19.3.2020
X-Plane

X-Plane 11 Vulkan Update

Ben Supnik, an X-Plane 11 developer, has today posted on the official X-Plane website a post regarding the long-awaited Vulkan update for X-Plane 11.

Ben Supnik, an X-Plane 11 developer, has today posted on the official X-Plane website a post regarding the long-awaited Vulkan update for X-Plane 11. He started the post by talking about the current COVIDE-19 situation.

COVID-19

First, at this point, no one working for Laminar Research has COVID-19. We have people working on X-Plane in at least six countries, including northern Italy.

Ben assured the community, that no one in the team has COVID-19 and that the situation has not affected their internal pace of development. This is also because Laminar Research does not have any offices that should get closed, but everybody works from home.

Read also: FSDG Releases Greenland Kulusuk for MSFS

Vulkan

Based on the post, the private testers should get the developer preview nine today. The developer preview nine should be the last private build before public beta.

We acknowledge weโ€™re reaching public beta much later than we had hoped/wished/anticipated, but we are now aiming for a public Vulkan beta by the end of March.

Ben has explained the delay of the update by saying, that they have added more stuff than it was originally planned and they missed the “deadline”. One thing they have added is better handling of plugin drawing which, as the name says, provides better drawing compatibility for weather plugins, for example.

Read also: SoFly Releases Global Landings: Northeast Asia for MSFS

Adding weather support was pure feature creepโ€“a new thing we didnโ€™t plan on, but something that we thought was worth extra schedule time.

The second thing the developers have added was better handling of texture paging, which is actually a feature that has been rewritten multiple times. This feature enables automatic texture resolution control based on VRAM pressure. Current sceneries will work with this feature without any problems and it will not affect framerate.

The next part of the article is quotes from the original post since I couldn’t describe it in a better way.

Read also: iniBuilds Showcases A350 on a Livestream

In these pictures, you can see the new pager at work. I have parked my aircraft on the ramp at SeaTac and moved the camera across the city, so that the distant autogen (from the pilotโ€™s perspective) is now close and the airport is in the background.

In this first picture, green represents full-res textures, with the next levels down being yellow, then magenta. You can see some nearby autogen down one level and far-off autogen down two levels; the loss of res is put far from the user.

In this next picture, I artifically lowered my machine from 4 to 1 GB of VRAM using a developer tool. Now you can see magneta autogen close to the airport, yellow even closer, and some really dark green (the next level down) where we had magenta. In other words, everything got a little bit lower res because we were tight on VRAM, but again nearby sceney is prioritized.

Read also: FS Conference 2025 Returns to Paderborn this November

At this time, the developers are focusing on fixing bugs. There is no ETA of the public beta, because nobody knows what bug they might find.

” Vulkan is Not the Only Iron In the Fire “

Ben wrote, that they have several other “irons in the fire”, that include new features for the X-Plane mobile, next-gen features for the desktop version or a few non-Vulkan features that there will be featured in the upcoming 11.50.

I highly recommend you read the original post here.

Read also: FTXDes Previews Progress on Eindhoven for MSFS

Feel free to join our Discord server to share your feedback on the article, screenshots from your flights or just chat with the rest of the team and the community. Click here to join the server.

Ben Supnik, an X-Plane 11 developer, has today posted on the official X-Plane website a post regarding the long-awaited Vulkan update for X-Plane 11.

Ben Supnik, an X-Plane 11 developer, has today posted on the official X-Plane website a post regarding the long-awaited Vulkan update for X-Plane 11. He started the post by talking about the current COVIDE-19 situation.

COVID-19

First, at this point, no one working for Laminar Research has COVID-19. We have people working on X-Plane in at least six countries, including northern Italy.

Ben assured the community, that no one in the team has COVID-19 and that the situation has not affected their internal pace of development. This is also because Laminar Research does not have any offices that should get closed, but everybody works from home.

Read also: Fly2High Teases Muan International Airport for MSFS

Vulkan

Based on the post, the private testers should get the developer preview nine today. The developer preview nine should be the last private build before public beta.

We acknowledge weโ€™re reaching public beta much later than we had hoped/wished/anticipated, but we are now aiming for a public Vulkan beta by the end of March.

Ben has explained the delay of the update by saying, that they have added more stuff than it was originally planned and they missed the “deadline”. One thing they have added is better handling of plugin drawing which, as the name says, provides better drawing compatibility for weather plugins, for example.

Read also: Parallel 42 Introduces ChasePlane for MSFS

Adding weather support was pure feature creepโ€“a new thing we didnโ€™t plan on, but something that we thought was worth extra schedule time.

The second thing the developers have added was better handling of texture paging, which is actually a feature that has been rewritten multiple times. This feature enables automatic texture resolution control based on VRAM pressure. Current sceneries will work with this feature without any problems and it will not affect framerate.

The next part of the article is quotes from the original post since I couldn’t describe it in a better way.

Read also: inFlight Introduces Sound Module for MSFS

In these pictures, you can see the new pager at work. I have parked my aircraft on the ramp at SeaTac and moved the camera across the city, so that the distant autogen (from the pilotโ€™s perspective) is now close and the airport is in the background.

In this first picture, green represents full-res textures, with the next levels down being yellow, then magenta. You can see some nearby autogen down one level and far-off autogen down two levels; the loss of res is put far from the user.

In this next picture, I artifically lowered my machine from 4 to 1 GB of VRAM using a developer tool. Now you can see magneta autogen close to the airport, yellow even closer, and some really dark green (the next level down) where we had magenta. In other words, everything got a little bit lower res because we were tight on VRAM, but again nearby sceney is prioritized.

Read also: FTXDes Previews Progress on Eindhoven for MSFS

At this time, the developers are focusing on fixing bugs. There is no ETA of the public beta, because nobody knows what bug they might find.

” Vulkan is Not the Only Iron In the Fire “

Ben wrote, that they have several other “irons in the fire”, that include new features for the X-Plane mobile, next-gen features for the desktop version or a few non-Vulkan features that there will be featured in the upcoming 11.50.

I highly recommend you read the original post here.

Read also: FlightFX Releases P180 Turboprop for Microsoft Flight Simulatorย 

Feel free to join our Discord server to share your feedback on the article, screenshots from your flights or just chat with the rest of the team and the community. Click here to join the server.

Can flight sim get you arrested?

Check out the latest Simcident Report!

This article was brought to you by:

Mr. Publisher badgeCaptain badge5 Years in the team badgeTeacher badgeReviewer badgeMr. Popular badgeCollector badgeRocketman badge

Related posts