Laminar Research recently released the long-awaited 12.1.0 update for X-Plane 12, which introduces improved anti-aliasing, new particle effects, lighting tweaks, and more.

With a strong focus on visual quality improvements, X-Plane’s new update takes the platform to a new level, making heavy strides toward making it sharper and more realistic overall. It brings MSAA improvements, RCAS (Robust Contrast Adaptive Sharpening), cloud shadows on water, improved CPU performance, better water opacity, a new screenshot utility with DOF (depth of field) control, and more.

The changelogs for both release candidates follow below:

Release Candidate 2

ATC

Fix crash when approach is cancelled by ATC for being way off course when with an approach controller with no home airport

Fix possible crash when cancelling IFR at very specific points

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Bug fixes

XPD-15678 – Water rendering broken with multiple monitors at different resolutions

XPD-15701 – Issues when loading and saving 12.1.0 projector configuration files

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Release Candidate 1

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General

Please check your anti aliasing settings (MSAA / FXAA) after the upgrade!

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Scenery

Updated landmarks for Las Vegas. Hope to see and meet you at the FlightSimExpo 2024!

Updated airport library with new objects (antennas, radars and water towers)

Bug fixes

XPD-14831 – Stationary aircraft causes water spray particle emit.

XPD-15149 – Bug report “Van’s RV10 – Menu button on the MFD does not work”.

XPD-15248 – No “rotorwash” particle effects during replay.

XPD-15417 – New beta 12.1 shows gpu error and crashes.

XPD-15431 – Entering Flight Plan route with unknown navid causes crash.

XPD-15435 – DataRefs.txt broken in XP12 Beta”.

XPD-15480 – Crash inside of render dag when volumetric fog is enabled.

XPD-15585 – Bug report “GPU OOM on Start”.

XPD-15586 – Bug report “map reports wrong true airspeed”.

XPD-15631 – Translate new FXAA Antialiasing checkbox and accompanying tooltip/description.

XPD-15635 – G1000 dimming for night flying overriding brightness ratio dataref for the panel the g1000 is placed in.

XPD-15651 – MSAA settings in the menu still map to what the old slider positions used to be.

XPD-15652 – Water FFT streams device memory when it doesn’t need to.

XPD-15655 – Modern collector creates extra draw calls and sorts some layers incorrectly.

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The update also enhances the G1000 navigation system, including an accurate startup splash screen, a NAV page, a stormscope, datalink weather support, Terrain, a WPT page, an AUX page, and new datarefs. 

It also includes two additions to the supported flap systems, allowing the accurate simulation of manual flap controls such as the one in the Piper PA-28, with precise and gradual adjustments, and the dial-a-flap system, which is present in some McDonnell-Douglas aircraft.

Refer to their webpage for more information on the 12.1.0 update.
Stay tuned to Threshold for more flight simulation news!

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