Beta 5 for X-Plane 12.4.0 available now. Release notes (https://www.x-plane.com/kb/x-plane-12-4-0-release-notes/):

 

Public Beta 12.4.0-B5
⚠️ Notes: SAM will no longer work in this beta (unfortunately unavoidable due to some SDK violations). Users are advised to switch to openSAM https://github.com/hotbso/openSAM

Aircraft
Airbus A330-300

• Fixed an issue where arming LOC mode would switch to HDG mode (XPD-17688)
• Fixed an issue where to autopilot auto-engaged back-course. Back-course should be engaged either by entering “B” for the course on the RADNAV page, or automatically as part of auto-tuning for a LOC back-course approach that is in the flight plan.

Graphics

• Improved logging in case of a device loss error

User Interface & Controls

• Added new menu item “Settings” to the file menu
• Fixed some translation related issues (XPD-17733)
• Blacklisted SAM plugin due to many crashes
• Fixed various crashes

19 minutes ago, Malaromane said:

Blacklisted SAM plugin due to many crashes

Woooh, what?  I’ve shifted to OpenSAM but this seems a bit extreme?

Where’s the move to raster graphics, scenery update we’ve heard about ?

24 minutes ago, jymp said:

Where’s the move to raster graphics, scenery update we’ve heard about ?

XP22! 🙂

44 minutes ago, jymp said:

Where’s the move to raster graphics, scenery update we’ve heard about ?

That was never promised as part of the 12.4.0 update.

https://www.x-plane.com/2025/12/x-plane-roadmap-update-december-2025/

2 hours ago, SayAgain said:

Woooh, what?  I’ve shifted to OpenSAM but this seems a bit extreme?

Not when you get consistent crash reports caused by said plugin, and people insist its laminars fault, being telling people to remove it for couple of years because of crashes, even got a reprimand from a certain person on another forum for doing so cause it was hurting his bottom line, 

You can use command line to enable but laminar will ignore your bug reports just like reshade.

Edited January 30Jan 30 by mjrhealth

This is bit different than Reshade as Reshade is NOT required.  SAM in many sceneries IS required for the scenery to operate as intended.

When I had SAM enabled in the Betas I didn’t have any CTD, but I’ve also not had any CTD’s with OpenSAM.  Does this exclusion apply to OpenSAM also?

24 minutes ago, SayAgain said:

When I had SAM enabled in the Betas I didn’t have any CTD, but I’ve also not had any CTD’s with OpenSAM.  Does this exclusion apply to OpenSAM also?

It's the very first line of the release notes above:

Quote

⚠️ Notes: SAM will no longer work in this beta (unfortunately unavoidable due to some SDK violations). Users are advised to switch to openSAM https://github.com/hotbso/openSAM

 

3 hours ago, jymp said:

Where’s the move to raster graphics, scenery update we’ve heard about ?

Likely years away, it is a massive change 

3 hours ago, jymp said:

Where’s the move to raster graphics, scenery update we’ve heard about ?

 

1 hour ago, Malaromane said:

It's the very first line of the release notes above:

ooops … 😊

I can only say installed and working just fine. Caveat - I am on Linux. Again I am seeing a serious increase in performance all over - initial program  load time is less than 30 secs, situation load time is less than a minute and my FPS have jumped again about 15% so now I am getting 75 FPS which I have never seen before ever on a Windows OS.

As for the SAM thing I ditched that long ago and have either default systems or Open Sam. The only thing I kept were some SAM librarys for some scenery that may want to use it but Open Sam works well. My rule of thumb for scenery is simple anything that requires an encylopaedic list of libraries to be installed does not get installed and anything that requires SAM or was dependant on SAM does not get installed either (Hint Orbx is one culprit). So at the moment I am basically all default XP scenery except for a few places here and there! As for the scenery developers - they have known for some time that SAM was history and a cause of problems - if they choose to ignore it then I ignore them! 

At the moment no SimHeaven either - I will wait and see what the next iteration of SimHeaven brings (paid for or unpaid)

Edited January 31Jan 31 by coastaldriver

I need to research and find out who this SAM person is everybody is talking about. This is new to me.

Search assist is my friend.

Edited January 31Jan 31 by Patco Lch

Seek and you shall find - a outdated plugin tool used by scenery developers to run animated scenery objects - was basically abandoned by the developer 3 years ago - must have been a stack of crash reports for LR to basically put it on the blacklist. It is not required for any default XP scenery that has animated stuff (vehicles, gates etc). Open SAM came out of the bust with SAM, it is basically a cleverly done LUA based plugin for XP. Gets any dead Jetways that relied on sam or other stuff working again, does it ok for me with nice sound effects as well. If I am using a default airport it is not required and either way it is not automatic you have to get it to animate something from the plugin drop down menu - nothing different to XP and the ground services etc menu. The original SAM jetway used XPs internal scripting for such things and hence it was automated that is built in to the scenery concerned and relied on XP to make it work - trouble is it got out of whack sometime ago and being XP11 era was never compatible with XP12. The developer abandoned it about 3 years ago. 

Play it again SAM. 

Edited January 31Jan 31 by coastaldriver

1 hour ago, coastaldriver said:

must have been a stack of crash reports for LR t

Yep explained on other forum