1.14 development

[Snax]

You do an amazing work !

I see here and there that xEnviro isn't worth it, but I disagree ! You push X-Plane to its limits and it rocks !

[Bakr]

its a fact, without doubt, that clouds in 1.14 are on a total new level - far more realistic than all previous releases.

Looking for X-plane 2021 with Xe 1.15...

[Bakr]

Do we have any early benchmarks using Xenviro with Nvidia RTX 3080 - ?

[trq46]

first thing i wanna see fps on my gtx 1050ti , unable to run in 1080p, while fs2020 can. so i hope promised performance, thats it.

[Tavakoli]

I am a big fan of xEnviro...to be honest, one of the main reasons for me to use XP11 was in fact xE. Regardless to my actual preference due to reasons or facts important to me, I will only go back to XP11.50 (OGL), once xE 1.14 is "alive". As I always say, flight happens in the skies not on the ground, therefore a proper weather engine mandatory; XP11 lacks this since it's existence and due to any reason, LR has never addressed it, most probably due to other priorities and also limitations. Worse than that is the fact that LR does not really open up some "doors" for developers like those who have created xE or even others. Sorry to say so, but I feel that due to lack of real competition the creator of XP11 was maybe a little bit too relaxed. The sudden announcement of the revival of MSFS last year still did not really trigger any urgency to react and only once the arrival of MSFS was imminent, Vulkan was implemented by force due to urgency of the actual situation, to be followed by the official LR/XP11 announcements that Austin is NOW working on the next generation weather engine and rest of the team on the next generation XP scenery etc. Having said that, I would like to mention that I have something over 70 add-on for XP11, 7 add-on for the weather; from those 70 add-on I can say that I really do not need 50 of them at all and I consider them just as an "investment' into my beloved "flight simming" hobby per se, as a whole. From those weather add-on, only xE made me really happy, be it the version 1.06, 1.07 with all those new features adding huge immersion and after the transition period the phenomenal 1.10 - 1.13. Not even the excellent Toliss A319 or A321 would make me go back to XP11 at it's actual state in comparison with other technologies and due to my personal preferences/priorities, but xE would. I am now patiently waiting for the update. I hope that in the future xE will have more "effects" on the behavior of the aircraft due to weather situation, wind and turbulence. That would make flying more "meaningful" less sterile, more immersive, maybe more "real". @Captain Kitten keep up the good work on this awesome product and always thank you for your transparent, firm updates for a long time, be it here or on FB.

[Captain Kitten]

[Captain Kitten]

[Captain Kitten]

1.14 is in Beta

"When will it release?"
We never give ETA's (Estimated time of arrival). But we're in Beta now. So we are seeing the end of the tunnel.

"Will 1.14 be for Vulkan?"
No, reasons are several: We never anticipated that it would take this long and did a LOT in OpenGL that we just had to get finished before we get it all over to Vulkan. To add to it LR are not openiong up for us to hook in where we need to to keep all we have made so far in OpenGL. We will loose seasons, dynamic snow and wet aprons once we transition to Vulkan. Laminar has shut that door for us. We will probably be able to get that back in but it will demand a fair amount of work and an update on its own later.

"Will it work in X-Plane 11.50?"
Yes, 11.50 has OpenGL in it. It's a switch in the graphics settings. 11.50 has both Vulkan and OpenGL.

"When is update for Vulkan coming?"
1.15 is the Vulkan update. So, after release we start work on this immediately.

"1.14 took its time."
Indeed it did. This has been a hell hole in so many aspects. Several of the team members have dayjobs in "critical infrastructure" and we lost a good two months on that while adapting to the new life we partly still have. In addition we had so many challenges thrown at us from X-Plane and some old xE code that had to be rewritten.

"What's performance like in 1.14?"
5-10 fps. This update will benefit lower end systems more than higher end systems. It will benefit 4k users as well. Some lower end systems (GFX970) have reported a 20-30fps gain... BUT! DO NOT EXPECT SUCH NUMBERS! Keep your expectations in check. We now have a couple of performance sliders. You will be able to crunch your gpu quite heavily in 1.14 and trade visuals for performance.

"Is the grain gone?"
Let me be honest. Like any weather addon, xE1.14 will have its moments and it will have its not so fantastic ones. I don't want to talk any weather app down so I won't mention any. They all shine when they work and look off when not. We're of course aiming for the best visual experience and this will be worked on further for every update. Vulkan will give us some more headroom.

"Will the price change with this update?"
The price will not change and every update is free for existing customers. This goes for all updates within the 1.xx versions of xEnviro.

"Where can I download the beta?"
Our beta runs are not public.

"Can I be a beta tester?"
Maybe. If you want to be a beta tester you can sign up in that thread under announcements in this club.

More questions? I'll add them to this QA if I find them to be good

Here are some tease shots:

[trq46]

Nice sir, and where the stuff ?

 

[Captain Kitten]

1 hour ago, trq46 said:

Nice sir, and where the stuff ?

 

What? 

[Cezary]

Looks nice. I have no questions, everything is clear. I think that xenviro clouds looks much more realistic then MFS20. I hope u will add some more layers, maybe something like in this picture bloew if its is even possible to make, would be awesome. Fingers crossed for new 1.14.

[Snax]

"We will loose seasons, dynamic snow and wet aprons."

Hello @Captain Kitten, does that sentence mean that in 1.14 seasons, snow and wetness will be gone ? Or they may not work sometimes ?
Anyway that's not the worst for me, as I'm still here for the clouds and atsmopheric effects first, I'm still confident you guys can make it work !

Cheers,
Snax

[trq46]

where can we download ?

[jfwharton]

So are you saying we will still have seasons, dynamic snow in Open GL?  Or will we loose it completely?  Seasons and Snow are the main reason that I was so thrilled with xEnviro.  If I loose that then I will stop using xEnviro and move on.  I hope this will not have to be the case.

Edited September 24, 2020 by jfwharton

[trq46]

5 hours ago, Cezary said:

Looks nice. I have no questions, everything is clear. I think that xenviro clouds looks much more realistic then MFS20. I hope u will add some more layers, maybe something like in this picture bloew if its is even possible to make, would be awesome. Fingers crossed for new 1.14.

for small cloud, xenviro good, but for cloud like this picture, no one i ever see in xplane, thats xenviro should work

[trq46]

9 hours ago, Captain Kitten said:

What? 

Link to download the beta 1.14 ?

[flightime56]

Thanks for all the work, but I won't be downloading, why would I want to use OpenGL? I can't use OpenGL anyway with doing reviews....  I don't even have v11.41 in my computer anymore...  just more, and more wasted time? God this is going to take forever!

[Captain Kitten]

7 hours ago, flightime56 said:

Thanks for all the work, but I won't be downloading, why would I want to use OpenGL? I can't use OpenGL anyway with doing reviews....  I don't even have v11.41 in my computer anymore...  just more, and more wasted time? God this is going to take forever!

So you didn't read what I wrote? 11.50 has OpenGL in it - there is a switch. And there are reasons to why we don't go Vulkan yet - we need to finalize what we started first. Or all this time would have been a waste. Vulkan conversion won't take too long though.

[Captain Kitten]

14 hours ago, Cezary said:

Looks nice. I have no questions, everything is clear. I think that xenviro clouds looks much more realistic then MFS20. I hope u will add some more layers, maybe something like in this picture bloew if its is even possible to make, would be awesome. Fingers crossed for new 1.14.

Towering clouds are in, just not at that scale. Thunderstorms will be developed as soon as we have headroom. Vulkan will give us some. In addition to this performance update.

[Captain Kitten]

8 hours ago, trq46 said:

Link to download the beta 1.14 ?

I have never said that beta is public.

[Captain Kitten]

8 hours ago, jfwharton said:

So are you saying we will still have seasons, dynamic snow in Open GL?  Or will we loose it completely?  Seasons and Snow are the main reason that I was so thrilled with xEnviro.  If I loose that then I will stop using xEnviro and move on.  I hope this will not have to be the case.

After we go Vulkan seasons are gone since Laminar has effectively shut that down. So 1.14 will be the last one with the current seasons and it will only work in 11.50 OpenGL

[nabber]

5 hours ago, Captain Kitten said:

After we go Vulkan seasons are gone since Laminar has effectively shut that down. So 1.14 will be the last one with the current seasons and it will only work in 11.50 OpenGL

"So are you saying we will still have seasons, dynamic snow in Open GL?  Or will we loose it completely?  Seasons and Snow are the main reason that I was so thrilled with xEnviro.  If I loose that then I will stop using xEnviro and move on.  I hope this will not have to be the case"

There are no alternatives to move on to, besides Enhanced CloudScapes which is rather limited, fps demanding and freeware and thus inconsistant in quality and releases. I 'd rather have towering high quality clouds and good FPS, even if it is in OPenGL, then snow and seasons.

Edited September 25, 2020 by nabber

[nabber]

On 9/13/2020 at 11:41 AM, Tavakoli said:

I am a big fan of xEnviro...to be honest, one of the main reasons for me to use XP11 was in fact xE. Regardless to my actual preference due to reasons or facts important to me, I will only go back to XP11.50 (OGL), once xE 1.14 is "alive". As I always say, flight happens in the skies not on the ground, therefore a proper weather engine mandatory; XP11 lacks this since it's existence and due to any reason, LR has never addressed it, most probably due to other priorities and also limitations. Worse than that is the fact that LR does not really open up some "doors" for developers like those who have created xE or even others. Sorry to say so, but I feel that due to lack of real competition the creator of XP11 was maybe a little bit too relaxed. The sudden announcement of the revival of MSFS last year still did not really trigger any urgency to react and only once the arrival of MSFS was imminent, Vulkan was implemented by force due to urgency of the actual situation, to be followed by the official LR/XP11 announcements that Austin is NOW working on the next generation weather engine and rest of the team on the next generation XP scenery etc. Having said that, I would like to mention that I have something over 70 add-on for XP11, 7 add-on for the weather; from those 70 add-on I can say that I really do not need 50 of them at all and I consider them just as an "investment' into my beloved "flight simming" hobby per se, as a whole. From those weather add-on, only xE made me really happy, be it the version 1.06, 1.07 with all those new features adding huge immersion and after the transition period the phenomenal 1.10 - 1.13. Not even the excellent Toliss A319 or A321 would make me go back to XP11 at it's actual state in comparison with other technologies and due to my personal preferences/priorities, but xE would. I am now patiently waiting for the update. I hope that in the future xE will have more "effects" on the behavior of the aircraft due to weather situation, wind and turbulence. That would make flying more "meaningful" less sterile, more immersive, maybe more "real". @Captain Kitten keep up the good work on this awesome product and always thank you for your transparent, firm updates for a long time, be it here or on FB.

At least you are transparant and consistent too....You came for the looks and now left XP11 for the looks. I came for the flight dynamics and systemsm, tried MSFS2020, and I'm back for the flight dynamics again. Uninstalled msfs2020, not worth allocating any diskspace. 

[flightime56]

" only once the arrival of MSFS was imminent, Vulkan was implemented by force due to urgency of the actual situation"

Not true, Vulkan/Metal was part of the original X-Plane11 roadmap, it has been a three year project by Laminar and a core system required switch, and was started well, well before any MSFS announcement, in fact it is four months overdue in development.

[Bakr]

On 9/26/2020 at 4:00 PM, nabber said:

At least you are transparant and consistent too....You came for the looks and now left XP11 for the looks. I came for the flight dynamics and systemsm, tried MSFS2020, and I'm back for the flight dynamics again. Uninstalled msfs2020, not worth allocating any diskspace. 

a very interesting insight, despite we have heard that msfs2020 had a new physics non-flying-block dynamics.

based on on your personal encounter - can you xplane (explain) how short was msfs2020 from x-plane with regards to flight dynamics... am eager to that (although not subject of this thread.)..