Laminar Research releases X-Plane with major changes, and we have the details !!
X-Plane is a meticulously crafted title by indie developer Laminar Research. There are flight-sims which let you buzz around the sky like you are driving a car with training wheels, then there are the Flight. Simulators. for sophisticated enthusiasts. X-Plane is very much the latter. The title claims to be "the most realistic flight model available for personal computers." Find out with the demo files. The scope of this program is amazing, with so many planes and so many configuration options. In fact, they even offer a "Hacking X-Plane" instruction guide to build your own pair of wings from the ground up. From Cessnas, to gliders, to helicopters, supersonics, they have it all wrapped up... You can fly the space shuttle to Mars, for heavens sake. It is clear the developers are passionate about flight-sims, since they have spent many years improving and adding onto the product. There are hefty system requirements and an equally hefty price tag, but if your thing is flight-sims, then this may be your end-all-be-all purchase. Just take a look and marvel at these screenshots.
Laminar Research works closely with the Linux community to ensure the best support. This new version is 64-bit compliant, for example. Additionally, code from X-Plane 9.0 was contributed to the new Phoronix Test Suite, for testing desktop Linux graphical benchmarks.
In addition to improvements to the flight engine, X-Plane boasts the following additions in version 9.0:
- 867 instruments 25,737 airports
- 18,008 scenery files (each file is one degree of latitude and longitude)
25,866 navaids
88,367 fixes