Best Flight Simulators for Low-Performance PCs

X-Plane 11 offers better performance than Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on low-spec PCs.

### Flight Simulators for Potato PCs: Testing Performance with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and X-Plane 11
* 👋 Welcome back to the channel, where we explore **Swiss desserts** alongside our passion for **flight simulators**, including the latest titles like **Flight Simulator 2020** and **X-Plane 11**.
* 💻 Many viewers have requested recommendations for flight simulators that can run on **lower-end computers**, or "potato PCs," which often struggle with **high-performance games**.
* 🖥 To demonstrate this, I disconnected my RTX 3080 and downgraded my setup to a **basic quad-core processor**, creating a genuinely **poor-performing PC** equivalent to a typical school computer.
* 🕹 I tested Minecraft on this setup, achieving **only 15 frames per second**, indicating the **limitations of such a system for gaming**.
* ✈ Attempting to run Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 revealed that it **failed to meet the minimum requirements**, resulting in **extremely low frame rates** and **frustrating loading times**.
* 🌊 Despite the beautiful graphics, the performance was subpar, with frame rates dropping to **around 10 FPS** while flying a Cessna 152 over Gibraltar.
* 🛩 In contrast, X-Plane 11 provided a **smoother experience**, even on this low-end setup, with **better optimization for weaker PCs** and the added benefit of a **free demo version** to test compatibility.
* 🙏 Thank you for watching, and special thanks to channel members for their support; remember to check out **X-Plane 11** if you're struggling with a **potato PC**!

Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! Another Swiss dessert video, and a very interesting Swiss dessert video indeed! Now, on this channel, we always talk about flight simulators. You know, we're reviewing the newest flight simulators, like Flight Simulator 2020, just came out

half a year ago. Was very nice, best graphics, right? X-Plane 11 as well, and everything. These flight simulators really are awesome, but only to be played on, you know, high-performance gaming PCs, which, you know, some people don't have. I do, but you know, some people are always

asking in the comments, "Come on, let us know about some flight simulators that work on our potato PCs." That are, for example, here, or we have some other ones here as well, like this one – a typical computer that people in the community have. Alright, yeah, see, flight simulators they

do take up a lot of performance, so they need some kind of PC indeed, which, again, some people don't have. Which is why some people actually, you know, start using mobile flight simulators that run on their phones, which also is a good alternative, sometimes; most of the times, actually, not.

So yeah, let's check out some flight simulators that you can actually play on your potato PC. Now, actually, in order to make this video, I obviously had to get a potato PC, which I don't have generally. I don't have a badly performing computer, right?

Why would I? Which, by the way, that's a little bit of a weird flex; that was not intended. But okay, well, basically what I had to do then was I unplugged my RTX 3080 graphics card from my computer, so that my setup does not have a graphics card.

Anymore and has to run with the internal GPU of the Intel CPU. Also, what I did was I weakened the CPU itself by quite a bit; it's now a quad-core processor. Welcome to professional flight simulation with Swiss Scissor One now.

This is genuinely a bad PC now. Really, we're not even able to scroll Google properly. I mean, this is basically...this is now an equivalent to what you would have as a school computer, as you can see. It just doesn't really work properly, I mean...

We could do some basic gaming, some benchmark gaming. Like, maybe let's open some Minecraft and see how well that works. All right, Minecraft, let's go ahead and play. All right, spawning into the world, which does uh...take some time, which is interesting for Minecraft. And here we go. Welcome to Minecraft.

At 15 frames per second, this is really bad now. I didn't expect that. Now, this is not actually very playable, is it? This is really bad. Damn. All right, this is interesting indeed. Um, all right then. So maybe let's try some flight simulation as well.

Now, previously I said that, especially for bad setups, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is good. Um, meanwhile, I've changed my mind, but let's check it out. Actually, Flight Simulator 2020 has not-so-bad performance and optimization, but yeah, we are...

Far, far below the minimum requirements of this flight simulator, let me just say that. All right, let's go ahead and open the simulator. I've already pressed the icon here, and it does take a little while to open. Uh oh, we've got a message: Your computer...

Does not meet the minimum requirements; as a result, you may experience errors during the game. Okay, let's skip that. All right, perfect. Let's spawn in and see how that works. And we have a picture: Xbox Game Studios. I think things are actually starting to get a

little serious, and even the intro of a...so... alright, alright. Let's get ready. All right. And after only like 10 minutes of loading times, we are finally in the flight simulator. And as you can see, we are only spawning into the menu. All right, let's check out the

frames per second in the menu, which is already pretty bad. I mean, look, look at my mouse here; this is really not good. But okay, let's go ahead and set the graphics here. Here we go. Let's go to options, and only doing that takes a long time; just

the loading times of the menu are so annoying. All right, okay. Here's the graphics. Now I've set everything to the lowest of the lowest levels. This is really the lowest you can go with the graphics here on this flight simulator; like, genuinely, everything is

set to off or low. This is really the worst you can go, but that's probably going to help us achieve some good frames per second, right? Now let me just say: no. All right, let's go ahead; go to the world map and, uh, say maybe let's go for the Cessna

152 or something, maybe something smaller, maybe something easier to render for the flight simulator for the computer. Uh, I guess that's going to be needed for sure. Okay, let's go ahead. You know, just going through the aircraft takes so damn long. This computer is really bad. Now, okay.

Perfect session 152. Now the location, let's maybe go somewhere where the ocean is. Yeah, let's go to Gibraltar. Uh, you know, then the computer doesn't have to load in as much, right? You know, we were playing Minecraft at 20 frames per

second earlier, so yeah, let's try this. All right, welcome to Flight Simulator and, uh, well, this doesn't look too bad, especially the ocean looks nice. All right, let's go ahead and press 'Ready to fly' and, um, especially spawn into our Cessna 152. Now, what can

we already see? Well, we have a plane; actually, the cockpit doesn't look too bad, but what does look bad is the frames per second. That really does look bad! Jesus Christ, that's really so bad! Oh my god. All right, yeah, that could really be a lot better, but

uh, other than that, I mean, we are in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. I mean, come on! All right, let's go ahead and actually release the parking brake. There we go! Here it is. Now, actually, I would really like to use an FPS counter here, which can actually

activate here in the options, but we can actually press this for some reason. Maybe our computer wouldn't even be able to run an FPS counter because it's so bad. Let's just go ahead and fly off. Oh no! All right, there we go. Oh Jesus

Christ! I genuinely don't have control of this plane very well. Okay, um, whatever, let's just go ahead and, um, fly off. Come on! All right, see, we have very, very bad winds here out in the ocean. And actually, about that FPS counter thing, we

Don't really need it. I think we can count it: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That's like 10 frames per second generally. I think I've just counted 10 frames per second. I think that's actually a realistic number. Welcome to Swiss

Designer One. We are always professionally flying in the flight simulators. I mean, after all, though, we're playing this, so that's good. Yeah, maybe the system requirements make a little bit of sense, right? I mean, this is a little bit of a problem: you cannot

just download like a demo version of this flight simulator or anything, so you can test it out before you buy it, which may or may not be a good thing, right? But no, that really doesn't exist. You have to buy this flight simulator to see if it works on your computer

and if it doesn't work on your computer, they'll probably just say, "Oh, you don't meet the system requirements," but you bought the game even though you must have read the system requirements, so it's your fault. You cannot return it. That was a weird description of...

No, you're basically fine. All right then, let's maybe do some flying on land. Let's go to land indeed. All right, let's go and activate slew mode. There we go, and just glue ourselves to the airport, Gibraltar, which should be right there. Okay, come on. All right.

Turning off the slew mode and it's coming in for a nice landing here at Gibraltar Airport. This is going to be interesting. Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing. Okay, now it does look nice, though. Indeed, it's actually the ocean, like with the waves and everything.

They've done that pretty good, but other than that, yeah, this is really bad. Just from the frames per second, the graphics themselves really look good, especially for the lowest of the low. I mean, again, the setup doesn't even run Minecraft properly, so yeah, this is

pretty as bad as a PC can get, right? But maybe if you have like an okay PC, that it really isn't good, you'll probably be able to play Microsoft Flight Simulator quite well and have some fun in it. I mean, after all, this is a fully functional flight simulator.

Right, at least it's better than mobile flight. And let's go ahead and get our land plane landed here. Runway is down there, and uh, here we go. We're coming in nicely for a landing. Come on! Oh, Jesus Christ! It's like very hard to

even control this plane here with this kind of bad computer. Oh goodness! Oh no! Uh, okay, there we go. Now then, actually, that was not too bad. All right, perfect. Yeah, this hasn't worked properly, has it? This is uh, really not a good PC, but maybe it's really the Microsoft

Flight Simulator that isn't good for the PC either. So yeah, but let me let's try some bigger plane here as well. I mean, the Cessna 152 must be pretty easy, right? But let's try something like an A320 or something. Okay, let's go ahead and scroll all the

way to the A320. Really, this is so painful with this kind of computer. Jesus Christ! All right, here's the A320. Let's spawn in. Okay, is this much better or is it much worse? I think it's even worse. Yeah, it's

Even worse now! Jesus Christ, it's really so bad! Oh, it's dead. All right, that's the A320 for you in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, and this is really not good at all. Um, yeah, that is... yeah, just get a proper PC, right? I mean,

generally, if you have a potato PC this bad that doesn't even run Google properly, then you maybe... you should, instead of wasting time playing Flight Simulator, make some money to get a better PC. Jesus Christ. Okay. Um, but of course, this video should be

helpful, so let's try a flight simulator that actually works on this setup: X-Plane 11. And you might not believe this... um, see, actually, the thing is with X-Plane 11, the optimization really isn't good. I have a really, really nice PC, and I

still cannot play this flight simulator on maximum settings and get half-proper frames per second, whereas on the Microsoft Flight Simulator I can do exactly that. I don't know why; it's a little weird. But for some reason, for really low-power PCs, X-Plane 11 can be a really nice choice.

As you can see right now, we're in the menu, and I mean, everything just works a lot, lot smoother. Let's just go ahead and spawn into maybe a smaller plane, like a 737, that we've selected right now. Let's go for a Cessna Skyhawk.

Also a Gibraltar... Let's go ahead and start the flight and see how that goes. And so we'll come on board X-Plane 11 flight simulator, which already works, as you can see, a lot, lot, lot better. We don't have 20,000 FPS

Here either, but at least we have stable and usable gameplay with our Cessna 172 at Gibraltar. Uh, the graphics, I think, don't look as good as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on the lowest settings here, but this is totally

usable, right? This is, uh, this is fine. Um, something, yeah, isn't it? I mean, it's all right. I literally have seen worse, so yeah, I can recommend X-Plane 11 if you have a potato PC. Like this, I have played X-Plane flight

simulators on laptops and MacBooks for years and years, and you know, it's always worked okay for me. Actually, the good thing about X-Plane 11 especially is that you can get a demo version of it; you can download a free demo version, and that has the same

performance that the real X-Plane 11, if you bought it, would have on your computer. And that lets you find out whether this thing actually works on your potato PC. So yeah, guys, thank you for watching today's video, and I'll see you tomorrow, as always. Good

night now. Thank you very much to all my members, especially the A380 members: Government Pizza, Riley Preston, Thomas Roach, Finnian M, Laridas Lama, No You, Philip Schneider, Leo Mark Helbling, Great Grandpa John, Toby Cook. Very much appreciated.

British Jersey One, DeLoad YT, Moritz Velhausen, Jackson Hawker, Joey Mathew, Darcy Hunken, and Mata Torno.

This Flight Simulator Runs On ANY COMPUTER - EVEN POTATO PCS

Swiss001

Introduction: Flight Simulators on Low-Spec PCs

The YouTuber introduces the topic of flight simulators playable on low-performance computers.

He mentions high-performance gaming PCs required for most simulators.

Viewer requests for flight simulators compatible with low-spec PCs are highlighted.

The limitations of mobile flight simulators are discussed.

The YouTuber explains the process of creating a low-spec PC for testing.

Testing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 on a Low-Spec PC

Minecraft performance is tested, showing very low FPS (15 fps).

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is tested, demonstrating significant performance issues.

The simulator struggles to load, and extremely low frame rates are observed even in the menu.

In-game performance is extremely poor, with approximately 10 FPS.

The lack of a demo version to test compatibility is criticized.

X-Plane 11 is introduced as an alternative flight simulator.

The YouTuber notes X-Plane 11's better optimization for low-end PCs compared to MSFS2020.

X-Plane 11 demonstrates significantly better performance than MSFS2020 on the same low-spec PC.

The graphics are deemed acceptable, and the overall experience is considered playable.

The availability of a free demo version for X-Plane 11 is highlighted as a positive aspect.