X-Plane 11.50 Public Beta - Vulkan Out Now

Laminar Research has released the long-awaited public beta for X-Plane 11.50, adding support for the new Vulkan/Metal rendering engine to X-Plane 11.

The new rendering engine replaces OpenGL, which X-Plane used in the past, and improves plug-in drawing, enhances the handling of texture paging, optimises VRAM usage and increases performance and stability, while also reducing the risks of exceeding GPU VRAM capacity.

Vulkan (for Windows and Linux) and Metal (for Mac) is a smaller, low-level API that changes how X-Plane interacts with the graphics card. It is faster compared with OpenGL and results in overall improvements in frame rates and reduced stutters.

In the following YouTube video, Austin Meyer, the creator of X-Plane, explains three key parts of Vulkan that work better over OpenGL.

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