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Behind the Screen : January 2025

 

I wrote in Behind the Screen January 2024, on how of the start of a New Year, I rebuild my X-Plane Application to a clean new version or install a new "vanilla". A major house clean out you could say ready for the new season. I have done this for about six years now, and at the end of 2024, the "2024" version was getting a bit sluggish and throwing up small errors.

 

So the day after New Years Day, I started the annual process, downloaded a second copy and started the rebuild of X-Plane from the ground up. It didn't take long after the Laminar download had finished, as in about two hours later I was done, mostly resetting connections to the new "2025" version in the third party applications and filing away the non running aircraft and backing it all up, ran X-Plane to check then walked away happy.

 

It was pretty busy over the Christmas and New Year season this year in X-Plane releases and quite a few updates, no one really took anytime off, so there was a lot to catch up on early in the new year. I had expected to restart on the 6th, but was already posting on the 3rd.

 

But running X-Plane (2025) it didn't feel right, in fact it was a sluggish mess, barely running in the low 20's of framerate, it was slowing down my work output, and frustrating me no end. I could not understand or see why it was not running better, the idea of a refresh IS to make the application cleaner and more efficient to use, but this version was the opposite of most of the previous years new installations. Was it me, not yet in the groove?

 

When you step out for a short while (I had an extra week off to visit relatives), then you need to get back into your groove, so was I just a little rusty, I don't think so, but into the first week of January 2025, I was being very distracted by a coughing, stuttering Simulator...  It drove me nuts.

 

Secondly was my Saitek X-56 throttle was also driving me nuts as well (I was groaning about it even back in Jan 24), it was already only working on one (sticking) lever which I have now suffered for several years, ghosting was another issue, and flickering lights. "Enough" I cried and reached for my credit card, and outlaid a ridiculous sum of money (even with a sales discount) on a Honeycomb Bravo Throttle system, but more about that later.

 

There is nothing more distracting than something that is not working correctly, so I pulled out my earlier X-Plane 2024 version and re-rebuilt that to get it working again, so I could work. It did run, and far better than the 2025 installation, now I say, that shouldn't happen, they are supposed to be identical X-Plane installations, but both versions were quite different in the way they loaded the Simulator, and different when using it...  head scratching time?

 

What to do next? well it was to throw away another complete day and do another X-Plane copy download, reset the applications and try again. This "2025 v2" was another reset, and thankfully it worked fine, framerate lifted and the efficiency came back, I was back in business!

 

But what was the cause? I got a clue a week later, because I was faced with another dilemma. Setting up a flight, all my TrafficGlobal (Just Flight) aircraft just disappeared? no reason "poof" gone! and there was suddenly no activity on the App's schedules. So here you were again downloading and installing the application, three times, and it was still as dead as a New Zealand dodo. Went to the JustFlight forums (very nice there) but after two days Simon and myself were still completely baffled on why the application absolutely refused to work? God give me a break...

 

When trying fixes, the first thing you do is pull out plugins, which I did, but most of my plugins are well tested over the years, but I did it anyway...  nope not that. Next is you pull out your old preferences, and so I rebuilt my preferences from scratch, and suddenly as mysteriously as they went away, my TrafficGlobal schedules started working again and the airports became populated with aircraft, TG was back in business, but preferences? even Simon couldn't work that one out?

 

There was another preference bug. This one is associated with the weather, or "Real Weather". X-Plane was not reading the GRIP files correctly (again), and that was creating a stutter, or cycling of the framerate, again making the Simulator hard to use and feeling it was dragging itself through the mud, if "real" weather was heavy, then the Simulator was reacting to that, it was created a download preference that always gave you heavy thick weather that chewed up your framerate, even if you resorted back to a manual setting? the earlier setting still sat there and just ruined your efficiency in the background, and my guess was the cause of the poor performance of "2025 v1". You will be be very happy to know that the issue (GRIB) has been fixed in X-Plane 12.1.4. release. But how long has has that nasty bug been sitting there, ruining your flying hours, sending you mental with frustration.

 

But you gut feeling is what you go on. You know instinctively that the Simulator is not performing as it should, the poor framerate is part of the clue, but the "Real" weather has been one of the consistent headaches since the start of X-Plane 12, a hidden changeable variable from one Simulation to the next. Hopefully X-Plane 12.1.4 has refined "Real" weather, It feels certainly more stable, and flights are now more within the proper numbers, a test is FlyTampa's EHAM - Schiphol with it's usual heavy weather, and currently it has passed the test with flying colours. 

 

Only with the X-Plane 12.1.4 beta update, my X-Plane Application is now working as normal, three weeks into the month. the Simulator is a complex living thing, and saved preferences can help you, or it will totally ruin your Simulation life. It is alive this code!

 

As noted I bought the Honeycomb Bravo Throttle Unit, to replace my Saitek X-56 Throttle. I have been loyal to Saitek or Logitech as it is now known, but I will be honest, both systems in the X52 and X56 are not what I would call reliable, a worn wire in the X52 joystick head ruining that tool, as you couldn't repair it, then the trials and tribulations of the X56. I always found the throttles too draggy (yes the friction adjustment was set low), but the lever movement was unreliable and poor when trying to fly fine movements, as I used the throttle as a Helicopter collective (set to reverse), and for the fine adjustment for throttle control on landings, then one lever gave up working, unless you pulled the USB out and reinserted it, and yes tried everything to fix it, higher voltage USB ports, even a separate USB power board, to try to give it the excessive power it consumed to keep it active. In the end I just gave up and used the single (left) lever as my overall throttle, but even then it was troublesome, flickering, unreliable data to the Simulator, drove me nuts! As a statement the X56 spring joystick is annoying as well, I use as much fine grease as I can to make it deliver smooth inputs, it's draggy on the centre column, making smooth turns and takeoff pitches jittery, and in making your skilled flying look like a 1st rate amateur. I can't replace both (Joystick and Throttle) at this point, so this over greased up tool will have to soldier on for a while.

 

The Honeycomb Bravo is a nice bit of kit, but it is a complex system. If you set it up for just one type of equipment, say a twin-engine aircraft, then it is not bad to quickly use. But there are the various choices even for a "Twin", an Airbus A320 setup, doesn't quite fit a B737 setup, then a A350, and the biggie, the FlightFactor B777v2.

All close but not exactly the same layout, then the Dash 8 (FlyJSim) has twin throttles and twin mixtures, then it gets complicated with the gate for reverse and cutoff positions. Single engine aircraft can all be set up in various ways, like the excellent Thranda PC12, this machine has a mixture and throttle combined, and a separate PROP lever, then a Cessna can have two knobs or three, then the standard layout, Throttle, PROP and Mixture,then moving up you can have three throttles for the Rotate MD-11P and MD11F (brilliant BTW), and then the big four engine layouts, ToLiss A340 and Felis B742, again slightly different configurations are required to make it work correctly. I haven't yet sorted a Helicopter layout, with throttle and collective, or even say a V-22, with moving rotors.

 

The problem is that basically most aircraft require their own personal profile, yes a lot do overlap, but X-Plane has a very wide range of aircraft to absorb and configure. It takes time, and the physical adjustment to the various different layouts is quite different in use. Very good mind you.

But this was the easy part as you are familiar with the X-Plane settings. You also have to use something called a "HB Configurator Tool" (Config Tool). Were as the hardware throttle connects to your X-Plane settings, the Config Tool does the opposite in allowing X-Plane to talk to the throttle, in annunciators and using the Autopilot switches and knobs. Thankfully when you start the HB Config Tool, it has a load of defaults that cover the basic default settings (Thank God), but if you want to do a custom set up, then the App is quite complicated to understand and use. I have all the basics working that I need, but you need a university degree in coding to use it?

 

The upshot of all this...  is time. And just setting up basic throttle and lever layouts, for at the moment I have done about twelve aircraft which is slow work, plus every aircraft that I want to use, requires now it's own setup profile, talk about time consuming. Then flying that aircraft to see if the profile is working correctly. Adjustment to the protruding throttles is also a very different scenario than what I am used to, but make no mistake, the HB Throttle system is brilliant to use, but also very, very different than the HOTAS arrangement I am used to.

 

In most cases a budding pilot will use the HB Throttle in a usually a single setup to the aircraft of their choice, for me, I'm a reviewer, and cover a very wide range of aircraft and systems... I will be doing an "Unboxing Review" of the Honeycomb Bravo Throttle soon, well as soon as I work out a few of the custom HB Config settings...

 

So is January becoming a reset month and creating annual issues to be solved in resetting the X-Plane Simulator and all it's problems, now with trying to sort out new hardware. it's made for an interesting month, if with a lot of frustration and working through the issues, you have gotta love the simplicity of Simulation.

 

As you can see on the header, I did an interview with Dominic Smith. I am not one to exult my myself, and more so would just like to work in the background. But showing and revealing the people behind the scenes of the X-Plane.Org and X-PlaneReviews is very revealing of how much the X-Plane.Org is important to Simulation, and people behind the scenes that make it all tick, of which I think is overdue. It was revealing to myself as well, my life and in the way I have a habit of always working too much!

 

Welcome to 2025, see you all next month.

 

Stephen Dutton

1st February 2025

Copyright©2025 X-Plane Reviews

 

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