Earlier today, Ben Supnik took to the X-Plane Developer blog to post about the current state and findings with X-Plane 12 since its initial early access release just two weeks ago. In the post Mr. Supnik highlights the rationale behind releasing X-Plane 12 for early access when the simulator is far from being fully developed, as there are “...still over two hundred open bugs.” Mr. Supnik immediately stressed how important it is to Laminar Research that the “entire X-Plane community be involved in X-Plane 12’s growth,” and not be confined to a limited number of beta testers.

Major areas of improvement include clouds, in which Mr. Supnik explains that the development team is working on shaping and cloud quality, improving resolution, correcting artifacts, and improving overall performance. The developer goes on to point out that clouds are some of the most taxing graphics on any system and it’s a “give and take” relationship between performance and quality. Lighting is another focus of improvement for the developer as they want to correct and improve the auto-exposure and tone mapping within the sim.

For those X-Plane 12 users who are dissatisfied with the Boeing FMC in the highly anticipated Airbus A330 that shipped with the default aircraft upon initial release of X-Plane 12, you’ll be happy to know that the developer is working on a proper Airbus MCDU for the plane. This update is expected to ship during early access, but with no specific mention of a date at this time. Mr. Supnik lastly points out that a few new SDK and authoring features are “mostly completed” and will ship during early access as well. Mr. Supnik further hinted at allowing third party access to the in-sim weather system.

Additionally, the development team at Laminar will continue to optimize the sim’s GPU usage while beginning to optimize VRAM use (as they have not done so at this point). For users of X-Plane 12 who are having VRAM issues, Mr. Supnik suggests lowering the simulator's resolution.

Lastly, Mr. Supnik mentioned that over the course of the past weekend, some of the development team met to do planning and roadmapping for the sim. He disclosed that beta 3 should be coming out “shortly” (with no specific date or bug the planned update will fix). Mr. Supnik also disclosed that X-Plane 12 has been submitted to Steam and is currently in review. He’s hopeful that X-Plane 12 will be available soon on the Steam platform for those interested in picking up the simulator there instead of through the developer’s site.

If you are interested in picking up X-Plane 12 now, you can do so by visiting the official website for X-Plane here. Threshold will keep you updated on any new developments.