Most Powerful computer for X-Plane 11

Question

Having run x-plane for 2 years, I am building my second computer dedicated to x-plane (meaning it will only be used as a flight simulator for x-plane - nothing else). I do not use any computer games  I will be purchasing an i9-7940X CPU (14 cores), an X299 motherboard and 64gb of 3600mhz RAM.  My current simulator runs a GTX 1080 ti graphics card running three  2560 x 1600 Dell U3014 monitors.

 Having spent many hours of research, I am confused by the term "gaming computer".  As far as computer resources are concerned, is X-plane considered a "game"?  Many forums seem to suggest that a far less capable CPU such as an i7-8700k (Passmark rating for i9 = 25,289 vs  i7 = 16,262) might perform better.  What am I missing??

When I called x-plane tech support a year ago, I was told "get the most cores you can", to achieve the highest fps (I think 14 cores fits that description).

I am obviously not looking to do this on the cheap. I have experienced 50+ fps in X-plane and the experience is vastly different than 25-30 fps  Nothing I have read (many hours on x-plane.org etc.) seems to make it clear: what is the best solution to get the highest performance from x-plane 11 and beyond?.

I don't know where else to ask, I would pay someone for their time if I could get clarification.  Any help I can get would be greatly appreciated. 

Answer 1

Hi Yoos2flyC210H,

I am not with Laminar Research or X-ForcePC; just a flight simmer.

X-Plane is not a gaming  but a simulation package. However, a computer marketed to be able to run X-plane and other "shoot-em-up" packages use the general terminology of a "gamimg" machine.  I suppose it could be termed as a generic description.

In relation to what you want to build have a look at the following YouTube video found at   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgwb37NytY  Michael runs a company called XforcePC which builds computers and sells other "stuff" for flight simulation.  This company is recommended by Laminar Research as the supplier of PC's suitable for X-Plane within the USA.  Obviously they would fine tune the package to give the purchaser the greatest enjoyment and benefit. 

Michael has produced many videos for public viewing and has given an insight on how many cores in not to use.

The link provided is for their top of the range computer and will give you an indicator of what to spend and not to spend.

Hope this helps in making a decision on what configuration to set up for your "flight simulator"

Glenn 

Comments

Tested XP on a recent iMac 27" at Max Graphic Settings around Seattle Tacoma and the default 737: 12 fps.

On an iMac Pro: 21 fps.

Impressive.

Answer 2

Hi,

The chosen proc is indeed not the best for the simulator. X-Plane uses multiple cores, but the computing power needed is not equally distributed among the threads, the one responsible for the rendering beeing the bottleneck. This means that the performance is still limited by the single core performance of your CPU.

The best choice is made by looking at the Single thread performance page.

This said,  I'm not sure you will be able to run three 2560 x 1600 monitors at 50 fps, unless you pull down some graphic options.

In the coming year(s), the rendering engine  will be ported to Vulkan/Metal. X-Plane will then make better use of multicores.

Pascal