Captain Kitten

I have some bad news. 1.14t26 I have been dreading this message to you and postponed it for too long. We have made a decision now that will affect the path going forward tremendously and things will never be the same. Some of you will be furious, others will be annoyed but I hope that the majority of you will understand. To the ones that will be triggered right away: There would not have been much time difference in development of 1.14 anyway and the only reason you're furious is because you think we're changing directions once again. But we're not. We have planned this for a long time - we're just jumping in the deep end of the pool once again to save some time for what will be part of the foundation of xEnviro 2.0 (That is far down the line still - don't worry). So not really bad news - just different and an appology for the development taking so long. I honestly thought 1.14 would be a 4 week task. But this angry cat (xEnviro) that we're trying to cram in to the shoe box moving in 320kn (X-Plane) in a 30m/s crosswind (real life) has shown it self to be a challenge. So... Nope - this is not about Vulkan. Not directly anyways. xE will work in Vulkan. We're talking with LR and now it's just a matter of how much of the features will work. 2/3 of our needs will very likely be covered so most features of xE will be working off the bat once we direct xE towards Vulkan engine. But we're not rebuilding for Vulkan yet. 1.14 will be released independently from Vulkan release and we'll monitor closely which release will be the most suitable for a Vulkan release. Might be 1.15 or might be 1.2. We'll have to take that decision as we go along. What are you on about, Magnus? Get to the freaking point! Remember full atmospheric volume rendering? I have mentioned full volume rendering a couple of times before. A version of xEnviro that will be unbound by cloud layers. This is where, when having enough headroom we can shape the scene with what ever we want. (granted we have performance headroom). We have been testing full volume rendering and semi full volume rendering lately. Full volume will take back too much of the performance we have built up until now so we have decided to go for semi full at this stage. One step in the right direction and towards features like thunderstorms and towering cumulus. 1.14t21 Why "full / semi full" now? We're struggling to get our render passes per layer optimized and don't really see the benefit of limiting ourself to defined layers when the struggle to get them all optimized is this hard. Especially in OpenGL - with Vulkan we will go full steam with full volume rendering anyways. And the stuttering 5% of you are experiencing may be related to some of this as well. Full volume rendering is not without risk, but it is more controllable than where we are now. And it will open up for many features that are in the pipeline anyways. What about FPS? This is a hard one. We think our FPS gain that we managed to pull off now at 5-10fps gain (depending on equipement) is where we'll stay. My own 1070 has a solid 10fps gain - but it varies from system to system. We will still have four optimization paths left to go through and play with when the build is finished. How much they will gain is not known. We hope that each one will give some return but we have to walk the path to know it for sure. When? Not entirely sure. I hope well before Q2 - this is sort of the bad news. We just don't know yet and as per usual ETA's won't be given. xE is yet again on the lab table - but it's not a huge task to get it ready for test version 'ing again. If anything this might even be easier than trying to control the layers. It will definitely make the future easier to handle. What about bug X, Y and Z? We take notes of the support tickets that come in and we're aware of stuttering, cockpit lighting bug and so on. Those won't exist in 1.14. The reason why we don't fix those now is that (those two in particular) will need work that is done in 1.14 anyway - but not in a way that makes it easy to provide an easy fix. So we have all men on deck for 1.14 semi full volume rendering now so we can get that out the door as soon as possible. 1.14t26 1.14t26 Cloud shapes have been reworked somewhat. Semi full volume rendering gives us some more headroom and tools to get this in. It's still a balance between grain and definition. This will be an ongoing battle until we gain enough performance headroom to double the step sampling resolution. Main focus now is known issues and performance. That has not changed! Test versions are in final stages (I hope) then we're going through a deep beta run before release. Progress has definitely been made. (What's the difference between full and semi full volume rendering? That's a trade secret ) Enough babbling from me. Back to work Mike, you're an inspiration of a higher dimention

Breaking the silence. Sort of. As mentioned in an earlier statement, January is a very busy time in all of the staffs lives and time is limited to work on xE. But that doesn't mean that it is not being worked on. Its just slow.. xE has been in pieces in the lab undergoing performance enhancement treatments. We had an increase of 5-10 fps depending on what system you are on. This was clear already before the end of last year but now we have prepared xE for the next 4 paths of performance enhancements and we're now rebuilding it to finish test version runs. So no real news at the moment other than that we are one step further to letting the beta team lose on 1.14. The images below are from 1.14t12 and is still an incomplete assembly. What I have stated abnout Vulkan has not changed. Read earlier statement on why the introduction of Vulkan won't break xEnviro.

Hold my beer

You can find those in your resources/seasons folder.

You are guaranteed to get 0 in return at the first scenery load (i.e. summer with dry surface) since there are no values before xE is running. With png this is only possible at the very first load and after a long break. In all other cases png will contain more or less adequate seasonal/surface data. Datarefs are suitable for dynamic surface coverage ie ponds and snow patches on apron.

Yeah.. Laminars sdk on the matter is broken. So there is no way for us to separate objects from the rest. And images get uploaded only after full initialization and successful authorization which happens only after sim is fully loaded and running. The good thing is that png don't change much between loads. We'll revisit this when we have time

It's the same as xE. So it's a technology. Not a franchise. Like a typoe of car engine that several manufacturers use, but approach differently - or apply differently to their use.

Hi Austin, glad that you're interested in making OpenScenery X compatible with xE This is something we are contemplating on how to approach within X-Plane since it's not straight forward. We have been trying to figure out a way to exclude or isolate objects from the rest of the scenery for a long time. And so far we haven't found a way that is practical and "user friendly" for other developers. We'll try to explore more possibilities when we have finished our immidiate tasks at hand which demand our full attention for at least the remainder of this month and a part of next.

* moved to correct area of Forum. Forum support topic is for forum support only.

RANDOM EVENT!| 1st place! 500 wings in Threshold store. 2nd place! 250 Wings in Threshold store Winners contact me on PM with your registered info in the store and you will be given your awards. Every one else keep the screenshots coming to have a chance to win Random events are random...

Because it is: 1: not needed 2: way too much work to keep running (you just get noise) 3: we have a beta team 4: No matter how much precautions you make - there will be issues 5: What's even the difference of releasing a "public beta" and then fix for release VS release, then fix a bug with a hotfix? Basically just how you choose to name it... We have a plan and a method and we're sticking with it. Any changes just robs us of development time. 10 FPS for 1.14? Even we don't know what the end result will be. Vulkan won't help us. Period. It will only make us work hard to even get xE working. No one knows the result. Different features demand different performance. We haven't decided on which path to go. It would be silly to choose anything before we know what 1.14 will bring. We gained 10 fps now - one of five paths we are tryoing out. Maybe the result of all will give 30fps - maybe we'll end up with just the 10 in the end. We don't know. There are no 10 cents out there that hold their value atm. Just the way it is.

Vulkan VS xEnviro It has literally erupted lol... So let me try to extinguish a Volcano.... There is hefty discussions going on. Based on this comment from Ben: Thanx Ben... First of all: Yes, we have been prepared for Vulkan. Ever since we heard of Vulkan coming to X-Plane, we have prepared for it. Problem is that we are not prepared for how Laminar chooses to make Vulkan accessable to us. Simply said: what areas they choose to let us work with and what not is up to LR. As it looks now we will not get access to the parts we would like to. There are various reasons for this and we have tried to have a dialogue on it but quickly got the feeling that this is not something they want, or want to put man hours in to. Since we know that there is no such thing as "impossible" in this profession just a matter of how much you want it - and are able to allocate time to it; We gave up on trying to convince Laminar that they need to open up for us. We will probably manage with or without their help anyways. Will 11.50 break xEnviro? No OpenGL is still available and we will still be usable. OpenGL is staying in X-Plane-11's life line. And in that time we will probably have found a way to go around the closed doors LR are guarding. It won't be much different than the daily fights we have today and we're not giving up. Laminar has done a LOT of right throughout X-Plane's life line. But there are moments where I shake my head and wonder if they either have something extraordinary up their sleeve or if they're just stubborn beyond belief. I seriously hope they have a Royal Street Flush hidden in Austins Cargo Pants because a quartet of Aces is about to land on the scene. But! And let me add a note here at the end: Nicolaj (14) -"I'm not going to buy another addon for X-Plane! The best simulator is best and it's not X-Plane! All glory to Microsoft and I'm going to enjoy that now!" Well, you're not though. It's not even released yet and people flock like Lemmen over the edge. I'm not saying that fs2020 won't deliver, it looks great and probably will. But they won't deliver for at least another 6 months at the very earliest.. Until then - I for one am not going to jump ship and let everyone who has invested in xE or other addons down. So seeing people leave and waving a middle finger in our faces on the way out is kind of insulting to be honest. Feel free to leave - just do it with dignity and show some respect for the ones who would like to see X-Plane being competative when the fat lady starts singing. If you would like to see that: Tell Laminar what you think is needed! I think the thing to do here is for the community to put pressure on Laminar. Not abandon the sim. And remember! We will most probably manage regardless. Like we have till now. BTW - first performance path for 1.14 gave us 10 fps gain across the board...Knock on wood we are able to carry it over through the 1.14 beta - which we are starting this weekend. Back to work!

All available in Threhold store too

Turn "Control Waves" off in xEnviro settings

It just doesn't work this way. xEnviro is to a large extent already a standalone program. Which is crammed in to X-Plane. But with what you want here we would just be making our own simulator. Trust me, we have contemplated actually doing that. That would make xEnviro a breeze to work with and we would be able to concentrate on our other projects and present them to the public. live stream 'say google earth' ortho This is just plainly impossible - One is access to Google Earth where the licence is unobtainable and another is to replace the terrain in the sim which isn't something that we have access to. This is not what we want with xEnviro either. We're not replacing anything other than the atmosphrere. Everything else is just altered. open-street-maps roads that blend well with landscape (similar concept to Outerra) Same as above and without the above: no use. full blown unleashed XE wish-list Still need full access to the cores of X-Plane. Which we don't have. speed trees Not sure why even with the above. adapter to x-plane to get airplane position data-ref (this may open door for other platform adapters) - in same manner the pannels are viewed via ipad or other screens. Not our thing. At all. utilize RTX / hardware ray tracing where applicable This will be a part of our future when possible. But we still need better access to the sim or we have to continue doing it the "dirty" way as we do with a lot of things already.

We will never get full access. And we'd never expect to get full access. So the list above is definitely a dream for the distant future regardless of how LR meets our needs. Vulkan won't help us one bit though and the access will be even further limited. Not exactly sure why they take that path and this is where we disagree. We will probably manage but the hopes of Vulkan giving xEnviro a push in the right direction were not met. So we'll see where we end up and take one step at the time. We have just started our performance paths which will help regardless. How much we'll see in the coming weeks. I'm not very optimistic that we'll get 1.14 out on this side of New Year, but we're hard at work and will try our best to get it done right.

Well... if we had full access to the sim we would be able to deliver that today. Easy. With full access we would: Cut bug spawns by a factor of ten (would be such a relief) Gain 20% fps instantly from base CAVOK conditions Gain 20% in cloud conditions instantly Improve both of the above much more easily over time Get lower difference in FPS between cloud conditions Completely hide grain and have high definition cloud rendering steps Have VR support / multi screen support Implement full volume rendering and aim for infinite cloud layers Have complete terrain and object wind projections Render all cloud types and full feaured thunderstorms Implement my all time whish of aircraft on cloud draft effects Add all major weather phenomena Immideately add full featured percipitation shafts and cloud drooping Show how cloud on cloud shadows are actually done Sprincle the world with real time rendered rainbows Finally get aircraft on cloud shadows and true illumination effects Also immideately introduce cloud illumination from Cities Which would lead to object on cloud illumination (bridges, skyscrapers, masts and so on) Explore sand storm and pollution effects on large weather systems in deapth Finish the project of true Night environment ... Our whish list is very long and bold. Much much more is on that list than I am going to mention here now. But.... There are reasons for them to not open up for this which I am not going to discuss in public. Some of the reasons for certain elements are very much valid. Other aspects are a bit... lets say; we would like them to reconsider. We have enough experience taming this beast in to the tight space X-Plane leaves room for to exploit everything we need to make msfs look like a cartoon. (That says a lot since msfs2020 looks freaking awesome!) Selling xEnviro is not exactly something we want.. Neither Laminar nor we would probably be happy with any deal proposed by the other part.

So... silence.... Yes, silence.. We're hard at working on performance. One thing that will be fixed in the first performance path we are neck deep in; is sector borders. (not to be confused with bad sectors which is server side and missing or corrupt weather data - this is hard visible lines in clouds between sectors.) The fix of this issue is an effect of the performance path that we are heading down first. Larger sectors makes it easier to control these lines. Another plus is that our clouds now reach even further to the horizon and are now drawn 360km around any given viewpoint. We're still not leaving cloud layers and going for full volume in-atmosphere-cloud-rendering since that will eliminate any performance advance we would get at this stage and be a step back in that regard. Depending on the results at the end of this run we'll consider it though. The potential of unlimited cloud layers and cloud height is so tempting. But one step at the time.. X-Plane isn't doing us any favours at this point and Vulcan does not seem to be as huge of a benefit as many had hoped for. Yet we are optimistic with what we have planned. So, what are the results so far? Well, the huge expansion of the cloud range come at no performance cost and a slight fps increase in general but a significant decrease in fps drop in and around clouds. Stutter should be eliminated. This, when finalized will be a great steppingstone for the remaining four performance paths. Which we calculate will have a better general performance boost. We have no idea at this point what to expect but we dive right in and see what we can find. ETA? none. Hope is that we'll finish this before the decade is over. IMAGES ARE FROM 1.14t03 and are NOT representative of the final release (at all). Test versions are stripped down versions of the final product and a LOT looks grainy, nondefined, buggy and bad when in fact it's just missing parts that will be added in later. Please keep this in mind when commenting. Don't let me regret posting test version screenshots And yes, I know I'm giving fuel to the haters who will pick up on the way things look and ignore what it is we're actually working on. But I stopped caring a long time ago and want to show those of you who are genuinely interested what we are doing. I hope to have more to show and more substantial results to share the coming weeks. Until then: back to work

"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. YOU HAVE TO HAVE DISCORD TO BETA TEST! AND OBVIOUSLY YOU HAVE TO OWN XENVIRO! 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