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X-Plane 10.40 beta 6 is out – it took me a while to get the release notes updated, but they are updated now.

Beta 6 really isn’t a beta at all – it was an update to enable digital download of X-Plane 10.

Laminar Research, creators of the X-Plane flight simulator franchise, is proud to announce that X-Plane 10 is now available as a digital download from the Laminar website at X-Plane.com. In addition to the DVD version of X-Plane 10, new purchasers of the product now have the choice of the digital version.

The X-Plane 10 Digital Download version is the full Global X-Plane 10 product, containing all of the same features and scenery areas as the DVD version. World scenery areas may be added at any time as desired, once the core product has been purchased and additional world scenery areas may be added or deleted at any time in the future.

If you have DVDs or the Steam edition of X-Plane, X-Plane will continue to work in almost exactly the same manner as it did before.

If you purchase X-Plane 10, Digital Download Edition, the sim will occasionally prompt you for a product key on startup. With the digital download edition, internet connectivity fully replaces DVDs – for installing the sim, adding/removing scenery, and taking the sim out of demo mode.

If you’re waiting on bug fixes, they’re coming in beta 7 – we have a bunch lined up, but we wanted to get the digital download edition of X-Plane out first.

Update: just to state the obvious – we are not dropping support for DVDs, we are not ending our use of DVDs, and we still sell X-Plane on DVD. The idea here is to give customers a choice as to how to get X-Plane. If you like DVDs, keep using them! If you like download, now that’s an option too.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

61 comments on “We’ve Gone Digital”

  1. Thnaks

    Few posts ago you mentioned a bunch of new features , are they still coming within 10.40 beta run?

    1. “We have a bunch of new stuff to get into beta 6” , hope thats still coming but now b7

    2. It’s offtopic but, as a feature of the WED editor, it MUST have a function that exports the used objects from the libraries and copies them in a folder which is called “library” in the Airport directory. Thus, it is no longer necessary always be installed hundreds of different libraries, because you usually use just a few files from it.

      1. That’s not a must-have feature – that’s a must-never-have feature!

        Here’s why:
        1. Those libraries have some kind of copyright terms and licensing terms, and those terms are probably -not- “copy this stuff INTO your scenery pack.” The whole point of libraries is that you can use other people’s work by reference, without actually copying it.

        2. Copying the items would be super-inefficient for performance. X-Plane loads each object once, each texture once. But if you -copy- a texture into another scenery pack, X-Plane doesn’t know that it’s a duplicate, and loads -each- file once.

        So if all airports copied the art assets from the packs they used, a user going to an area with a lot of airports would have much higher VRAM use since the library objects would have their textures loaded over and over and over.

        cheers
        Ben

        1. Hi Ben,

          Some freeware scenery packs come with loads of objects so our Scenery folder will become congested with repetitive objects in no time, so say goodbye to VRAM if you downloaded too much sceneries.
          Will it help VRAM if we temporarily move unused scenery folders to another folder and keep only the ones we will be flying between?

          Rgds,
          Hayri

  2. Hard media is too convenient for me, and I presume the same for anyone moving around low-and/or-costly bandwidth countries.

    1. Probably not.

      The Mac app store comes with a ton of restrictions and limitations about how the app is installed and how it conforms to various Apple policies.

      And if you go to the Apple app store, you don’t need to do your own installation, so none of this work gets us closer to the Mac App store.

      1. That’s a real shame. I prefer to get my software from there. It’s convenient, a one stop shop for updates, allows me to install across the Macs I own without being troubled by intrusive DRM, and those restrictions and limitations on how the app is installed that you mention sure do make me feel better about what I allow on my system.

        If you are considering a tally for those who would like to see it there eventually, please add my name to that list.

        I’d consider purchasing it outside of Steam just to get away from that bloatware loading every time I open my computer, though. Good on you guys for adding another avenue to purchase digitally.

  4. Cool news. Makes me think whether I shall buy it another time although I have the steam edition.

    1. Would I be able to direct the download installer to my current Steam version and have it overwrite? Or would I have to start from scratch to install all my plug ins and add ons?

      1. First, if you have the steam edition you don’t need to change anything – you should just keep on using what you already have.

        Second, no, you cannot install a new copy of the sim on top of another install of the sim.

  5. I had to agree with the other poster, Ben. Having the DVDs is more convenient for me Then Internet access. How will Laminar address this in the future? Will the DVD still be offered? Or is this Just a Cost cutting move? I am old school. And really like the idea of having a Physical representation of my purchase.

    1. Hi,

      It’s not a cost-cutting move it’s a meeting-customer’s needs move.

      DVDs are NOT going away.

      But for users who _do not have a DVD drive_ or are _annoyed_ by DVDs, or do not want to wait for shipping, etc. this is more useful.

      So if having more DVDs is more convenient for you, then great – use DVDs!

  6. ” If you have DVDs … X-Plane will continue to work in almost exactly the same manner …”

    Ben, what are the differences?

    1. X-Plane 10.36 loads up and tells you its in demo mode when it’s done – at that point you can insert the DVD to take it out of demo mode.

      10.40 will pro-actively prompt for a DVD or product key early at startup if it doesn’t already have authorization.

      We did this because users of a product key need to have a place to enter a product key.

      In both cases, we cache your credentials so for the most part you won’t get bugged too much.

      1. Hello Ben,

        “In both cases, we cache your credentials so for the most part you won’t get bugged too much.”

        Do I understand this correctly? The download product key and the DVD will both result in having the same effect on some stored credentials, meaning I do not need to insert my DVD for every start of X-Plane from now on, but only from time to time?

        Thanks in advance,
        Björn

        1. Correct.
          1. You do not need to insert the DVD every time you run X-Plane – I think the current re-check period is 7 days. (This has been the case for over a year now!)
          2. You do not need to be on the internet every time you run with a digital download product key – again, I think the recheck is at least once every seven days. It is frequent enough that the digital download version isn’t appropriate for anyone going for an extended off-net period.
          3. The digital download product key gets saved to preferences, and if the last check was frequent enough, X-Plane doesn’t even show a dialog box. So users with continuous internet connectivity might -never- see a product key dialog box after the install if they don’t purge preferences.

  7. Since I purchased x-plane 10 on DVD, I no longer have a good machine that has a DVD drive. The digital download support moving forward is much appreciated.

  8. Wait I am confused is this xplane 10.40 still in beta and if so then why is steam not put a steam update for it

    1. Steam never has X-Plane betas. 10.40 will be available on Steam when it becomes a release candidate.

      The X-Plane digital download edition that we have announced is _not_ a steam product. There are now THREE ways to get X-Plane 10 global:

      X-Plane 10 Global DVD Set
      X-Plane 10 Global Digital Download Edition
      X-Plane 10 Global For Steam

      1. Thank you Ben, sorry for not being precise . I really need to read the post before putting it up.

  9. Fantastic, I just removed the DVD from my PC as X-Plane was literally the only thing I used it for. I was considering getting the USB key. This has saved me money!

      1. Which promotes the question: could X-Plane owners with a legitimate receipt somehow be provided with a product key?

        2. I agree. The X-plane disc lives in my MBP drive, and makes an annoying whirring noise whenever I open the lid, even though its rarely accessed. It would be great to swap the disc for an online validation option.

        3. Sorry, no. We are not providing free download keys to DVD owners, and we are not providing free DVD sets to digital download product key owners. They are separate products.

    2. I ‘”fixed” this on my Linux computer by copying the DVD as an iso to disk and then mounted the iso as a virtual DVD-drive. Have never been prompted for any DVD or product key since.

  10. X-plane goes digital. I am confused. Since when are DVD’s analogue? I have looked at it more presicely, but no it was not the lp I was hoping for. I would have been great because they were of the time nobody heard of bugs.

  11. “the sim will occasionally prompt you for a product key on startup”

    Could the key be written into a file, so X-Plane can read it at startup?

  13. Can I have multiple instances of XP ( digital version) on the same PC?
    I usually have beta in a separate folder and the recent release in the other.

  14. On linux, I am concerned that the app will be disabling the screensaver. For a number of reasons. Firstly, I have come across different methods, some that only work with particular DE or WM. Secondly, I think screensaver is an option tbat should be under user control, and not too difficult for the user to write their own shell script. Thitdly, unfortunately x-plane crashes sometimes and it would better if it has not made changes to the desktop environment.

    1. The code is supposed to use multiple techniques to disable the screen saver, hopefully in a way that persists only while the app is running.

      If you’d like to look at it, I can send you the code to investigate whether there’s a risk that the screen saver disable “persists” when the app is killed. Or if you have a reproducible case of this, file a bug and I will discuss it with the original author.

      Having users write a shell script for this is not a great solution – if Linux users are willing to share code that will make Linux have parity with the other OSes in terms of usability, then we should do that.

      1. Thanks for the offer to view the screensaver code, I think I’ll pass after doing a quick test although I do admit to being curious.

        My X-Plane 10 install is still at 10.36r1, so I thought I would try the 10.40 b6 screensaver feature in the demo version.

        It does inhibit the screensaver. If I disable the screensaver manually before running X-plane 10 demo, the screensaver inhibitor code doesn’t say it is trying to inhibit Xorg screensaver, which is nice.

        It does print a few errors on the console and I’m running Lubuntu 14.04 LTS:
        sh: 1: xscreensaver-command: not found

        Error ‘The name org.gnome.SessionManager was not provided by any .service files’ (source_code/external/WIN/WIN_ogl_window_x11.cpp, line 2208).
        Error ‘The name org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver was not provided by any .service files’ (source_code/external/WIN/WIN_ogl_window_x11.cpp, line 2282).

  15. Ben,

    As the subject of OS conflicts are being discussed, it might (or might not) be an appropriate time to ask, with Windows 10 being released next week, if you have any opinion as to whether there should be any conflict with x-plane. There seems to be a lot of angst over whether to block the download on our Windows 7 machines or to give it a try.

    I’ll understand if you consider it inappropriate, but I had to try.

    Thanks,

    John

    1. I can’t say whether Win 10 is going to be a successful OS release for Microsoft, but I think it will work okay for X-Plane. Microsoft generally has very good backward compatibility with OS upgrades.

      With that in mind, I continue to be astonished that users choose to upgrade their OS first, rather than waiting and seeing what experience other X-Plane users have had. These days new OS upgrades just don’t offer such amazing new must-have stuff that you can’t wait a week or two to see how the dust settles.

      1. I agree with your observation regarding the rush to upgrade. Microsoft says that they will make it available on the 29th, but you can control when it is convenient for install. They also say that there will be a rollback built into the OS in the event you encounter problems.

        Thanks,

        John

      2. Welllll someone needs to try it first. If no one else tries it then how will anyone else be able to wait and see 😉

          1. Done! Actually so far I have not had any issues though during using the reply scrubber bit in flight to watch my take-off I did have a crash but I don’t know if that is Windows 10 related or not. But that was my only issue so far (I did submit a bug report)

        1. This is not a technical limitation – this is a policy decision by Laminar Research.

          When we launched the Steam edition, we chose to keep the beta program restricted to the global DVD edition to limit the amount of time we spend cutting betas. Basically we would have to produce each beta twice (once for Steam, once for our updater), increasing the amount of time I spend cutting betas and decreasing the amount of time I actually spend fixing beta bugs. So we don’t put the beta on Steam until we have a release candidate.

          Laminar’s own digital edition uses the -same- updates as the DVD version, so the betas are automatically available.

          1. Ben not trying to bug you but can you give us a time frame until v 10.40 will release for the people on steam cause i know on steam you can’t get beta and in demo you only get 15 minutes until you have to reload the simulator. Is there any way to get the beta without using the demo cause 15 minutes is not enough of time.
            Your m8 Jeffrey

  18. X-Plane 10 runs great with Windows 10 (using Windows 10 Insider Preview since weeks and RTM now). X-Planes Log.txt says I’m using “Windows 6.2 (build 9200/2)”, but this would be Windows 8.1, I think.

    regards,
    Carsten

    1. Sounds like the logging code might be stale…please file a bug and include your log.txt and a note that you are using Win10 Preview.

  19. Digital version is a great way to go to keep up with the evolution. Did the same with my DVD’s, turned into ISO files and therefore halfen the installation time.

  20. Ben, I got a question, I have always wonder about this and to be honest it’s very annoying.. ok, so you start X-Plane 10 up with your DVD in the drive so X-Plane 10 can verify that you have a license version or what not you want to call it, but why in the world does it keep checking the drive for the DVD, every time during flight or what ever your doing, it does that, X-Plane pause for a second .. Or how ever long it takes to read the disk.. is there a work around..?

    1. Ben, it does not check the DVD after loading. In fact it does so only every few times you load X-Plane. Try it, take the DVD out, launch X-Plane. Chances are X-Plane will load just fine. If it prompts for the DVD, let it recognize, then take out the DVD afterwards and fly.

      The minute pauses you see is X-Plane loading in new terrain tiles as your flight progresses.

  21. Bigger question is when are we going to get away from having to have a disc in the drive or entering a CD Key “occasionally” on start? How about doing it the way the rest of the world works. Enter the key once and be done with it.

    1. If you use the digital download edition, that’s basically what you get now. If nothing goes wrong, you’ll never enter the key again. I mention entering the key occasionally because if anything goes wrong with the system (like wiping out preferences) then the key is needed, so I don’t want any user to say “hey, you promised it would be only once, so I fed the paper with my key written on it to my dog.” But the system should be interruption free normally.

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