Laminar Research has announced X-Plane 12.1.0 is due to be released imminently adding a host of new features and improvements.

Highlights include improved graphics, aircraft systems, flight model improvements, weather, ATC updates, enhancements to X-Plane Professional and a physics-based camera. This release is being tested internally and will release as a public beta soon.

The main focus of the update is graphics. These include:

• Cloud shadows on water Bloom lighting effects where ultra-bright light sources are allowed to “leak” light out into surrounding parts of the image, often seen around the sun or aircraft lights
• RCAS (Robust Contrast Adaptive Sharpening)
• Softer, less aliased ground shadows
• Multi-Sample Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) improvements. This is the first step to improve anti-aliasing options in X-Plane 12
• Improved CPU performance thanks to a new collector, which is used to decide what scenery the sim needs to draw at any given moment
• Better water opacity and turbidity, no more seeing the bottom of boat hulls in many circumstances
• New screenshot utility to control depth of field and exposure in real-time

New particle effects

1. Sparks from pavement collisions
2. Ground spray from aircraft wheels and engines
3. Brown/white-outs while flying helicopters/powered lift aircraft

G1000 updates

• ADS-B simulation
• Stormscope page
• Traffic map page
• Airport METAR flags
• NDB/VOR pages
• WAAS/test satellite constellation boot-up overlay
• G1000 plugin interoperability, making it easier for third parties to modify aircraft
• Glass avionics via plugin making it easier for third-party developers to integrate custom glass avionics into aircraft
• STEC ST-360 autopilot

Flight Model

• Manual flap system and dial-a-flap functionality
• Electric clutches for helicopters
• Single-lever control for turboprops (if equipped)

Weather

• New real weather server to resolve some recent outages
• Real Weather METAR parsing improvements (less random rain)
• Bug fixes for odd-looking real weather data (less Minecraft clouds)

X-Plane Professional

• X-Plane control pad support on iOS
• Ability to run the sim without default aircraft/tutorials present
• Scalable Display support for multiple projectors and dome visual systems
• More weather presets

Other details include ATC bug fixes and improvements and a new physics-based in-cockpit camera that moves based on the acceleration of the aircraft. More information is available on x-plane.com.