Vulkan-Using X-Plane 12 Flight Simulator Now Available In Beta Form

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Vulkan-Using X-Plane 12 Flight Simulator Now Available In Beta Form

Last week Laminar Research promoted X-Plane 12 to its early access public beta phase. This realistic flight simulator continues to natively support Linux -- and doing so well for many years -- and now with X-Plane 12, the Vulkan steps up past their long-used OpenGL renderer...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/X-Plane-12-Beta

[Volta]

Hopefully it will be possible to crash into the buildings. It was disabled/non present in X-Plane 11 due to propaganda.

[skeevy420]

I've been looking forward to this. I just hope it likes my RX 580 better than MS Flight Sim 2020 where I can set everything to potato and it still isn't playable.

[skeevy420]

Hopefully it will be possible to crash into the buildings. It was disabled/non present in X-Plane 11 due to propaganda.

I'd be happy with good crashes, period.

[Volta]

I've been looking forward to this. I just hope it likes my RX 580 better than MS Flight Sim 2020 where I can set everything to potato and it still isn't playable.

X-11 runs great with RX 580.

[skeevy420]

X-11 runs great with RX 580.

I know, only the graphics aren't the greatest. I'm wanting 12 more for an eye candy upgrade than anything. As far as flight simulaion is concerned I consider XP11 to be better than MSFS 2020. 2020 is more of an arcade simulator that focuses on eye candy more than flight dynamics. If I can get a fraction of that eye candy with the superior X Plane flight modeling I'll be a happy camper.

Ideally, the low to potato settings I expect to use on 12 will look better than the low to medium settings I use on 11 with while maintaining 30 or 60 fps.

[Random_Jerk]

Will try to buy this for the only reason that it is cross platform and supports Linux too. Seen some videos of it running and its quality of graphics and eye candy is way inferior to MSFS 2020. I'm not a flight simmer, and generally use MSFS 2020 for digital tourism/ experiences visiting places around the world. Hope XPlane ups their game.

[mlau]

Will try to buy this for the only reason that it is cross platform and supports Linux too. Seen some videos of it running and its quality of graphics and eye candy is way inferior to MSFS 2020. I'm not a flight simmer, and generally use MSFS 2020 for digital tourism/ experiences visiting places around the world. Hope XPlane ups their game.

Xpl12 has improved colouring (xpl11 always looked rather desaturated to me) and clouds a lot. But for real eyecandy, you need orthophotos as ground textures, the shipped default textures are plain ugly. That's where fs2020 is vastly superior, because they can access bing satellite imagery at no additional cost, for xplane you need to make them yourself.
For 3d buildings, look at https://simheaven.com they publish free addons which place buildings based on osm data, and even use some of the microsoft building library (which is apparently also used in msfs).
EDIT: and the trees are now in 3D, with foliage colour based on time of year!

https://imgur.com/a/6MXbifN

[Darkstar0129]

So I have gotten my hands on the X-Plane 12 public beta and to be honest, it runs about the same as X-Plane 11 did on my hardware. I am able to crank all settings as high as they go and no issue. The graphics have improved some but if you’re planning on using this for “tourism” you’re going to be vastly disappointed. Even Austin said they weren’t focusing on scenery but are making the flight model as real as possible and are using feedback from real world pilots and such to dial in the correct flight modeling. Weather has improved a good amount, trees are 3D… The world is a lot more alive. There are still bugs but all in all it’s in good shape. As far as crashing into buildings, it still doesn’t happen. I am not sure why that’s important when this isn’t a crashing simulator. Change of seasons is well modeled. Really Laminar has done a great job as always and at least the product works unlike the competition where even 2 years after release (or just about), theirs still doesn’t run on a lot of computers, even if you meet their requirements.