We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

X-Plane 11 is a very highly rated flight simulation game and Laminar Research have been working on advancing the graphics side of it, with a first Beta out for the next version with Vulkan support.

Announced on their official blog yesterday, Laminar mentioned that had 50+ third-party developers do plenty of private testing for them but as this is the first public Beta it will likely have some issues. For the Linux version any Linux distribution that can run recent GPU drivers should be fine, with any somewhat recent GPU that supports Vulkan. On the NVIDIA side you need at least driver version 440.26 but Mesa version for AMD was not mentioned (Intel seems not supported).

To run with Vulkan, there's a new checkbox in the rendering settings screen, you will need to restart after doing it. When starting with Vulkan for the first time, it might take a little while to load as it compiles new shaders. The advise you to "get a beverage appropriate to the time of day and let the sim load". This is different to X-Plane 11.40, which compiled shaders as you went which resulted in stuttering which this will prevent.

They do have a quick overview of rendering options to help you in the below video:

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

Thanks to using Vulkan, performance should be better and if players find stutters they said they can easily identify them and kill them since it's "never just 'dark matter in the OpenGL driver' anymore" and they've built their own tools to collect reports on stuttering from users.

As for addon support, they expect the majority that worked on OpenGL without special hacks to "just work" but there will be some that obviously don't since it's such a big change. You can see their release notes here where they will track things.

You can pick up X-Plane 11 on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
9 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
8 comments

rustybroomhandle Apr 3, 2020
The only addon I use that I think will not work any more is a colour grading one I use. I guess vkbasalt will have to fill that gap.
knro Apr 3, 2020
With NVidia latest drivers here but getting Vulkan Error!

steamoverlayvulkanlayer.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

What to do?
x_wing Apr 3, 2020
Quoting: knroWith NVidia latest drivers here but getting Vulkan Error!

steamoverlayvulkanlayer.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

What to do?

It's that all the output you get? That "error" can be considered a false positive as it just says that the loader failed to preload that library (I suppose that the game is 64 bit and as Steam always preloads both 32 & 64 overlay shared objects you get that message for the 32 bit one).


Last edited by x_wing on 3 April 2020 at 10:56 pm UTC
Xaero_Vincent Apr 3, 2020
Quoting: knroWith NVidia latest drivers here but getting Vulkan Error!

steamoverlayvulkanlayer.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

What to do?

Saw someone mention the files in that folder causing issues. Maybe try this script and see if it works for you with the native Linux version of the game:

#!/bin/bash
# xplanefix.sh

killall steam
rm ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/*
sleep 5
steam &

while [ 1 ]; do
sleep 1
if [[ $(pidof steam) ]]; then
if [[ $(ls ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d) ]]; then
sleep 10
rm ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/*
steam steam://rungameid/269950
exit
fi
fi
done



Last edited by Xaero_Vincent on 3 April 2020 at 11:02 pm UTC
FredO Apr 4, 2020
Quoting: Xaero_Vincent
Quoting: knroWith NVidia latest drivers here but getting Vulkan Error!

steamoverlayvulkanlayer.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

What to do?

Saw someone mention the files in that folder causing issues. Maybe try this script and see if it works for you with the native Linux version of the game:

#!/bin/bash
# xplanefix.sh

killall steam
rm ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/*
sleep 5
steam &

while [ 1 ]; do
sleep 1
if [[ $(pidof steam) ]]; then
if [[ $(ls ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d) ]]; then
sleep 10
rm ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/*
steam steam://rungameid/269950
exit
fi
fi
done

For me X-Plane is working with Vulkan after deleting just these 2 i386 files under ~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d:
steamfossilize_i386.json
steamoverlay_i386.json

Steam recreates them each time you launch it, so you need to delete the files before launching X-plane, like that script is doing.

About Vulkan performance, initial tests show up to 50% increase in FPS for me, and a lot smoother to boot. Looking good!
tumocs Apr 4, 2020
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: GuestI couldn't get it to work with Vulkan on the latest Radv (mesa-git) with Steam. Game will just crash and send a crash report.

RADV is a no go for me too but it does work beautifully with AMDVLK.
ripper81358 Apr 4, 2020
The thing is that MESA/RADV is basically the standard Vulkandriver for AMD GPU's. AMD's official AMDLVLK and AMDGPU-PRO Drivers are not available or difficult to install on most distributions. In many cases the performance is inferior compared to RADV.
I don't know why we ended up with three different AMD-vulkandrivers for one single OS. Most linuxgames that mention a specific driver have listed MESA/RADV in their systemrequirements. This is the case for all titles from Feral Interactive for example. Not supporting RADV for a linuxgame makes it a unattractive Product for AMD GPU owners at this point in my opinion.
mike456 Apr 5, 2020
~/.local/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d:
steamfossilize_i386.json
steamoverlay_i386.json

steam fossil how funny. Bug report to steam.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.