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Laminar Research has released version 6.10 beta 4 of their extensive civilian flight simulator, X-Plane. Although the update sounds incremental, quite a few new features have been added.

Most notable is support for Mac OS X, although with the temporary absence of joystick support. (Laminar is quick to note that it will not drop support for Mac OS 9.) Regarding their newly supported OS, Laminar had this to say:

OS X is unquestionably the coolest OS ever... it has NEVER so much as hiccupped during the entire development process, even when the applications running on it have gone haywire!

Furthermore, a host of improvements are being added to X-Plane, including support for jet-propelled gyrocopters, ridge lift for gliders, variable center of gravity, and all-new scenery textures.

A freely-downloadable scenery pack is also in the works that will add 12 gigabytes of data to X-Plane, including over 14 million hi-definition roads, rivers, railroad tracks, and powerline towers across the entire planet, along with 50 or so different land use types.

X-Plane is a highly modular general aviation flight simulator known for its robustness and expandability. Players can design and fly aircraft from simple Cessnas to obscure Mars planes using its accompanying tools system.

IMG Review: X-Plane

X-Plane

X-Plane Beta Information

X-Plane 6.10 Beta 4 (40 MB)

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