just finished my first VR flight in x-plane 12, and now listen up: it was fantastic. Yes I know, who would have thought. I attribute that to the nicer clouds and OrbX's True Earth for Washington which I had forgotten I had bought last year before x-plane12, I tought it looked even better than MSFS, but I wasn't going to say that here, since that is trolling, as we know.😀

1) is there a way we can have separate settings for VR and for 2D flying like in other competing games? the reason I ask is because fps were down to a shocking low of 20 fps in VR down from 57 in 2D, until I remembered I had all in graphics settings on MAX which is a no-no for VR flying.

2) is there no way to really PAUSE x-plane completely? during PAUSE the GPU still steams ahead at full power at 350 watts, even though nothing happens in the sim, even when you send the window temporarily down to the task bar.

3) thanks to mSparks, I tried your suggestion to put the switch to VR on a joystick button, works like a charm. Look ma, no VR controllers required! 😀

12 minutes ago, turbomax said:

1) is there a way we can have separate settings for VR and for 2D flying like in other competing games? the reason I ask is because fps were down to a shocking low of 20 fps in VR down from 57 in 2D, until I remembered I had all in graphics settings on MAX which is a no-no for VR flying.

no, It is now a quite requested feature so I would be surprised if it doesnt come eventually. You can use the bug reporter to make feature requests.

the solution I use atm is to just leave it in VR settings and take slightly shoddy screenshots. Eventually people will understand why I generally care 0% what it looks like in 2D.

An alternative is to use a batch/bash file to swap out the preferences on start, that does require starting XP in your preferred mode which is useless if you want to pause and take a screenshot.

 

23 minutes ago, mSparks said:

the solution I use atm is to just leave it in VR settings

seems to be the only choice atm. would take only 1/2 day of coding at most, for Laminar to add a separate menu for VR settings.

"You can use the bug reporter to make feature requests"

they have known this for years now. to be honest MSFS doesn't shine in this department either, but there are workarounds at least.

still: I had not expected this VR experience on my flight from KORS to KPDX. for selected regions with OrbX TrueEarth coverage I thought it looked better than MSFS, especially with x-planes nicer clouds. I wanted to give you this unexpected positive feedback since you were helpful and understanding with my initial frustration. hopefully your continued advice and my friendly "consulting" will contribute and help the LR team to improve x-plane 12 😀.

gracias!

7 hours ago, turbomax said:

I wanted to give you this unexpected positive feedback since you were helpful and understanding with my initial frustration.

thanks, I shared my "VR life story" back at the end of 2021. I fully empathise with the joys and frustrations. 

right now Im still 

 

ETA is still about 2 months away from getting that to the opposite of terrible.

15 hours ago, turbomax said:

2) is there no way to really PAUSE x-plane completely? during PAUSE the GPU still steams ahead at full power at 350 watts, even though nothing happens in the sim, even when you send the window temporarily down to the task bar.

Nope, there is not.

that's really lame after all these years. 350 watts waste of power when the sim is idle doing nothing waiting in the task bar. I am not going to say how easy it is in another simulator, forum police or alert readers might be worried and detect some hidden  "trolling" attempts in my own thread. 😀

will have to experiment how well x-plane recovers from and fully restores a saved FLIGHT file.

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

350 watts waste of power when the sim is idle doing nothing waiting in the task bar

Not a very impressive wattage to brag about...

The sim continues rendering to allow user to move the camera around in the 3D world and still modify time, position (map drag), and more importantly, weather. FAA-certified sim users love that it doesn't fully pause. Or the instructors do, at least.

 

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

I am not going to say how easy it is in another simulator

Pray tell, which one? The most popular 'other' behaves nearly identically to XP.

 

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

fully restores a saved FLIGHT file

You can't even stay on your own thread topic?

Edited January 21, 20233 yr by blingthinger

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

that's really lame after all these years. 350 watts waste of power 

There is method behind the madness. pause freezes all the physics, but you can still wander around the scenery, comes in really handy if you want to catch something just before it happens, for example

1 hour ago, turbomax said:

when the sim is idle doing nothing waiting in the task bar.

When you eventually move to a modern operating system, it will automatically strip resources away from out of focus applications unless you explicitly tell it not to. There is absolutely nothing LR can do about windows being windows, #1 reason so many people seem to have problems on microsoft systems is all the garbage background processes gobbling up all the precious CPU and GPU time and the absolute insanity required to make them not.

Edited January 21, 20233 yr by mSparks

18 minutes ago, mSparks said:

LR can do about windows being windows

other simulators running windows can be paused reducing CPU/GPU load to a mere 5-10% load. since we are not supposed to compare here, we have to believe it's just the way it is.

29 minutes ago, turbomax said:

can be paused reducing CPU/GPU load to a mere 5-10% load. since we are not supposed to compare here, we have to believe it's just the way it is.

but can you browse around with the world paused, taking shots from different angles, or are you locked in place?

Edited January 21, 20233 yr by mSparks

44 minutes ago, turbomax said:

CPU/GPU load to a mere 5-10% load

On a modern multi-core system, 5-10% is still a couple cores-worth of usage, especially when hyperthreading is turned on. DCS, fs2020, XP, all keep the CPU/GPU spinning during pause.

The only real power consumption concern is if one is stepping away from the system for an hour. Not a common use case.

19 hours ago, turbomax said:

2) is there no way to really PAUSE x-plane completely? during PAUSE the GPU still steams ahead at full power at 350 watts, even though nothing happens in the sim, even when you send the window temporarily down to the task bar.

Enter Freeze

Tested and working fine (so far) with XP12. Will bring down cpu and gpu utilization below 10% 

Edited January 21, 20233 yr by peroni

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

can you browse around with the world paused, taking shots from different angles,

absolutely, called Drone view and Active Pause. I use it all the time for screenshots, pre-flight inspection, walk arounds in the terminal, tower, hangar, parking lot etc. in VR it feels just like the real thing. more than just flying, the whole airport experience. that's also why I like airport buildings with interior modelling.

Edited January 21, 20233 yr by turbomax

3 hours ago, blingthinger said:

You can't even stay on your own thread topic?

back to the IGNORE list.

2 hours ago, turbomax said:

back to the IGNORE list.

Always amusing that folks see a need to announce this. No harm done!

On my system, pause (active or not) soaks up the same amount of system resources in all the major sims. XP is no different than the others.