X-Plane 12 performance on a M2 Max Mac Studio

It turns out that Austin Meyer, founder of Laminar and creator of X-Plane, uses a Mac Studio as his main computer (see interview). I imagine he has an M1 Ultra. That likely explains why my new M2 Max Mac Studio runs X-Plane 12 so well. I got the 32 Gigabyte RAM and 2 Terabyte model (I’ve found that capacity is the sweet spot). At max scenery settings, X-Plane uses about 23 GB of RAM for video, leaving 9 GB free for other things.

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I was watching BigJet TV’s Paris Airshow Preview and didn’t notice one of my E-175 gears didn’t extend. Landed at KRDD (Redding, CA) and found out pretty quick what happened... Oops. #FlightSim #XPlane #AvGeek

E175 resting on its left wing because its left gear wasn't extended.

Using Migration Assistant via thunderbolt is insanely fast.

Migration Assistant dialog showing 612 MB/s transfer speed.

I’ve been very patient with my M1 Mac Mini. But now I have an M2 Mac Studio on the way. Flight simming and photography will be enormously improved. Less likely: And now that Apple allows on personal device “testing” of apps for free, I might resume learning iOS development.

Offline Apple Maps. FINALLY. #WWDC2023

Little NavMap, open source flight simulation flight planning software, is pretty great. I should have looked into it for X-Plane much sooner. #FlightSim #XPlane

Canceled YouTube Premium due to Google’s decision to once again allow election lies. Too bad they didn’t have a survey asking why I canceled.

macOS Universal Control is so very good when I’m multitasking between my Mac Mini and my MacBook Pro. One keyboard + one mouse = total control of both.

I’m slowly getting the canopies of my shrubs off the ground. Mostly to reduce outdoor cats hiding under them. I’ll do a lot to keep their destructive, bird killing lot out of my yard.

Ash Throated Fly Catcher.

Ash throated fly catcher looking somewhere to the right. It has a black head with gray, white, and rust red on the wings. It is perched upon a high branch. They have cool spikes for hair.

The new Fujifilm XApp is a vast improvement for transferring photos to a smartphone on the fly. But the app’s notifications alerting to the camera’s request to transfer photos are a bit aggressive. #Fujifilm

Air Tractor N802WW was overflying rice fields this morning. I think they were practicing seeding the fields. #AvGeek #Fujifilm Oblique view of a yellow and black single propeller Air Tractor plane against a pale blue sky with cirrus. Underside of a yellow and black single prop aircraft. There’s a fan shaped seed spreader mounted under it.

It is a few degrees warmer outside but 10% less relative humidity. The whole house fan made it more comfortable in a few minutes & humidity is dropping like a rock in here. Was 60%. I love it.

Our native plants are going to love this storm! #CaWX

Doppler radar view of a south heading storm with lots of high intensity returns and lightning.

I hope the PR hype for the new Fujifilm mobile app is worth it! Seems promising and I like its new settings backup. Out May 25th. Petapixel: “Fujifilm’s New XApp Offers Smooth Connection, Speed, and Activity Tracking”

Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl OBT01 is on its way back to Long Beach. No idea what it is doing out and about. My ADSB receiver is tracking it. https://www.flightradar24.com/OBT01/3061cbdb

My ADSB receiver (plane tracker) has been doing quite well under adverse conditions of its testing location. I plan to dramatically improve reception this week.

Here is a Black-necked Stilt from the #SacramentoNationalWildlifeRefuge #BlackNeckedStilt #BirdsOfMastodon #Fujifilm
A Black-necked Stilt bird is waking through a shallow brown pond. Small forbs surround the pond, including low laying purple flowers and then, further in the background, yellow flowers. The Black-necked Stilt has a all-white underside and all-black back and top of head. It has long legs and a long black beak.

We visited the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge and it was busy with all sorts of creatures. Gray Buckeye butterflies, American Avocets, Lesser Goldfinches, dragonflies and more.  A brown butterfly with patches of orange and black eyes near the top edge of its wings. The butterfly is surrounded by green to brown grass.An American Avocet has a brown head and neck with black wings and a white underside. It’s stepping through a pond and beyond it is a floor of purple and then yellow flowers.A Lesser Goldfinch (we think) seems to be using gymnastics to collect grassy nesting material. It is upside down on a stand of grass or a slender branch. It has a beak full of small grassy material.A dragonfly hovers in midair amongst bokeh of grass. It has a slight blue iridescence and looks to be about to fly downward.

Found my old Raspberry Pi 3 and finally got it set up as an ADSB feeder (aircraft tracker). Are people still skeptical of ADSB Exchange? Been a while since I’ve heard anything about them.