New beta is out and the release notes are here
https://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-12-2-0-release-notes/
(Good stuff in there even apart from clouds and lighting)

😍😍😍😍

I will be rushing home from LPPT as soon as I can to push it to my rig !!!!

Wow! that was fast! I thought we could be enjoying the new beta in May or so, I'm at work now... grrr! I can't enjoy this right now.

Is not April fools, right?

24 minutes ago, alexcolka said:

Is not April fools, right?

Definitely not - just trying my first trip now (BGSF to BIRK in the vFlyteAir Turbo Otter - FSE jobs need flying)

The cockpit lighting improvements are worth the download alone ! 🙂

22 minutes ago, Matchstick said:

The cockpit lighting improvements are worth the download alone ! 🙂

This one, too. Who recoginzes what's special about it? 😉 

Edited April 3, 20251 yr by flying_carpet

I haven’t had time to test it.

 

 

Edited April 3, 20251 yr by soaring_penguin

Had a quick test but cant load Fly Tampa EHAM now. Will look later when have flying time.

I keep my XPlane up to date but sadly havent taken any planes out for a spin in it for a long time. I really want to see Laminar continue to build a strong sim and this coming release looks like a like of welcoming new features.

Edited April 3, 20251 yr by Ident

🤯🤯🤯

 

 

 

Tested in VR, didn't like it much. 

A little heavy in FPS. 

And I had a crash transitioning from 2D to VR on descent. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 20251 yr by TadeuPrimo

Well I think it is great - sets a new standard with this simulation. Normal setup. Qualitatively changed and lighting is much more ambient. Sky and Clouds realistic. Wind and other animations accurate. Something improved in the contrast and sharpness. Biggest change - FPS doubled to 80. 

Massive thanks to Laminar on this one...

Clouds, lighting, atmosphere....right on target.  And this is just the beta...good stuff.

 

Ok, just did 3 very quick patterns in VR around LJLJ and LOWK in Aerobask DA50. I'm very pleasantly surprised how good lightning and atmospherics looked, especially when using XPlane Map Enhancement, with textures set to High/High (Pro license). Equal to MSFS2024 ortho resolution in my opinion. Clouds are hit and miss, some are blurry, some have definition.
I didn't tried realtime weather though, only couple weather presets. Performance in VR is still on bare minimum on my rig (12900K + 3090, both slightly overclocked), and with Quest 2 + Virtual Desktop, barely reaching 40-42fps, without ANY vegetation, with LOD slider on low and clouds on high. With naked scenery practically, this is really a low FPS comparing to XP11, where I see around 65-70fps with a ton of buildings and vegetation. Visuals cannot be compared though. I'm also happy that there is no need for VisualXP anymore, although the sim looks more realistic with it, but it's not mandatory.

I think with 4090 or 5090 GPUs, this sim shines like a diamond, at least until LR improves the performance in VR mode. Very pricey investment for me, that is for sure.

Edited April 4, 20251 yr by Pe11e

Liked all above !  Thank you guys for your reviews and vids! I didn't have much time to test it but the few minutes I had toi test revealled great potential !

My GPU has the fps capped at 30 through Riva Tuner, but still the blades and temps reached above what is normal activity... The Temps varied as much as 20+ ºC when for instance approaching clouds.

It's great the new lighting inside the cockpit. Clouds look really nice !

One feature not new with this update because it was already there since a while is the dynamic cockpit camera. It's effects are cool !

Edited April 4, 20251 yr by jcomm