Captain Kitten

"What? You said you would not release 1.13! And yet you do? What is this? I'm triggered!" -André (12) André, you could not be more right. That is exactly what I said. I even said that we wanted to avoid the number 13 and go straight for 1.14. But we struggled to find a good name for the release so that we wouldn't confuse everyone or be too illusive to the keen eyed populous of the Laminar Clan. While we were looking we found 1.13 just sitting there all alone and ignored. So we took it in and hope we can make things good again by offering a small cup of hotfix coco. Alright. Read THIS for whats next. This change log is short so I'll make this announcement short: ### [1.13] ### Changed: Atmosphere and haze constants adjusted to better match reported conditions. xEnviro 1.13.zip

Image: One of the very first images of our Volumetric clouds (1.10t20) Back in July 2018. Even though we feel that we have come pretty far compared to the tedious process of getting 1.10 on its feet, I just want to stress the fact that we are not done by far and that we know that 1.12 has two issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible. Known immediate issues we will be addressing as soon as possible are: Excessive haze & stutter issue for approx 5% of users FPS performance is known and is on the roadmap for the next update and is not part of this immediate issues. We will probably have to wait until our lead developers get back to the office from their vacation to be able to continue. We have tried to establish a hotfix remotely but coding half blind is a difficult task. (And remember none of us do this as primary income - we all have day jobs to feed our families - we need this break from everything and tend to them) So the only answer I have for those who struggle now is sadly that you only have these choices to choose from: 1: (stutter problem only) Try some of the fixes that works for some users. (Uninstall xE - Install 1.11 anew and Install 1.12 on top) 2: Revert back to the last usable version for you 3: Wait until we get the fixes out (in 2 weeks we will be able to start on them when team is back) A note for the group. Please help each other and stay civil. Some people are understandably frustrated so stay calm and help contribute to a good environment by answering questions if you can and/or referring to my statements. I won't be able to monitor the group as closely these next two weeks.

Apply for beta testing by answering in this thread The question if you are familiar with test routines is there for a reason! Ether you know how to test or you are willing to dedicate time to solely test and do test routines. Beta testing is not about doing your regular flights plotting FMC and just looking for bugs out the window on your way from A to B. It's about doing A to B repeatedly with different factors changed each time and keeping your eyes on the ball: xEnviro! Go to different locations (same ones each time) and do observation routines. Check menu items and functions. Try to find ways within the sim to "break" the application and make it show flaws. When flaws are found make replicate them within normal conditions and test limits. Test, observe, repeat. Test, observe, repeat. Test, observe, repeat. Test, observe, repeat. Test, observe, repeat. Test, observe, repeat. Test, observe, repeat. Ideally I shouldn't have to tell you that this is tedious and boring work. We will demand at least two of these test routines a month from each member. But we are looking for people who actually have a lot of time on their hands. If you are chosen you will receive a PM here in the forum from me. DO NOT EXPECT A PM FROM ME AND DO NOT PM ME! We have limited spaces available and if the last beta application opening is to be repeated we will be flooded. Answer in this format in this topic: (copy/paste the text between the lines below and answer it in this thread) _____________________________________________________________________ Have you been a beta tester before? If so for what? Are you familiar with test routines? How much time can you dedicate to this in a week? Which weekdays are you most likely available? Your location (Country and City): Your Discord name: Your system spec: CPU GPU RAM Screen resolution List your addons: ___________________________________________________________________ Official xEnviro discord

As sailors of the sky we skip 1.13 and go straight for 1.14. With the luck we have had so far on getting what we want it should be a natural move to skip any instances that traditionally symbolize bad luck. So - after a vacation that lasts until the middle of this month - we will start on 1.14. MAYBE we will get a hotfix ready before that - for stutter and excessive haze. But that depends on the fix and if it is worth it to run after something that will be mended in 1.14. [EDIT: we released 1.13 as a haze hotfix] As mentioned in various social media and discords: this update will be all about performance We have no less than five performance enhancing ideas. So screenshots will probably be far between since this is not a visual update. We have no idea how much performance gain each path will result in so there is no way we can plan on anything or reveal what to expect. This is not like building a car where you can just add a component and know what approximate power you will gain. These paths need to be tried and tested. But since we have five of them we are cautiously optimistic that we will manage to get a good result. Worst case scenario we get enough to gain some so we can add in a couple of more optional features and smoothen out performance for everyone. Best scenario we gain enough so we can implement VR and Multi monitor support in addition to features we have planned. So this update will NOT include: VR multi monitor Night environment or any other elements on the roadmap free beer (sorry) Lemme xplainatoriitze a bit more: xEnviro is for the most part made on a 4 year old laptop. My previous computer (just changed last week) is 5 years old. And xE performs well. xEnviro is almost purely gpu demanding. So rest of system should have little to say unless you're bottlenecking there - hardware wise or task wise. As I mentioned there are many factors that play in for fps. And then the expectations of given fps is the major rest factor. xEnviro runs well on systems with 1050 gfx cards. And it runs poorly in some environments with 2080ti's Your performance has to do with: 1: Your HW setup AND config 2: Your XPlane setup 3: Your addons and their setup. 4: Your Windows environment and background programs/services. 5: Your expectations of how it should perform. (this is huge for some users - stop looking at fps unless you need to!!) So here are some additional facts: Background tasks, Windows programs running, x-plane settings and clean ness of prf file / shader folder. All play a big role. So it may depend on your version of fluidity equals above 60 fps or if you are a bit more down to earth and see that a sim like this doesn't need more than 22-25 to look fluent. (preferrably 30+ though). If you can live with ~25-30fps you should be fine with a 1050 and above. So, my system, where xEnviro is tested the most was (1.12 has been run on both systems new system is .... drumroll.... new): 4790k @ 4.6 32GB ram @ 1800 1070 ASUS ROG SSD's and so on Now I am on 3900x @ 4.6Ghz 64GB RAM @ 3600 1070 ASUS ROG M.2's and so on. My performance in x-plane has gone down some because of the single core clock being a tad weaker than the all mighty 5 year old veteran 4790K. But xEnviro stays the same because of the 1070 being the same. Now, my fps numbers or anyone others for that matter just don't reveal what you can expect from your system. It's all about your environment setup as a whole. I would wait if you have a lower tier gfx card than a 1050. It might work perfectly well. But the lower the tier, the higher the risk of borking your gpu. WE KNOW PERFORMANCE IS AN ISSUE. It has been stated enough times. Next update will be solely performance focused. So yeah you may complain about it and criticize our choice of path to get to where we want but repeating it constantly gets very exhausting. (looking at social media keyboard jockeys that I know have read my comments). Let me put it this way: If we were to get everything to where we want it to be before we release we would not be releasing for another 6 months at the earliest. So since people have bought the previous versions and every update is free of charge within the 1.xx run we offer it to you now. And for most people it works fine. So feel free to try this one - if that doesn't work after looking in to the above mentioned factors, we have no choice but to say go back to a previous version or wait for the next update. Until we return: Happy flying - if you have issues contact support at xEnviro.net Ceers Magnus

xEnviro 1.12.zip (requires xEnviro which can be bought here) To download you have to be a member of this xEnviro club here in the forum. If you do not want that you can download from here. After a discovery where we found a way to reduce grain without losing performance. Of course it was not as easy as we had hoped from the stat but we managed to get through. If you do not like the "compromises" listed below as known issues you may still use every version from 1.06 and up to 1.12 as you please. Go to the xenviro home page to download the version you like the best. (1.10 is where volumetric clouds start and we do not support earlier versions). Here you will also find support. We added another season feature as well: Fall. So now you have snow and fall to play around with. If you don't like it turn the season slider down. Same with water - turn "control water waves" off and you should be able to use your favorite water fix or default. The squared sector issues should be solved. So there should be less "bad sectors" but we can not control bad meta data other than picking up on the sectors reported by users in our discord channel. We then change or update the source to fix it. So you may come across bad sectors but they should be much less frequent. Sector border lines are seen from the underside of the clouds and will be something we attack soon. We have a plan but need headroom in performance. Some of the known issues will be present in 1.12: Artifacts when clouds clip terrain (this is a hard one) Sector lines Contrails and particle effects make clouds invisible Performance is still bad on 4k Low horizon detail (some jaggedness may occur) Artifacts on horizon when on ground (ocationally) Grain is reduced by 40-60% but will have "hot spots" Grain prominent when clouds are lit up by landing lights - and clouds look flat Volumetric lights not adjusted for every air frame. Terrain line at dusk/dawn (depth clip) Snow may occur in impossible places (Seasons is not released snow and fall are "bonus" because we can. Mountains vanishing at horizon (x-plane problem since x-plane only draws terrain 160 km) Precipitation follows camera Default X-Plane night triggers lights artifacts Most of these issues will be fixed once we have performance headroom. Which is the only focus of the next update. No side tracking what so ever. Changelog: Added features are: Aircraft lights now illuminate clouds. Full clouds coverage checkbox Seasons (fall and snow now present but with issues. Seasonal changes intensity slider Changed: Scattering equations for low sun angles Better sector mixing to reduce squared appearance Noise mixing law for base shapes Noise mixing law for cirrus clouds Noise mixing law for stratus clouds Scenery light visibility law adjusted Control water waves now controls water textures too Wet aerodrome surface checkbox affects particles exhaust effect too Snow application logic changed to remove yellow tint from the default X-Plane sun. Rendering Settings renamed to Environment Settings Environment settings presets changed to Simple and Realistic. Removed: Maximum intensity slider for clouds Maximum snow coverage slider

b53 doesn't look too bad though...

Alright... here's the deal. Or rather what we have dealt with the past weeks: (no these are not release notes, sorry) Details vs performance and issues relating to artifacts and sector borders. So we had a chance to look at higher resolution clouds. Not where we want to end up kind of resolution, but way way better than 1.11. This caused some performance issues so we had to revert back. Not exactly a dead end since we now have seen what xE is capable of. So resolution will be the same as 1.11. (Do NOT confuse this with grain - grain has nothing to do with resolution in this case). The major sector issues should be solved. So there should be less "bad sectors" but we can not control bad meta data other than picking up on the sectors reported by users in our discord channel. We then change or update the source to fix it. Sector border lines are seen from the underside of the clouds and will be something we attack in 1.14. We have a plan but need headroom in performance. Some of the known issues we so far know will be present in 1.12 are: Artifacts when clouds clip terrain (this is a hard one) Sector lines Contrails and particle effects make clouds invisible Performance is still bad on 4k Low horizon detail (some jaggedness may occur) Artifacts on horizon when on ground (occationally) Grain is reduced by 40-60% but will have "hot spots" Grain prominent when clouds are lit up by landing lights - and clouds look flat Volumetric lights not adjusted for every airframe. Terrain line at dusk/dawn (depth clip) Mountains vanishing at horizon (x-plane problem since x-plane only draws terrain 160 km) A lot of these we can fix once we have performance headroom. "So you reduced detail? What does that look like?" It basically looks like 1.11 but with less grain. It just won't be as detailed as the screenshots we have published lately and less grain may make clouds look less defined. A good trade off if it is temporary. And it is. (No it is not possible to make an option for this that would be like developing two programs simutaniously) Next update will be all about performance. No side tracking what so ever. Here are some examples of what to expect: 1.12b51 (and how 1.12 will look) We will get back to the beautifully detailed cloud layers above. We just need to up the performance game a couple of notches. What we had to revert to is not ugly, but we want more. It also remains to see if we strike gold in one of our 5 performance paths. If we do we will get multi monitor and VR back in the scope. As performance stands now any higher pixel count demanding features is just a waste of time. Back to work! Some more shots of how 1.12 will look.