An incremental bug-fixing patch has been released by Laminar Research, developers of X-Plane, bringing the simulator up to version 11.51. The aim of the 11.5X run is to improve the simulator's implementation of Vulkan/Metal rendering, which is currently available via an option in the menu.

In addition to less frequent issues with Vulkan/Metal, the X-Plane team have bundled a bunch of other miscellaneous fixes with the update.

Here's the list of changes from beta one through three (incl. one release candidate build):

Beta 1

• Updated translations for most languages.
• Updated & additional joystick config files.
• Device loss crashes on Vulkan/Windows should be less frequent.
• XPD-10617 CTD when using “regenerate icons for current aircraft (and livery).
• XPD-10836 Device loss crashes on Metal/Mac should be less frequent.
• XPD-11003 Metal has been disabled for Nvidia-based Macs on 10.15 because it hangs.
• XPD-11025 Plane Maker 11.50 breaks the .acf file when periods are changed to commas.
• XPD-11028 Crash in the map.
• XPD-11030 Switching liveries a couple of times crashes X-Plane.
• XPD-11036 Fixed broken mouse cursor in 3-d cockpit with LDR and OGL.
• XPD-11038 Fixed washed out GL movie capture.
• XPD-11044 Fixed missing runway outlines on map.
• XPD-11047 Fixed option for edge blending with no warping.
• XPD-11069 Loading flight plans fails after loading a checklist.
• XPD-10832 Added camera permission string for third party apps.

Beta 2

• Additional log info to investigate issues with Reverb G2 controllers.
• Additional diagnostics via Aftermath for investigating device loss crashes (requires Nvidia driver 457.09).
• Portuguese translation updated.
• XPD-10194 Updated docs & override datarefs for sling object.
• XPD-11031 Nvidia driver crash in OGL when accessing settings.

Beta 3

• Gateway airports approved as of Nov. 24 added.
• Networking fix: Support clients talking across different IP protocols.
• Networking fix: Fixed erroneous messages about not receiving/replying from exvis machines.
• Networking fix: Fix for potential crash when changing roles.
• XPD-7986 Rain now displays correctly in multimonitor.

Release Candidate 1

• Fixed FMS file not working with X-airports with 7-letter custom ID.
• Actually remove deprecated airports.
• Find orphaned approach transitions that dangle at the end of EGLL.dat in Navigprah cycle 2013.
• Recognize more circling approaches.
• XSG-11071 Misaligned ILS at NZAA.
• XPD-11048 Can’t use ext visuals without the aircraft of the master machine in Vulkan.
• XPD-11079 Fixed inverted normal maps in Vulkan/Metal with HDR off.
• XPD-11092 Fixed cylindrical projection not working on multi-monitor with Vulkan.

In addition to the above features and fixes, 11.51 brings in 387 new Gateway airports, as well as 1,885 'improved' airports.

A number of known issues also exist, with a disclaimer that the first time using Vulkan/Metal will be quite a slow loading experience as new shaders must be compiled for the first time.

Here's the full list of known bugs:

• XPD-7871 Dark contrails instead of white.
• XPD-8162 Ocean tiles loading slowly & appear to be missing entirely in scenery.
• XPD-9234 Flickering cloud shadows on the ground.
• XPD-9388 Software hangs upon exit when using VR.
• XPD-9729 Contrails and wing condensation missing in replay.
• XPD-10506 First run shader creation is super slow.
• XPD-10616 Water reflection off if wave height is non zero.
• XPD-10653 ‘Heat’ turbulence in front of engine.
• XPD-10690 Blue geometric shapes that appear when scenery is missing.
• XPD-10709, XPD-10868 Plugin OpenGL drawing artifacts under Windows with Vulkan on AMD GPUs.
• XPD-11010 CTD in VR when Windows Mixed Reality button is pressed on either controller.
• XPD-11084 HP Reverb G2 Controller issues.

Simply run the X-Plane Updater to grab the latest version of X-Plane 11.