Laminar Research released the third beta build for the major update 12.2.0 coming to its flight simulator X-Plane 12.
Among other things, the beta aims to fix oversaturation and undersaturation by reducing the color compression of reds and yellows, alongside more changes to lighting.
Some crashes caused by ATC have been fixed as well, and balloons received some tweaks.
You can find the full update notes from the official site below.
- Refreshed aircraft selection grid after adding or removing favorites (XPD-16670).
- Displayed a warning on Linux systems if WebKit cannot be loaded (XPD-16758).
- Included art controls in safe mode startup to prevent unwanted modifications by plugins or scripts.
- Starting a new flight no longer changes the fuel amount.
- Added
--aftermathsupport for AMD GPUs to gather more information in case of a crash. - Fixed a crash caused by the web server when disabled (XPD-16774).
- Fixed various crashes.
- Updated ATC voice packs to AIRAC 2503.
- Fixed broken terrain type and steepness check.
- Improved airport-overflight detection reliability.
- Corrected balloon speed calculation (was using the wrong wind value).
- Fixed random placement zones not varying between flights.
- Reduced color compression for yellows and reds to improve sunlight realism.
- Recalibrated tonemapper to reduce green tint in specific lighting conditions.
- Adjusted exposure and exposure fusion for better contrast handling between cockpit interior and exterior.
- Improved physics for icing and turbulence within clouds.
If you’re unfamiliar with X-Plane 12, available for PC, it’s the flight simulator by Laminar Research.
It has been active in the industry since the original release in 1995. According to the latest community survey by Navigraph, it’s the third-most used flight simulator behind Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and MSFS 2024 (which also received a beta update today), albeit the gap is very large.
If you’d like to get into flight simulation but you’re perhaps a bit intimidated by its apparent complexity, you can read our introductory guide, alongside the second episode focusing on installing add-ons, and another showcasing the basic instruments.
You can also read more flight simulation news in the latest roundup article.