X-Plane Hardware Add-Ons - Yoke, Instruments, etc. that Work

[PeterLC]

I have a MBP M1 Max with 24 GPU cores and 32 GB RAM. I'm wanting to buy X-Plane 11 but am concerned about availability of yokes, throttle clusters, instrumentation and pedals that will work with MacOS 12.1 (Monterey) and plug into the Thunderbolt/USB-C port(s). I look at some hardware sites that claim to offer/recommend products (Logitech, Honeycomb that I've viewed so far) and find their documentation / specifications incomplete, nil and/or confusing, driving me to ask here which yokes, throttle clusters, instrumentation and pedal manufacturers DO support this MacBook Pro and may be installed pain-free? Will I need a hub/dock and adapters to power these, and if so, which are best?

 

[satcomer]

Ones that don't require a special plug-inn won't work, others that don't don't will still work!

 

[Richdmoore]

Honeycomb products are very compatible. Alpha yoke just works. Honeycomb throttle works with a Mac software plugin with X-Plane for the lights, without any drivers the basic axis/buttons works fine.

Logitech throttle works. Their radio panel have unofficial software available to allow them to work with X-Plane. I don’t think their individual 2.5” instrument displays have any compatiblle drivers for macOS.

I also used a ch yoke/rudder pedals, no problem. Currently using a Thrustmaster rudder until I can get the honeycomb rudder (once released).

I currently have a trackir 5 for head tracking in the sim, but the linuxtrack program to make it work appears all but abandoned and very finicky. I would not buy one again without some official drivers, or a good third part driver being developed.

One final thing, X-plane 12 is coming, it will probably be apple silicon native. That may break some third party plugins, so of you plan to upgrade to apple silicon there may be some peripherals/plug ins that will need updating.

Edit: I am still using an Intel 2017 iMac, so it’s possible that apple silicon mac users may have different opinions/experiences.

 

[PeterLC]

Thanks much for this Richdmoore; very helpful. As mentioned in #1 above, I have a MBP (Silicon) M1 Max with 24 GPU cores and 32 GB RAM. I better check further if Honeycomb's Alpha yoke has drivers for this computer with MacOS 12.1 (Monterey) rather than buy it and find out that I'll be waiting for months for the system to actually work.

 

[Richdmoore]

I believe the configutor app basically makes the file that the plug in reads, so they are somewhat unrelated. Right now there is only Intel plugins, Rosetta should work just fine with X-Plane 11. You should be able to download the current plugin/configurator program now to test them with X-Plane 11, no need to have the actual hardware (I think.)

I have been told when a apple silicon native X-Plane is developed, then the plug ins will also have to be apple silicon native. I am just assuming that will be X-Plane 12, but it makes sense to me.

I believe there will be the option of either running apple silicon version (for best performance) or Intel version (for older plugin compatibility.)

EDIT: All of my honeycomb gear works on Monterey 12.1, but I am using an Intel Mac (but should make no difference I believe.)