Tips and Tricks for Flight Sims

Over the last two years, I have been using many different tweaks and tips found online or invented by myself.

Tuesday, November 28, 2023 at 05:10 PM ET

Verified

The default X-Plane 11 sky is too dang hazy for my liking on clear days. Yuck. This is on the runway at LOWI in Innsbruck, Austria. [Courtesy: Peter James]

Key Takeaways:

The article provides specific tips for enhancing flight simulator visuals and performance, such as fixing "hazy skies" in X-Plane 11 through developer settings and eliminating landing stutters in MSFS2020 by disabling visual effects in game files.
It also suggests optimizing MSFS2020 graphic settings (e.g., Developer Mode, reduced LODs, DLSS) for smoother frame rates, enabling crash/stress damage for a more realistic experience, customizing Xbox controllers for autopilot functions, and adjusting cockpit view height for optimal pilot visibility.

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Over the last two years, I have been using many different tweaks and tips found online or invented by myself. Some of them everybody seems to know, so I won’t go into those now. But here at FLYING, I feel most of the real pilots dabbling in the sim world probably don’t know about some simple, effective things that can really help out their experience.

Hazy Skies

Let’s start with my favorite on X-Plane 11 (XP11) that concerns the never-ending “hazy sky” issue that has plagued the sim forever. Now, you can purchase some great weather add-ons that will enhance sky and cloud quality, but I wanted to share a two-second fix that can bring back bluer skies easily.