X-Plane and Mac!

[Bob Reed]

Anyone using X-Plane on a Mac in a sim environment? If you are I would love to get a discusion going here about it.

[rhysb]

Bob,

Spent a day today testing on a pc, I'm a mac user so I am going to load it up on mac Monday. I would expect to see significant better results with a mac.

Also ati seems to perform better than nvidia that's for sure, also the fact that when using eyefinity and multiple screens because xplane uses multicore And you can adjust the FOV in the settings you can get awesome performance on one mac or pc for a 200degree visual.

First day of really solid testing and I'm very very pleased with version 10. Especially as my local airport in the UK is famous for its sloping runway its great to finally be able to replicate it!! Sound is the only thing I'm disappointed in tbh.

Il let you know once I have a mac testbed next to the PC

[Bob Reed]

THis is the kind of information I am looking for. Up until a little over a year ago I used nothing but PCs. I now have a Macbook Pro and a MacPro and my PCs are pretty much silent. Kept the better ones around just for FS and the sim. May be changing that thinking process if all my hardware will work on the Mac but that is where I see the issue.

[XOrionFE]

Also ati seems to perform better than nvidia that's for sure, also the fact that when using eyefinity and multiple screens because xplane uses multicore And you can adjust the FOV in the settings you can get awesome performance on one mac or pc for a 200degree visual.

I would like to hear more about this and if you can video tape it.  I am really skeptical that you can do 200 degree FOV with one Mac and xplane 10.    I have it running on a high end PC with 135 degree now and on medium settings I'm getting around 25 fps when running this way.   From what I can tell, there is no way to get a true 200 degree FOV with only one copy of xplane.   What you get is the typical wide front view.  It's not like undocking  3 windows each with 70 degrees like we do with FSX.   Also, I don't see how a Mac with the same processor, video, and memory as a corresponding PC can make that much difference.   Is the Mac OS that good?  Again, if you get a 200 degree FOV on your Mac setup with one copy of xplane please post a video so we can see it and the fps you are getting on it.  I'm very interested.    I will do the same on my PC setup and that should provide a good comparison.  I am about to buy two more pcs so I can get 3 true 70 degree views with 3 copies of xplane and obviously that will be expensive.  If a Mac is that much better and can do it with only one I would rather go that route but seeing is believing I guess.

My PC is an i7 960 over clocked to 4 ghz, 6 gig ddr3 ram, WD 10k drive for windows 7 64 bit OS and a second 10k drive for xplane.   Nvidia gtx 560 ti over clocked with a Matrox Triple Head to go and 3 projectors.

Scott

[Sean]

Interesting thread!

Although not xplane related, here's my Mac experience...

I bought an IMac last year (impulse buy, you know what I mean) 

It's my main computer for everything not related to the sim, other than browsing and perhaps the odd spreadsheet when I'd prefer to work in the study rather than the garage.

Initially, I was so impressed with it, I thought there must be a place in the sim for this. So I hooked it up to the sim network in the garage and gradually tried to do some sim 'stuff' on it. I quickly realised it wasn't going to work! No Topcat. No Vatsim. No Squawkbox. Unreliable network visibility. I could go on. I did try all this by putting W7 on the Mac, but for me, it never worked as good as a native PC would do it.

The final nail in the Macs sim coffin came when I built a new FSX machine with i7, SSD, 64bit Windows, etc. All of a sudden the Mac seemed like a fish out of water, so back upstairs it went, where it's still used as my main PC (I'm typing this on it). I love Apple products. As well as the Mac, I have iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. But its got a lot of catching up to do if it's to make it into our little corner of the computing world.

Sean

[Bob Reed]

Sean, that is my thought as well. All my hardware probably is not going o work with it either. It is all dependent on Windows drivers and software. So I do not think it is viable. But before I decide that I need to know.

[rhysb]

Mac is only an option as a dedicated Xplane sim running OSX.

I will post some videos but worth checking out Bob's screen setup on xplane at www.rcsimulations.co.uk that's one computer one card one set of memory one graphics card driving 5 26" monitors all at maximum resolution giving a huge FOV at over 30FPS with Xplane10 on high settings.

In response to the question is the Mac OSX better than windows, simple answer is a resounding yes! Win7 compared to OSX is bulky and slow.

Also for my experience a similar spec PC and MAC the MAC will always be faster for some reason. Plus remember the Mac will probably cost 4 times as much. Simply because the parts inside are of a much higher quality than that of. PC

Plus the other good thing about owning a MAC particularly in the UK is that you get your money back when you come to upgrade or sell (not that it is much of a concern to the FS community)

[XOrionFE]

That's pretty nice but it is not a wrap around FOV.  That is only a wide forward FOV.

Also, you say better components in a Mac?  I tough an intel processor is an intel processor.  They're all the same.

[Sean]

Whereas you can get some crap components for PC's, simply because the market is there for them where they're not for the Mac, the branded quality parts we all use in our FSX machines are exactly the same quality as those that Apple choose to put in their Macs.

In fact I would argue that because the PC market is bigger and competition is therefore greater, the quality components have to be better than the often bespoke stuff Apple has made for them.

As I've said, I use both formats regularly and both have their strengths. But OSX certainly isn't the all singing, all dancing OS most Mac users would have you believe. I am more productive in almost every aspect when using a Windows PC over the Mac. The Mac just looks nicer! 

[Bob Reed]

I agree with you Sean and I am a avid Mac user! That said lets get off which system is better and talk about the thread topic please!  No use beating a dead horse.....

[Sean]

I'd never taken much notice of Xplane until reading the recent threads on here. That F4 skimming through the Welsh mountains (did I see Mr Sissons waving?) did look cool.

Are we suggesting that Xplane is more likely to become the basis of our sims over what Lockheed Martin are doing with Prepar3D?

[Bob Reed]

Well we are looking. I have not looked at Prepared but it is still just FSX. All the add ons in the world won't change that and I doubt they have the source code for the base software. It's just what I have for a main FS computer now will not run FSX well and to run FSX I need better computers now is the time to look at Mac and XP. I can still always got back to FS9 with all the addons I have and be very happy. New sim from scratch need to look at all the possibilities! But as of yet no one has answered the question. Will my current flight sim hardware work on a Mac?

[XOrionFE]

Yeah, I dont want this to turn into a Mac versus PC war either.  That said, I have been in the business my entire career working on primarily PCs but also on Macs.  In fact, I just recently got my wife one of the brand new iMacs.   Much easier for her to use for whatever reason than Windows7 and she is already used to her iPhone and the iPad.

But now from my personal experience with Flight Simming on a PC based system with a true 210 degree wrap around visual system for the past year running on a PC with TH2GO I would definitely be leery of trying to run it all on a mac.  There are so many things build to interface with Windows7 and I would think half of them would be problematic on a MAC.   As for performance....unless someone is speaking from "PERSONAL" experience on performance I wouldnt listen to it.  That is why I asked to see a video and not one from someone else but first hand, on a flightsim, on Xplane, running TRUE wraparound FOV.   I dont think a MAC is going to cut it any better than another high end enthusiast PC and probably going to offer other unseen challenges.    That said, if someone actually does it it would be awesome to see.

For my money I would do PC and have decided that is the direction I am staying.  In fact, I just picked up 3 today that will be for my next system (3 i7 6 core systems with yes...Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 2 GB cards).    These will be doing a 3 system Xplane setup using Fly Elise.    Hopefully will have up WITH video in the next week or two so stay tuned.   I figure if XPlane doesnt work out like I think it will then I can always have an awesome Wideview FSX or Prepar3d setup.     Options are open.   I do know that with a TH2GO running Xplane 10 on a high end rig I was not able to get wrap around visuals.  I would highly doubt a MAC could do it either given they have similar hardware.

Anyway...good thread and please don't take anything I have said personally Mac lovers....just want to make sure we are all looking at First hand facts before spending our precious sim dollars.   Some of us will experiment and hopefully get some good information out that all can use.  Then again, some of us...gulp...may fail in our attempts for utopia also :-(

Scott

[737SimGuy]

Hi Scott,

For your X-Plane experiment to be a success you will need a few things. I don't have them here with me at work, but later today I will try to upload the latest XPUIPC (not on Torsten's site yet, so I need his permission first), as well as my x737 aircraft file for Sim-Avionics so that the autopilot tuning will be close and you won't have to waste time  tweaking it as I did. Also remember do NOT base your X-Plane experience on the DEMO or even the version on the CDs, there have been many updates since. So check the BETA box and get the update. 10.10 is due out soon as well, so keep an eye out. I am told this will include 64 bit X-Plane, which pretty just means that it will use ALL the RAM you have available and it cuts the loading time in half.

More later...

James

[XOrionFE]

Hi Scott,

For your X-Plane experiment to be a success you will need a few things. I don't have them here with me at work, but later today I will try to upload the latest XPUIPC (not on Torsten's site yet, so I need his permission first), as well as my x737 aircraft file for Sim-Avionics so that the autopilot tuning will be close and you won't have to waste time  tweaking it as I did. Also remember do NOT base your X-Plane experience on the DEMO or even the version on the CDs, there have been many updates since. So check the BETA box and get the update. 10.10 is due out soon as well, so keep an eye out. I am told this will include 64 bit X-Plane, which pretty just means that it will use ALL the RAM you have available and it cuts the loading time in half.

More later...

James

James, that is awesome.  Thank you so much.    I really appreciate it.     I will definitely check for the beta then (i didnt when I loaded the first time).    Also I really appreciate your help with the XPUIPC if he will release it and your x737 files.     

Much appreciated,
Scott

[Kennair]

Of course you can also throw Linux into the mix for X-plane and PC.  I've no experience with this option however I would consider it less bloatware than Windows.  Very interested in your trials Scott.  I've spent some time on P3D and resolve that while its a bit of an upgrade to FSX (consider it SP3) its no deal breaker as it stands.  X-plane 10 has peeked my interest however.

Ken.