X-Plane 10.30 beta 6 is out; as with the entire 10.30 beta 6 run, complete release notes are here. The release notes are meant to be a complete reference; what follows is a few of the major things you might notice in beta 6 (if you’ve managed to update).
Frame Rate
Beta 6 fixes a major performance problem from the X-Plane 10 betas. Beta 6 also sets the cloud graphic settings to match 10.25, so at this point 10.30 should be as fast or faster than 10.25 in all cases.
Airports
We used the X-Plane Airport Gateway to consolidate over 750 airports that users sent to Robin since X-Plane 10.25. These updates include over 300 new airports and hundreds of updates. You’ll get these lego-brick airports automatically with the update.
I’ll post more about the gateway in a future post, but I believe that at this point WED 1.3 and the gateway are ready to go into beta shortly.
Please do not send any more airport updates to Robin; the gateway will go into beta soon, and we’d like to use it to collect all future changes. (You can only imagine how much work it was for Robin to gather up 750 airports by hand! We imported them into the gateway ourselves to test the gateway and get control of the process.)
GPS In the Default Aircraft
With beta 6 we now have the new GPS in the C172, the Kingair, and the Baron; all have the full res GPS in the 3-d cockpit, and the Kingair even gives you dual GPSs.
Still More On the Todo List
There’s still more bugs to fix. On the top of my list is fixing bugs with the cloud visuals, and with their base height (which sometimes doesn’t match what you set in the weather settings). I am also working on getting a few majorly borked DSFs fixed in the next beta (Sydney, Rio, etc.). I’m hoping for another beta by Tuesday, which will also fix the auto update bug.
Where to File Bugs
I say something about filing bugs using the bug report form in every post, and yet readers try to post bugs on the blog. Since writing “don’t do that” in each post clearly doesn’t work, I’m going to try it using the Swedish Chef translator.
Fur zee lufe-a ooff ell thet is mooppet, pleese-a du nut pust boog repurts tu thees blug. Pleese-a use-a zee boog repurt furm – a furm dedeeceted tu nutheeng boot…boog repurts. Iff yuoo pust a boog repurt tu zee blug, I veell delete-a it. Bork Bork Bork!
So…you have been warned – keep posting bug reports to the blog comments and things will only get sillier.
Just for clarification, when you say that clouds are set to match 10.25, does that mean that the newer clouds were removed? Or that they have been calibrated to use the same fill rate as before?
Also, will updating through the installer still work (not launching X-Plane at all)?
Yep – if you are old school and just run the installer directly, it’ll just work. It’s only the auto-update mechanism that is fubar.
Here’s the mix:
– Cloud puff density/rendering settings: 1025 tech (we will ship 1030 this way).
– Cloud lighting and placement and visibility management: 1030 tech (we’re keeping the new stuff!)
– Cloud textures: 1025 tech (for now – I expect to rebuild the textures to be in the 1025 png sheets but LOOK like the 1030 ones from beta 5 over the next day.
So this beta is an improvement for perf, a slight step back (IMO) for texturing but we’ll get final textures for b7 I think.
I’ll post more on cloud textures once the final ones are in.
Thanks for the info.
Is there or will there be a listing of the airports included in X-Plane?
Yeah – I’ll post one soon.
Cessna729 over at the .org posted one a little while ago… http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=78191 Read down a couple of posts.
Got it… Thanks.
Oh but there was a funny paragraph in there somewhere! These quick fixes (7 for 6) can get a bit delayed sometimes but I think I’ll wait for 7. How ‘bout you, Sven?
Today I was pleasantly surprised, when desided to turn on HDR mode, after upgrade to 10.30b6. The performance of my no hi end computer practically have not changed. However, when I rebooted XP, productivity fell by half or so. Probably, this effect was earlier but I didn’t notice. So, I will avoid running XP with already enabled HDR, better turn on it after loading XP.
Cheers
Youri
All changes to performance in 1030 are CPU improvements. So if you turn on HDR and your GPU falls over, this should be unchanged.
Does this mean that someone who is GPU bound will get no performance improvement from 10.30? Or just less than someone who is CPU bound?
I think there will be no change in perf if you are strictly GPU bound.
Exactly, Ben, but the mystery is, that my GF GT430 1 Gb falls only when XP starts with enabled HDR. If I have turn on HDR after start XP, performance almost not getting worse. Now I have to turn off HDR before exit and turn on after start. Simply and easy.
Please tell me when will finally be cleaned “soap” in the distance? I thought that beta6 it will not be as promised.
Looks like the cloudbase height stays fairly consistent when changing cloud density now, that’s a welcome improvement – but it’s still not particularly close to where the weather settings say it should be. Hopefully that will be still be addressed?
Hi Brett,
If it’s consistent, that’s just luck – this bug is still marked as “fix for next beta”, and I have -not- fixed it yet. (And yes – it’s scheduled to be fixed wihtin 1030.)
Three questions: When can we expect WED 1.3 betas? Also, will the WED 1.3 betas have the ability to “automagically export to the global database repository” or will that be a “log-into-some-database-and-upload” procedure? Finally, regarding the database, will I be able to search it so that I don’t make an airport that someone else already made? Thanks! Oh and keep up the great work!
1. Weeks – a small number of weeks.
2. Yes – WED 1.3 has an option to upload an airport directly to the gateway within WED.
3. Yes, I think so. We also think that in the long term a lot of the use of the gateway will be to make improvements to airports that already exist.
My apps depend on the airport data. Currently, X-Plane gets all basic airport and nav data from apt.dat and earth_nav.dat. Does this mean that in the future, non-disk sources will be added to the X-Plane app, or does the user still have to download files?
As of now, all of the data is still on disk – data from the gateway is rolled into the downloadable x-plane patches. It is important that your app understand how the apt.dat files are parsed WRT custom scenery.
Ok, apparently I’m missing something. There seems to be a new file “Custom Scenery/Global Airports/Earth nav data/apt.dat” that contains data that differs from “Resources/default scenery/default apt dat/Earth nav data/apt.dat” which my apps are using. For example, the former lists runways 04 and 11 for YTDN, while the latter has 04 and 14. Is there any documentation on which data set X-Plane uses?
The sim has ALWAYS taken airports from the combining of all apt.dat files in all scenery packs in priority order – this is still true now!
To read apt.dat from an x-plane installation you need to:
1. Read all apt.dats in custom scenery in scenery pack order (as defined by scenery_packs.ini).
2. Read all apt.dats in Global Scenery (in pack alphabetical order) and
3. Read all apt.dats in Resources/default scenery (in pack alphabetical order).
The first found airport for a given ICAO (in search order) wins.
cheers
Ben
Thanks Ben for the clarification, I didn’t know that, consequently my apps did ignore everything located in the “Custom Scenery” dir. Well, more work on the to-do list…thankfully, at least, this came up well before the release of the next major version of my apps.
For what it’s worth, that search path has been the same since X-Plane 8 or so…
Just one more thing: In my default installation, there is the only one earth_nav.dat file, stored in Resources/default data/. Can Custom Scenery include an earth_nav.dat?
As of 10.25, earth_nav.dat will only be in Resources/default data.
10.30b8 will introduce a second location for earth_nav.dat; Philipp will have a tech note when this happens.
earth_nav.dat cannot be in scenery packs.
Hi Ben..
Just wanted to clarify what you mean by 750 airports including ‘300 completely new ones’. I realize that http://www.forums.x-plane.org is a separate entity, but are some/all of these 750 APs also available from the .org site or are they exclusive to X-Plane?
I have found that with the new Global Airports folder installed together with some other custom scenes from the .org site, I end up with duplicated scenery at a single AP. This is the case even with appropriate exclusion zones and scenery load order in place.
I do not know if the airports shared with us are also on the org – nothing precludes an author from publishing their airport in multiple venues; we don’t demand exclusivity. The most common work-flow I’ve heard of is authors doing a ‘generic’ version of the airport for us and a more detailed version with third party libraries for the internet.
Either way, a few things are clear:
– All custom scenery should have exclusion zones! This has always been true, but now the stakes are higher.
– You should set the Global Airports scenery pack to be lower priority than stuff you get off the new. (This happens more or less automatically for users who first get X-Plane at version 10.25 or later.)
Hey Ben,
will WED 1.3 enable polygon exclusion zones? The rectangle only shape makes it akwardly difficult to place them in the right spot.
No! And the reason it will not is because _xplane_ can’t handle polygonal exclusions. So this is an _xplane_ feature first…WED can only write data that X-plane can read!
I was certainly confused by your past comments, but I understand it all correctly now from your Swedish interpretation … 🙂
I ran the installer from the side bar on my iMac and there were no issues.
Loving the two new glance left/right options, but it would be a godsend if you could include the other views up/down/up-left,right/down-left,right it would make hatswitches far more effective.
Fantastic update!
One question regarding the King Air… why doesn’t the VNAV button work?
Bug report on the bug reporter please, not blog comments.
There is something not working with the current beta. I’m quite sure, Ben, that I can post my bug report here, isn’t it? 😉
Yes, but only in fake Swedish…
Yes, I should probably have posted my “bug” report in Swedish. It didn’t occur to me that it was a “bug” since the function hasn’t worked for as long as I can remember.
Since this latest update indicated Kingair updates specifically, I decided to check it out again in XP since its an aircraft I fly often.
I should also had mentioned, possibly in Swedish, that I did file a bug report on this some time again to no avai.,and figured positing here might generate some “me too” posts.
Perhaps posting a lack-of-functionality report in Swedish would be more effective?
Err on the side of filing a bug report – if it turns out to be a feature request, no foul. There is never a case (feature request OR bug report) where the blog comment section is the right place.
Ben, I invite you to me, so I can teach you real Swedish – not Swedish chef’s horrible Swedish (it looks far mor Dutch than Swedish)! 😀
Dutch!?, I am still trying to translate the swedish tekst, It seems something to do with bug reports…
Greetings from Holland.
now that X-Plane is available on Steam;
will be there steam workshop integration, so we can finally be able install and remove third party addons (aircraft and airports) in just one single click ?
using the benefit of steam workshop will be definitely a major revolutionnary breakthrough for such a flightsim on a pc! I can’t wait to say good bye to the mundane task of manually downloading and unzipping addons …
I do not know.
I know this much: it will not be NECESSARY to use Steam to get third party add-ons – you can drop in regular third party add-ons to the steam edition and it works.
Ben/Philip-
I just flew the CT206H with the GNS530 through IFR conditions into KAST.
The descent into the clouds was truly beautiful.. Best descent into clouds I have seen yet… And then as I exited the cloud base, there was “scud” from the clouds that was wispy and hanging low and I kept flying through them with a beautiful rendering happening that made it feel.. well feel so very lifelike!
Needless to say, an aweinspring flight into KAST and I cant wait for 10.30 to go final!
Keep up the awesome work!
Ben,
I havent understood how airports are updated in xplane and i would know just where can i find the complete list of airports new release in the world xplane.
The link of Mike Hollander is broken above.
Sorry for my english but it is difficult for me to translate in French the comment’s and by this way to understand well … 🙂
From X-Plane 10.3 Beta 5 to Beta 6 I get a frame rate improvement of 10% 🙂
My specs: iMac 27″ Mid 2011, 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, 24 GB 1333 GHz DDR3, AMD Radeon HD 6970M 2048 MB, OS X 10.8.5
It may just be a lack of knowledge on my part of the FMS system, but are there any plans to update it to work with GPS approaches as well?