News
Laminar Research has announced X-Plane 12.1.0 is due to be released imminently, adding a host of new features and improvements.
Highlights include improved graphics, aircraft systems, flight model improvements, weather, ATC updates, enhancements to X-Plane Professional and a physics-based camera. This release is being tested internally and will release as a public beta soon.
The main focus of the update is graphics. These include:
- Cloud shadows on water Bloom lighting effects where ultra-bright light sources are allowed to “leak” light out into surrounding parts of the image, often seen around the sun or aircraft lights
- RCAS (Robust Contrast Adaptive Sharpening)
- Softer, less aliased ground shadows
- Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) improvements. This is the first step to improve anti-aliasing options in X-Plane 12
- Improved CPU performance thanks to a new collector, which is used to decide what scenery the sim needs to draw at any given moment
- Better water opacity and turbidity, no more seeing the bottom of boat hulls in many circumstances
- New screenshot utility to control depth of field and exposure in real-time
New particle effects
- Sparks from pavement collisions
- Ground spray from aircraft wheels and engines
- Brown/white-outs while flying helicopters/powered lift aircraft
G1000 updates
- ADS-B simulation
- Stormscope page
- Traffic map page
- Airport METAR flags
- NDB/VOR pages
- WAAS/test satellite constellation boot-up overlay
- G1000 plugin interoperability, making it easier for third parties to modify aircraft
- Glass avionics via plugin making it easier for third-party developers to integrate custom glass avionics into aircraft
- STEC ST-360 autopilot
Flight Model
- Manual flap system and dial-a-flap functionality
- Electric clutches for helicopters
- Single-lever control for turboprops (if equipped)
Weather
- New real weather server to resolve some recent outages
- Real Weather METAR parsing improvements (less random rain)
- Bug fixes for odd-looking real weather data (less Minecraft clouds)
X-Plane Professional
- X-Plane control pad support on iOS
- Ability to run the sim without default aircraft/tutorials present
- Scalable Display support for multiple projectors and dome visual systems
- More weather presets
Other details include ATC bug fixes and improvements and a new physics-based in-cockpit camera that moves based on the acceleration of the aircraft. More information is available on x-plane.com.
