Can't edit the other post, so here's the update. X-Plane 10.04 Beta 5 (Coming Soon) Note: Beta 5 is delayed - it is missing a scenery file. We will get it posted as soon as we can fix this.Clouds:

• Cloud performance has been tuned. The cloud slider is not calibrated the way it was in 10.04b4; please don't worry about the number you see. Tune the slider to get the trade-off of quality and performance you want on your computer. The "100%" mark represents what we think a high-end system might show; you can go past this if you really liked the older high settings from previous betas, but realistically there's no need to do this.
• The far view clouds should look less strange from orbital altitudes.

ATC:

• Controllers now issue altimeter settings to aircraft on handoffs, on descents OUT of a flight level and every 50nm when appropriate.
• Controllers now expect aircraft to fly with the correct altimeter setting and also properly monitors aircraft at flightlevels expecting them to be flying at a PRESSURE altitude (with their altimeters set to 29.92). At this moment, the transition level for the WORLD is set to 18,000 feet as it is in the USA. In the future, this will vary based on region.
• AI aircraft are spawned at more appropriate speeds. In the past, they were spawned too slowly which caused them to stall and lose altitude which caused ATC to constantly nag them to regain their altitude. This was the primary cause for radio congestion!
• Improved taxi routings across the world so they're a bit smarter.

Rendering:

• The 3-d cockpit draws correctly for multi-monitor configurations with offset views on the side.
• Our low-level OpenGL setup on Windows is now done a little bit differently; this change was recommended by people at NVidia who are very smart. But if you are running on Windows and you _can_ run 10.03 but you cannot start up the new beta at all, please file a bug!!
• ATTR_draped now works with objects that do not have any LOD statements! There was a previous bug in X-Plane so that if you used ATTR_draped and did not have ATTR_LOD anywhere, the sim would not draw the draped geometry. This is now fixed, so ATTR_draped really does work as a drop-in replacement to ATTR_poly_os. Docs coming soon!!

Scenery:

• Fixed facades in the airport library that were generating errors on load.
• The roof edge of urban downtown facades should look correct.

DRM:

• We are reworking our installer and DVD detection. If the sim won't go out of demo mode, but 10.03 works correctly, please be sure to file a bug!

MORE COOL NEW STUFF:

• Compressor stall failures are refined, and can be solved by pulling fuel to the engine to shut it down.
• Aircraft icing is now a bit more aggressive and realistic, and flexible with the ability to add 2 switches for AOA heat,

pitot heat, static port heat, engine inlet heat, prop heat, and wing heat! This lets you control these systems more precisely... and expect the correct results from their operation in flight!http://wiki.x-plane.com/beta#X-Plane_10.04_Beta_5_.28Coming_Soon.29

Edited February 26, 201214 yr by Muskoka

Sounds good. Thanks for posting.Rob

10.04 Beta 5 and 6 are available....... X-Plane 10.04 Beta 6 It's just like X-Plane 10.04 beta 5, but with the texture files back! See below for the fixes!http://wiki.x-plane.com/beta#X-Plane_10.04_Beta_6

Initial impression is good, it's getting better. I have one issue though with the cloud coverage. Doesn't seem to matter if I use real weather or set my own, I can't seem to get full sky coverage. You are continually flying under a "mushroom" of cloud that seems to extend out for maybe 5-10 miles and then ends, kind of looks weird. Tried various settings on the "new" cloud slider, all it does is thicken the "mushroom". I can't get full overcast to the horizon. I will wait to see what others find before filing a bug report.GlenFPS seem much better (with HDR on as well), and that was using the default clouds. I'm going to resize the originals and see the difference.

Edited February 27, 201214 yr by Muskoka

Aircraft self-shadows are all messed up for me on Ubuntu 11.10.

Something has been seriously tweaked in this latest release.I just downloaded the latest beta and at KSEA with my settings my frames jumped from average 20-30 to 40-50 with no change to previously set rendering values :( .Now in fairness the RW weather at the moment there as read from the XPX METAR is CAVOK so the real test will be with the clouds. I noticed the cloud slider is now moved from 0% to 45%.....I'll report again when I get some crappy weather in there.Also I have the ATC/AI planes shut off.And yes it's an ASUS GTX 550ti Direct Cu 1Gb card with the brand new driver set from earlier in the week.If this is a sign of things to come.....whoa Nelly! Seriously awesome optimising going on...nice work LR guys.

Here too good frames, still running the demo unfortunately as I'm waiting for the Global Edition to drop through the letterbox!I can't wait to fly somewhere other than Seattle (pretty though it is).And this speed, surprisingly on my old gtx260; my gtx580 went south the other day (ouch).Just goes to show how CPU-bound these simulators still are.

Just downloaded it-went to an area that had not great weather-grabbed a rw download-and it was amazing!Windspeed was 28 with gusts and the turbulence and winds including correction felt exactly right. The clouds look amazing and my performance which was already good was now amazing. Looks like great work!

Hey guys, is anyone seeing / getting anything like the screen shot I posted above. The clouds do look great and the performance is a lot better, but I can't seem to get solid cloud coverage. I tried a flight in the CRJ 200 at 31,000ft and the cloud coverage was fine when your above, conditions were overcast and I couldn't see the ground anywhere in the distance. But when below the clouds and the conditions are overcast, you don't get clouds to the horizon in any direction. It seems to draw a set distance from your current location and that's it. Can someone test full overcast and set the bottom layer to say 3,000ft and fly at 2,500ft and tell me if you have a solid layer all around the aircraft as far as you can see, or does it look like my shot above, that's supposed to be overcast, and it's not overcast. Thanks for any help, I don't know if it's my system or not.Glenedit: Just to clarify, in that shot above the aircraft is in the center of the cloud "mushroom", and the cloud layer extends out a constant distance from the aircraft. If the conditions are solid overcast, as they were in the screen shot, there should be cloud coverage as far as you can see, in all directions. This was a dome / circle of cloud right above the aircraft and maybe 10 miles out in all directions. It stayed like that for 1/2 an hour, then I quit the flight.Here's another shot, had to really stretch out the view to illustrate the mushroom effect. This is overcast conditions, with just a circle of clouds surrounding the aircraft.

Edited February 28, 201214 yr by Muskoka