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OS X What graphics card should I purchase for X-Plane11?

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Blocker35

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 29, 2019
4
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Hi guys, bit of a rookie to the whole EGPU scene. Currently I have:

- MacBook Pro 2015 13inch (3.1GHz Core i7 16GB RAM)
- Razer X Core
- Apple TB3 to TB2 Adapter
- TB2 Cable (Cable Matters)
- 23inch AOC External Monitor

I am wonder about what graphics card to get to run X-Plane11 with high graphic settings?
I have purgewrangler set up and ready to use with an AMD graphics card, but am also open to the idea of an Nvidia graphics card.

Any advice appreciated. I did not buy a Windows PC as I need a Mac for various other things and wanted an all-in-one laptop.
 
Unless it has already changed, XPlane 11 doesn't support GPU's, it is CPU-bound.

MY GPU sits around 5% utilization with X-Plane 11 and my CPU runs at 99%.

It supposed to go to Vulkan in a future release, when that happens, the flood-gates open (like it did in No Man's Sky).

I would get at least a Nvidia 1070, or RX 580 and 8 Gigs VRAM...
 
gkarris said:
Unless it has already changed, XPlane 11 doesn't support GPU's, it is CPU-bound.

MY GPU sits around 5% utilization with X-Plane 11 and my CPU runs at 99%.

It supposed to go to Vulkan in a future release, when that happens, the flood-gates open (like it did in No Man's Sky).

I would get at least a Nvidia 1070, or RX 580 and 8 Gigs VRAM...
Click to expand...

Thanks for you answer. When you say X-Plane11 does not support GPU's, does that mean the whole EGPU is completely pointless and it has no benefits to running it with X-Plane11?
 
gkarris said:
Unless it has already changed, XPlane 11 doesn't support GPU's, it is CPU-bound.

MY GPU sits around 5% utilization with X-Plane 11 and my CPU runs at 99%.

It supposed to go to Vulkan in a future release, when that happens, the flood-gates open (like it did in No Man's Sky).

I would get at least a Nvidia 1070, or RX 580 and 8 Gigs VRAM...
Click to expand...
X-plane definitely does depend heavily on GPUs, but also depends heavily on the CPU as well.
 
gkarris said:
Unless it has already changed, XPlane 11 doesn't support GPU's, it is CPU-bound.

MY GPU sits around 5% utilization with X-Plane 11 and my CPU runs at 99%.
Click to expand...
Wow, I didn't know it was that bad. They really need to fix this.
 
Hmm...
I have been using X-Plane 10 and 11 for many, many years and I concur with the fact that X-Plane 11 is MORE CPU dependant than GPU dependant, but... having a bad GPU will affect performance hugely.

ATM, X-Plane 11 is OpenGL based. Therefore the single-threaded CPU performance of OpenGL in combination with the GPU is the key for good FPS.
While fluying around, X-Plane 11 uses max 2 Cores, lots of RAM and lots of VRAM (especially with Ortho-scenery loaded).

IMHO, go with the best CPU, with a decent GPU but with lots of VRAM.

On my iMac (27" 2017, i7 4.2 GHz, 32 GB RAM, Radeon 580 Pro 8 GB VRAM) I notice the GPU is starting to be the slowing factor. 8 GB VRAM is not a luxury.

I hope the transition to Vulkan (PC) and Metal (Mac) will help us Mac-users. We don't have a 2080 Ti to play around with...
Maybe the 16 GB Radeon VII in a future (i)Mac Pro will help us out.
 
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