quite a bit.  My system specs aren't ultra high end, but I think my GPU is well matched to my CPU.

John

I have to second that, your controller is very important in X-plane. I used to have a twist grip joystick as well, now I also use pedals, too, because they give me more fine grained control when taxiing/taking off. I'm using a Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X, which is value option. Having said that I recommend to buy at least a value joystick, then using keyboard/mouse. I also have a 4770K CPU, and GTX 1080 (arrived a few days ago), and my CPU is clearly the bottlenecking factor now. But still, I can get at least 30 fps pretty much everywhere with comparatively high settings.

[Guest John_Cillis]

1 hour ago, Susu986 said:

I have to second that, your controller is very important in X-plane. I used to have a twist grip joystick as well, now I also use pedals, too, because they give me more fine grained control when taxiing/taking off. I'm using a Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X, which is value option. Having said that I recommend to buy at least a value joystick, then using keyboard/mouse. I also have a 4770K CPU, and GTX 1080 (arrived a few days ago), and my CPU is clearly the bottlenecking factor now. But still, I can get at least 30 fps pretty much everywhere with comparatively high settings.

I have dived into a lot of Xplane's settings, I think one reason why my performance is improved is due to my use of photoreal scenery because X-Plane uses a lot of resources to render its outstanding autogen.  I mask the autogen when I fly over the photoreal scenery so I can see it well in the flight levels.  Eventually, I will invest in a good pair of rudder pedals.  It is harder to coordinate with the twist grip.  I like my new controller's feel, it has a good, firm feel to it.  I almost bought the Thrustmaster you have but Fry's Electronics was easier to get to, LOL.  

[ryanbatc 13,184]

On 11/3/2017 at 8:13 AM, PaulCankaya said:

Hi all,

I'm sick of FSX and want a new 64 bit platform to build a new sim on. However I'm stuck between choosing X-plane 11 or P3D V4. 

What would you recommend and what sort of performance can I expect with the following specs (I know not to go max settings so I'm happy with medium settings):

Intel Core i5 4690K Processor 3.50 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.3GHz)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Graphics Card

16 GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1600MHz RAM

Seagate 1000GB SSHD Hybrid Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Assuming my sliders aren't maxed out and sitting in the middle, is it even worth buying X-Plane 11?

Kind Regards

Paul

Your PC is more than strong enough to run XP11 or P3D 4

I've got a 2500K (ancient in today's world) at 4GHz, a GTX 970 and only 8GB of ram, and with medium-high settings it's pretty smooth, get's a little stuttery around big cities but that's because I love eye candy and am saturating my 4GB of vram and 8GB system ram.

[filou 2,814]

it depends also how you consider your hobby but personally i can't be happy with "medium settings"

If you want to take advantage of the potential in its entirety of XP11 or P3D for a few years and by adding the add-on.

Do not do things halfway because if you regret it will cost you even more and your morale will be too "medium settings"

The difference between the GTX 1060 and the GTX 1070 it is day and night...

 

I7 8700K / I7 7700K 

GTX 1070 minimum...

SSD 500 GB minimum

16 GB minimum

Windows 10

[ryanbatc 13,184]

Maybe at 4k it's night and day - at 1080P he'll be fine in either sim.

[sultanofswing 89]

This may not be true for other people but for me having both sims I find that P3d Performs better at 4k than XP11 does.  I still get great performance in XP11 but P3d is smoother for me.

[ryanbatc 13,184]

I'm not surprised, XP11 is far more CPU/GPU intensive than P3D, you can really bring your CPU to a crawl in XP11 if you're not careful.  Not saying you can't work your PC in P3D v4 either, but in my experience, XP11 definitely hits harder with higher settings.

[filou 2,814]

6 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

I'm not surprised, XP11 is far more CPU/GPU intensive than P3D, you can really bring your CPU to a crawl in XP11 if you're not careful.  Not saying you can't work your PC in P3D v4 either, but in my experience, XP11 definitely hits harder with higher settings.

"XP11 definitely hits harder with higher settings".

You are right but for example 25 fps in P3D vs 25 fps in XP11 is not the same.XP11 is more fluid.With XP11  I can take off and land from any big city with maximum settings.XP11 also has a big lead over its competitor:light engine, reflection...it is day and night if you compare with P3D.

And finally, P3D is limited in its future progression

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

I found this site which compares one video card's performance against another and compares how they work with most games (X-Plane included even though it's not a game).  Pretty interesting page.

http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=3505&gid2=1792&compare=geforce-gtx-1070-vs-geforce-gtx-770-msi-twinfrozr-edition

Play around with it - it's intersting.

John