X-Plane is a really comprehensive and powerful flight simulator, and has the most realistic flight model available for personal computers.
Welcome to the world of props, jets, single- and multi-engine airplanes, as well as gliders, helicopters and VTOLs such as the V-22 Osprey and AV8-B Harrier.
X-Plane comes with subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics, sporting aircraft from the Bell 206 Jet-Ranger helicopter and Cessna 172 light plane to the supersonic Concorde and Mach-3 XB-70 Valkyrie. X-Plane comes with about 40 aircraft spanning the aviation industry (and history), and several hun... [ read more about X Plane >> ] |
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WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.20 Beta 1:
* Countless frame-rate and RAM optimizations. One of the many examples is the new scenery-loader: Texture loading now uses as many cores as you have. Photo scenery should load a lot faster on multi-core machines, especially if you have four or eight cores.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.01 RC1:
* X-Plane 9.01 is a localization patch, providing French and German support.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00:
* Frame-rate improved! DSF meshes are optimized on load - saves about 50 MB of RAM, can increase frame-rate up to 10% when shaders are off in areas with lots of mountains and few objects. Enhanced use of VBOs increases frame-rate. There are COUNTLESS frame-rate optimizations that are too numerous or proprietary to mention here.
* ALMOST NO DELAY IN SCENERY-SHIFTING! (but you need a multi-core or multi-processor machine to fully realize this benefit!) Now you can fly around the entire planet without every having a significant pause to load scenery... you can look at continuously-varying textures across the whole Country from San Diego to New York and ditto that world-wide. Imagine: You get into a light plane in San Diego and fly it clear to New York, watching the terrain change from the green coastal conditions to the deserts of the SouthWest, then transition to the fields of the midwest, then forests of the Northeast, then the cities of New York, right down to Central park greenery. It's ALL THERE, and you can watch the whole thing in one continuous flight, with hardly a delay to load scenery if you have a dual-core or multi-processor machine. It is simply stunning, just like doing it for real.
* As well, QUICKTIME MOVIES are now much, much faster, also using multiple cores, to give you much higher framerate during QuickTime movie creation.
* AMAZING NEW PLANES with INCREDIBLE DETAIL: We now have a new Cessna 172, Piaggo Avanti (you have been waiting for this one!), ASK-21 glider, and even a Cirrus-jet! Be sure to load the Cessna, Avanti, and Cirrus jet in the 'General Aviation' folder, and hit the '|' key to check them out! The Cirrus Jet, as a matter if fact, is the SAME .acf file that Cirrus used in-house with their copy of X-Plane! (We also have first-drafts of ALL the Vans RV homebuilts, so if you are an RV pilot, you can use these as a quick-start to modelling YOUR RV!)
* Aircraft panels can be up to 2048x2048. Those who want to every bit of detail on a B-36 or B-52 cockpit: Your time has come! Check out the 'Example Airplane WideScreen' in the 'Instructions' folder. Use the left and right arrows to see the whole screen, or run in a res of up to 2048x1024 to see more at once! Now you see you can make very wide-screeen airplanes! Of course, if you make the left half the panel the pilot's side, and the right half the copilot's side, and split your output to two monitors running 1024x768, then you get a pilot and copilot display from one computer, and one copy of x-plane! kind of convenient.
* It gets better: If you want 3-D cockpits, the 3-D cockpit has 3-D lighting for panel texture, to really make flight with 3-D cockpits immersive! Get in the Cirrus Jet and hit 'control-o' to see this. Then use the mouse, arrow-keys, and page-up/page-down keys to move around the cockpit while flying. Try it as well in the Cessna 172 or Avanti. The 3-D clicking into 3-D cockpit tracks a lot better as well, so you can do full flight operations in 3-D... a real experience in the Cirrus Jet! (It's inside the 'General Aviation' folder)
* Custom liveries! Look at the 'Example Airplane WideScreen' in the 'Instructions' folder. You can make all the custom liveries you want, with all the names you want! Then, in X-Plane, go to the 'open liveries' menu item (right under the 'open aircraft' menu item!) and select the livery you want!
* Moderate User-Interface overhaul. Every single menu and window has been re-evaluated for optimum placement. Every windows has been re-evaluated for optimum organization, with many changes. The interface has a mildly different look and feel, and much re-organization to be quicker and more friendly to use. This has included countless changes, including: Fonts are now bigger and clearer... in fact this is the font that was designed specifically for (the real) Charles De Gaulle airport!. All interfaces to enter DIRECTION are are now done with round compass-rose type interface. Interface to assign keyboards is now a dream: Every function can easily be seen at-a-glance. Any function can be assigned to any joystick button as well. So now any function can be assigned to any key and any joystick button.
* Generic Instruments! In Plane-Maker, Hook ANY variable to ANY digital readout, handle, needle, tape... ANYTHING. You could, for example, have digital oil pressure or hydraulic quantity gages... Just choose the generic LED instruments (in the generic folder in the instrument list in panel-editor of Plane-Maker) and select whatever variable you want to attach to each digital readout! Using this technology, you can finally view any variable you want on the panel! This really lets you make your own instruments. Now, I am adding a new variable and dataref: EFIS PAGE. This is an integer that can go 0 to whatever, and you can hook it up to a generic instrument rotary. So, your generic rotary instrument can run the EFIS PAGE variable to any value. Great. NOW, the NEXT thing you can do with generic instruments is set the instrument to only be VISIBLE when a certain dataref is a certain-value. Let that dataref be the EFIS-PAGE variable and you can make multi-page EFIS systems!
* Look in the airliners in the 'Heavy Metal' folder in the 'Instructions' folder. You will see a file ending in 'icon.png'... this is an image of the airplane that will be visible whenever you scroll thru the aircraft-selection window in X-Plane. Now you can see what each plane looks like when deciding what plane to fly!
* Complete new electrical system model. In Plane-Maker: You can now set the bus and amperage of many electrical systems, to get your plane's electrical system just right! As well, set the actual watt-hours of the battery in the SYSTEMS window in Plane-Maker. So now you can now get every amp of every system set just right for your plane, and each system on the right bus, so you draw just the right power from the generators or buses, and lose just the right systems when buses go down, after electrical failures. It's in the SYSTEMS window in the DEFAULT menu in Plane-Maker.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00 RC3:
* A few of the teeneist little tweaks and bug-fixes.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00 RC2:
* Oil temp no longer goes too high at hi alt.
* Visibility displayed properly in the weather screen.
* Keys for flight director mode up-dn operational.
* Certain older planes would lose their instruments when read in... that should no longer be the case.
* Propeller custom chord offsets functioning as desired.
* General-aviaiton autopilot console works as intended.
* Default GPS works as desired.
* Generic trigger now has a dual-slot layer-1 png, 1 slot for trigger NOT pressed, the other for trigger pressed.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00RC1:
* Enhanced: Better fps when flying with heavy rain. Less of a visible "tunnel".
* Enhanced: Fuel tank datarefs now work for all 9 tanks.
* Fixed: sim should find the DVD on all computers (Beta 25 had trouble finding the DVD on some Macs).
* Fixed: Joystick works on Linux.
* Fixed: XPLM for Linux is up to date.
* Fixed: Gyro datarefs now work.
* Fixed: v8 scenery that uses European objects will show objects again.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00 Beta 25:
* New button and command to show auxilary fuel tanks... It's nice if you have more fuel TANKS than fuel GAGES. Hit this button to show the other tanks on the same gages. This works if you have twice the number of tanks as you do gages. (2, 4, 6, or 8 tanks are all OK, if you just have half that many gages). The KingAir, for example, has 4 tanks but only 2 gages... hit this little button on the panel for the gages to show the aux tanks! Cool!
* The Garmin 430 instrument can plot your course properly.
* Vert Nav mode follows FMS altitudes (if entered) using vertical speed rather than flight-level-change.
* Cool new failures: Bird strikes and wind shear. Rather than the random strikes and wind shear which can already happen, the instructor can trigger those in the IOS as well. Good for training.
* New failure: Yaw damper.
* New master caution, alert, and warning silence commands for joystick buttons.
* Windshield wiper behavior tweaked a hair.
* Auto-cowl-flap option. Set in the Special Controls window in the Expert menu of Plane-Maker. The ME-109 used this. In X-Plane, the cowl flaps will automatically open or close to maintain a CHT right in the middle of the green.
* Map screen, when you check the EDIT box, lets you enter latitudes in all ranges... we could not enter small southerly latitudes before.
* External visuals track accurately in control-o cockpit viewing modes.
* We have a handful of scenery enhancements, including: Lots of new objects for Europe from Cris. Taxiway signs are now always lit (even during the day) to make them easier to read. Lighting on cars at night. Prop alpha is a little bit more opaque at high RPM.
* And scenery improvements for scenery authors: Animated objects and lego-brick instruments can animate based on whether commands are pressed. You can pick commands from a plugin in the keyboard-setup dialog box.
* Fixed: Mac books with the X3100 won't crash (even if you've installed Leopard Graphics Update)
* Fixed: Airplanes that use ATTR_cockpit outside te cockpit won't crash the sim. (This is still a bad idea - only use ATTR_cockpit in a cockpit object.)
* Fixed: Two-sided taxiway signs don't show the front sign color on the back.
* Fixed: Preview of generic "lego brick" instruments in PlaneMaker updates when the PNG file is changed.
* Fixed: Code to find the DVD should be slightly smarter about finding the DVD.
* Fixed: All airplane-object textures are reloaded when the plane is reloaded.
* Fixed: "Scenery not installed" warning should match the v9 DVDs now.
* Fixed: various datarefs fixed, including replay_mode.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00 Beta 25:
* New button and command to show auxilary fuel tanks... It's nice if you have more fuel TANKS than fuel GAGES.
* Hit this button to show the other tanks on the same gages.
* This works if you have twice the number of tanks as you do gages. (2, 4, 6, or 8 tanks are all OK,
* if you just have half that many gages).
* The KingAir, for example, has 4 tanks but only 2 gages... hit this little button on the panel for the gages to show the aux tanks! Cool!
* The Garmin 430 instrument can plot your course properly.
* Vert Nav mode follows FMS altitudes (if entered) using vertical speed rather than flight-level-change.
* Cool new failures: Bird strikes and wind shear.
* Rather than the random strikes and wind shear which can already happen, the instructor can trigger those in the IOS as well.
* Good for training.
* New failure: Yaw damper.
* New master caution, alert, and warning silence commands for joystick buttons.
* Windshield wiper behavior tweaked a hair.
* Auto-cowl-flap option.
* Set in the Special Controls window in the Expert menu of Plane-Maker.
* The ME-109 used this.
* In X-Plane, the cowl flaps will automatically open or close to maintain a CHT right in the middle of the green.
* Map screen, when you check the EDIT box, lets you enter latitudes in all ranges... we could not enter small southerly latitudes before.
* External visuals track accurately in control-o cockpit viewing modes.
* We have a hadful of scenery enhancements, including:
* Lots of new objects for Europe from Cris.
* Taxiway signs are now always lit (even during the day) to make them easier to read.
* Lighting on cars at night.
* Prop alpha is a little bit more opaque at high RPM.
* And scenery improvements for scenery authors:
* Animated objects and lego-brick instruments can animate based on whether commands are pressed.
* You can pick commands from a plugin in the keyboard-setup dialog box.
* Fixed: Mac books with the X3100 won't crash (even if you've installed Leopard Graphics Update)
* Fixed: Airplanes that use ATTR_cockpit outside te cockpit won't crash the sim. (This is still a bad idea - only use ATTR_cockpit in a cockpit object.)
* Fixed: Two-sided taxiway signs don't show the front sign color on the back.
* Fixed: Preview of generic "lego brick" instruments in PlaneMaker updates when the PNG file is changed.
* Fixed: Code to find the DVD should be slightly smarter about finding the DVD.
* Fixed: All airplane-object textures are reloaded when the plane is reloaded.
* Fixed: "Scenery not installed" warning should match the v9 DVDs now.
* Fixed: various datarefs fixed, including replay_mode.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00 Beta 24:
* Profile path in map screen shows height in MSL not AGL.
* No more crash changing freqs on the BC DME's.
* Zooming in on the plane from very far away (like the tower view) centers right on the plane.
* Rolls are replayed correctly in replay mode.
* Flight director is now limited to within 10 degrees of your current pitch, as is the real g1000.
* Temperature affects indicated airspeed, as it should.
* 'De-ice All Systems' actually... umm... de-ices all systems.
* If you dial flite-plan altitudes into the FMS, the plane should auto-follow the altitudes in FLCH mode.
* Generic one-way rheostats and annunciators should have customizeable images now.
* Weapons stay fully-attached to the plane, no matter the angular positions and rates.
* In the SYSTEMS page in Plane-Maker, you can now assign the LAST battery to hav a different voltage than the rest.
* This can be useful for having a standby battery that is a different voltage than the rest, as is the case on some planes.
* Default panel scrolling in the viewpoint window in Plane-Maker, View tab, properly labeled and functional.
* Wide-panel scrolling still lets you grab all the instruments.
* Airfoils have higher drag at angles of attack beyond 20 degrees... this may help make spins more accurate.
* After an engine fire, you aren't getting that engine back. ;-) Put out the fire with the extinguisher button, but the engine is down for the count. Interesting note: In an engine fire, the engine will continue to put out power for some short period of time... but hitting the extinguisher will stop the engine NOW. So here is the interesting point: On take-off or go-around, you may be better advised to let the engine run (even though on fire) for a little while before hitting the extinguishers, if the airplane depends on having the engine for a few more moments.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 9.00 Beta 23:
* Pulling the engine fire extinguisher should shut down the engine.
* Visibility not automatically pulled down when you command thunderstorms.
* Side views should not scroll to default when q/e 'ing to different views.
* Shutting down HUD shuts down ONLY the HUD, not everything. ;-)
* Rotor ground effect and wind and turbulence effects all tuned down a good bit.
* No annunciator lights if no electrical system available to power the airplane.
* Terrain-following radar now follows the altitude entered into the decision-hight of the radio altimeter, if you have one. (It shoots for 200 feet, otherwise).
* Refined Garmin 296, 396, 496, f30, and g1000 driving.
* Floatplane dynamics improved a hair: You may have noticed that the floatplanes floated sort of nose-high in the last few betas, but they should be back to their prop attitude in the water now.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 8.62:
* Magenta course line appears on the garmin 430.
* No more objects moving around when approaching airports from different directions.
* Sectional map colors now better.
* The plugin menu won't move to the right when a developer reloads plugins.
* Flight on Mars won't cause crashes any more... other than the impact-with-the-ground type.
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