Hi Dan,
I am not with Laminar Research; just a flight simmer.
X-Plane is very resource hungry requiring a high end graphics (GPU)card and a high end processor (CPU).
Firstly I would suggest updating the drivers for your graphics card. This may be part of your problem.
However, what version of X-Plane are you running or trying to run? The latest version available is XP 11.30rC? This is not the official release for general use at this stage. It is in the final "throws" of testing. I understand it is well known that this version is causing FPS problems with those flight simmers who "must have" the absolute latest version.
If you have XP11.30 I would suggest you delete that version and download the software again and when you do, do not tick the "check box" for the Beta version. The version downloaded should be XP11.26. I know it will be a pain in the backside to go through the download process again.
This version is stable and the "must have" complainants refer to their previous version 11.26) as being stable and not causing frame rate problems. Then be patient until the official release of XP11.30 Refer to other postings in this forum.
If after you download the latest graphics driver(s) and your system runs quite well in the order of at least 25 FPS with XP11.26 you know your card is OK. But if it doesn't I would suggest you consider a PC upgrade. If you need to upgrade stay with your windows based system and have a look at the following link found at https://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-11-system-requirements/
Good luck and welcome to X-Plane.
Glenn