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4.8. CONFIGURING THE RENDERING OPTIONS 39
which can be flown through or around. They also develop over time, just as in real life, depending
on weather conditions.
The number of cloud puffs slider sets the number of cloud puffs. Increasing the number of
puffs will have a significant impact on frame rate. Be careful with this one.
The size of cloud puffs sets the size of each cloud puff. The larger the size of cloud puffs, the
slower X-Plane will perform, although this may not be too noticeable on modern video cards.
4.8.3 Setting the Rendering Options for Best Performance
The following procedure will allow you to optimize X-Plane’s performance for your computer,
regardless of the power of that computer or any limitations it may have.
Before we begin, we will need to be able to tell how fast X-Plane is running on your computer.
To do this, launch X-Plane and:
1. Move your mouse to the top of the screen (causing the menu to appear) and click Settings,
then Data Input & Output.
2. Check the far right box next to frame rate (item 0, in the upper left corner of the window).
This will cause X-Plane to display the current frame rate in the upper left of the screen during
flight.
3. Close the Data Input & Output window (either with one of the Xs in the corners of the
window or with the Enter key on the keyboard). You should now see how fast the simulation
is running, in the freq / sec output on the far left. This is the current frame rate, given in
frames per second (fps).
Note that the frame rate will change depending on what is happening in the simulation. It is
not uncommon for a computer to output 50 fps while sitting on an empty runway, but drop down
to, say, 30 fps when rendering lots of buildings, other aircraft, etc.
Refer to the following to determine the significance of this number.
• 19 fps is terrible and barely adequate to run the simulator.
• 25 to 35 fps is the ideal range. Higher frame rates indicate the computer isn’t rendering with
as much detail as it could.
• 50 fps is very high and indicates that the system could probably draw more buildings, clouds,
and other objects. Studies have shown that starting at about 50 frames per second, your
subconscious mind forgets that you are looking at a simulator and begins thinking you are
actually flying.
4.8.3.1 Increasing the Frame Rate
If the simulator’s frame rate isn’t as high you would like, you can raise it by following the instructions
below. We recommend following these instructions in order, checking the frame rate after each major
change until you find settings that give an acceptable frame rate.
Changing Texture Quality If your graphics card has too little VRAM for the textures X-Plane
is loading (a very real possibility in Version 10), you may see a huge drop in frame rate. To correct
this, try the following.