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Almost! we’ve been running a small scale private beta for the last few weeks while we finish new features and fix major bugs. I don’t want to curse the beta, but it looks like we may be able to get the public beta posted this weekend.

In the last two days we’ve had two major show-stopping bugs, but both are fixed, so we’re going to keep trying to nail this thing down and get it posted.

The public beta features not only the new particle system, available to third parties, but it is now in use for most (but not all) of the built-in effects in the sim. New Plane-Maker options let authors specify which effect categories (e.g. engine effects, wheel effects, etc.) they want to replace.

At this point it looks like we won’t have anything public for Vulkan this year, although I do think we will hit some internal milestones.

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.

158 comments on “X-Plane 11.30 Public Beta: Are We There Yet?”

    1. This is looking really excellent! AFTER deleting output\preferences and letting XP rebuild things, my frame rates are up nearly 70 percent!! I run a 3 monitor configuration and was getting about 32 fps, now getting 54 fps. Sweet!

        1. I personally have 3 monitors with different resolutions (center 1920×1200, sides 1440×900) and I noticed a slight decrease in fps, around 25% (average went from 24 to 18, even in low autogen areas).

          Deleting preferences didn’t do much. Anyway, this update is very welcomed thanks to all the features it brings.

  2. Hello Ben,
    Will Planemaker’s manual be updated for this changes in beta release? if not, when is the estimated update date?
    Also, is it only my impression that planemaker is not as friendly for building a helicopter than a airplane? I guess it honors it’s name 😀 . I rather like an aircraftmaker 😀

    Ps: I hope my Spanglish to be understood. 😀

    1. I don’t know if the full manual update will be ready for beta 1 but we do have tech notes already written and Jennifer’s definitely working on the manual.

    2. The manuals are all updated for 11.30 and will be published with the public beta. If you find something I missed you can of course file a bug and we’ll get it fixed.

  4. maintaining absolute discipline while the kids fight and scream “are we there yet” on the back seat is the hallmark of a good pilot.

  5. Fantastic news Ben. I have really been looking forward to this update and fingers crossed you don’t hit anymore stoppers though with the massive rewriting of core code some major issues were sure to rear their head.

    Shame about Vulkan but that would have been the cherry on top.
    I am especially interested to know about any performance improvements even before full Vulkan integration and how resource intensive shadows and more especially reflections will be as up to now they can half frame rates just by themselves making them almost redundant, especially for VR, which is a shame because reflections can really accentuate the experience and make for amazing scenes.

    Take a well earned rest once the patch is out (But not before!) 😉

  7. I wonder how the average user will experience the “new particle system”; will he/she even notice? If so, how?

    1. It’s visible now in that the default effects have been redone with the new system – so engine exhaust, contrails, wing condensation, pretty much all of it looks different. Before/after should be noticeable.

      1. Looking fwd to the geoengineering particle system;) The chemtrails should make CA look realistic! Will you be using the particle system for forest fires?

      2. So is 10.30 finally coming with a properly modeled chemtrail system? Can’t wait to see how choosing the right mixture will have a visible effect on the color of the chemtrail.

        /s

  8. Please add half framerate vsync to x-plane because lots of us have the fps between 30 to 60.So the 60fps vsync is not useful but 30fps is very useful.It can get more smooth.Thanks a lot.

      1. I would like to but my X-Plane crashes whenever I try. Submitted a bug report to LR but got no feedback. Maybe it’s only my issue (but it continues to occur even with different driver versions)

    2. I think this is a good idea also, 30fps is quite smooth. For some reason setting it up in nVidia CP is a hit and miss for reasons I just cant put my finger on.

    2. You would really have to be living under a rock for the past weeks to say something like that 🙂

  10. read somewhere that the beta notes have references to an F-14 Tomcat , is this true? that would be awesome if you guys made that

      2. Damn it! A F-14 with a Ghostriders livery would have been just perfect for Halloween. Oh well, maybe another beta 😉

  11. Is the particle system gonna work for scenery objects in the 11.30 release? Or will we have to wait till a later update?

      2. Ok, we are really looking forward to using both the particle system and FMOD in sceneries. It will really raise the bar. Appreciate it 🙂

  12. We BELIEVE in you guys. Keep up the work, you’re appreciated more than we lead on. Thank you.

  13. Ben – you said there’s nothing “vulkan” in this update or this year… does this mean xVision and other shader mods that draw on openGL will continue to work this year?

    1. To be clear: 11.30 contains MAJOR restructuring of the rendering engine that gets us PART way to Vulkan – we are shipping lots of our work from the last six+ months. Therefore the shaders are completely restructured, as we announced. But you can’t run Vulkan on an app that is only half-ported.

      1. Wow, best question and answer that captured my attention.
        building the bridge to reach the other end is rather more sophisticated than act of crossing the bridge.
        i appreciate grind under the hood.

      2. have to say impressed with the build so far you guys still need to work on tailgear stuff a bit more but other that im happy with it

  14. will particle system allow for clouds/rain/snow generation and would it be the start to rain and snow accumulation in xplane, in the end a step towards having seasons and visible icing on the plane… I guess when you mocked users saying their plane dropped like rocks and complaining about x-plane being broken when they were actually icing, these users wouldn’t have complained if they had actually seen the icing take place on the plane… also a lot of POH (including A320 and B737) recommend WAI turned on in case of visible icing only.

  16. Hello, what about the gradually implementation of “Metal” in XP11 ? As Mac user I feel since a long time as if we were the last in the series.. I guess it”s all about using the graphic power and multicores ? Has 11.30 anything to do with? Please notice that it is not a complain ! X-Plane is running perfectly including a lot of plugins but it is precisely this fact that increases our expectations from the developers

    1. The Metal port is part of the Vulkan port. We’re further along with Vulkan than Metal (we don’t have Airfoil-Maker running in Metal yet) but most of the code work is shared.

  17. Could I be in the pre-beta selection for future releases please? I didn’t receive any version of this beta.. and I know (today) that almost 25 people have it… and I am actively working in 3 important project planes for xplane.
    That release on weekend (I would preffer on mid-week) leaves me not so many time to catch issues on my previous and future planes.
    Thanks.

      1. Come on guys, Javier is practically X-Plane Royalty… he shouldn’t need to be contacting anyone, you should be chasing *him* 😛

  18. Hi Ben,

    Good to know 11.30 1st beta will be this weekend , though was really looking to test vulkan as i have a vulkan ready amd gpu .

    I have done some beginner modelling in blender for x-plane. Is the Particle System which is being introduced the same of Blender ?

    Rgds.

  19. Will the new particle effects work with third party environment plugins like xEnviro or Skymaxx or other, or will they have to be adjusted by the devs to work together?

    Is the rain affected? I don’t think so but would a global solution to rain effects would be better than the far too many different rain effects ideas that are put out by the different developers…

    Great work, it will be worth the wait!

    1. Interaction between the new particles and third party add-ons should be the same as the old built-in particles.

      Rain is unaffected and currently unrelated to the particle system.

  20. Will there be any changes to the weather visual rendering, as: clouds rendering, skycolors, celestial bodies textures, etc? Will there be need to update the addons that change those things, like FSEnhancer?

  21. You say Vulkan next year for PC’s. How long after that do you see support for Mac OS Metal

    1. Well, technically, I said “Vulkan not this year.” But if Vulkan isn’t next year we’re in deep deep doo doo. I expect Metal at the same time.

      1. Hey Ben: Good job with atc for now. The are some active airlines missing in the directory, such as, Air Choice One, Southern Airways Express, Boutique Air.I was hoping to find Ozark/TWA since the directory has defunct airlines. Thumbs up!!!!

  23. Mildly curious: when did Laminar start doing private betas on this level (e.g. based on Rollon’s comment above, at least major developers)? No doubt it’s a more controlled petri dish for finding…bugs…and certainly leads to slightly less hair pulling on your guys’ end. Was this in place back in the days of v9? Does mobile have the same beta test program?

    1. It’s been slowly building…we’ve done extensive major version private betas for 10 and 11, but started doing an interim private beta for major patches more recently…basically we reach a point where SOME features that are risky are ready for test but the sim has some bugs that would make it a show stopper for general distribution.

      For example, if VR is broken, regardless of what we write in the release notes, users will click “get beta” cuz it’s shiny and then be totally pissed that they can’t fly in VR. The private beta is small enough and we talk to who is in it, so expectations are a lot more clear about what’s testable and that the point isn’t to just fly.

      Mobile’s test program is pretty much entirely private, but it’s a separate program.

    1. We don’t know. We definitely _hope_ that we will see CPU usage inside the driver be on par (compared to now, where we see NV be consistently faster). But we don’t have enough data yet.

      1. I am of the opinion that most games / sims are developed for CUDA (correct if i am wrong) , have been an AMD user since a very long time and always worked like a charm.

        The main issue with AMD are their drivers, e.g. XP11 or XP10 under windows 10 with the Adrelane 18.5 OpenGL performance is capped and terrible, where under Linux using the Mesa drivers the difference is like 25-35%. No doubt the last two gens of Nvidia since the GTX9xx series has been top class.

        Hope Vulkan has the potential.

        Rgds.

  25. Hi Ben,
    the joystick custom response curves are an awesome and necessary feature!
    The only thing that you should add is an axis noise filter. This would be very useful for throttle/prop/mix. For this type of axes you don’t need ultra-precise response, but it is necessary to avoid that the axis oscillates when it is firm. Some potentiometers are noisy… 🙂

    Keep up the good work!

    1. Agree with this, small but annoying oscillations are par for the course with my throttles and joystick.

  26. It is so bad, you have ruined the immersion of flight sim, never going back to version 3.30 until fully released. Thank you for wasting my Friday afternoon for making me install this poor update, then having to go back a version.

    2. This is a good opportunity to remind everyone of the disclaimers surrounding beta use:

      https://www.x-plane.com/kb/using-x-plane-betas/

      – Public betas are not finished builds. They have bugs! They may not work right. They may crash. Working on your airplane with a public beta may destroy your airplane.

      – Do not opt into the beta program if you want to enjoy X-Plane. Do not use the public beta and then complain that the sim crashes, is unstable, is slow, or looks ugly. Do not use the public beta unless you need to test the beta.

      – If you don’t know what a beta is or don’t know how the beta program works, your best bet is to wait, ignore the beta, and keep using your current version. Everyone gets the new patch once it is finalized and out of beta.

      We recommend that most users stick to the stable version releases, as these are the ones known to “just work.”

      1. We need a checkbox: “I have read and understood this!” – then another checkbox “Yes, I really have read and understood this!” – then another one “Yes, I have really, really,….” and so on. 🙂

          2. Clearly you are not a student of reverse psychology. 😉 🙂 🙂

            Alex Gifford and I had a discussion when HDR _first_ came out in v10 about how to do the UI – we were pretty excited to ship the night lighting for the first time. Alex’s suggestion was a really big red button with scary letters that said DO NOT PRESS, plus an animation of sparks coming out when users pressed it.

    3. It’s not a final version , hence there is an option to select “Beta” during an update.

      Why not make a new copy and drop it back to 11.26 ? some betas are good and some bad.

    4. Seriously guy?! You’re actually complaining about a beta when many many times they’ve mentioned beta is not a stable version but beta only. It’s not a release candidate it’s a BETAAAAA, which can and will have bugs. I guess your life is not busy or exciting that your crying about a beta version, C’mon man!

  27. Hi there!
    Have you guys made any changes to FMOD? My fmod packages are not working as intended anymore on 11.30. It’s hard to diagnose, but it sounds like mixing is not working anymore, inside outside partially mixed, and no external engine sounds as far as I can tell. I haven’t found any info in the release notes. I’d greatly appreciate any pointers or help even. Thank you in advance!

  28. A question which I am very interested in: Will Vulkan reduce scenery loading stutters to get a overall smooth flight experience?

  29. The release notes always speak to my inner nerd. If you code it, they will come.

    “Can I ask you somethin’? Is…is this heaven?”
    “It’s X-Plane.”
    “X-Plane?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Coulda sworn it was heaven.”

  30. Hello Ben,
    inside the scenery_packs.ini I noticed a certain number of ‘mobile’ items, is it something planned and shared with the mobile version?
    There are also some other new items, such ‘military’: any hint?
    Thank you in advance.

    Angelo

    1. No, this was a code screw-up … we recently “caught up” mobile to a bunch of desktop innovations, resulting in unified code. Mobile has part of its scenery pack list hard coded into the C++, so this code got back-ported into the sim by accident.

      Since the desktop app can cope with files not being present in any given scenery, the ghost scenery packs have no actual negative effect. The cosmetic log issue will be gone in b2.

  31. No I know why the public beta releases happen on Friday. Ben and team need to drink a bunch of scotch to prepare for the utterly ridiculous comments. I am always impressed with your ability to keep a cool head and reply with a witty response. You guys must receive some great PR coaching. Keep up the great work.

    1. We keep _trying_ to get betas out before Friday, but somehow Murphy’s Law fills the week in with last-minute bugs…we discovered at the 11th hour that a bunch of VR clicking was broken, as well as Linux on new distros right after we fixed the previous 11th hour bug, namely hard crashes on older Intel GPUs. It paraphrase Airplane, it was the wrong week to quit sniffing glue…

  32. Are the art asset updates from the Las Vegas presentation made it into b1?

    Looking forward to testing. Thanks for being so open with development progress and dealing with all the user craziness.

    1. Some, yes – the new lego brick library and AG is in there. We’re going to put Dubai into beta 2 (it’s not in beta 1 because – looks down – I forgot to add it to the installer packs). Washington DC and NY will ship later in the v11 run – they were suppose to be previewed at Expo but _not_ marked at 11.30 – that was a screw-up in our marketing materials. 🙁

      1. Thanks! I was referring to the Lego Bricks. My first attempt at downloading the beta must have failed part way through. After running the updated again I could see them in WED. Great job on some of the new items!

        My experience on the beta has been great so far, other than the tire friction bug after multiple landings.

  33. Looking forward to trying it out guys! Thanks for the good work. I am curious when it will get pushed to Steam (I know it’s usually a delay).

    I saw that one of the things I reported was fixed, so super happy with that! Thanks again for all the hardwork in making an excellent simulator!

    1. Steam – probably some time next week but depends on stability and whether Philipp’s around. We don’t put it on Steam if it’s too crashy, so probably we have to fix the joystick curve editor first.

      1. Sounds good! Looking forward to it especially being a taildragger pilot. (I fly Super Decathlon’s in real life quite often. Looking forward to flying tailwheels with crosswinds again to get that feel when the weather stinks outside). Thanks!

  35. Thanks for the hard job! I noted soth this beta i’m not able to connect to the sim a external weather engine that i was using perfectly with the last betas 11.2x

    Thanks

  37. it really worries me what you said about Vulkan: “We don’t know. We definitely _hope_ that we will see CPU usage inside the driver be on par (compared to now, where we see NV be consistently faster). But we don’t have enough data yet.”
    as you can see here https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-rx-vega-64-8gb-review,20.html, DOOM perf with Vulkan is astonishing! my opinion is that if with Vulkan, AMD users will get the same perf as using OGL, you messed it up pretty good with the port from OGL to Vulkan. unfortunately i do not have high hopes with Vulkan since you still haven’t fixed the flickering screens in B737, which happens only with AMD users.
    i’m willing to help, i have an all AMD system, 2700X + Vega64 + LG 4K FreeSync + 2x8GB RAM @ 3466MHz.

  39. Hi, the Peformance is too Bad, i hope Vulkan will that fixed.
    Aerofly FS2 runs with Vulkan over 150 FPS

    Greetings

    2. It’s easy to look at the foreground numbers and say “X FPS is higher than Y FPS.” However this falls flat the moment you try and strip the respective games/sims apart. Whilst Aerofly is a very pretty sim (and i hope X-Plane adjust their lighting and environment system someday to match Aerofly, DCS or Outerra)… it does not have the same responsibilities as X-Plane. Having to generate 100 sqmiles of scenery and run a deeply complicated physics program whilst also having to render/simulate high fidelity and systems based aircraft. Furthermore, if you were to look at the way Aerofly renders scenery and simulates physics, it is rather bare-bones in comparison.

      To add to this, Vulkan is not going to be your “end all solution”. Performance *may* improve for quite a few individuals, however this is more of a benefit for Laminar so that they obtain a higher overhead to work with,

  40. 2 minutes ago I installed the beta version, launched X-Plane and …
    … 1st big surprise: The main thread in not blocked anymore during initializing .

    Thank you for that! :-))

  41. One question about the new PT6 model:

    Should it be possible to change the model from OLD to NEW on a existing 3rd party airplane (B200 Carenado)?

    If the answer is NO, than I don’t have to spend the time filing a bug 🙂

    I tried it, and it looks like the N1/N2 change has some effect.

    After climb, reducing the prop RPM reduces the generator RPM also, leading to an increasing ITT.

    1. Not without significant changes to the aircraft – it’s something the aircraft designer could do (at considerable effort) but it’s not doable by end users.

  42. Hi,

    With the current “cloud drawing” strategy, if my airplane is above a layer of clouds, and I’m looking up at it from the tower/runway, I can see my airplane’s lights through the layers of clouds.

    I’m surprised there’s no “real” fix for this topic, but this is a lot better than before. Now I can enjoy my night flying again.

    THANK YOU!!

  43. Hi Ben, I know Vulkan is not implemented yet but it was said by one of the devs (sorry can’t remember who but think it was at Flightsim expo presentation) that said you were already seing good performance gains just with the code rewrite.
    Having checked myself and read first impressions it seems no users are experiencing these gains, was this something that got lost in the 11th hour fixes?

    As an aside will Vulkan recode and implementation finally fix the annoying reflection bug that has reflections” bouncing” around and will we see performance improvements of either shadow or reflection rendering?

    1. I don’t know what’s going on with perf right now. Here’s what I do know:
      – At the time we wrote that, the tip of master was faster than shipping by a bunch. It was using the same art assets as 11.25/11.26.
      – We have a bunch of new art for 11.30.
      – Lots of users are making grumpy noises on the interwebs re performance.
      – Sidney is sad about that second to last point.

      But he is also looking into it! So we’ll need to find out what happened, which is almost certainly one of:
      – The new art is heavier than the old art.
      – The sim got faster but then got slower.
      – The sim got faster but has a bug we should fix.

      I’m hoping it’s the last one because it’s the only thing we can reasonably fix for this release.

      What we found at the time of the Vulkan talk was moving to UBOs everywhere, rewriting the UBO allocator, and moving some of the shader to dynamic branching were all net wins.

      1. Thank you so much for the in depth response.
        I can’t be sure what new art you are referring to but I can tell you that with TE OrbX South the performance is pretty much identical to 11.26 and given that uses an awful lot of its own art assets it may be useful information in tracking down what is responsible.

        I also hope it is a bug that dug itself in while you were masterfully attempting to squash the other blighters pre-launch.
        Having a nice performance gain just from code optimisation pre Vulkan must have been very satisfying so I’m not surprised Sidney is sad.

        Incidentally reflections seem to be broken for 11.3 – I have filed a bug report.

        1. Right – the “we added more art assets” applies primarily to:
          – Areas where autogen is the big ‘cost’ to FPS (e.g. default cities) and we added more autogen (and the new AG is more expensive than the old AG) and
          – Airports where the gateway airport became more detailed and/or uses more/heavier lego bricks.

          1. Thank you, that explains why no optimisation gains in OrbX scenery but unfortunately it is also true with vanilla autogen as far as I can tell.

      2. I also see a performance decrease especially in clouds with high AA (Nvidia 1080). With the previous version fps were fine with the same AA settings. Tried deleting the pref file to no avail.

  44. while i did submit a few bugs/ suggestions today, i wanted to also say the new particle system for afterburners and missile launches looks awesome! very glad to see the old purple rings gone

  46. Did you improve the ground handling? Been a little while since I flew XP now, but now even with a nasty crosswind, the default C172 was much more controllable on the ground, and also initial climb. And full scale rudder deflection at low speed didn’t make the plane do a roll.

    Keep up the good work! At this speed I’ll be a full time XP user within a year or so. Maybe sooner. Btw, do you have any plans for improving the water?

  47. I’ve tried 11.30b with the default C172, C172+REP 3.46, default B58, and Aerobask Robin DR401. Did you change something with ground handling? It feels like the plains are glued to the ground. I have to add a lot of power to make them move, about 1700 rpm for the Cessna and the Robin. Going below 1600 makes them stop.

    About the new ATC voice system: I like the new voices, they have a much better quality. But please reduce the volume of the clicking sound at the beginning, it is much too loud. And I experienced that the same phrase parts are missing as in the old voice system, like “Cessna DSB, checking in” is just “Cessa DSB”. Will they be added until final release?

    1. If you have a flight case where the plane is too ‘glued’ with one of OUR planes, please file a bug and include detailed instructions about how you flew it, weather, etc.

    3. Tried the new 11.30 and had the same issues with the X-Plane C172 and the VFlyte Cherokee. You need too much power to roll on ground and too much power on the final approach (~60 kts with flaps full @ nearly full throttle !!!). And form the cockpit it looks like the aircraft approaches in slow motion to the airport, just like a blimp. Unusable at this point. Bug report done.

    4. Forums show this being reported on ground handling AFTER the first landing. Start up is fine, just after first touchdown – like tire friction goes way up. I see a few folks reported it on bug reporter.

  49. Hello.
    Just updated to 11.30.
    The new particle effects are AWESOME. Those contrails…
    And is it just me, or you guys fixed two of the most annoying graphical glitches, night lights showing through the clowds, and clouds casting shadows on the plane when we are above them?

    Also, i haven’t tested it a lot, but the new flight model already seems better…

    Thanks for the hard work, and for making X-Plane every day better!

  50. We need 90fps for VR. All those we try VR see that it is the future of flight simulation. Will vulkan help to achieve 90fps? We really need smooth experiences in VR. I will support any company that works with that in mind.

  51. The new particles are outstanding and make a heck of a difference. I ” think” I may have a net increase in FPS though not entirely sure. I also ran into the scenery ini issue, bug report filed on that as well. Time to check out more planes with the beta see if i can run into anything else

  52. Releasing on the day Red Dead Redemption 2 comes out? Freeing up your weekends maybe?!!

    I’m impressed b the way horses/humans leave tracks in the snow – looks like some scenery mesh deformation instead of just extra texture map decals,
    When will X-Plane etc etc seasons etc … no, only joking!

  53. Would it be possible to get some bathymetry data for coastlines? A problem in XP11 is that there is never any turquoise waters i.e. caribbean region. You can fake it with some ortho, but not great.

    1. Totally agree with this one.
      It’s by no means critical, but it would definitely add to the experience.

  54. Beautiful work on clouds, haze and distance effects, vortices, contrails and night lighting (especially in VR! with HDR). Great improvement! Truly the last thing in clouds is the wrap around effect as you go through them – but even that is improved in VR. Keep up the good work team. Very excited with this version.

  55. Hi, Ben

    Fantastic experience seeing heat blurs out of the APU-outlet.. finally! 🙂 Now, I have only one whish left for xmas: Bring back panel-lights during daytime. This was one of the amazing features I loved about XP10, on dim rainy days you could bring up the panel lights in the cockpit. With XP11 these seem to only work “before/after specific time”. Kind regards.

  56. I’ve noticed that the loading/allocation of VRAM/RAM appears to have changed in 11.30b1. I have a VRAM/RAM usage monitor on my Logitech keyboard LCD which I usually watch while a flight is loading.

    Prior to 11.30, the GPU VRAM seemed to be almost filled during loading, and then some ‘juggling’ happened between VRAM and system RAM until the flight was fully loaded, leaving the GPU VRAM almost full, and everything else loaded to system RAM. Now, in 11.30, the GPU VRAM is hardly used up at all during loading — everything now seems to be loaded to system RAM first — and as a final step before the flight starts, a chunk of GPU VRAM is suddenly filled, but not nearly as much as before. In my tests with ORBX TE South, only 2.5 GB of my 8 GB GTX1080 is used, whereas before that would have been 7.5 GB used.

    I’d be very interested to know what has changed, and if this is a new approach to VRAM/RAM allocation/distribution. It’s interesting, for sure!

  57. I know it is an early beta version, so I’m not sure whether or not filing bugs about autofeather problems with 3rd party airplanes.
    Fact is, 11.30b1 broke the sophisticated autofeather system of the B200 from carenado in many cases.

    Should I file a bug or wait until things settled a bit?
    (Maybe it is not a bug at all but works as designed)

    1. In general, always file a bug! We may not get to it right away at the beginning of the beta, but we will at some point. However, you should contact third party developers directly first. We need a copy of any aircraft to investigate, which they will probably need to provide to us.

  58. Really appreciate all the work that goes into these updates – the sim is fabulous – thank you.
    One thing I have noticed in these comments, certainly recently, is that any references re the cloud shadow flickering, the water reflections and the square pattern effect on the water go unanswered for some reason. Is that because they are noted bugs that are in the pipeline for fixing, they are not in the pipeline for fixing because nobody is filing the appropriate bug reports, or are they just not on the priority list?
    I think they are important to many because they detract from an otherwise amazing visual feast.
    Thanks
    Peter

  59. Weird. The Cessna 172SP has lost its AP on/off button on the AP-Panel. There are just 6 Buttons yet. Reinstalling via X-Plane-Installer didn’t solve the problem. A Copy of the 172SP-v11.30b1-files on a X-Plane 11.26 Installation shows the same Problem.
    I’ll file a bug with pictures.

    1. Not a bug, but exactly like the real thing. Look at a real S-Tec 55 autopilot front plate – there’s no AP button on there. Please refer to the new autopilot manual or the tutorial video on how to use the new autopilot.

      1. Thanks for your reply, Philipp.
        But i’d checked your video from 25.10.2018 before i sent my post. But the S-Tec in your video has an AP – Button (in total 7 Buttons and one dial for v/s).
        And, i’d checked every x-plane manuals i can get including the online-manual. And there is no picture where the panel is depict without AP-Button.
        But you are right! The original S-Tec has no AP-Button.
        So i will look for an approbriate manual to deal with the new s-tec AP.

        Sorry for my post. I know, this is not a forum to discuss about any things. But i thought, it’s a special v11.30 issue.

      2. Philipp – I could not post the copied picture here, but the video model has the AP button – unless there is a new video that I have missed. I have a button programmed and am using that. Am I missing something?

        John

        1. Right – as I made the video, the panel still had that unused button. But note how I start the video explaining you should really have the disconnect function on a joystick button. Then for the rest of the video, you will see that I never touch that unused button because it has no function. It was removed from the 3d model to correspond to the real panel shortly thereafter.

  60. Hi Ben,

    thanks a lot for all those great improvements, first of all!

    I have observed that changing super sampling “on the fly” via private dataRefs (I know that is nothing we should do or can rely on, just because it worked before!), leads to strange effects: e.g. only bottom left quarter of the screen gets drawn.

    Is this by design? Looks like not all parts of the render engine rely on the same frame dimensions in that case, what I guess is a result of some optimisations, like not rebuilding frame buffers every frame, or so… (So it is proven, you did some reworking here. ; )

    Of course, I would never dare to bring anything related to private DRs close to a bug, so I am just asking for curiosity.

  61. One thing i noticed flying 11.30 is the terrain is much better flying around the farm belt in the upper midwest. The runways are a bit more visible than before. Still could use some fine touch. I have the same problem like everybody else with taxiing. Another thought was crude oil pumpjacks. Any chance including these in scenery? This sim is gaining enough momentum with good artists, tech people, that my nephew just started with XP 11 . His son is getting in the groove also. All the bugs will get fixed. Thumbs up!!!!!!!

  62. Even though new buildings, signs etc. have been added, Part of St.Louis Missouri is missing, No arch, no stadiums,I see the bridges need to be revamped. Any chance? Thanks.

    1. Laminar are not going to be landmarks to that level of detail. I believe the plan is to hit the major “hub” regions with a few local art assets e.g. London, New York, LA, Chicago etc. Adding more assets = more overhead costs for the sim.

      Personally, I think it might be more productive adding more continental autogen. We’re still lacking for Asia, Africa, South America and Australasia, as those areas are rather dry with current autogen and osm data

      1. I understand what you are saying, however the arch in Missouri is a major landmark and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way. I’m not complaining, trust me, I love this sim and support it 100%. I know a line needs to be drawn on landmarks and what is included or added. However, how much overhead could it endure to include the arch of Missouri. I have to agree with my uncle.

      2. Dellanie: Regarding your post, I fly virtual air taxi into Lambert. Every time there is an upgrade, St. Louis gets bigger. I understand costs, etc. The shape of the buildings has changed also. Huge change since XP 11 came out. It looks so close to the real city. Thank you Laminar for providing me the ultralight. I have had more fun, and laughs flying around St Louis in it.

    2. I agree with my uncle. That is the most iconic site for the state of Missouri and it would be really nice to see that. I stated using X-Plane 11 a few months back and I love it. The software is well written and the scenery is breathtaking. The simulation of flights are just as stunning. Keep up the great work everyone! -Orlando013

      1. There is a scenery for the city of St Louis on the org, I guess you guys have to check it out. Even Microsoft did not include every landmark in every city in Ms fs. But the scenery system in X-plane is open to third party to improve further.

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