New Orbiter Beta Released (r.13, Mar 7, 2015)

[Yoda]

Can somebody post a link to the download site for the Beta ?
Having trouble finding it.
Thanks

 

[DaveS]

Can somebody post a link to the download site for the Beta ?
Having trouble finding it.
Thanks

The instructions for downloading the beta files are in the first post of this thread: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=33798

 

[Loru]

This may or may not have been asked but is it possible to use grey-scale maps for 3D terrain? If not can this be added?

I'm sure after format of 3d terrain tiles is released someone will write tool for export/import of the tile. Either to bitmap or 3d model

 

[Zatnikitelman]

What would be really cool on down the road, is if we had some type of in-game, or semi-in-game terrain editing tool. The Train Simulator Railworks works like this, where you can import terrain, then shape it, primarily through elevation increase/decrease tools, inside the game engine, basically a WYSIWYG editor for terrain. Not sure if this could be handled by a graphics client of some sort (vessel rendering, reflections, etc. are not really needed for this I think) or if it would have to be part of the core.

 

[N_Molson]

I have made some progress with the D3D9.

Many thanks to you and to Dr. Schweiger. Orbiter is definitively reaching another dimension. :tiphat:

Not only adding terrain elevation (well, the data we have !) allows an unprecedented level of realism, but it also gives marvelous tools to the aliens worlds systems creators... :thumbup:

 

[jroly]

I am looking forward to the dx9 client, faster and better graphics than dx7

 

[jedidia]

This may or may not have been asked but is it possible to use grey-scale maps for 3D terrain? If not can this be added?

The documentation for the heightmap format has been posted a few days ago. Probably it would be simplest if somebody just wrote a bmp to heightmap converter as to not bloat the orbiter code unneccessarily, similar to the planetary texture converter we used up 'till now.

 

[jarmonik]

The documentation for the heightmap format has been posted a few days ago...

Really ? Where is that ? I haven't been able to find it.

 

[jedidia]

Ooops, my bad, sorry. That was a thread requesting documentation for the heightmap format. I didn't look at the thread but from the title I thought that this was it (I didn't even notice that there was a question mark in there...) :embarrassed:

Anyways, the Doctor still gave a few hints and said he would document the format properly for one of the next betas.

 

[Strebe97]

Looking good! Everything seems to work more or less as it should. Orbiter sound seems to work fine (which is nice), not so much TransX. Runway take off with the DG from the Cape to LEO, used transfer orbit mfd to get to the moon, LOI, descent and landing at Brighton Beach all went without a hitch (aside from landing on the "surface" of the moon 2km under the base...details...). 3D surfaces look great, and even the default textures look nice. The hi res textures just make it that much more enjoyable, and the movement of the Earth clouds is just great! Super psyched for the release!

 

[JMW]

Can some Mod edit the first post and update Xyon's server address, please?
http://mirror.orbiter-radio.co.uk/orbiter/

Could a moderator/administrator change this please.

Thanks:thumbup:

 

[JMW]

Thanks guys.:thumbup:

 

[Loru]

I encountered strange issue. Saturn doesn't have rings in inline client and in d3d9 for beta it has only closer half of it. Confirmed in inline by DaveS.

inline (140416):

d3d9 (140416+R13):

 

[gertz]

It has proven to run (~17 FPS) at Intel Atom+Intel GMA machine with terrain generation.
By the way - wouldn't the new way of planetary tiling bury the custom planets?

 

[orb]

By the way - wouldn't the new way of planetary tiling bury the custom planets?

Only support for surface base tiles has been removed. Planets and moons will still use the legacy .tex files if no new type of surface tiles are present for them.

d3d9 (140416+R13):

AFAIK, D9D9Client uses its own rings and not the standard.

 

[GodAtum]

Hi, a few questions about Orbiter 2014:

1. is this 64 bit?
2. is this DX11 natively?
3. does it support multi-core/multi-thread CPUs?

 

[JMW]

WOW! This "new era" is fantastic!! Thank you Doctor.

I tweaked my F-35 for the last beta, and plonked it into this one as an experiment.
Overall works fine, in fact the ALTHOLD is great - enables skimming over the mountains of Habana holding a height down as low as 150 feet with ease!

I have two questions though: (bear in mind I've been out of the loop for two months travelling)
1) What has changed regarding HUD dimensions/placement?
(The whole thing seems to have been squashed down and horizontal dimensions for items are truncated)

When I get home (soon) I'll attach a screen shot.

2) While "skimming" over mountains at say 5,000 feet, the same effect is experienced of being pushed up over peaks etc (not very desirable :lol
I see in the API a term for use with GetAltitude called "AltitudeMode ALTMODE_MEANRAD".
Sounds like this is what I need to use when over "skimming" height.
How is this used? (Please also remember my very limited coding skills)
Anything appreciated...:tiphat:

 

[Loru]

Hi, a few questions about Orbiter 2014:

1. is this 64 bit?
2. is this DX11 natively?
3. does it support multi-core/multi-thread CPUs?

No
No
Dunno

 

[RisingFury]

No
No
Dunno

You can write addons that make use of other threads, but Orbiter is not multi-threaded and as far as I know, a lot of the functionality it offers is not thread safe.

 

[martins]

Orbiter does use a separate thread to load textures and create meshes (in the 2010 version, but even more so in the betas). Running on a single core can give you performance degradation, in particular with rapidly changing scenery. More than two (available) cores won't improve performance.