Apple recently released the new MacBook Pro with the Apple M1 Pro chip. After purchasing it, I used X-Plane 11.55b2 to run a quick performance test. The machine is running macOS Monterey, with 16GB of memory, a 10-Core CPU, a 16-Core GPU, and a 1TB SSD.

The X-Plane 11 graphics settings are as follows: Visual effects: High, Global object count: High, Texture quality: High, Reflection detail: High, Anti-aliasing: 4x, Anisotropic filtering: 8x, and using Global shadows, with the Meta driver enabled. Additionally, the external monitor resolution is 2560x1440.

In Beijing, Tokyo, San Francisco, Honolulu, New York, Paris, London, and other locations, I flew a Cessna 172 for an hour or two. The tested frame rate ranged between 30-90. The body got slightly hot, and the CPU cooling fan was slightly audible. I am quite satisfied with the performance of this machine.

I’m posting a few screenshots for your reference. These were taken in areas with dense scenery buildings, where the frame rate was between 30-40, but the flight action was very smooth.

New York

Paris

London

X-Plane 11 is likely not yet a native application for the M1 chip, so in the data displayed in the upper left corner of the screen, the GPU time shows as 0. However, looking at the system resource usage, the CPU usage is around 150%, and the GPU usage is around 70%. The GPU still contributes significantly to performance.