FSX: SE Update log

[DTG_Martin]

What Have We Changed?

The complete change log from the initial December 2014 release of FSX: Steam Edition is as follows:

General

Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition is now built using the VS2013 compiler for better optimization and performance. (Still makes use of VS2005 libraries for backwards compatibility.)
Updated splash, launcher and mission preview images for FSX:SE versions.

Multiplayer, Networking and Communications

Gamespy networking now replaced by new Steam networking.
Game chat now integrated with Steam chat
Friends/Banned lists now integrated with Steam.
Game invites now use Steam.
Host networking defaults to a single port 6112.
Host networking uses 27016 for Steam Master Server Browser.
Host timeout (loss of connection to host) now 35 seconds by default (was 55).
“Disconnected” message dialog now retained on screen for 4 mins before automatic dismissal (was 30 secs).

Steam Support

Top Down Camera (camera view select 4) was previously bound to F12 by default which is normally used for Steam’s screenshot feature. Camera View Select 4 now uses Shift+F12 by default to avoid potential clash.

Compatibility with Boxed FSX

FSX and Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition co-Existence feature allows both versions to be installed on the same machine.

Default System-Setting Alterations

Increased TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD to 4096 up from 1024
Changed HIGHMEMFIX=1
Increased Vertex and Index Buffers and the number of buffers.

Bugs Fixed

Fix to particle emitter controllers which were not being updated properly.
Fix to flush all levels of detail in terrain cache.
Fix to Texture Composition preventing fail and crash.
Fixed issue where player is able to reserve more slots for friends than maximum players allowed in the game.
Fixed issue where invalid Briefing Room was presented to player when cancelling session creation.
Fixed issue where weather text in the multiplayer briefing room is partially cut off.
Fixed issue where no error message appears when attempting to host a session with the network adapter disabled.
Fixed issue where there is no error message when attempting to host a session with the network cable unplugged.
Fixed issue where host player is frozen after a collision occurs in multiplayer.
Fixed issue where client gets dropped from a multiplayer game after they crash into the host.
Fixed issue where the Host Options in multiplayer/ Free Flight allow a user to have a maximum of 99 player slots.
UIAutomationCore.dll work-a-round is now supplied by default with Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition. This fixes a number of crashes relating to UI interaction on 64-bit versions of Windows.
Fixed issue where the application’s taskbar preview window displays no content on Windows 8 and above
Prevent default color mode for Windows 7 and above (enable automatic display composition).
sserife.fon file now automatically supplied and loaded

Post-Release Optimization

Since the initial release of FSX: Steam Edition, Dovetail Games have released several updates consisting of stability improvements, bug fixes, and optimization for the Steam platform. The complete change logs for these can be found below:

Version 62615 (current)

Improvements for using modified Scenery.cfg files which could previously result in a 1007 error when installing new scenery add-ons. Please note due to the highly customisable nature of FSX: SE it is going to be impossible for us to attempt to deal with all forms of malformatting in the Scenery.cfg files. For this reason we have also provide an option to reset the Scenery.cfg file to the default version.
Fixed font file loading not being VFS-aware.
Font files associated with add-ons should now work as expected.
Fixed multiplayer invites not working if you invite a friend to a Private game.
Improved mouse cursor slow-down over complex cockpits.
Although we have made some optimizations to this code, players may still experience some reduction in framerates when using highly complex cockpit models. This is because such models are pushing the boundaries of what is possible within the game engine.
Improved optimisation of installing/uninstalling add-on content through the Steam platform.

Version 62613

Offline Mode:

Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition can now be used in Steam’s Offline Mode. Note that multiplayer features cannot be accessed whilst in this mode.

Multiplayer Fixes:

VoIP communication is now using the correct device identified in “Settings”.
During mission-based Multiplayer flights, if the host has activated the “Anti-Cheat” flag, users who have modified their aircraft are immediately disconnected without affecting other users.
The Steam “Invite to Game” feature will now work by buffering the request until the user enters the Multiplayer menu.
Players are prompted to use the Steam Client to invite a user from the Multiplayer menu to become a friend on Steam.
On the Multiplayer Session and lobby screens, the text in the “Weather” section is now aligned correctly.

User Interface Updates:

If “Show Saved Flights” is enabled, the time stamps on the saved flight data will now show the correct time the flight was saved.
The HTML content in displayed in some windows (e.g. tutorials, mission help, etc) now uses Internet Explorer in IE9 compatibility mode, rather than IE8.
On the Multiplayer Session screen, the host’s user name is now shown.
On the Multiplayer Session screen, “In Briefing Room” is now shown prior to the session starting .
The fallback mission image has been updated for FSX:SE. This is only displayed if a mission does not provide it’s own image.
New Community page added. One of the things that you’ll notice after the update is that every time you start FSX: Steam Edition, it will display the community news page. We’re doing this to keep you up to date with all the latest news, patches, developments and offers for FSX: Steam Edition. We want to keep you informed of the great things we are doing

Stability Updates:

Potential causes of the terrain.dll crashes experienced by some users has been corrected. A theoretical deadlock where a game may hang for several minutes before either crashing or being terminated by Windows has been corrected. This is a potential cause of the terrain.dll crashes experienced by some users.
Some compatibility issues encountered by third party add-ons that use SimConnect have been resolved
Fixed crash in G3D.dll caused by certain add-ons
Fixed crashes in UI.dll
Kneeboards & Checklists now display correctly
The configuration file AFFINITYMASK value is now correctly calculated for all Core i3, i5 and i7 generation Intel CPUs.

Support for problem analysis

We now include some additional debugging info that can be captured by the DebugView tool to help with Host Disconnection errors. If a player experiences the “Host has lost connection to the host” problem, they can download and install the DebugView tool, then start DebugView before running FSX:SE. If a “Host has lost connection” message is received the log output from DebugView can then be sent for analysis.
Added support for Mini-Dumps. If you are now unfortunate enough to experience a game crash, the system will now attempt to save a mini-dump to disk. These mini-dumps are automatically uploaded to Steam and allow us to obtain debug information about the crash that has occurred. No private or user information is contained within a mini-dump. Using mini-dumps, we can understand what has gone wrong and this greatly speeds up our ability to provide fixes and improvements.

Support for Xpack version of SimConnect:

Xpack, the version of SimConnect that was supplied with the FSX Acceleration Pack, has always been delivered as part of FSX:SE, we are just now installing this by default rather than making it an optional install. This is to provide additional compatibility with some third party add-ons.

Version 62608

Networking: Resolved - potential crash bug when decoding Steam host tag data.
Error Reporting: Resolved - error message if the software failed to load the language.dll so that it shows the name of the actual dll it is trying to load.
Learning Centre: Resolved - when selecting a mission from the Learning Centre, you would be told that the mission script failed to load and would be disabled.
Learning Centre: Changed - the Learning Centre still referenced a GameSpy logo - now replaced with Steam logo.
Graphics: Improved vertex and index buffer handling defaults and a few other things to give up to 10% framerate improvement (as long as vsync is not enabled/forced).
Graphics: Change - Enable trilinear mipmap filtering by default.
Graphics: Resolved - If the Special Effects setting was set to HIGH, some special effects like external lights, landing/water effects would not work.
Graphics: Changed default value for max per-frame texture uploads to decrease time for high quality terrain textures to appear.
Settings: Resolved - HIGHMEMFIX was enabled by default but could very rarely be disabled at load time.

Dovetail Games currently have no plans to release any further updates, but will continue to support FSX: Steam Edition and its community so if it becomes necessary to release any more updates, we will do so.

The Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition Team
Dovetail Games