External graphics card on Mac for X-Plane 11

Greetings fellow flight sim enthusiast!

It's understandable that you'd want to improve your graphics performance while running X-Plane 11 with UHD Mesh scenery on your Mac running OS Monterey. The Radeon Pro 560 4GB is a decent card, but it may struggle with demanding tasks like ultra-high-resolution terrain rendering.

The good news is that you can indeed use an external graphics card, or eGPU, to achieve better performance without having to open up your Mac. Apple has added support for eGPUs in macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later, which means you can take advantage of this feature in Monterey.

Here's a quick rundown of what you need to do:

• First, ensure that your Mac is compatible with eGPU support. Most Thunderbolt 3-equipped Macs, such as the MacBook Pro and iMac, will work with an eGPU.
• Choose a compatible eGPU enclosure that supports Thunderbolt 3 (check for compatibility with macOS and your specific Mac model).
• Select a suitable graphics card for the enclosure. Consider a card with higher performance than your current Radeon Pro 560, such as the Radeon RX 5700 XT or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (be aware of possible driver issues with certain NVIDIA cards on macOS).
• Connect the eGPU enclosure to your Mac using a Thunderbolt 3 cable.
• Ensure the latest graphics drivers are installed, and macOS recognizes the eGPU.

Once you have everything set up, X-Plane 11 should automatically utilize the external graphics card, and you'll likely notice a significant increase in frame rates when running UHD Mesh scenery. Keep in mind that the performance gain will depend on the specific eGPU and graphics card you choose.

For more information on eGPU support in macOS, you can refer to the official Apple support article: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544

I hope this helps you enhance your flight simulation experience on your Mac. If you have any further questions or need additional guidance, feel free to ask.

Safe and happy flying! ??