X-Plane 12 with X-View - Guide

[assaero]

Hey all,

as I work on refurbishing an older 744 simulator to use X-Plane as an IG, I pondered a bit how to do this stable, as I hit several obstacles on the way. I got it stable enough for now (I think), so I want to publish what I am actually doing/configuring, as @mikeindevon (the original X-View developer, all hail to him) seems to be sadly no longer existing.

All is done under Windows - I have no overview over other OS or testing capabilities right now, sorry.
My current version list:
Windows 10 22H2 (W11 assumed the same)
VC redist 2010 x64 installed
X-Plane 12.1.3
PSX 10.180
X-View 1.2

X-Plane Aircraft is NOT the brought along PSX-Plane from XView - instead I am using the updated Sparky 744.

Installaion notes:
-X-View plugin win.xpl from the attached archive into the subfolder XView/64 (you can extract the attached archive directly into the plugins folder)
-move the extracted XView.cfg into the X-Plane root folder
-edit it so that the settings path points to the folder where the XView.cfg resides (in this case, the X-Plane root folder, in my file E:\X-Plane12)
-after saving, make the file write-protected!
-install the Sparky 744 and rename the aircraft folders in a way that the file structure looks like:
...xpl-root\Aircraft\Heavy Metal\PSX Plane\747-400.acf
(do not know if this is necessary, but...)
-launch X-Plane, create a flight situation with this 744 and your startup airport, and save it as load-on-launch-situation (when you click save situation in X-Plane, you can select "Load at sim startup")
-now launch PSX, configure auto-init of Start with main server on & Start with Boost server on Basic options
-save that config
-see that your default launched flight and X-Plane launched flight are synchronized for the first startup of the day!

The start sequence now is really important. For me, X-Plane has to be launched first and be ready on the runway - only THEN I can start PSX. Everything else lead to crashes of X-Plane, various errors, drefs wrong etc. So I would recommend you keep this in mind, and for an automatic startup sequence either time it graciously via a batch or similar (I will set up an AutoIT-script that also brings the X-Plane window later in the foreground after PSX has init, but one could also write a LUA script with FlyWithLUA that handles a ready flight before launching PSX.)

I disabled animations and inject elevation in the XView config; first one for performance, last one as I had some issues with the plane hopping, and I thought the small discrepancies on landing are the least issue in comparison.

It was also important for me to leave the PSX Preferences / Frame rate limit on 72 so that the boost server feeds consistently the XView plugin for a smooth X-Plane-refresh.

I hope this helps some others struggling, and feel free to share further problems I have not yet discovered.

Dropbox with XView 1.2

[voipmeister]

Thanks for sharing this, I will be trying this once I get round to it. Very much love the idea of having XP for outside views

[JulietAlphaSierra]

Good day, I unfortunatnly, whenever I spawn in and try to connect to the server, X-Plane just goes pink and nothing appears. The log also says connection failed
Thanks!
-Joe

Edit: Fixed it! Turns out I was missing something in the instruction panel.

[simonc]

Hi!

I was wondering if you have any news on the stability of this link between xp12 and PSX via Xview?
Are people having this fatal crash message or other issues that I have seen prescribed in the other parts of this forum?

Thanks!

[FlyItLikeYouStoleIt]

I currently use XP12 via the XView plugin as a pilot's view scenery generator. I far prefer this to MSFS. The world looks real, not PlayMobil.

I avoid Fatal Damage by not letting XP send anything to PSX, by only connecting XView to the Boost Server for positional data. You can change the default port for the main server in Xview's config file to something non-existent such as 10999 and it will never find it. I run PSX in maximum fps mode and limit XP12 to 30fps using the —limit_frames command line option.

The only PSX to XP12 interlink that I miss is landing light status; I just bound a HOTAS key to XP12 directly to toggle this separately on the XP12 747 model.

The only thing to be careful of is to make sure that XP12 is not using 100% of the GPU, otherwise it starves PSX and fps drop. Turn down XP12 graphic settings if necessary.

[voipmeister]

@FlyItLikeYouStoleIt which version of XView are you using?

And do you fly online with this setup?

[FlyItLikeYouStoleIt]

Says 1.0 in PluginAdmin but clearly it is a later version

It (win.xpl) was created on 31/5/2017 162kb

md5sum ends in 3b40e2

It was in the XView (5) zip file on the download site.

No, I do not fly online.  This probably won't work as Navigraph running from XP12 reports velocity zero.

[voipmeister]

Thanks! I might give it a go with XP, even when MSFS2024 is look very good and allows for flying on VATSIM. I like the portability of XP, different OS'es supported, no forced updates.

I do feel the scenery makers have kind of abandoned XP. Maybe everyone is waiting for the scenery overhaul, need to check on the current status. The gateway has a lot of good local airports though.

[Victor126]

hi sorry how did you solve the problem of the plane lifted from the ground

[Victor126]

I also like it more for plane 12 than msfs 2024 but I find myself in difficulty with the plane too high from the ground

[b744erf]

I remember that back in 2017–2018, I was using PSX together with X-Plane 11 for the external visual system. At that time, I could directly share PSX's internal weather with X-Plane 11 via XView, which worked really well.

I'd like to ask: now that you're using XP 12, does this weather synchronization feature still exist? If it does, that's fantastic — because in simulator training, we don't rely solely on live weather for visual synchronization. More importantly, we need to simulate specific weather scenarios, such as CAT III approaches, Low Clouds ceiling, and other critical training conditions.

So, if X-Plane 12 can still be used to reflect the internal weather settings from PSX via XView, that would be absolutely great.

[thunder175]

Has there been any progress on XP12 and PSX since these last posts? I haven't bought PSX yet and I'm very concerned about XP12 compatibility as I really don't want to run MSFS20/24.

[Tsuru]

I remember that back in 2017–2018, I was using PSX together with X-Plane 11 for the external visual system. At that time, I could directly share PSX's internal weather with X-Plane 11 via XView, which worked really well.

I'd like to ask: now that you're using XP 12, does this weather synchronization feature still exist? If it does, that's fantastic — because in simulator training, we don't rely solely on live weather for visual synchronization. More importantly, we need to simulate specific weather scenarios, such as CAT III approaches, Low Clouds ceiling, and other critical training conditions.

So, if X-Plane 12 can still be used to reflect the internal weather settings from PSX via XView, that would be absolutely great.

I have dabbled with PSX + XP12 through XView a bit and I can confirm that it works perfectly fine

Having said that, Gary Oliver's PSX.WASM with MSFS2020 is my preferred out-the-window view as it looks better, seems to be better with regards to framerate and smoothness and I fly using real weather all the time anyway.