Using Command-Line Options

This article explains how to use command-line options in X-Plane. You can find a list of options here.

Normally you just double-click X-Plane to launch the sim. But X-Plane 850 has some hidden command-line options. We provide these for in-field debugging; if you hit a problem such as a bad video driver you can trigger special options within the sim that aren't exposed in the settings dialog boxes.

=Macintosh Users=

To run X-Plane using command-line arguments, you must launch X-Plane using terminal.

Open the utility "Terminal"; it can be found in the Utilities folder (within the Applications folder). Terminal gives you a command-prompt. Drag your X-Plane application into the terminal window.



The command line will list the names of all of the folders leading to your copy of X-Plane using / for directories. All spaces will be preceded by \ characters.



Delete the extra space at the end and add the following to the command-line: /Contents/MacOS/X-Plane



After the word X-Plane you can include command-line options, for example: --no_fbos



Finally, once the whole command-line is constructed, press return. X-Plane will launch, using the special command-line options.



You will have to click on the X-Plane window to bring it to the front.

=Windows XP Users=

First you must get a command prompt window. From the start menu, pick "Run..."



In the dialog box, type "cmd" and click "okay".



Now, drag the "X-plane.exe" application from the explorer window to the command prompt window.



The full name of the application (including all directories) will appear in the command prompt window.



Add any additional command-line options after the application name. Be sure not to change any spacing or capitalization!



In this example, we are launching x-plane with the "--no_fbos" option. Press return to run x-plane with your new options.

=Windows Vista Users=

First you must open a command-prompt dialog box. From the start menu, search for "cmd" - and run cmd.exe.



Shift-right-click on the X-plane application and pick "copy as path".



Right-click in the command-prompt window and pick "paste".



The path of the application will appear.



Add any additional command-line arguments, such as "--no_fbos".



Then press return to launch the application.

=Linux Users=

X-Plane can be launched like any other command-line tool; you may need to prefix it with ./ if you don't have the current working directory in your search paths. For example: cd /home/bsupnik/X-Plane\ 9/ ./X-Plane-i686 --fps_test=1 --require_fps=20 On my distribution (Ubuntu with GNOME, stop your snickering!) it is not possible to simply drag the application into a terminal because the spaces in the file paths will not be properly escaped.

=Command Line Options=

Generally X-Plane command line options have full names and two dashes. Some require parameters, as in =1. Order does not matter and you can use as many options as you want. Some examples (simplifying the application name, which varies by version and OS): X-Plane --no_sprites X-Plane --fps_test=2 --no_pixel_counters Rather than document the options here, use the --help option to list all command-line options in the current version of X-Plane.

=Some Typical Examples=

A number of drivers crash when X-Plane uses VBOs, particularly on Linux. If you can run every application except X-Plane itself, you may want to try: X-Plane --no_vbos Some drivers cause texture corruption when hardware-accelerated runway lights are used; you can work around this with: X-Plane --no_sprites EDIT: the Windows version won't show the --help string in the DOS window by default, but StormRunner pointed out to me that you can do this: "X-Plane.exe" --help | more which routes the output to the DOS window.