X-Plane Flight Simulator/Getting Started/System Requirements

X-Plane (in its most recent incarnation v.11.53 - 2021) is available for Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows. X-Plane is capable of consuming all the computer resources you can throw at it and come back asking for more. That said, X-Plane will run on systems surprisingly close to the low end. The quality of your experience will be directly related to the caliber of the system you run it on.

When it comes to X-Plane, three things are certain:

  • It uses a significant amount of data
  • It makes serious demands on the CPU
  • It can be graphically intense

Hard Disk

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A baseline installation with the USA data loaded requires almost 10GB of disk space. The world database includes 60GB of data. Thanks to recent advances in drive technology, most newer desktop computers come with fairly large hard disks. Budget disks, however, typically don't include optimal data transfer speeds.

  • Basic Requirement - 10GB available space, 70GB to install the world database
  • Improved Performance - 10-70GB available on a 7200RPM 3.0Gb/s SATA drive
  • Optimal System - 10-70GB available on a 10,000RPM 3.0Gb/s SATA or 320Mb/s SCSI drive or 2X7,200RPM 0-Raid array HDD system

Microprocessor

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Graphics Card

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  • OpenGL support
  • Minimum 32MB dedicated RAM (v. 6.4) up to 1GB video RAM (v. 9.0) - dependent upon game resolution.
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