How to Boost Frame Rates in X-Plane: Comprehensive Performance Guide

To enjoy a seamless X-Plane experience, balance power and performance. This simple guide helps you tackle add-on issues and optimize settings. For a detailed guide, download our free handbook.

Key Performance Factors

Frame rates depend on multiple variables, including rendering settings, plugins, sceneries, weather, and even your browser. If you're facing low frame rates, don't rush to upgrade your computer. Instead, adjust your settings.

Initial Steps

  1. Close unnecessary programs to improve performance.

  2. Navigate to Graphics Settings: Hover at the screen top, click the settings icon, and select the Graphics tab.

Identify the Bottlenecks

Monitor CPU and GPU times to find the performance bottleneck. Find the CPU and GPU times in the framerate readout in X-Plane, and observe which number is bigger, CPU or GPU.

High CPU usage indicates a processor bottleneck, while high GPU usage suggests graphics card limitations.

Which Settings to Adjust?

In the past, settings favored GPUs on the left and CPUs on the right. However, with stronger GPUs, X-Plane 12 now relies more on GPUs for most graphics settings.

  • Lower the appropriate settings based on your bottleneck: GPU or CPU

  • Start with minimum settings and increase until frame rates drop, signaling hardware limits

Click here for the official instructions and a video that demonstrates how to set optimal performance settings in X-Plane. Although these instructions have not been updated for X-Plane 12 yet.

Troubleshooting FPS Drops

If you’ve fine-tuned your graphics settings but you still sometimes experience big FPS drops, there are other things that can impact your performance:

  • Heavy Sceneries: Complex airports or cities can impact performance. Test by loading a plane at a less detailed airport.

  • AI Aircraft: Reduce AI aircraft numbers to boost performance.

  • Plugins: Temporarily disable plugins to identify any causing FPS drops

  • Lower the number of flight models to 2 per frame (on the “General” tab in the X-Plane settings)

By following these steps, you can optimize your X-Plane experience and potentially avoid the need for hardware upgrades.

For an Easy-to-Follow explanation of the X-Plane frame rate, GPU, and CPU metrics, check out our Free Handbook which covers this in detail, and explains how to find your weakest link.

Improve your FPS with Zink

Zink is a new feature in X-Plane 12. Enabling it can significantly boost your framerate. It acts as a translator, bridging the old (OpenGL) and new (Vulkan) ways of displaying graphics. Zink can fix visual issues, especially on AMD graphics cards. Give it a try for an improved X-Plane experience.

Simply tick the “Use Zink Plugin bridge” setting: