After a few false starts, X-Plane 10.40 release candidate 3 is now available to Steam users.

Steam users: to try the release candidate, you’ll need to go to the “properties” of X-Plane (in the steam client) and opt in to betas.

(If you can’t figure out how to do this, you should not opt in to betas!)

As with all pre-release software: if you would be annoyed by a crash or bug in X-Plane, do not try the beta or release candidate. The point of betas and release candidates is to find bugs, not to get X-Plane updates early.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

35 comments on “X-Plane 10.40 Release Candidate Is On Steam”

  2. Hi ben i have had about 4 ctd i used the crash reporter that pops up is there anything else i should do? 3 of them were when i was using ATC.

    1. Hi Dan,

      What you did should be enough, but if you feel going the old way, then manually file a bug and add the Log.txt file right after the crash.

      My suggestion:
      1. Disable all third party plugins.
      2. Use laminar own plane.
      Check if it re-occur.
      If yes, then maybe it is a bug.

      I also test under a clean install of x-plane, it just more accurate to validate specific bugs since no third party code is in the mix.

  3. I love a new light treatment where light is able to leak.
    However:
    -night lighting is a big hit now on FPS
    -lights themselves are just blobs of light
    -aircraft lighting has not changed. Especially when landing lights are on, there’s a ruff cut off point without a smooth transitioning to all directions.

    Has the perspective been changed? On the ground distance between the objects/proportions looks a lot more “realistic “. It’s more flat. Welcome improvement.

    …and when you combine night lighting and water reflections-it’s divine.

  4. Hi Ben 🙂

    One question: Is a new form of recording allows you to record in 4K ?? I run X-plane in 4K resolution, but the maximum available resolution of recording is 1080p (1920 pixels). It is aware of the limitation ??

    1. There’s a res limit – I don’t see us addressing it any time soon; X-Plane is a flight simulator first and a video recording app second. I can’t take the time to try to debug 4K capture, and frankly the limited AVI format isn’t going to cope well. If you really need 4K, use a third party capture app.

  6. Hi Ben, I have another question off topic: what program I can create a plugin pedestrians in towns and cities in X-Plane 10 as well as to modernize the road and rail traffic?

  7. Hi. Does this have any advantage over the commercial version? I know FSX took a huge performance leap, is this the same with X-Plane please?
    Thanks
    G

    1. Do you mean: is there a performance difference between Steam and the commercial version?

      No – perf should be the same for every version of 10.40: Global, Steam, and Commercial.

  8. Odd thing going on. Every few times I start XP, I’ll get very low frame rates, 25). I know I push the VRAM and it looks like that’s what’s going on. VRAM is filled so much that bus activity is 30 to 40% vs. usually 0 to 3%. The odd thing, I can change settings including EX-DSF and nothing helps. But if I make no changes but simply exit and restart XP, it’s fine. It’s as if something is being loaded twice or erroneously and just flooding the VRAM. I guess I’m a scenery developer, all custom and I’m in and out testing things. I thought at first it was my current airport but I happened to pick a different one and it happened there too.

    So I figured I’d throw this out there to see if it makes sense or anyone else is seeing it. Running top-end hardware, GTX 970. Never saw this happen in 10.36. Windows 10 also, but upgraded the week it came out. Haven’t changed drivers or anything else except about 2 weeks ago did add SkyMaxxPro…but disabling that add on didn’t “seem” to help…not sure if disabling without restart is a valid test though. I don’t run a bunch of add ons…mostly vanilla in that regard aside from LUA and Gizmo. Also, plane loaded doesn’t seem to matter. The sim is looking great…awesome work to you and your team Ben. 🙂

    — Greg

    1. That second sentence should read: “Every few times I start XP, I’ll get very low frame rates, less than 5 FPS”. I guess using the less than sign didn’t work.

      1. After more testing, it seems the problem (above) goes away after about one minute, maybe the sim is still loading data…but it eventually stabilizes.

        On another note, is there ANY way the the lens flare billboard effect of night lighting can be tamed down a bit? I mean, now these rays are rather huge and almost comical. Other aspects of night lighting also seem to be needing a little reduction at least when running at 2560 x 1440. I’ll be forced to use custom_halo light options which is a bit of extra work. That’s my 2 cents. Thanks again Ben.

    2. I’ve seen the exact same thing a handful of times with 10.36.
      I always fly FlightFactor’s 777, but I have no idea if it has anything to do with that.

      1. Yeah seems to happen about 1 out of 3 or 4 times starting XP. And while it cleared itself up a couple times, it doesn’t seem to be now. The only thing I can figure is I’m bumping up against the VRAM limits of my video card.

        Ben, are ex-DSF’s loaded even when we’re on the ground? Thanks.

  9. It is very unfortunate that the new version 10.40 is simply unusable on my beast of a PC. With I7-4790 (4.6 GHz) with 32GB Ram and a TITAN X with 12GB, the stuttering and low frames takes away all the fun of xplane 10.

    1. Your system should have a wonderful performance. I would be happy if I could have half of this graphics performance. On my system with Intel i7 3770 (@4,1 GHz) and just AMD HD7870 X-Plane 10.40 runs very good in comparison to 10.36.

    2. ASAK

      i know it may seem trivial but try to update the drivers for your card. i had poor performance as well but i updated and the issues went away.

      Eid Mubarak

    3. I don’t think its X-Plane. I have the identical set-up except 17 960 3.2GHz. 10.40 runs just fine for me.

    1. Steam is a internet based content delivery system. You can buy games and software, but also socialize and view achievements. You can find it .

  11. Taxiway guard lights (pulsing amber) are nearly invisible (without zooming in super close, they’re not visible at all). Do I need to file a bug report? I can’t compare to 10.36…maybe someone else can?

    Did you replace the lights.txt file in the steam release? In 10.36 I had to tweak it (couldn’t see the PAPIs) but reverted back to the original copy once 10.40 was installed…and most lights look better…some a bit blob-ish like the red obs lights…but better than 10.36. Thanks!

      1. Hi Ben! (off-topic) and what was related to the fact that in X-Plane 10 is initially weren’t included mesh and the terrain in polar latitudes many think that this was due to the size of the scenery package. what really?

        1. The main reason to not include the poles is to reduce download size – we’d rather include more detail in the mid-latitudes.
          The other reason is that if you hit the absolute top of the pole, a bug causes X-plane to go crazy. But even when we fix this, we’re not going to add the poles to the core sim distribution.

          1. An interesting fact is that earlier passenger aircraft could also not pass “directly” over the poles. Their inertial reference systems had platforms that were aligned with true-north all of the time. When passing directly over the pole, they would need to swivel 180 degrees within a fraction of a second, causing a “gimbal lock”. Thats why they also had a “pole bug” – so to say.
            Modern systems have no moving parts, using laser gyros and accelerometers instead, so nowaydays they can fly over the poles. Furthest north I ever flew was N80, passing way north of Thule AB on my way to KSFO…

          2. Or just make it a tunnel through which, fuel permitting you can fly through to the opposite pole….. srry I couldn’t resist

  12. Please include an auto resume option after a crash of the simulator.
    It ‘annoying to have to start again a flight.

      1. Ben, sorry I did not understand your answer,as would have left or not XP-10.40 official release or another RC?

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