Before Ben left on his family trip (and he was very adamant that it was not a “vacation” because the kids were going along) we got an X-Plane 11.20r1 build ready for possible release this week. Tyler and I must feel lucky because we’ve gone ahead and pulled the trigger to make this build public now.
This means that we need you to test your add ons now–seriously we mean it–speak now or forever hold your peace. All our features and changes that are going in 11.20 are in*, and the only changes we will put in from here on out are any regression bugs you bring to our attention.
I think we can all agree we’d like to have a nice big pile of bug reports for Ben to solve when he gets back as punish–ahem–reward for his return. 😀
*This update has one final important feature: the VR controller menu finally has access to all the windows you’ve been missing, like ATC, Map, etc (it’s the “windows” button on the left side in the pic below).
Steam please!
Same here! Is there any reason why the Steam release is taking so long???
Philipp is at a show, so my guess is r1 comes out for Steam early next week. Because the Steam build is a separate process from the regular build, we can have this kind of ‘disconnect’. (I was OOTO last week, that’s why no one has r2 yet.) Maybe someday we’ll unify the build process for both LR and Steam, but it’s not a simple thing.
Steam builds will _always_ be at least a day later than LR releases because Steam users grab the beta and then give us 1-star negative reviews if it’s broken. So we _have_ to test the build and make sure there isn’t a show-stopping defect before putting it on Steam, or we get kicked in the teeth. We can’t risk making the only VR-ready build on Steam be broken for any amount of time.
So if you care about being slightly quicker on betas (e.g. 1-2 days) sooner, you have to run the LR build. But my suggestion is to _not_ sweat the extra days and be patient…if the LR build is out before the Steam build, it’s amost always because it’s untested and running that beta means risking a broken X-Plane for a few days until we can fix it, with no way to get back to an older beta.
1 -2 days wouldn’t bother me at all. It’s a week plus that bothers me. I haven’t checked today, but I never even got beta5, much less r1. That comment was insulting. Clearly people who purchased via steam are looked down upon and seen as a burden. Maybe add a warning to the Steam description? I’ll bet I’m every bit the enthusiast as other x-plane users, I spend a lot of my spare time using this software, and I’ve spent significant $s on payware. I’m willing to risk a broken build for a couple days. And it’s opt-in, so give me the same opportunity as the smarter higher class folks who didn’t buy on steam. I’ll happily click a box that says I might break my build.
I … don’t know what to tell you. Your expectations of “what beta is” and our idea of “what beta is” are totally different. We (LR) view beta as “how we get the code from kinda-buggy to not-buggy.” You seem to view it as “the way I get the very newest features as fast as possible.”
These two ideas are fundamentally in conflict. In the case of beta 5, Philipp had a problem with the uploading tool that we use to make Steam betas after Valve updated it (and using the latest version that Valve provides is mandatory) and needed help from Valve to resolve the issue. We had a chunk of time where we literally couldn’t make Steam betas. It’s unusual but it happened.
Now…if we viewed betas through the lens of “this is a release of our paid product for paying customers”, we’d view this as a show-stopping problem, and our procedure would be “don’t release beta 5 to ANYONE until we fix this.” The entire beta program would have halted for a week and pushed the entire schedule back.
But that’s not how we view betas. The point of beta 5 was to find out as fast as possible whether we had fixed the bugs in beta 4. So we chose to continue the beta program and get more feedback faster so we could get closer to _final_ release, which benefits all users.
I am not saying you should like any of this. I’m just trying to explain exactly what’s going on with the business and management of X-Plane public betas as clearly as I can, so you can at least understand how we make our decisions.
Er, I should also comment directly on this:
“Clearly people who purchased via steam are looked down upon and seen as a burden”
That is definitely _not_ what I am saying. I think that in both the communities of X-plane LR users and x-plane Steam users, there are some users who will understand what beta is and provide useful feedback, and some users who will misunderstand what beta is, and be frustrated when a beta is not like a final release.
The difference in the communities is _not_ in the quality of the users, it is in the nature of the app stores. We have observed users who are frustrated with betas giving our app negative reviews on the Steam app store; no such corresponding app store exists for LR direct purchase. The difference is in the mechanism of the stores.
Similarly, we do not view steam users as burdens. But the cost of putting the app into Steam is a cost to the company. Every distribution channel (DVD, LR digital download, Steam) has a development cost. In this case right now, the cost of Steam is higher than the LR digital channel because it is not as highly automated something we can hope to fix in the future.
No, I view betas the same way you do. Again, just cause I bought from steam, I’m not totally stupid. I am just an avid flight simmer that uses your software including the betas to test and use and modify my own projects. Xplane 11 and native VR are creating all sorts of work for you, for other developers and yes,
for enthusiasts. I want to stay up to date, a. Because it’s amazing, and b. Because I actually care and am involved, even if you don’t see it. I paid the same price, innocently and unknowingly, if not ignorantly. I moved over from another product and invested time learning about xplanes’ mechanics and started truly delving into it like I never did with other products in 40 years of using flight Sims. I’m spending money everywhere to play with this thing you guys created, and am simply disappointed with the whole steam mess and the thought of repurchasing to have the same experience as someone who bought straight from LR. I grew up with aircraft IRL , my uncle, brother and bro-in-law are all long time commercial pilots, and I still fly regularly. I appreciate beyond all words what you guys have accomplished, and I do try to wait patiently for a few days every time. No need to post this comment, no need for senseless public angst. I Just wanted to say it’s not just being whiny, it actually matters to me. I understand betas, lol, I just wanted in on the action…thanks
I find how steam users are being treated insulting, pretty much anyone with a brain understands that beta can mean game breaking bugs, there are even options available to ensure users have properly understood the meaning of beta such as passwording the beta branch and having them read a statement before giving it out.
Your statement Ben makes it very clear that Steam users are of less value to LR because we don’t earn you as much profit, not only that but users and developers using the Steam version are unable to contribute as well as online or retail users which is very disappointing, so much so I’m considering switching to another platform depite the many days or weeks I’ve put in doing X-Plane development, this sort of degraded service is unacceptable.
I think your accusations (above comments) are really unfair towards LR. Steam Early Access and beta games are plagued with negative reviews DESPITE in-game and store page warnings, and even statements from devs. I can show you *countless* examples, and they do have a long term impact, regardless of opt-in ir not.
I think you guys are unnecessarily getting offended, and getting really defensive after a perfectly reasonable explanation. They’re not assuming anything bad of you, but it’s clear to see the effect EA and Beta releases have on Steam reviews – and this *isn’t* even the sole reason they’ve given.
I think this is being taken too personally, with some comments being borderline immature due to their self-entitled, pitchfork-esque nature. I’m sure if you take a moment you’ll understand why they’re doing it the way they are.
This is one of those moments I feel bad for developers. You literally have people getting upset that a BETA release is a week behind on Steam. I’ll say that again, you have people getting upset with you, because they have to wait… a WEEK, to use… a BETA product. Honestly, I would have snapped already, and probably lost a customer, but good job keeping it cool. I’ll just say to these unhappy simmers.. It’s a privilege to be in ANY open beta, let alone one that just makes you wait a week (if that). Seriously, people need to relax a little and stop jumping on the devs because they cant get the latest and greatest features that might be broken anyway. Also, if you cared that much ( like I did) you would have just bought the game again from LR so you had instant BETA access.
You guys pitiful ! Quit crying it’s just a simulator ! Go outside and go for a walk ! Find a few other hobbies !
First, thanks Ben for your effort in X-Plane development and also in the blog to make things clear for us.
There is a point I want to add to your definition to “Beta”.
“Why do people here waiting for betas more than any other game?” Actually not all people are using X-Plane beta to move the game to non-buggy case or to push the development progress forward. Most of us are using betas because non of X-Plane stable releases where stable enough. The stable version itself has many small and simple problems that all of us need them to be fixed (they are simple in customer view, maybe they are complicated in developer view), so people are not patient to use the new beta just for the hope that any of the small bugs has been fixed in it. So most of us are not the right Beta users you are looking for, and most of us will never report a bug or send feedback. We are just here hoping for small improvements in Betas. If you don’t care about these very small changes your beta community will be full of us who are not actual beta users. And if you give the priority to the small bug fixes and improvements, and work on them before moving to the next major update. Then most of us will never wait for betas again, we will only use the last stable version. And your beta community will be full of the right beta users who know what Beta is, and they will never comment “Steam please!” again.
thank you for this update that I will test this week.
I always check this site every 10 minutes to see if you have a new update, then I wait more than a week for Steam version.
Is there a way to convert my X-Plane to Non-Steam version? Can I get a licence from you instead?
I would too!
Why you guys bought off Steam in the first place, I’ll never know. You know how much their margin is off every sale? IMO you short changed LR and cos of that you should wait longer, even though it’s just a symptom of the delivery mechanism…
I didn’t buy X-Plane from Steam on sale, I bought it with full price. I was a user of FSX on steam on noticed X-Plane as a recommended game so I bought it just for test and didn’t know there was another version on developer site. and now I am a loyal fan to this sim. and I can’t wait for every update.
If you REALLY can´t wait then buy the game as a digital download from Laminar again – instant access to all betas for a small price…
or better get the DVD’s
This is all-around a pretty stupid and/or awful thing to say; can’t decide which. Why should a customer suffer an arbitrary delay for a transactional detail that 1) he may not have been aware of, as seems to be the case here and which 2) wasn’t his decision? If LR wasn’t happy with the terms Steam offered, they didn’t have to enter that market.
Instead, my guess would be that Steam mandates an approval/verification period for all updates, making it a diminishing returns situation to always be submitting candidates which won’t even be pushed through to users before the next one is ready. Because of this, they likely choose to only submit candidates which have already been tested and proven stable by their standalone client user pool.
Well that was really helpful, thank you Sir for dispensing your wisdom. s/
There is few really good features of Steam that are great for user…
1: no need for serial number when reinstalling, doing significant upgrade to HW, using X-Plane on more computers …
2: no need to download and maintain addons up to date, everything is installed with XP automatically, even you do not need serial numbers and so on. All addons stay up to date, no need to monitor if there is new version, log in to different online stores, manually download and even manually instal those files…
3: price. For example you can currently buy X-Plane just for 21.08 USD. This price is full retail price, there is no discount applied. With discounts you even pay less. There are regional prices to support sales in some countries, it is better sell for less than have just another pirated copy.
4: Do not underestimate power of Steam. For example some addons developers asked to do addons for FSW do not accept selling via stream due to fees to stream which is about 1/3 of price. There was some developer doing addons for TSW. He was selling addons on onw website to maximize profit from each copy. But after year he try put his few old addons to Steam, just let it try… and… He sold few time more copies during first week then he was able to sell yourself. So even 30% fee, he get much higher profit. Sometimes people will buy it just beocuse they see it…
5: 2hrs non limited demo. With steam you can test X-Plane outside demo area, with all wished addons and everything you can imagine. You have 2 hrs to test full version and then you can ask for refund. You even can try addons and if you are not satisfied, you can use return policy.
I bought off steam BECAUSE they had a sale. I don’t spend $80 Canadian on any games and so $50 on steam made it affordable. BTW I have yet to see a decent sale price on the laminar website even though it’s been out for over a year now. It’s stupid to think everyone is buying this just to support the developer. I bought it so I could fly and FSX was getting old and xplane10 wasn’t cutting it for me- not because who made it.
I am ok with waiting for steam to update the game and if that means waiting a week so be it.
Also I don’t have to worry about DRM which was really annoying with my xplane10 copy that always needed the dvd in the drive or for me to hack it to pretend the dvd was in the drive (that often wasn’t even connected to the computer)
In fact I did not know, because there was nothing in the steam that information would be differentiated, in fact I did not even know there was X-Plane 11 out of steam.
I went through the same situation with X-Plane 10 Steam.
When LR started selling X-Plane 10 digital, entitled to receive X-Plane 11 did not think twice and bought. Very satisfied, I get updates without problems and I do not have to worry about having DVD 1 running.
In a sense Steam is being fast with LR upgrade, REX 4 Texture Direct update took more than 30 days to reach Steam users
Yes, again, Steam please. Or give us a free conversion please.
Thanks
There will be a contract that steam makes with the software companies and I am absolutely sure that contract will prohibit that.
You got the advantages of the steam version, so you have to live with the disadvantages as well. And maybe consider buying X-Plane 12 directly from LR.
Are you planning to iterate on VR control methods in the release after 11.20? As it stands, there’s no comfortable way for me to control the functions I haven’t mapped to hardware controls, since I fly right-handed (with a HOTAS) and I also use my mouse or touch controller with the same hand.
Still hoping for some kind of gaze control. A laser like the one coming from the touch controller, but with the laser pointer attached to my head so it points wherever I look and the control functions mapped to joystick buttons. Or a way to control the VR mouse pointer with my view (then I would map standard mouse actions (mouse buttons, wheel up/down) to joystick buttons).
Thanks for considering this,
Marc
Not intending to be cute here: if you can find a means of attaching a hand controller over your HMD, there is a command reserved for the controller trigger: sim/VR/reserved/select
Just thinking outside the box. A bit. 😉
Solving a software problem with duct tape… seems legit! 😀
I wasn’t thinking duct tape, but hey, why not? 😉
A velcro strap around the controller and upper strap of the HMD would probably work for simple tests. After that, some form of shaped mount would likely be needed for stabilization. Have to admit, the notion of a “gaze” aiming method is not without merit.
Fantastic work guys, please can you look at why ASW is making everything outside the cockpit judder like hell between 27-36fps.
I’ll reiterate everything is smooth as silk at 22.5 or 45.
Thanks
This is exactly my experience as well! It’s a very frustrating thing. i7-7700k, 32gb ddr-4, SSD, CV1
Forgot to mention my GPU is a 1080ti, cpu running at 4.5GHz. Water cooled. I had it at 5GHz but kept getting BSOD in 11.20 beta, so I backed off a bit and that stopped the crashing.
The same here.
I will +1 this and assume an official bug report has been filed.
I would recommend you send a bug report as well. It’s helpful to have as much data as possible on who all is seeing a particular problem–we can often spot trends easier that way. If we hear about a specific issue from multiple people, we also know it’s not an isolated incident on a single person’s machine.
Hi. Amazon.com X-plane11 I bought 9 pieces of DVD output it did not come out of a key in the box installed on my computer and works for this I need to get a key.I’d be happy to help you.Thank you.
Please contact X-Plane support by emailing info@x-plane.com. You should be able to simply insert DVD 1 and not need a key at all.
Mine as well, even with ASW turned off. Suddenly the head tracking goes wild whereas FSX and P3D are silky smooth even when FPS is lower than X-Plane.
I would say the official ASW is only at 45 FPS pumping it up to 90. 22.5 seems to be something supported by Oculus despite it‘s unofficial. Something in between is just unsupported. Get 45 FPS! I don‘t think LR can do something about that.
I submitted a bug report on this a few weeks ago but not seen any indication that it’s a known issue. I even completely reinstalled my Win 10 OS and installed fresh and clean xplane along with minimum drivers and USB devices.. but still the same. I’m unsure if it’s an Oculus Driver issue or x-plane issue but I’m sure this wasn’t an issue prior to Beta 3. As a workaround I use Riva Statistics Server to limit FPS to 22, but a side effect is a major stutter every 2-3 seconds. This is still preferable to the horrendous scenery stuttering though.
On the plus side…Xplane with VR is freaking awesome and massive kudos to the developers. With new headsets on the horizon, migration to Vulcan and FlyTampa and Orbx getting in on the act, I’ve never been so excited for Flight Simulation since the 90”s.
I really don’t understand why we haven’t had a reply regarding this issue, it seems to be affecting so many users.
It’s all very well saying KEEP IT TO 45 – I have a powerful system and yes, most of the time I am at 45fps, but this won’t ALWAYS be possible and since the sim runs perfect at 22.5 – Why not at 27-36fps outside of the cockpit? It’s always smooth when looking inside, the issue is the scenery motion juddering.
This is good progress.
But I still cannot import Windows from 3rd party ATC eg 124th ATC.
Is this planned for the future?
Jay
Third party plugins will need to update to the latest plugin format to be used in VR.
In fact, I’ve even turned ASW off and still get judder while in turns. I really think it has a lot to do with SteamVR! I’m a long time user of X-Plane, going back to the versions that came with a printed manual, so I’m not just some young kid rambling and complaining. I love the sim, but I’m really looking forward to the day we can fly it in VR at high settings and butter smoothness!
Please find a way to get rid of SteamVR dependency!!!
There is no SteamVR depency in native XP11 VR. They got rid of that some time ago.
Is the ground handling fixed?
Does it still stupidly add the crosswind vectors with the prop thrust, making the prop thrust go off to the side of the aircraft instead of like behind the prop in real life?
#vectorgate
The bulk of Austin’s flight model changes did not go into 11.20. We tried to keep it focused on VR to limit the beta period (which still takes us months!). I believe there are a lot more of these changes planned for the next update.
Is anyone else getting “tire tracks” around their aircraft with SSAO and AMD card? I would report it, but I’m using “unsupported drivers.” Not a complaint, just letting you know.
No CDCZ, I did not know about the Steam issue until after purchase and duh, I wish I hadn’t bought on steam. But I did, and I paid full price also. It does bring many buyers to xplane that otherwise might not find it. I’m guessing it even makes the developers some money, otherwise they wouldn’t have it offered on steam. Plus the payware sales generated. So I should have to buy it twice to have the same experience just because steam didn’t inform me they steal from developers before I purchased?
Amazing work…Love the new windows menu item on the controller. What is format for checklist?
A checklist must be stored somewhere in the X‑Plane directory as a plain text (‘.txt’) file.
“Somewhere”. Where exactly?
Anywhere that you can find it again. X-Plane doesn’t care which folder it’s in–you’ll navigate to it yourself via the OS file picker window.
I have excelent frame rate.. 40-70 fps.., guys let`s upgrade yours 5 years old hardware and stop craying. amen
I don’t know why you guys have been take to much time to release the vr on the xplane 11 full version, and I don’t know every time that I update my xplane and I start the simulator I have the same version 11.10 but well I think that I have to wait to can have the vr on the full version, just please release vr for full version
you have to opt in for the beta to get 11.20…if on steam right click x-plane and go to properties…opt in for the beta. I f purchased from LR then there is a checkbox to click when installing…run the installer and check the box
Frankly, I am disappointed that the feedback I provided in my last post to make VR “usable” was ignored. I have an Oculus and will not be using X-Plane VR at this time. Maybe it will become usable some time in the distant future, but for now it is a worse experience than just using a monitor and regular flight controls (yoke, throttle, switches, pedals).
I disagree. I fly exclusively in Native VR and find it totally usable. Not perfect, but definitely usable.
Sorry to be a newbie here, but where are the docs for making an aircraft VR? Looking at Documentation – Aircraft, I see Manipulators (from 2015), and way at the bottom File Formats – _vrconfig.txt. There are Blog posts on VR manipulators (part 1), blog category – VR, but mainly about plugins.
I’m very excited about X-Plane and VR and would like to start converting my aircraft for VR. Any timeframe on Docs, or am I looking in the wrong place?
Test flight in the Alps LFMN to LIMW. Carenado Mooney M20R Ovation, Ortho4XP. Works mostly great, FPS around 45, no crashes or freezes. A few glitches and hiccups though. Access to .txt inflight is a great addition to the menu and ATC seems to work well. There seems to be a problem with map when trying to show info re: ILS and similar – the window doesnt seem big enough to show all the info.
8600K @ 4500 + 1080Ti
Since updating to next beta I have this strange thing where a highway is shooting straight up into the sky. I thought it was an antenna but then I saw police cars driving up it: https://youtu.be/MWskJF6hdyw
I think you just inadvertently discovered a new form of space transportation.
I know that with r1 we are in feature lock but have two requests.
Have the developers console available in VR.
In VR if you click on a text entry area then the VR keyboard pops up and it can be used for entry just like in the holodeck with the easel entry page.
If I should also put this somewhere else please let me know.
Thanks Bill
would it be possible to add as in FlyInside a window for the FPS? for the new Windows function it is very difficult to make them disappear. the mouse is still too big. images are blurred through the windshield with oculus can we fix it? always with oculus is it mandatory that it be launched when flying in VR? When to a quick viewing of the head no slowing of the image. Congratulations to all of you. Ben will have to walk his head to try to solve the problems.
Since the developers have made an API to enable other programmers to add functionality (thanks a lot to them, they’ve done a tremendous job, and have been exceptionally reactive to reports by the community) I’ve made a plugin which shows FPS in a small window, only on demand, like in flyinside. You have to map a command to a button on your controller or elsewhere and when you press it a small window shows the FPS. My plugin also displays a text file but if you don’t need that feature just leave a comment here : https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/145903-plugin-to-display-a-text-file-in-vr-show-fps/, and I will compile it again with the default display of the text window disabled
Hello
Thank you for the answer and I try it right away.
I’ll keep you informed.
This is very useful depending on the configuration of the graphics card.
There allready possible to see the fps in VR with the plugin called avidtab.
And it’s a great plugin too! No fps lost is a plus! I’m now populating all my charts too. Works like a charm! Free plugin
Hello
is there any way that I could use the native VR on my GTX-780(which runs the rift smooth)?
It seems like support for older GPUs was dropped.
Thanks
No. This GPU is too old and is unsupported. X-Plane requires both eyes’ rendering to be done at the same time for performance reasons and older GPUs simply don’t have this capability.
“and he was very adamant that it was not a “vacation” because the kids were going along”
…well he is right.
The problem is that without the kids it’s also not a “vacation”, as you’ll be worried sick all of the time 😀
Very good job guys…
Just two things i have in mind now… they are not strictly related to vr, but to xplane in general.
1. The map is not moving, it would be nice to have the plane always in the center of the map.
2. I think ( in all the different planes i have) that the piston engines are starting up little bit too easily
Thanks so much… you are letting my dreams coming true