Fundamentals

X-Plane distributes its workload across three axes — CPU, storage I/O, and network — all competing for shared hardware resources: CPU cycles, cache, memory bandwidth, and PCIe lanes. Where the bottleneck lies shifts with flight phase and configuration: storage dominates while scenery loads, the CPU in flight, the network during ortho streaming. This section builds the mental model needed before touching a single setting — the following Linux and X-Plane chapters assume it.

Start with the load dimensions to see how the three axes interact, then read why latency and predictability matter more than average FPS. The CPU & RAM chapter explains the main-thread bottleneck and what multi-threading can and cannot offload; GPU & VRAM covers texture paging, driver differences, and frame time percentiles. Readers who only want practical tuning steps can skip ahead to System — but the steps there build on the concepts introduced here.

• Performance — CPU, GPU memory and I/O: load dimensions, threading and VRAM analysis