VR Flight World

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Most of the time, removing stutters and glitches comes down to a few different things. Tweaking the settings of X-Plane 11, upgrading or changing your hardware settings or even adding or removing select plugins. A lot of where stutters come from is over working a computer, so some of my fixes will focus on reducing the load on your computer.

Now these tips that I am going to show you are being used by me every day. This allows me to run my flight simulator at over 45 frames per second with ORBX TrueEarth Scenery in Virtual Reality without constant micro stutters or glitches.

And at the end of the video, you are going to want to stick around, because I am going to give you my best tips. These are the tips that have had the biggest impact on my sim.

Number 1, Remove Reflections

The first and easiest thing you can do to improve your sim is to remove any reflections from your X-Plane 11 Settings. The reflections appear to have a very minimal impact on visuals and have a major impact on your sim. Removing these can give you an immediate boost in performance.

Now number 2, Drop all your Settings

How does your sim run with all the settings down to an absolute minimum. If you are still getting stutters or a glitch, then maybe something else is causing the problem. This could be a great test to give you a baseline.

Number 3, Install VMI Twick

VMI Twick is a great plugin that really allows you to take control of the fine details in the sim. This plugin is fairly involved, so you may or may not want to try it. You can tweak the distance of objects, and weather. It allows you to do a lot, so this may be something you want to play with.

Number 4, Remove plugins

If you have installed many plugins in the past, it may be time to do a spring cleanup on your sim. You may have a plugin in X-Plane 11 that is causing you problems. Maybe the plugin hasn’t been updated with X-Plane 11, or it is not well optimized. But if you are having stutters, this is definitely an area you will want to look at.

Number 5, Remove AI Aircraft

I have had some problems with AI aircraft in the past with things conflicting, however AI aircraft also use up CPU power. So if you are trying to make things run smooth, you may want to remove all aircraft until things are nice and stable.

Number 6, Take a flight at a small airport

This is similar to removing objects, but maybe you are running some after market scenery. It might be worth trying to fly at another small airport that has default scenery. This might allow you to see if maybe your scenery is the problem. It should also allow you to take some of the work off your computer, as the airports tend to be the most demanding part of a flight sim.

Number 7, Run X-Plane 11 without Beta

If you are like me, then you most likely run X-Plane 11 with Beta turned on. This is usually great because you are always receiving the latest and greatest updates that Laminar Research comes out with, however this is a guaranteed way to get problems. The Beta version is a testing version, so you may have problems, which is completely expected. Without Beta, you should have a stable and tested version to play with.

Number 8, Change the Computer Power Setting

One easy tip, is to go into your computer power settings and change your power setting to High performance. To do this, go to your control panel, click Hardware and Sound, then click on Power Options. There, you can change your power settings to High Performance.

Number 9, Consider Disabling virus protection

Now, this one comes at your own risk but sometimes a virus protector can cause your computer to work much too hard, taking all the resources from your sim. Try disabling the virus protector or at least ensure it is not conducting a scan in the middle of your flight.

Number 10, Clear out some space on your hard drive

Most games and sims these days take a lot of hard drive space. Take a look at how close you are to a full hard drive and remove some clutter if you can. Make sure that you have a bit of extra space on your hard drive. A full or close to full hard drive will cause your computer to work extra hard for no good reason.

Number 11, Upgrade your computer

Upgrade some of your hardware. There are some really obvious places to upgrade, like the CPU and the GPU, however another upgrade that you can do, is to upgrade your ram. This is usually a fairly inexpensive upgrade compared to the other two. Upgrading the CPU and GPU will have massive impacts on your performance, however it can come at a very high price. Also, before you do any upgrades, make sure you can upgrade your computer. Some computers can’t be upgraded.

Number 12, Setup your VR headset

Go through the setup process of your headset to ensure it is tracking properly. Sometimes it can feel like your computer is causing a glitch or stutter, however it might be that your headset lost proper tracking. So depending on your headset, make sure that nothing is sitting in front of your sensors.

Number 13, check the task manager

To check your task manager, hit control alt delete and select Task manager. In here, you can see all of the processes running on your computer. Look for anything that is using up a lot of CPU power. Word of warning. Don’t just close out processes from here. You may have problems if you do that.

Number 14, Monitor your computer with Afterburner

I use Afterburner to monitor the status of my computer. Within this program you can monitor your CPU and GPU usage. You can also monitor the temperature of the CPU and GPU. This is very important information to watch, because if your usage is at 100% or your temperature goes too high, your system will not run great.

Now, let’s get into some of my favorite tips

Number 15, Try X-Plane 11 Beta with Vulcan

If you remember how I said to try without beta… well in this tip, I am saying the opposite. The reason is because X-Plane 11 recently released X-Plane 11 Beta with Vulcan. Vulcan can make a huge difference in how your computer handles X-Plane 11. So, I would suggest that you at least try it. It has allowed me to increase my X-Plane 11 graphics settings. It has also allowed my sim to run better.

This is my Favorite Tip, Number 16, Test your computer with software

Out of all of my tips, this one has had the biggest impact on my computer. I have been frustrated with crashes, glitches, and constant stutters in the past. There have been times when my sim seems to be running great and all of a sudden things are freezing and stuttering. Now, this tip doesn’t completely fix it, however it diagnosed the problem for me since I had overclocked my CPU in the past.

So, I would do this whether or not you have overclocked. Try running an overclock test like OCCT. What OCCT does is it will run your CPU at 100%. During the test, you will want to watch your computer temperature, however as it runs you could start to see errors. If you get any errors, then you know that your computer is not running properly. My computer was spitting out tons of errors. I ended up having to lower my overclock a bit and raise the voltage until I had a very stable and error free computer. After doing this, I have an extremely smooth experience in X-Plane 11.

This brings me to tip number 16, Overclock your CPU and GPU

This is one that you must be careful of, because overclocking is essentially pushing your computer past the manufacturers specifications. You can permanently damage your CPU or GPU if done wrong. YouTube is full of experts in overclocking that can guide you through the process. But make sure you do the test as indicated above, because with a poor overclock, comes poor inconsistent performance.

Number 17, Reduce your Visual Effects

Here is another tip that has made a big impact. I have found a big difference between Visual Effects High and Maximum. I would recommend setting Visual Effects to High, HDR in order to get the best looking sim with the best performance.

Number 18, OVR Settings

If you have the Oculus Rift, then you need to try another plugin. This is OVR settings. This plugin is great because you can not only supersample your Oculus Rift, but you can lock the frame rate. You can even lock the frame rate at 30FPS if you want. This will allow you to get a smooth experience at a lower frame rate. Yes, most people say this is too low for VR, however this is still better than an inconsistent stutter.