It is downloading now. Seems to be 1.5 GB .

No release notes yet.

Edited October 22, 2025Oct 22 by kt069

Here you go.  Looks like a RC build.  Blue skies,

-B

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/sim-update-4-beta-1-6-18-0-release-notes-october-22-2025/743376

RELEASE NOTES Sim Update 4 Beta - 1.6.18.0

If you are playing on PC, outdated packages in your community folder may have an unexpected impact on the title’s performance and behavior.

If you suffer from stability issues or long loading times, move your community package(s) to another folder before relaunching the title.

New Content and Features

Added a helicopter vortex ring protection assistance

Stability & Performance

Adjusted triggers at which avionics are disabled when memory is getting low, and added notification message when doing so.

Fixed random crashes when animating Inverse Kinematics of 3D pilot (MSFS2020 packages only)

General Bug Fixes

Fixed frame rate being lower than it should when Max Frame Rate setting is in use

Fixed an issue where deleting a picture in the profile album would break the navigation

Fixed ATC messages not properly displayed when Windows active code page set to multi-bytes (ex: UTF-8, Shift-JIS)

Install, Performance & Graphics

Mitigated black patches on water

Aircraft

Added optional helicopter Vortex Ring State Protection assistance (see Settings menu). It automatically adjusts the collective to prevent entry into Vortex Ring State (VRS), which may occur during excessive descent at low airspeeds or while performing rapid deceleration (quick stops). For developers: see SDK for details.

Fixed helicopter rotor animation rotoscopic effect.

Boeing 737 MAX 8

Fixed missing text causing white square on Commercial Freelance Livery

Diamond DA62

Fixed wrong logo and missing text causing white square on Private 03 Adaptive Livery

Fixed missing glass over wing lights

Glass Cockpits

Fixed synthetic vision displaying only blue

Aircraft Tech

Fixed poor shadow quality and flickering when authored bounding sphere of aircraft did not match with geometry. The game now recomputes a bounding sphere containing only the visible meshes. LOD selection keeps the previous computation of the bounding sphere, and is not impacted.

Model Behavior

Fixed an issue that caused SimAttachments that were hidden due to their LoD to stop executing their ModelBehaviors even with the always_execute_model_behavior param set to 1

Aircraft Gameplay

Career

General Bug Fixes

Fixed rotorcraft flow when departure airport has a helipad and a runway but no parking spot

Missions

Fixed an issue that caused some missions to instant fail on start.

Familiarization Flight

Fixed “Fly to waypoint” objective not completing after a back-on-track

External HUD

Added support for cockpit.cfg parameters for the Helicopter Power HUD Gauge

Airports

Removed workers that end up moving in the plane’s path on small parkings

Fauna

Fixed fauna layer glitch when zooming on world map

Traffic

Air Traffic

Fixed issues in live traffic in airport

DevMode

Scenery Editor

Fixed grass flying above big slopes

Fixed crash in the profile editor when clicking outside the window

SimObject Editor

Updated system.cfg / electrical so a supplier or consumer can be provided with it’s name/id or config

SDK

Fixed an issue where legacy 2020 facility nearest and ident search JS APIs could return truncated 6+ char ICAOs that were incompatible with 2020 API consumers. These ICAOs are now properly omitted from the results.

Edited October 22, 2025Oct 22 by btacon

Just about to dive in and see what performance is like, getting more than concerned that they're still unable/unwilling to fix the Mouse/Controller regression bug in this Beta, it better not end up going to release with this issue 🙄

52 minutes ago, btacon said:

Looks like a RC build

I doubt that very much.

Performance is great so far. 

11 minutes ago, RobJC said:

Performance is great so far. 

yep!

47 minutes ago, RobJC said:

Performance is great so far. 

Good enough that I gave TLOD 400 a try. No frame gen or AI, fps counter off and loving the smoothness with almost everything set to ultra. Seb gave the impression that optimization would take a very long time but it looks like they've mostly got it handled in just one focused Sim Update. Now we need that Weather focused update, pronto!

1 hour ago, Krakin said:

I doubt that very much.

And why is that praytell?

-B

Drone Camera bug is back. It didn’t happen on every flight, but it did on my last one. Took me back to the airport I flew out of when switching to Drone Camera!

 

Early impressions are positive. Seems much smoother somehow - could be placebo. I'll take it for a flight and see. 

This is by far the best build of the beta series for me! Incredibly smooth, pop in has reduced.. it just is butter smooth now at 100+ fps - at payware airports with the Fenix and traffic at 100%..

I'm getting 120 fps lol.. (framegen on) perfectly smooth now. It's really something. 

Edited October 23, 2025Oct 23 by JonathanC

10 hours ago, MarcG said:

it better not end up going to release with this issue

Or else? Will you say nasty stuff about them? 😜

56 minutes ago, Rimshot said:

Or else? Will you say nasty stuff about them? 😜

Nah they'll just further prove my point about poor quality control ☺️

Anyway did a flight last night, performance still good and again no stutters on take off/landing 👍 that's two flights in a row without that issue at least, fingers crossed it's gone for good.

5 hours ago, JonathanC said:

I'm getting 120 fps lol.. (framegen on) perfectly smooth now. It's really something. 

120FPS where? With a default C172 on a remote GA strip or with the ini A350 on EGLL with AI traffic?