We’re beyond beta testing now with X-Plane 12 as the sim has emerged from beta and is now into the release candidate stage. Laminar Research are wrapping up the last pieces of the puzzle before release and are now testing candidates for the final 12.0 release of X-Plane. There have been a few bumps in the road but I think we’re close with this latest release candidate. Let’s have a look!

The latest updates

There have been 14 beta versions that have released in a rapid fire sequence over the last few months and now were at the end of the beta testing as the sim emerges into its released state. The last few beta versions have contained long lists of bugs addressed including both visual and system issues. We’ve seen items like tuning to colour temperatures, fewer issues with mountains appearing through dense clouds, and problems with VRAM limits slowly sorted out.

Release candidate 1 came with its own list of fixes but also a major glitch that reduced performance for some X-Plane users. That was followed up with the rapidly patched release candidate 2. No release candidate notes are available just yet but the sim does appear to be running smoothly in this version.

Laminar’s X-Plane 12 release notes page is being updated all the time with the latest release information so be sure to keep a close eye on that over the next few weeks as X-Plane 12 goes to version 12.0.

That won’t be the end of things either as we know from past experience that 12.0 is more beginning than end. The platform will surely continue to evolve.

Testing a bunch of things myself

Curious to see how the sim was performing, I hopped into X-Plane 12 myself to test out three things. First, I wanted to see how the sim was running and so I did a short flight around Lake Ontario flying over some dense city and doing a landing at Toronto Island airport (CYTZ).

Second, the whole of southern Ontario is currently under a Wind Warning. As I type this, the wind is gusting to 44 knots according to the CYTZ METAR. Even stronger than the gusts to 32 knots I landed in.

Finally, X-Plane 12 is now officially supported by the Tobii Eye Tracker 5. This is a fascinating piece of hardware that I’ve been testing over the last several months (see my early impressions review here) as my headtracker solution and it seems to be working well with this sim.

I decided to record this all in a video. You can see that I also need a bit of practice with my landings! Check it all out!