3: Initial Flight Setup

3: Initial Flight Setup

General Access

Since X-Plane has been written to operate on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux systems, the layout and appearance of X-Plane is the same across all three operating systems for consistency. This may be slightly different than the interface you are accustomed to, but is easy to use.

Here are a few pointers to help you along:

- X-Plane's menu is hidden when you first launch the simulator. To access the menu bar, just move your mouse pointer to the top of the screen. When your mouse is within a centimeter or so of the top edge of the screen, the menu bar will appear. There is no keyboard command to access the menu bar.

- Anytime you've opened a window within X-Plane you can close that window by clicking EITHER of the close 'X's' on the upper right or upper left of that window.

- You can also hit your Enter / Return key to close any window that is open.

-You can go to the SETTINGS > 'Joystick and Equipment' screen, 'Keys' tab, to see the key commands, and easily change them to anything you like there as well. Additionally, note that many of the keyboard shortcuts are shown in the X-Plane menus. For example, if you go to the VIEW menu you'll see the list of all available views on the left side of that drop down menu and the list of keyboard shortcuts on the right.

Like most programs, the simplest way to navigate around X-Plane is using the mouse, though there are many shortcut key commands to help you navigate quickly through the options after you've become more familiar with the program. These shortcuts are particularly important when you're trying to use the mouse to fly. In that case, it is much easier to use the '2' key to drop a notch of flaps than it is to let go of the controls and then reach down with the mouse to adjust the flaps and then reach back up and grab the controls again. Of course, while you're attempting to do this the aircraft is merrily flying along at 150 knots or something.

Note: Most instruments and controls inside the cockpit are interactive, meaning that you can use the mouse to alter switches, set frequencies, manipulate the throttle(s), and trim, etc. Before you start to use X-Plane, you may need to configure and calibrate your joystick (if applicable), and set the rendering (display) options to optimize the software for use with your system. We explain that now:

Joystick Configuration and Calibration

Note: If you are using a joystick or other hardware, it will need to be plugged in before you start X-Plane or X-Plane will not see your input devices. Earlier, we reviewed the various types of input devices that you may want to consider. The most common type of input device is a joystick. More elaborate input devices such as flight yokes, multi-engine throttle quadrants and rudder pedals can also be configured with X-Plane. Note that X-Plane can only listen to USB-format devices. This configuration has become the industry standard and is probably what you already have, assuming your hardware isn't excessively old. The first thing that you must do to use a joystick (or other input device) with X-Plane is to properly calibrate it within X-Plane.

A few notes before we get started:

- If you don't have a joystick or other input device, you can still control X-Plane by using the mouse and keyboard.

- A joystick of some kind is recommended as a minimum flight control device as this will be much more realistic and provide a better environment for you to use the software.

Axis Assignment

Once X-Plane is running, go to Settings > Joystick and Equipment. This will bring up the screens that will allow you to configure and calibrate your joystick hardware. To start, click on the Axis tab at the top of this screen.

To setup and calibrate your joystick, move your controls around to see how the axes are mapped into X-Plane. When you do this, you'll see one of the green bars move for each input you actuate. Thus, when you roll your stick or yoke left and right only one green bar will move. If you push it back and forth another bar will move. Select from the drop down box to the left of each green bar the desired function in X-Plane. The normal configuration is as follows:

1: The axis that moves when you move the stick / yoke left and right should be assigned to ROLL.

2: The axis that moves when you move the stick fore and aft should be assigned to PITCH.

3: The axis that moves when you move the throttle should be assigned to THROTTLE (NOT 'throttle 1' or 'throttle 2'), unless you're flying a multiple engine aircraft and are using a multi-engine throttle quadrant.

4: The axis that moves when you move the rudder pedals left and right should be assigned to YAW.

5: The THROTTLE axis should probably have the REVERSE box checked.

If you have additional input devices, you can program them within X-Plane in the same way.

Note: Any green bar which is not actively controlled by your hardware needs to be set to 'none'.

Calibrating Joystick Hardware

This is a step of vital importance that often gets left out. Keep in mind that X-Plane is capable of interfacing with most modern joysticks and pedals and so-forth. Some devices may send a signal from 0 to 1,000 when you move a given control from one limit to the opposite and another may send a signal (given the same movement of your hand or foot) from -6,000 to 3,992 or something. How is X-Plane to know what the limits are that your joystick will create? Easy! You tell it. You do this by clicking the button labeled "Calibrate Joystick Hardware" on this window. This tells X-Plane that you are next going to give it your full range of signals for every possible input you have. To do this, just move every one of your variable controls (that is, your sliders) through their full and complete range of motion. You can do this quite rapidly as X-Plane can log and remember all the different inputs at once. So, after you click the button labeled "Calibrate Joystick Hardware" move your stick or yoke from full right to full left deflection, from full back to full forwards. Do the same thing for any engine controls you may have, like throttles or propellers.

Button Assignment

Now click on the Buttons tab at the top of the screen. The buttons and switches on your joystick and other input device(s) can be assigned a function within X-Plane, for example to actuate the flaps or landing gear. As you operate the buttons and switches you will see various 'Joy' indicators change from dark gray to green, This is an indication that X-Plane has received your input. To change a button or switch assignment, simply operate the applicable button or switch on your joystick or other input device, then select the required function within X-Plane by clicking on the small circular button to the right of the 'Joy' indicators. Repeat this operation for as many buttons and switches as you wish to assign the functions. Close the dialog and your settings will be saved. Note: You must press the required button or switch to select it prior to assigning it a function. If you do not, you will overwrite the assignment of the previous button or switch you programmed.

Setting Null Zones

Null zones determine how much you have to move the joystick before X-Plane actually starts to take action. You may set a null zone for each joystick axis to finely tune how responsive your control surface inputs are, but this function is typically used to prevent your hardware from 'creeping' in flight or to ignore the constant 'jittering' that many older controllers will send to X-Plane. To do this, click on the CENTER tab. Now operate each axis on your controller and hold them at the point at which you want the control to begin operating while in flight. Close the dialog and these axis positions will be saved. Any movement inside the 'dead range' you just set will not affect the aircraft's controls.

The fifth tab in the 'Joystick and Equipment' screen, EQUIPMENT, is used to setup special equipment for use in X-Plane. This special equipment section is generally used on multi-computer X-Plane configurations on professional/FAA certified simulators or to tie in various GPS navigators, for example a real Garmin 96/296/396 or 430 or 530 GPS radio. If you have some of this equipment, connect it to your computer, set it up per the manufacturer's recommendations and than check off on the Equipment screen (Settings > Joystick and Equipment: Equipment) that you have connected this to X-Plane.

Controlling Joystick Sensitivity and Aircraft Stability

Now go to the CENTER tab at the top of the joystick screen. The top-left sliders are the sensitivity curves which control the responsiveness of your input device. If these sliders are set all the way to the LEFT, then the response will be completely linear meaning that a 50% deflection of your joystick will deflect the flight controls 50% of their travel. As you move these sliders to the right the response becomes non-linear. In this case, the first 50% deflection of your joystick or yoke may only deflect the aircraft's controls by 10%. This will dampen any aircraft movements and desensitize your controls, but keep in mind that the remaining 90% of the control surface deflection must take place in the last 50% of joystick travel, in this case. Thus, your controls will be very dampened for the first half or so of their travel and then become hyper-sensitive for the remainder of their throw. This gives you plenty of fine-tune control near the center of the flight-control envelope to hold altitude and roll precisely, but still lets you get full control authority at the extremes. Try flying with the sliders in various different positions to see what setting works best for you.

Notice that there is an additional set of sliders on the upper right portion of this screen. These control the X-Planes stability augmentation mode by dampening the predicted forces acting on the aircraft flight control surfaces. If these sliders are all the way to the LEFT, then there is no stability augmentation of your aircraft. Now let's say you drag the sliders to the right a bit . . . this means that X-Plane will automatically add some stability augmentation to your aircraft, adding some elevator input to level the nose, some aileron input to minimize the roll rate, and some rudder input to counter any aircraft yaw rates. In other words, the simulator will try to make the plane easier to fly by adding control inputs for you. Try dragging the sliders all the way to the right and flying the airplane . . . now it is a lot easier to fly, right? Notice that the aircraft also becomes less responsive and heavier on the controls.

Go ahead and play with the two sets of sliders to custom tailor the feel of X-Plane to be comfortable to you.

Rendering Options Window Setup

X-Plane is a very advanced simulator that has been designed for use across a broad range of computers of varying specifications. As such, X-Plane provides the user with the option to make changes to numerous settings to optimize performance given a particular system specification or set up. For this reason, this is one of the most critical portions of this manual. The Rendering Options page (go to Settings > Rendering Options) allows you to match X-Plane's settings (and thus computer requirements) to your computer's capabilities. The Rendering Options screen is where all the settings affecting the display quality and X-Plane's performance are set. You will probably want to experiment with the settings in this screen to get the best results from X-Plane on your computer. Generally speaking, the more options you choose and the higher the setting of the rendering options, the lower the performance and frame rate. The Rendering Options you set will have more overall effect on X-Plane performance than any other settings you can make.

Here's why this is so important:

The simulator's performance is measured in frames per second, or Hertz (Hz), commonly referred to as frame rate. This is how many times per second the complete code (currently more than 700,000 lines!) can be run. Each time the computer runs through the program it advances the aircraft and recalculates the images that are seen (cloud formations, scenery, aircraft instruments, other aircraft, etc). Suppose for a moment that your computer was only powerful enough to run one iteration every hour. That would be absolutely UNBEARABLE. Here's why: you would sit there for 60 minutes with out a single thing happening, and then the aircraft would suddenly leap forward whatever distance had been covered in the last hour. Then get to look at that image - never changing - for the next 60 minutes while your computer crunches through the next iteration to see what will happen next. Obviously, this is not desirable. Not only do you not want to sit there for hours and hours with nothing happening, but the program would calculate all sorts of infinite accelerations and massive changes in position and moment. This is simply not viable as the computer is just too slow to run X-Plane; at least for the way you've set X-Plane up.

As you can already tell, X-Plane has to be tremendously flexible to allow it to run on two year old computers and also to take full advantage of the newest super-computer that can be created. There are two things that effect the Simulator's frame rate: the computer's capabilities and what you are asking it to do (i.e., how much visibility you have set, how many 3D objects like buildings, clouds, and other aircraft are being drawn, how many roads to calculate, etc.). It should be apparent that it will be much harder for the computer to compute images when you're flying an airplane in 30 mile visibility with 8,000 three-dimensional buildings and cloud puffs than it would be if you set X-Plane up with only two or three miles of visibility.

The faster the computer can run X-Plane the more realistic and rewarding you will find the simulation. Scientific testing has shown that the human brain can interpret individual frames at frame rates of less than about 20Hz, causing the simulation to appear choppy. Coincidentally, this is also about the same place that the engineering begins to fall apart. Thus, we have set the minimum operating speed at this level. If your machine is not capable of delivering a frame rate of 20Hz while rendering the levels of detail you have set up in the Settings > Rendering Options page, X-Plane will automatically introduce fog to help your machine run more smoothly. The fog means that X-Plane doesn't have to draw the world to as great a distance and this allows the computer to run faster.

The following paragraphs explain what each of these options does. We strongly suggest experimenting with these settings in order to get the best experience from X-Plane.

Setting Up Your Monitor

Resolution Section

Texture Resolution

The 'Texture Resolution' setting determines the clarity and detail of the textures displayed in X-Plane. Textures are the image-maps that are draped over the terrain and aircraft to make them look realistic. If your texture resolution is LOW, then the runway and terrain will look pretty blurry and blocky . . . really not so great. While this will not look too good, it will use very little VIDEO MEMORY (VRAM), so a high-frame-rate will be more easily possible. (We'll get into a lengthy discussion on frame rate and how to optimize it in a few sections.) The more powerful your video card is, though, the higher you can set your texture resolution in X-Plane without hurting the frame-rate. The frame rate will be VERY BADLY REDUCED, though, if you select a texture resolution that requires more VRAM than your card has!

So, how do you tell what texture resolution you can set? Easy! Look at the very BOTTOM of the rendering options screen and see how much "VRAM is used at current settings." If you have a 128-meg video card, and the VRAM used is only 32 Meg, then you can go up to a higher texture resolution. The scenery, runway, and airplane will all look much better and sharper and more crisp. And, as long as you do not ask for more VRAM than your video card has, your frame-rate will not be impacted. Note that if you set a texture resolution which requires substantially more VRAM than your video card has, your frame rate will be MASSIVELY impacted as the computer begins to use system RAM to store textures - a VERY SLOW process.

NOTE: you must restart X-Plane (but not your computer) for the changes in texture resolution to take effect! Thus, if you are using 32 MB VRAM according to the rendering options screen, but have a 128 MB video card, then crank the texture resolution up a notch or two and re-start X-Plane... then go into the rendering options screen and see how much VRAM is used at the new setting. In a perfect world, the VRAM used will be just right about equal to or a bit more than the VRAM of your video card. This will give maximum texture detail without overflowing the video card and reducing your fame rate.

Set Color Depth and Monitor Resolution on X-Plane Startup

Check this box and X-Plane will automatically reset your monitor to the same resolution as X-Plane every time you start it, making the sim always run full-screen. If you check this box, you will also get to choose a color-depth of 16-bit or 32-bit... 32-bit looks a little better. If you don't have this box checked, then X-Plane will run in whatever color depth you have your monitor set to, which is probably 32-bit (or "millions of colors" as described on Macs).

Anti-Alias Level

The anti-alias option is pretty interesting. There are only about a million pixels on your monitor; which seems like a lot, doesn't it? In reality, it's not for what X-Plane is doing. When any computer tries to draw a diagonal line across these rectangular pixels, "jaggies" result, which is pixilated-looking "stair-stepped" lines. If you would like to try and eliminate these jaggies select anti-aliasing and this will actually draw the X-Plane world several times per frame and blend them together, resulting in a better-looking image. This will completely kill your frame-rate if you don't have a strong video card, but if your video card is powerful, you can crank this option way up without the frame-rate being affected too badly.

Screen Res (Resolution)

This option sets the full screen resolution of X-Plane. The default and recommended setting is 1024x768 pixels. Other screen resolutions can be used, but you may find that frame-rate deteriorates just a little as the screen area gets larger. If the X-Plane window does not fill your screen, determine at what screen resolution your computer is running and enter this same resolution here. Or, do it the other way around: Set the resolution on your computer to match the resolution on X-Plane. Changes to this setting will take effect after X-Plane is restarted.

NOTE: IF YOUR MONITOR IS NOT OF A STANDARD 4:3 ASPECT RATIO, THEN EVERYTHING ON THE SCREEN WILL BE DISTORTED IF YOU RUN X-PLANE IN 1024X768. Why is this? Well, think about it: X-Plane's standard resolution is 1024:768.. this is a ratio of 4 to 3, agreed? Now lets say that your monitor is NOT 4:3 aspect ratio? Then what happens? Well, if the monitor is not physically 4/3 as wide as it is tall (4:3 aspect ratio) but the pixels are 1024x768 (4:3 aspect ratio) then there will be distortion of the image! Things that should be round will appear as oval. This is not any sort of bug in X-Plane, it is just a fact that if you take 4:3 image and stretch it over a space that is not 4:3 in proportions, it will simply be stretched in some direction. This is no different than taking a piece of wallpaper from your wall and stretching it out too far in one direction and seeing that the circles printed on the wall-paper are now ovals! This stretching is most easily seen as instruments that appear to be oval. So, if you see this, what do you DO about it?

Well, the first step is to buy standard-aspect ratio monitors if you want X-Plane to fill the whole screen. This means they must physically be 3/4 as tall as they are wide. This is the 4:3 aspect ratio. Their max res should be 1024x768 if you want the X-Plane cockpit to fill their screen. If you buy a monitor of some OTHER aspect ratio (like a wide-screen) then if you set the monitor res to a wide-screen res (like 1280x768) then you will have un-used pixels on either side of the monitor. If you set the monitor to 1024x768, then you will be stretching 1024 pixels across the space occupied by 1280 pixels . . . a clear case of distortion!

So stick to 4:3 aspect ratio monitors to avoid image distortion if you want to fill the whole screen with an X-Plane cockpit with no distortion.

Setting up the X-Plane World

Performance Rendering Options

Forest Density

This control is pretty self-explanatory, allowing you to control how dense the forest and shrubbery are in X-Plane. Keep in mind that drawing more and more dense forestry will have a moderate effect on the simulator's ability to maintain frame rate.

World Detail Distance

This will set the level of detail of objects in the world scenery, and from how far away this detail will be visible. Changes to this setting will take effect after X-Plane is restarted and have a large effect on frame rate. Be careful with this one.

Number of Objects

This will determine how many three-dimensional objects are drawn in the world scenery, for example buildings. This will obviously have a VERY POWERFUL effect on the simulator's performance as flying over New York City with 8,000 little 3D buildings is much more difficult than flying over rural Iowa with only 20. Changes to this setting will take effect after X-Plane is restarted. This control will have a very large effect on frame rate - be careful with this one.

Number of Roads

This will set the number and complexity of roads and rivers, which will be displayed in X-Plane. Changes to this setting will take effect after X-Plane is restarted and have a moderate to large effect on frame rate.

Draw Instructor's Operating Station on Second Monitor on Same Video Card

If you have a dual-head video card (which must be configured in your OS, by the way) and check this box than a second X-Plane window will open on the second screen. On this window go to "Output > Local Maps" and you will than have the option of checking on the "IOS, or Instructor's Operating Station. On the left you will than be give the option of loading different aircraft, relocating the aircraft, failing systems, and altering the weather for the 'student' pilot. Note that this IOS functionality is available not only on a second screen on the same computer, but also from a second computer networked to the student via a LAN or through the internet. This option has no effect on frame rate.

Anisotropic Filter Textures

OK, this one is a bit difficult to explain. Imagine if you take a picture and look at it from about two feet, with your eye directly above the image and perpendicular to it. Things are clear and sharp, right? Now take the same picture and rotate it 90 degrees away from you so you're looking at the edge. How does the image look now? Obviously, you can't see it any longer. Now rotate it back towards you but only about 5 to 10 degrees. You can just start to make out the image but, since you're looking at it from such a low angle the picture is all fuzzy and poorly defined. This is analogous to looking at the X-Plane scenery from a low altitude on a clear day. The images directly in front of the aircraft will be relatively clear, but the farther the scenery gets towards the horizon the fuzzier the image becomes. The anisotropic filter helps to filter this fuzziness out, helping the image to be more clear. This option has a minimal effect on most machines and a moderate impact on some machines. Try it out and see if you like it and if you can live with the performance penalty.

Draw Hi-Res Planet Textures from Orbit

X-Plane can simulate orbital and sub-orbital flight using the Space Shuttle and other spacecraft. If selected, this option will display high-resolution images of the Earth when simulating space flights. These high-resolution images will typically be displayed at altitudes of 100,000 ft or higher. This has no effect on frame rate unless you are above that altitude.

Oil Rigs, Carriers and Frigates

In the past this was a user option. In the new version, X-Plane populates areas of ocean for you automatically with Oil Rigs, Aircraft Carriers, and Frigate Vessels, which can be used to perform maritime flight operations. You can land and take off from these vessels, which realistically pitch and roll in the waves according to the weather conditions you have programmed. These additional items have a very negligible effect on frame rate.

Draw Cars on the Roads

The X-Plane world can be automatically populated with hot air balloons, cars parked by airports and driving on the roads, and some other objects. Use this option to switch these objects on and off. Note that the hot air balloons are only displayed on relatively calm days, as in real life. This option has a moderate effect on frame rate.

Draw Birds in Nice Weather

This is a relatively new feature in X-Plane that arose from a near-miss between Austin (the author of X-Plane) in his Cirrus and a small flock of birds while departing from Columbia, South Carolina, one day. As he was climbing out a flock of birds flew in front of his aircraft and Austin thought we was about to incur multiple collisions. As luck turned out the birds did not collide with him but it was enough to open his eyes and to realize that this potential hazard needed to be modeled in X-Plane.

It would have been cool to just draw a flock of birds that moves around but that wouldn't be very accurate. He went much further than this and actually designed flocks of birds that fly around, flapping their wings. Each bird is modeled independently and has its own little mission. Thus, when you see a flock of birds it looks VERY realistic and colliding with the birds will cause damage to your aircraft as well as engine failures and other things, just like in real life. This option has a negligible effect on frame rate.

Draw High-Detail Runway Environment

When checked, this option will use a light texture in place of a light point wherever there is such an object used in the scenery. Although it looks more realistic, if there are a large number of lights in a scenery area, having this option enabled will negatively impact performance to a moderate degree.

Draw Cloud Shadows and Reflections

This option will simulate cloud shadows on the terrain and sun reflection effects on the ocean. If your OpenGL graphics card and driver support multi-texturing, this option will not cause a noticeable drop in performance.

Setting up Clouds

3-D Cloud Controls

X-Plane's 3D clouds are generated from many smaller cloud sprites, or 'puffs'. They give the appearance of a true, volumetric cloud, which you can fly through, or around. They also develop over time, just as in real life, depending on the weather conditions. You can experiment with these settings to obtain a balance between performance and visual appeal.

Number of Cloud Puffs

This option sets the number of cloud puffs, as a ratio to the default value of 1.00. Increasing the number of puffs will have a massive impact on frame rate. Be careful with this one.

Size of Cloud Puffs

This option sets the size of each cloud puff, as a ratio to the default value of 1.00. The larger the size of cloud puffs, the lower the performance of X-Plane will become, although this may not be too noticeable on modern video cards.

Special Viewing controls - i.e.: multiple monitor installations

Field of View

The Field of View setting will change the way X-Plane renders (displays) the view of the outside world. Higher settings will allow more of the terrain to be viewed at any one time, but will reduce performance. Higher settings will also increase the 'fish eye' effect of the simulator. The default value is 45 degrees, which generally gives the most natural view and good all round performance.

Minimum Frame Rate

As discussed previously, the frame rate is the number of unique pictures, or 'frames' that the simulator displays per second. The term comes from the motion picture industry where each frame was a separate picture taken by a movie camera. As far as X-Plane is concerned, the higher the frame rate, the greater the flight model accuracy and the better the visual appeal will be. This function will set a minimum frame rate that X-Plane will attempt to maintain. If your system has too many rendering options set, or those options are set too high, X-Plane will automatically reduce the visibility in an attempt to maintain the specified minimum frame rate specified here.

The minimum frame-rate is interesting... if X-Plane ever gets BELOW that minimum frame-rate then it will reduce the visibility to try to get the frame-rate up to draw less. You can't go less than 20 fps (frames per second) because the flight model needs at least 20 fps to do a decent job simulating most airplanes... although smaller, lighter planes with less inertia and more speed for their size and more maneuverability will actually need MORE than 20 fps to fly accurately because they can flicker around the sky so quickly: a high frame-rate is needed to accurately track the plane's rapid accelerations. If your frame-rate is too low for the flight-model to handle, then the plane is likely to start oscillating quickly back and forth (referred to as 'simulator flutter', often with autopilot on) as the flight model tries unsuccessfully to predict what the plane will do next... unsuccessfully, because your computer is running too slow to take small enough time-steps in the flight model to see what the plane will really do each moment in time. The smaller and more maneuverable the plane, and the faster it goes, the greater the accelerations. And the greater the accelerations, the greater the needed frame-rate to simulate the plane.

View Options

Draw View Indicator

This is a handy feature that will draw a little orange triangle in the top center of your screen when looking any direction other than forwards. It rotates about a little depiction of your aircraft and points in the direction that your screen is pointing. This is helpful in maintaining situational awareness. This option has a negligible effect on frame rate.

Draw Forest Fires and Balloons in Warm Weather.

When checked, this option will draw randomly generated forest fires for you to practice water bombing. X-Plane can realistically simulate such operations, requiring you to fly a water bomber such as the CL-415 (found in 'Seaplanes') and scoop up water from the ocean or a nearby lake. This option has a negligible effect on frame rate.

Dim Under High G-Load or Hypoxia

When checked, X-Plane will simulate the effects of gravity, creating G-force blackouts under tight maneuvers or hypoxia from high altitude flying. These affects are true to life and you will see the screen either 'black out' or 'red out' just as a pilot would experience a loss of eyesight under extreme high or low G situations. Additionally, you will black out if you fly at too high an altitude with out first setting your pressurization or oxygen system, just like in real life. This option has a negligible effect on frame rate.

Expert Rendering Options

Compress textures to save VRAM

Check this and re-start X-Plane and you may be able to use about twice the VRAM without overflowing your card! If you do this, then some of the crispness and precision of the textures may be lost! Try it out if you like and see what happens.

Do Any Scenery Loads in the Background

This will do exactly what it says, to load new scenery when you are about to fly out of one sector of scenery and into another. There is not a computer that has been built yet that has the memory required to load the entire Earth scenery into active memory. Thus, the scenery must be broken down into smaller pieces and loaded in sectors. In X-Plane each sector is three degrees of longitude by two degrees of latitude. If you uncheck this option your computer will not load scenery as you approach the end of the sector that was loaded in flight. This will prevent your machine from going into the annoying pause (typically 15 to 30 seconds or so) but you will quickly find yourself out over the ocean if you fly beyond the location of scenery that was originally loaded. Why ocean? Because this is what X-Plane draws if you fly over an area that does not have any scenery installed. This option does not affect frame rate as you fly along but it does prevent your simulation from pausing periodically since it never loads new scenery.

Checking this option causes X-Plane to load as much scenery as possible in the background while the simulator is running in the foreground. This is where a dual-core or multi-processor machine comes in useful! A single hyper-threaded CPU? Not so good - you really want a dual-core chip or dual CPU's.

Runways follow Terrain Contours

X-Plane includes a feature whereby runways and taxiways can follow the elevations of the terrain upon which they are drawn. In some cases, the changes in elevation of the terrain may be too abrupt, which can make airport runways overly bumpy. For this reason, the default case is for X-Plane to flatten the terrain under the runways. Checking this box will disable that convention and allow the runways to follow the underlying terrain. This option has no effect on frame rate.

Special Viewing Controls

The options in this section are used for multi-computer simulators. This will allow you to run different views on different monitors, for example a left, center, and right views on three different monitors. Others may like to draw the instrument panel on one screen and the forward view on a second screen. Note that each screen requires its own computer and copy of X-Plane as each machine is running a parallel simulation. To do this, tie the various computers together via a standard Ethernet network through a router and get the machines communicating. Than launch X-Plane on each computer and go to the Settings > Data Input/Output screen. On this screen go to the Inet 1 or Inet 2 tab and enter the various IP addresses of the different machines in the appropriate location. Call customer service if you have difficulty with this and would like some assistance.

Under normal, single computer configurations, these options can all be left at their default values

Field of View

The field of view (FOV) is exactly what it says: how many degrees of width are displayed on the screen. While you may set the width of your field of view, X-Plane will automatically set the vertical field of view to maintain a non-distorted image based on the aspect ratio of your screen's resolution.

Minimum Frame Rate

Lateral, Vertical and Roll Offsets

Let's say that you have three networked computers for additional visuals to form a wrap-around cockpit. Each computer might have a 40 degree FOV. You should enter a lateral offset of -40 degrees for the left visual, 0 for the front visual, and +40 degrees for the right visual. If each visual has a field of view of 40 degree, these images will blend together seamlessly if you don't consider the width of the frame around the monitor. If you cannot set up the monitors to run their effective image all the way to the edge (as you can with some, even though you can't see the part theoretically under the border) then you might try a field of view of maybe 38 degrees, based on whatever fraction of the monitor is visible.

Entering the degrees of offset is what you would do for a wrap-around view, where each monitor is at the same distance from the viewer, each gathered around him/her in a circle and pointing at him. If, however, you are placing all the visuals along a flat wall, where all the monitors are in the same plane, each one off to the edge farther from the viewer than the center one, then you will enter a RATIO offset... -1.0 for the left and 1.0 for the right are recommended as starting points.

Vertical and roll offset are what you would expect based on the text above.

NOTE: While the view offsets do indicate how much to the left or right or up or down each view is looking, people still make the same mistake over and over: they run a center view with a cockpit in the center screen, and external visuals on the left and right (this is fine) but they notice that the horizon in the center (cockpit) screen does not line up with the horizons on either side. The reason for this is that the center-point of the screen where the horizon rests in a level flight attitude is up near the =>topcenternotcenter Data In / Out, and check the right-hand box in front of "FRAME-RATE", which sends the frame-rate to the screen in flight. Now you can see how fast you are running, in the "freq /sec" output on the far left. This is called "frames per second" or "fps".

- 15 fps is terrible and barely adequate to run the simulator.

- 30 to 50 fps is the range you should target - faster frame rates mean your computer has reserve capacity. Studies have shown that starting at about 50 frames per second, your sub-conscious mind forgets that you are looking at a simulator, and thinks you are actually flying.

- 100 fps is insanely high and indicates you have plenty of capacity to draw more buildings, clouds and other objects.

What are you seeing on YOUR computer? Not high enough? OK, here's how to make it faster: Go to the Environment > Weather screen. Set the cloud types to CLEAR or OVERCAST for maximum speed, or HIGH CIRRUS or LOW STRATUS for good speed. SCATTERED or BROKEN take a ton of computing power to run.

Set the visibility to about five miles or so. Higher visibility takes more computing power to run, because the computer has to calculate what the world looks like for a much larger area.

Nothing else in the weather screen will affect frame-rate, but clouds and visibility affect it a LOT.

OK, close that screen and check your frame-rate now. Better? Good, but we're not done yet.

Now go to Settings -> Rendering Options. Look at your TEXTURE RESOLUTION. This setting determines how much VIDEO RAM (VRAM) you use. As long as you have plenty of VRAM, you can set it as high as you want with no loss in frame rate, but as soon as you set the texture resolution to require more VRAM than you have, your frame rate will die! How do you tell how much VRAM X-Plane is using? Easy. Look at the bottom of the rendering options screen and X-Plane tells you.

NOTE: You can in some cases allocate MORE VRAM than you physically have, and X-Plane will still run fast, because a lot of the RAM can be "cached away" in the system with no speed penalty if it is not often accessed by the computer... like if it is the texture of desert sand, for example, but no desert sand is visible to you because you are not flying over the desert. But, if you have only 128 meg of VRAM on your video card, and the texture resolution is set such that you need 256 meg of VRM, then the computer will constantly be moving RAM on and off the video card (between the video card RAM and the system RAM) to draw each frame of scenery. This is VERY, VERY SLOW. Thus, you must set the texture resolution low enough to avoid this.

NOTE: After you change the texture resolution, you must re-start X-Plane for the change to take effect! We recommend that you put the texture resolution on its lowest setting, exit the sim, re-start it, and note the frame-rate. Then raise the texture detail up one level and repeat, keep doing this until the frame-rate decreases . . . this is the point where you are using up all your VRAM! Back the texture resolution off to one level lower than where you noted the decrease and restart X-Plane again.

Now look at the screen resolution in the rendering options screen... it uses up some VRAM, but not much. Your screen resolution is the size of the image that X-Plane is drawing, in pixels width by pixels height. You may have a large, wide monitor but that does not mean that drawing a large, wide screen HAS to be more difficult for X-Plane. You can either draw a relatively few number of pixels on that screen if you set your system Screen Resolution accordingly or a lot. Remember, you set this in your control panel > Displays (Windows Users) and in your System Preferences > Displays (Mac users). Drawing a large screen with few pixels will look much worse and 'grainy' than drawing a smaller screen with more pixels - assuming that you are the same distance from the monitor in each case. Obviously, drawing more detail (with a higher screen resolution) uses up some video card CPU, but not too much. The primary drag on your computer is in the processor as it must calculate the view for a larger, more detailed area. Play with this a bit and set the resolution as you see fit... probably 1024x768 on a marginally powerful computer. Remember, you will have to shut down X-Plane and restart for the changes to take effect.

Now we get to the really critical things: the all-important "number of objects" and "number of roads" settings. These have a HUGE impact on frame-rate. Set these to NONE for speed, then reset X-Plane for the changes to take effect. Then you slowly bring them up, one level at a time and restart the sim to see what the change in performance is. Setting these options to higher levels will look much nicer but will massively impact your frame rate.

The many different boxes to the right of the world/object/road boxes for speed were reviewed above in detail. Most of these do NOT make too much of a difference, with the exception of "Draw textured lights" is very CPU-intensive when flying at night. Thus, set these up pretty much as you wish.

"Number of cloud puffs" has a HUGE impact on frame-rate when you have scattered, broken, or overcast clouds, but you already know to avoid those if you are not getting good frame-rate.

There's one more area that is pretty important, "Number of airplanes," accessed from the Settings > Aircraft and Situations window. It should be '1' (yours) for maximum speed. Setting this number higher will cause X-Plane to use AI (artificial intelligence) to fly any specified number of other aircraft around the sky. Note that there is no logic to determine what type of aircraft to place or where - thus you may see a hot air balloon flying around New York City. Fun to look at but not too realistic, we agree.

The other settings in this window don't really affect speed too much.