X-Plane 10.45 has been released; if you have run X-Plane you already know that.
This release has another big update to the global airports and updated navigation data. Here’s a complete list of everything changed.
One new feature of 10.45 that may change how you use X-Plane: the global airports no longer conflict with custom scenery – even if you have custom scenery that doesn’t have proper exclusion zones.
So if you have been disabling the global airports due to conflicts, you don’t need to do this anymore. You can use your custom scenery and keep the global airports around.
We are already well into X-Plane 10.50 development – we’ve actually been doing significant 10.50 work for a while now. I’ll have more posts on that soon – right now we are aiming to have 10.50 in public beta in a few weeks.*
* That’s a vague time estimate because it’s not super accurate. Feature work is not complete for 10.50, so it’s hard to know when it will really be done. Our goal isn’t to get 10.50 into beta at a certain date; it is to make X-Plane better as efficiently as possible.
Good news – please consider an early implementation (even if this feature would be an early alpha) of a new graphics engine (Vulkan) in your development plans. This could make sure that X-Plane is on everybody’s lips while others slept through this development.
Don’t expect Vulkan, if ever included, before X-Plane 11.
It is a long and hard process (at least 6 months or more for a small team), the entire renderer will have to be remade.
But I’m not an expert, Ben will surely correct me if I’m wrong…
You are correct that the scale of changing the underlying graphics API for all of X-Plane is non-trivial!!!
It is wonderful, what detail X-Plane can handle – see this beautiful scenery …
https://youtu.be/Uc-eAO4RfzE
On the Gateway*, if I select by ‘New Approved Airport Submissions’, how can I find out which have been incorporated into the latest release? Do I have to cross reference with the ‘Differences’ list or is there an easier way? I looked at a couple that interested me, CYBA and YPXM, both approved 3D but not in 10.45.
* https://gateway.x-plane.com/airports/page#
In general, a very recently submitted airport, i.e. all in the “recent approved list” is very unlikely already included in the release.
But you can use the Markku’s airport map in the same pulldown menu view to see the ones in/not yet in the release in orange vs red. Right now the coloring refers to the 10.42 release, but I suspect in a few days it will update to the 10.45 release.
I agree that this would be super useful!
If you’ll file me a feature request for the Scenery Gateway site (https://gateway.x-plane.com/bugs), I’ll make sure this stays on my radar. (No guarantees on the timeline, though—I’m swamped for the foreseeable future with 10.50 features.)
Openstreet is fantastic piece of cooperation among people that maps real streets. I wish there is some similar cooperation among people but real buildings – that X-plane could some day support.
Perhaps Laminar can push the organisation behind Openstreet to create Openbuilding?
Perhaps it already exists.
There are local usergroups that put building footprints into OSM, Portland has a quite activ one. But they are usually local, as you need access to data – its impractical to put in millions of polygon nodes per city by hand edting. Plus you need height data.
To use that data look at the w2xp / osm2xp projects like http://world2xplane.com. Use the asia scenery to fly around Hongkong – thats like 30 years of time travel !
I may be missing something here, but I have two Heathrow’s, both by Aerosoft. One the original that came in X-Plane, the other purchased from Aerosoft. After the latest update when I load X-Plane it defaults to the original and I see two control towers.
I then removed the original from custom scenery and I was back to the purchased version.
Hrm – it sounds like the purchased one doesn’t have an exclusion zone. The deconflicting only applies to the gateway airports, so this conflict can still happen. Payware exclusion zones are still important!!
EDIT: Aerosoft says there is an exclusion in the payware – make sure the payware is higher in the .ini file than the default.
May be you can think about remove or include the aerosoft airport in the global airport folder…many of this aerosoft airports are really outdated.
Laminar is already doing that – you will see that a lot of the more basic Aerosoft airports (EDDH, EDDS, EDDK, EDDM, etc.) are already gone.
I am currently making a new version for EGLL, though – this will consist of both custom (Aerosoft) objects and default library (lego-brick) objects. We call these “hybrid”. One example of that is Aerosoft EDDF.
Once Heathrow is done, Laminar will update the airports, but by designe it will stay a “custom” Aerosoft airport.
Cheers, Jan
“the global airports no longer conflict with custom scenery – even if you have custom scenery that doesn’t have proper exclusion zones.”
Does this affect the sequence in which .apt files are loaded from disk by X-Plane?
Hi Udo,
It does -not- affect load order; it simply provides a new exclusion mechanism during DSF load using the existing order.
Hi Ben,
When the update will be available on Steam version? I noticed they have only RC1 and skipped RC2.
It should be out now.
Hi Ben, the update does not show on Steam yet. Maybe I’m doing something wrong? Could you please confirm if it was already released on Steam?
And no sign of the update on Steam yet… Is there another way to update it?
It’s up. Maybe this?
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3134-TIAL-4638&l=english
Didn’t helped. At XP about I see “104503” build. Does this mean I already have the final 10.45 version? On Steam it shows [beta] at the end of the title and the more recent news is about the RC1 release on february 2.
Yes, you already have it.
Great, thanks!
Wonder if you guys are going to add the 777 and MD-80 featured in the mobile app to desktop. I know that particular 777 has been much waited on in the community and the MD-80 was supposed to be a default airplane. Would be really nice to see that as well.
It depends on the airplane; some aircraft are fully developed within LR, so we have all of the IP rights and can someday bring them to desktop. Others were licensed specifically for sale on mobile. I do hope that we will be able to at some point ship the MD-80 on desktop.
I had submitted a bug report on this and maybe it’s a planned fix for 10.50+, but having to remove all the current ICAO code characters in Location/Select Global Airport in order to go to a new airport is a waste of time. Previous to 10.40 I believe, that field was empty upon opening Select Global Airport allowing for instant entry of characters. Please make note of this Ben. It wasn’t “broken” in the first place. Thanks 🙂
It was broken – it’s just that you found the broken behavior to be convenient/faster for your use of X-Plane. The broken-ness is that if you close a dialog box and then come back to it and -part- of the state of the dialog box is still there, the rest of it should be too.
Okay, I can live with it. Thanks for the reply, Ben.
Hi Ben, I run a few lo-res AI planes just to see something in the sky, plus to give TCAS something to scream at me about.
They used to behave themselves, staying on taxiways and using runways, although not always the runway the prevailing suggested.
However since the last upgrade they are now all over the place, sometimes running at a right angle to the runway. At Madeira I even saw two planes shoot off at right angles to the runway and scoot across the sea until getting airborne, quite funny.
I reverted to a previous back-up and they are now behaving themselves again. I,m wondering if is to do with the global airports update, or it might be my set-up.
Cheers.
Perhaps the global airport setup? There’s been no change to the AI logic from 10.42 to 10.45.
How do I get the most recent 10.45r4 for mac?
It’s 10.45r2. Run the installer and pick update.