Best MX Pants for use without knee braces?

do you ride with knee pads? If not try a pair and that should fill the area. 

I don't wear knee braces or pads, and also hate when they bunch up around the knees.  The best pants I've found are Troy Lee Designs SE Ultra.  I buy the ridiculous colored close out ones, which turn out to be around the same price as "normal" versions of other pants.  Great quality.  Way better than the throwaway gear from other providers.

The Thor sport mode pant is pretty slim in the knee area.  I run braces but have to tug on them pretty good to get them up and over the braces.  

Fatshouse 

Mountain Bike Pants usually fit slimmer around the knees

I know I'm being a Nanna, but you ( the OP), don't even wear Knee Guards?

I can tell you, that living without a knee cap, is Not Fun. I didn't lose it from a Dirt Riding Incident - lost it when a Mill or a Lathe fell off a truck as I went past it on my road bike in, 1980 ( I think-  it was a long time ago), and it took my knee cap, patella tendon, ACL and PCL, destroyed the Tibial Plateu, and split my Tib like a bit of firewood. It set me up for a lifetime of knee injuries  and operations.

And, it doesn't take a few tonnes of metal to smash a Puny Patella. Only  few pounds of force.

My mom was a school lunch lady, working in the back, tripped over a cart, landed on her knee on tile. Crunched the patella like a potato chip. She now has a fake one. Not a very big fall and the thing was turned to dust. 

I bought the Thor Sport mode gear and agree with you. Although, I found the knee and calf area to be so tight I have been actively trying to stretch them out, and nearly cant fit my EVS TP199 knee pads without losing the ability to bend my knee! 

I'm not talking a bout Knee Braces.

   Knee Guards - just a small rock to your Patella can destroy it.

As to Knee Braces - I have to use the bloody things just to do the Lawn Mowing now. It's how it goes. 

I'm used to the discomfort of knee braces - Always got rub marks / cuts from Condular pads / straps - so be it.

Heck, my Grand Nephew has been getting into MTB - he now comes into my workshop and appreciates all the prototype frames hanging up / old and new DH race bikes I've made, and the frames I still make. But, he's riding with a group that crap on about "gloves being too restrictive"  The other day, he came around without the gloves I'd given him, and, just by chance, I'd been using a Rasp File on some wood working I was doing. Brought him over to the bench, showed him the contours I was making in some blocks, plus showed him what a rasp file could do to Rock Mellon I had handy - then, took his hand and made as if I was going to run the Rasp over his palm. A bit extreme some would say, but, He go the message, I think....... I also reminded him that hurting his hand through just a 'flesh wound' could really  stuff up his burgeoning Golf career - the young bloke is already making some good money from it. 

Someone already said this, but a lot of mountain bike pants seem to have less room around the knees than MX pants. They also seem to have less inseam length in the same size, to avoid any catching cuz pedalling causes more catching of material around the ankles.  

Idk if they make them anymore, but I have some older TLD mountain bike pants from like 2016, as well as some newer 2023ish O’neal MTB pants that are identical to the MX pants, just with less room in the knees and maybe 1” shorter inseem.