[1.15 Development]

9 hours ago, trq46 said:

Updated to 1.15, And why not injecting weather on vulkan ?

Because you're on X-Plane beta. Get off beta if you don't know what a beta is and how to relate to the fact that you are on beta.

[Winds aloft still completely wrong]

They aren't wrong. We have tested and adjusted this for some time and they are 98% within margin of error. If they were completely off we would have been flooded with tickets. Which we're not.

If you find winds that are "completely wrong" send a thorough report with your findings to support on xenviro.net. You won't get support here.

[Kaspersky flaging XEnviro_11.5.exe as a virus?]

Yes! Just like almost every other finding by these 3rd party virus apps - it's another false positive. Today the need for a 3rd party virus app is basically non existing. Unless you visit shady sites or download pirate ware - the windows antivirus is more than enough. 

[xEnviro 1.15 release]

xEnviro does not work on X-Plane beta!
THIS IS A GENERAL RULE! IF YOU EXPERIENCE PROBLEMS, REVERT TO THE LATEST STABLE RELEASE! (UNTICK THE BETA BOX IN YOUR X-PLANE INSTALLER)

 If you're a beta jockey, you should know this so it should not have been necessary to tell you all this...
(and if you didn't know and are on beta --> stop using beta versions!)

xEnviro does not and will never be updated for X-Plane beta releases. X-Plane 11.51rc1 litterally means release candidate 1. In effect it is still in beta (but closing in on release). How many candidates we see before release, we don't know, but things may change and we're not chasing betas. 

Once Laminar have finalized the new version and it's released, we will jump on it and have a look. We are looking in to it now and have our ideas of what has happened - but seriously do not expect any hotfix for a beta! That will not come. Ever.
OpenGl has no changes so it works - beta or not. So for anyone wanting seasons: You'll be fine in any case.
(beta tester screenshot)

ANYWAY - I'll return to my holiday now so have a glorious Christmas and a fantastic new year!

(I'm not really mad - just using harsh words to get a point across see ya )

 

And for any other issue - pleeeease read the known issues in this very announcement! All issues here are known issues or self inflicted. I'll shut this thread off for comments so this will be the last one standing!

[xEnviro 1.15 release]

EDIT:

1. This does NOT work with 11.51 beta verisions! Revert back to latest stable version of X-Plane
2. Some antivirus programs are giving a false positive. Safe to ignore.

 

xEnviro is now on version 1.15

1.15 Goal #01: Vulkan compability - done

This is the "Vulkan update" to make xEnviro compatible with the Vulkan version of X-Plane 11.
It should be updated in your store - if not, download it here.

I'll start off with saying that many of the known issues that we had in 1.14 still persist. This is because we want to get the Vulkan conversion out as fast as we can without adding or changing too much of the core. Which could risk us having to stay in a development mode for longer than needed. I am not going to repeat why 1.14 had such a long development time, but we are trying to get away from the huge gaps between releases. We'd rather see many smaller updates than rare large ones.

So here's the list of known issues

• Precipitation follows camera
• Snow coverage may appear in the regions where no snowfall encountered recently
• Default X-Plane night triggers lights artifacts
• Cloud edge artifacts
• In cloud artifacts
• Cirrus clouds may affect colorization of clouds beneath
• Low level clouds may be combined

What's new?

• Realistic ozone level checkbox
• Post processing tone mapping added
• Tone mapping selector slider
• Tone mapping mixing level slider
• Vulkan rendering support (dynamic seasons only available in OpenGL mode)
• Light scattering from scenery light sources at night
• Button or key assignable command to show and hide Settings window
• Windshield fogging effect
• Windshield freezing effect.

Changed

• X-Plane precipitation dataref update suspended for critical phases of flight
• Rain and snow effect improved

Removed

• Maximum ozone level slider

Fixed

• Scenery light no longer disappear abruptly at night

We are now developing on two pipelines. Why?

This release will give you two versions of xEnviro (on one install). One on OpenGL and one for Vulkan. The reason for this is that we are not able to continue to develop seasons in Vulkan because of the lacking access to needed functions in X-Plane. With Vulkan Laminar basically shut off the possibility to depict dynamic seasons in X-Plane. (This is more complicated than this and there are reasons for why Laminar have chosen to do this. Reasons we don't necessarily agree with and the discussion is far from over)

Dynamic seasons explained

Dynamic seasons has become a buzzword that is thrown around loosely by members and developers in the community. Just like volumetric clouds.. Where true volumetric clouds actually are drawn in 3d space, the "volumetric effect" many use today are enhanced effects that give the impression of volume while still using 2d textured billboards. 

True dynamic seasons has the same aspect to it. While the traditional season changes are texture replacements, which can be automated (dynamic) but demands a reload of the ground textures, true dynamic seasons alter the existing textures to give the affected ground and objects. xE servers calculate the amount of accumulated water on any given location. It is then translated to either water for wet apron, ice or snow. This allows for true visual accumulation of snow on the ground. Coloring the ground to the degree of snow present. Same principal goes for seasons. Mountain snow has a dynamic snow line based on reports for any given region.

We will be able to keep mountain snow - mountain snow has major artifacts and issues that are only seen up close in Vulkan. And thus we chose to keep it since only a few venture close to mountains. (and you can turn it off if you are one of these)

Disclaimer: Dynamic seasons has been an experimental and optional addon to xEnviro since it was introduced in xE 1.10. It has its flaws even in OpenGL and will not be completed for OpenGL. Further development on seasons is halted until we get what we need for Vulkan. Vulkan breaks dynamic seasons completely. The reason why I bring the topic of dynamic seasons up as much as I do, is that this function has so much potential. And with the right access we will be able to refine and deliver a complete package for seasons in xEnviro.

Performance

Vulkan will aid your CPU and the CPU's communications with your Graphics card. But it will not aid your GPU in rendering and with it's workloads. So... Since xEnviro is completely GPU dependent you will not see a gain in performance if your GPU is already stressed out in OpenGL. And when you go from an almost idling GPU in Vulkan XP to throwing xEnviro at it, you will see a significant drop in fps. Probably back down to the same you saw with OpenGL and xEnviro. How much impact you will get depends on your GPU, the rest of your system and everything else you throw at your computer to handle. 

[1.15 Development]

I know I have been absent of late but - better late than sorry?

So, what's new?

We're in Beta

Of course Laminar managed to do some weird choices when they went for Vulkan so our transition has taken a bit longer than we expected. So nothing new there I guess  
But we're over that minor hurdle now and steaming ahead in beta versions that are chewed on by our beta testers. We'll see how fast we can straighten 1.15 out but I want to remind you all of one huge item:

Seasons will be gone

The way we draw seasons in X-Plane and the way to make them dynamic is no longer available in Vulkan. This means that if you want to still have xE snow, you have to use the OpenGL version of X-Plane. Or you will have to use other 3rd party seasons. We have no interest in competing with the texture replacement options that are available. Which will be extremely time consuming, make xEnviro bloated and not dynamic. We will be continuing to support OpenGL version of xEnviro for a while so you can have seasons and snow if you want it. No other measures are necessary on your side - just turn off Vulkan rendering in X-Plane settings and you will have seasons still. This does mean that we are working on two pipelines of xEnviro simultaneously and things will take longer since everything has to be tested at least twice. How long we will be able to do this is uncertain. We will have to stop supporting OpenGL at some point. Especially when we are adding some heavy features down the line. 

If you would like to contribute to the poll regarding seasons I have created in our facebook group - go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/xenviro

FPS improved?

No.
Scenario I expect to see: Andre Nikolajsen (13): "I went from a 30fps drop to a 50 fps drop. xE such su**"

Let me add in a wake up call right here:
You will not see any fps improvement in Vulkan over OpenGL. At least do not expect it. xEnviro is completely dependent on your GPU and Vulkan does not help your GPU. Vulkan helps your CPU in talking to your GPU (simply put) but your GPU will still have the same workload for xEnviro. So if you see a huge fps increase in Vulkan with default x-plane - you will see a huge decrease with xEnviro! That's just facts of life so be prepared. xE 1.14 and up is a LOT easier on fps but just swallow this pill now and you won't be sailing with false expectations.

GPU bound scenario:

Without xE
OpenGL: 50FPS
Vulkan: 80FPS

With xE
OpenGL: 35FPS
Vulkan: 35FPS

CPU bound Scenario:

Without xE
OpenGL: 40FPS
Vulkan: 80FPS

With xE
OpenGL: 45FPS
Vulkan: 45FPS

These numbers don't represent what you will experience. It is all too dependent on too many factors. Anyways - I'm off. Here are some beta tester screenshots:

[1.15 Development]

14 hours ago, flightime56 said:

Thank the lord god for that....  probably another long excruciating 11 month wait though until I can actually use xEnviro again (and no, I can't or will use OPGL)

So uplifting to just be ignored in what I have told everyone in every release announcement and along the way for every progress update.... sigh, why do we even bother sometimes..

 

1.15 progress update so far

What is 1.15 all about?

Vulkan

Timeline

No, Vulkan won't take another year. In fact we're already in Vukan - just need to adapt all the elements and get things right. How long it will take is uncertain and as usual I won't give any ETA's. But if you think that Vulkan is the savior of all fps - when Vulkan primarily is a CPU related gain and xEnviro is entirely GPU dependent. Sure, you'll be able to throw more CPU related addons to the mix without having to reduce on graphics. Just don't expect your fps to differ a lot from OpenGL to Vulkan when using xEnviro.

(xEnviro 1.15t12)

xEnviro performance in Vulkan

A forseen scenario now is that people on Vulkan with no real GPU demanding addons will go from 80fps to 30-40 fps and yell that xEnviro takes 69fps away from them. Well - yeah; volumetric atmosphere rendering will do that to your graphics card at this scale. And especially if you crank up the quality sliders and / or are on a low/mid GPU. It's just a reality we have to live with when we don't get the lifeline in to some core elements of X-Plane.

But one thing you can do is to hit your CPU with more tasks. So adding some addons might not affect you as much as it did in OpenGL. All dependent on your system and what you throw at it / expect.

Dynamic seasons are gone but kept alive in OpenGL

Vulkan breaks dynamic seasons. We're in discussions with Laminar regarding access to what we need to keep seasons going. But it's not looking good at this stage. Some key reference points and resources are no longer accessible and it is plainly not possible to keep dynamic seasons. xE will still work perfectly well with 3rd party seasonal textures and addons. However, OpenGL version will still work as usual and we are keeping two pipelines going until we shut OpenGL support off. This winter will still have seasons - but only in OpenGL.

So, bare with us as we're preparing two lines of production and have the option to go OenGl to still have the dynamic seasons.

More updates to come as I have them.

PS: A big thank you to everyone who have written to us and expressed their gratitude for the 1.14 release. I want to, again, express a sincere appollogy for the wait between 1.13 which was huge - we will from now on concentrate at one item at the time - as we intended for 1.14 but headbutted in to a dead end. A dead end we only came past by backtracking and rewriting the core of xE... Again, sorry - road ahead is bright. Season-less, but bright

Magnus & the xE team

[1.15 Development]

We're not done. We're just getting started. 

[Strange kind of clouds or just a bug ?]

This is mentioned in the release announcements as part of known issues. 

[new RANDOM EVENT screenshot competition]

RANDOM EVENT SCREENSHOT COMPETITION
OK, this is a thread where you can add your screenshots and have a chance to win a 5$ gift card in the Threshold store.
This event is continous and random by nature. Starting now and never ending.

How to win? Simple - choose your most fantastic screenshots and post them here. (read rules)
Your screenshots may me chosen to be featured on website, promotions, Facebook events and so on.
When chosen you also have a chance to win a 5$ gift card. If your screenshot is especially good you can even win 2 cards at once...

Told you it's random

Admission rules:

• xEnviro 1.14 or above
• Max 3 screenshots per post
• 1 post per week
• Add your real name if you want to be credited. (optional)
• Light "in sim modifications" allowed such as reshade maxxfx and so on
• NO PHOTOSHOP!

When adding your screenshots here you agree that

• We can use your screenshot where ever DarkSpace or Threshold sees it fit
• You will not necessarily be credited where it is used (but we will try to do so where possible)
• Your screenshot might be picked but you will not receive the random event gift
• All gifts are given by Threshold's own selection

(You have to be registered in the Threshold store to receive gift cards. Go to the store via the link in the top menu.)

[1.14 development]

On 11/14/2020 at 4:54 PM, nabber said:

Waiting to normalize? mmmm.... I never get things done by just waiting.

 

dude - a family member of one of the devs passed away. That's pretty a pretty insensitive comment...

[xenviro 1.14]

First of all you posted in forum support. Which is for forum related support. Second, Threshold does not develop xEnviro - that is DarkSpace. So we can't help you  
To get support I suggest you contact the xenviro support team at http://www.xenviro.net/support/ 

Do provide images and your log file when asking for support

EDIT: I have moved your post to xEnviro club where xEnviro questions belong in this forum

[Bad performance in 1.14?]

Bad performance in 1.14?

Here is a list of things that you can do:

• Restart X-Plane11 - some users experience bad performance on the first startup
• Do not use reshade or other confliciting addons! Reshade breaks performance completely.
  • Reshade needs to be removed completely by deleting the opengl32.dll in X-Plane directory
• Check your sliders! Ultra will halt your performance - good solution might be a mix of high and mid
• Delete shadercashe: X-Plane folder\Output\shadercashe
• Set X-Plane reflections to minimal
• Use FXAA2

Lets gather some solutions in this thread. And let me know what worked for you

For other issues please read the announcement and look for known issues

 

[1.14 RELEASE]

Also: try to restart x-plane if this is your first satertup. SOme users experience bad performance on first startup.

[1.14 RELEASE]

You using reshade? if so then don't. Not compatible. And use the sliders. Check for other addons.

[1.14 RELEASE]

1.14 Release Announcement

1.14 goal #1.0 - Performance boost for the general user: done
1.14 goal #1.1 - Performance boost for lower end system users: done
1.14 goal #1.2 - Performance boost for 4k users: done

 

We're here!

Let me start off by saying that 1.14 took a hell of a lot of time! I have updated, both here at the forum and on the Facebook group along the way and our trusted followers have known what has happened all along the way. This was supposed to be just a performance update. Which it is! But we met some restraints early in 2020 that we did not expect and took the chance of rewriting the core of xEnviro. We did not know when Vulkan would be released at the time. Some might say we took the wrong path but I assure you the only sensible thing was to develop for a stable platform and not develop xE on top of a X-Plane11 beta run. So here we are with 1.14 for X-Plane11.5x OpenGL even when Vulkan came with XP11.50. 

If you want to know more about Vulkan, read on. It's explained further down.

Performance

As part of the performance update we have added three sliders that directly affect quality/performance. These can be adjusted live while flying!
This way you can adjust the quality/performance for any given situation.



NOTE! ULTRA IS CONSIDERED SCREENSHOT SETTING AND NOT FOR FLYING!
We may regret adding the ultra setting since everyone wants to crank it up to 11 and then we get performance complaints

1 - Clouds Static Quality
Adjusts the cloud quality - low may experience BWC (Belgian Waffle Clouds) and other artifacts.

2 - Clouds dynamic quality
Movement artifacts (ghosting) is a thing - hide it with this slider.

3 - Clouds detail range
Static quality for distant clouds - this is a fps hog!

PLEASE READ THE MANUAL! http://xenviro.net/manual.php

Known issues

1.14 is released with some known issues which will likely be the case for every release. Though, I'm announcing this now since some issues might seem like something that should have been fixed before release. Luckily, many of these issues will likely be gone once we released the update to 1.15 (Vulkan). We're done fighting X-Plane in OpenGL so we're drawing the line here and moving on. But - by going over to semi full scale rendering in our core code rewrite we have unlocked a plethora of possibilities. Which we will be exploring in the versions to come.  

Below is a list of some known issues. Our beta testers and the team are completely aware of them so please don't report them to us again. As I mentioned, many of these issues will be short-lived with 1.15 on the horizon. 

Issue	Explanation	Fix	Report to support?
Blue mountain snow	At certain times of day and at certain angles snow becomes unnaturally colored. This is a limitation of X-Plane light reflections that are yellow when returned from ground textures. Compensating for this makes snow less ugly but weird.	Turn mountain snow off	No
Snow at places that have no snow	Places that do not have snow in real life has snow present. This is due to snow line data on the server being set too low.	Turn off seasons	Yes please
Season too intense	Same as snow in places that shouldne't have snow seasons can be a bit strong some places.	Use seasons slider / turn off seasons	No
Wet apron where there is no rain	Note: rain accumulates and evaporates on the server. This means that apron and surroundings can be wet without rain. This will dry up.	Turn off wet apron feature	No
Cloud Shadow jump	Sudden shift in shadows and quickly restored. Can be perceived as fast weather change - but it's just a shadow shift.	No fix for you. We're still chasing this	No
Cloud edge artifacts	When moving through a cloud layer (not necessarily even through a cloud) Artifacts will appear.	No fix at present time	No
BWC	(Belgian Waffle Clouds) Grid visible in clouds. Cloud grid is visible in certain conditions and certain view angles.	This is part of the new rendering system and will be refined, maybe even eliminated in next update. Can be adjusted with quality sliders.	No
Cloud artifacts	Clouds can have "low resolution" artifacts. Vertical and horizontal lines.	Increase Cloud Static Quality (CSQ) and/or blur	No
Banding	Clouds at medium and far distance get "chopped up" or bands going over them. Visible under certain conditions. This is part of the new rendering and will be refined.	Increase Quality Detail Range (QDR)	No
Precipitation follows Camera	As it says - this is going to be fixed in later version	None	No
No snow in reflections	Windows of buildings don't reflect snow or seasonal changes.	None	No
AI aircraft has "ghosting effect"	MTL/CSL Vatsim traffic has a ghosting effect	None	No

 

1.15 - 1.xx || What's next

Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan Vulkan 
After Vulkan we'll probably have a look at multi screen support, VR compatibility as soon as it's reasonable to do so. Under which version these fall, we're not sure yet but soon after Vulkan release for sure. With Vulkan we will probably see another headroom for fps but do NOT expect too much here! xEnviro is a GPU eater so if you're GPU limited you will probably see 80fps default and come back to roughly 1.14 level of performance in 1.15. So if you're at 40fps in 1.14, you could see up to 40fps drop in 1.15 from default. That feedback will be fun.   

Going forward we will concentrate on one item at the time. The past updates have been way too broad and complicated and thus took so much time. Which they had to be given the challenges we faced. But that should be mostly behind us. So Vulkan (xE1.15) will NOT take another freaking year. 

Rough idea outline for the road map is as follows:

• 1.15 Vulkan
• 1.16 Spherical buffer
• 1.17 Low level fog
• 1.19 Precipitation volume | Atmosphere shadows
• 1.20 Thunderstorms
• 1.21 Night environment

Seasons in Vulkan no longer dynamic..

Dynamic Seasons will be gone in Vulkan version of xE1.15. If we manage to convince Laminar to give us access to what we need in Vulkan, then we will add that in as soon as we have it back! As it stands now that is a discussion we don't have the energy or time to take now. The advanced Static seasons function will work as prior to xE 1.13. And we are keeping both OpenGL and Vulkan pipelines working so you will be able to use dynamic seasons in 1.15 on OpenGL. 

 

Again, we're sorry for the abyss of no updates between 1.13 and 1.14. The next update will NOT take that long.
Our current code should not be too difficult to port over. But as per usual there will be no ETA but I will update you all on progress! 

We're not done.
Back to work! 

Get xEnviro here: https://store.thresholdx.net/products/xenviro

 

[Black window cockpit FFA320]

ADMIN ACTION:
This post has been moved to SAM club. Forum support topic is for support regarding the forum only.

[Getting Excited for the release!]

@trellbrown23 You have been warned before. This is your last.

[1.14 development]

Some screenshots while we wait for things to normalize. They will soon. And once we start back up - we will be pretty close to rc1. 

[1.14 development]

How did I forget to post this here?

The announcement one week ago... If you haven't read this, please read it all:
We are in the final stages of beta but life has caught up with some of the team members and development has halted completely for the time being. My own situation is with illness and severe pain - but I'm getting better and am recovering. But this is not what is stopping the progress.

I didn't want to go public with the current circumstances since we got a backlash last time, when Andrey was directly affected by the cinema fires in Moscow right before the release of 1.10. Imagine even getting a backlash from people for something like that; not developing because of recent trauma..

But I'll enlighten you on the current situation since I realize that those of you who have a common sense, the majority none the less, deserve a progress update and a reason for the low activity: The loss of a very close family member recently and circumstances surrounding this makes development impossible for at least two weeks.

With respect to the mourning team member I am not going in to further detail on this.

As I said, this is a week ago. Things aren't really back to normal yet but I'll keep you all in the loop as we know more. Beta is in its last stages so once we're back to normal we should be seeing good progress towards RC1.

 

[1.14 development]

[1.14 development]

Latest beta tester screenshots. We have a couple more items to get through and test. We hope these will be easy to fix and to move on to final beta sessions. RC is coming closer.

[1.14 development]

From todays stream

[1.14 development]

Lets talk performance

What performance gain can you expect from 1.14 (OpenGL)?
Well, that depends on your system. The lower specs your computer has, the more of a benefit you'll likely have. 4k users will see a good boost as well. Mentioning numbers is not really beneficial since it is very individual and I want to avoid giving too high expectations. But one new feature we introduce to 1.14 are performance sliders.
This comes with a huge warning! Ultra is NOT playable at any setting for 99% of users. Ultra is only available because we want to give you the option.

Use these settings with care and don't use the below image as a guide
Adjust these settings to your quality / performance likings.

• Clouds static quality
  • This slider increases the cloud detail
• Clouds dynamic quality
  • This slider decreases ghosting effect of clouds during movement.
• Clouds detail range
  • Sets static quality of clouds at desired distance

What performance gain can you expect from 1.15 (Vulkan)?

 

None. Vulkan is a performance gain primarily for CPU loads. So since xE is GPU dependent you will most likely not see any gain. You might, but it's not a given. Few people will understand this concept and we do expect comments like: "I get 90fps vanilla and 15fps in xE! That's a 75fps drop!!1!" Well, yes nothing chaged with GPU dependency and on Ultra settings you will be choking your GPU to a point that you should be brought to court for abuse.

As a last comment - we're still in beta:

NO, there is no release date
NO, beta is not public
YES you can apply in a thread in threshold forum club but
NO it's NOT a given that you will be taken on board when you apply

I have a twitch channel where I will stream the beta now and then. Search for my name on Twitch - I'm not going to link to it.

(Latest Images are close to how it will look at release - we're not done with the visuals after 1.14 this is a constant development where we do what's possible with the headroom we got --> performance / visuals)

[1.14 development]

So weve reached 1.14b24

We have gone through and ironed out a bunch of bugs and issues. Closing item after item day by day. How many more versions we burn through before we're ready to hit the public, we're not entirely sure. Beta team has worked well and we work with a lighter mood

I did the first stream today and will probably do a couple more in the time to come. Not sure if I'm going to announce the streams here and make them as public as I did before the 1.13 launch, but we'll see.

We're getting there

Here are some screenshots from todays stream