Some noteworthy “quality of life” improvements:
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Users who are new to the RealFlight Swap Pages sometimes download and import an Aircraft Variant that is based on a custom Entire Aircraft without downloading that required additional content. They end up with a vehicle that doesn’t work and no understanding of why or what to do about it. RealFlight now prevents that situation.
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Imported AVs and EAs are now treated more like stock content and afforded many of the same protections. This guards against two things:
- Editing someone else's work and saving it with the same name, overwriting the original version. And, since the original version can’t be overwritten in the first place, this avoids the situation where a modified version with the same name is uploaded to the swap pages as an AV. (To be clear, you can still make changes and save them under a different name, just as with stock content. It can still be deleted or renamed, as well; you are not stuck with a download once you import it.)
- Exporting someone else’s 3D model as an EA. As always, you are very welcome to make physics or colorscheme edits of your own and export those as an AV or CS, respectively.
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Users now have the option to specify the location where RealFlight will read/write “user files” on disk. This offers a workaround when the default location causes problems. See the bottom of this post for details.
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It should not be possible for RealFlight to make the DirectX driver crash in modern Windows. Such problems typically indicate some kind of GPU hardware failure. However, if that does occur, RealFlight handles it more gracefully now.
Release Notes:
Features
- Added a check that aborts the aircraft variant import process if the required base vehicle is not present.
- Vehicles imported from an .RFX cannot be overwritten or reexported. They are treated more like stock RealFlight content.
- Ability to specify RealFlight's "user files" location on disk via command line (details below)
- Added Support for 2026 Quarterly Content Pack 1 DLC
Improvements/Fixes
- Fixed a crash when opening the the Aircraft Editor or Airport Editor while a recording is playing
- Fixed a crash when importing an .RFX containing a custom prop that already exists on disk and choosing Overwrite for the prop
- Improved handling of DirectX driver crashes. RealFlight displays a single error with more useful information about what is happening and offers to restart automatically.
- Import: When multiple .RFXs are selected for import, they are ordered by type to better handle potential dependencies and avoid spurious error messages
- Training: When loop behavior is enabled, lesson playback correctly handles reaching the end of a lesson
- Selection menu filters normally persist within a session, but if they result in an empty list, the menu will revert to unfiltered on its next load
- Clicking Reset to clear all selection menu filters does not alter the scrolled position of the filters section
- Radio Profile Editor: The "Smoke" channel is more accurately labeled "Smoke/Gear"
- Award dialog appearance is correct when unlocking vehicles (fixed a broken header image)
- Scenario Quick Select dialog correctly defaults to the most recently loaded scenario, even if some invalid scenarios have been removed from the list above it
- Scenario Quick Select dialog displays error messages for invalid scenarios when a filter is active (though only for scenarios that filter includes)
- Description text for AV & EA export options is updated to encompass the new protections for imported content
- The default multiplayer server message text refers to its correct location on disk for those who wish to modify it
- Manage Game Lists dialog's listbox is now scrollable for stock game lists, allowing all the games in longer lists to be viewed
- Misc. other UI improvements
Aircraft
- E-flite 4-Site 3D FF Flat Foamy 800mm: Vertical stab is strengthened
- E-flite Carbon-Z T-28 Trojan 2.0m: Servo sound volumes for aileron, elevator, rudder, and flap servos are correct
- E-flite Eratix 3D SWS 1.6m: Visual Frame for steering wheel physics component is set correctly
- E-flite Micro B-2 Spirit of America Twin 30mm EDF: Differential thrust mixing is set up correctly
How to Get It
Steam will detect the new version and automatically update RealFlight when it thinks your computer is not very busy. You can trigger the update manually if desired by completely restarting Steam. Right-click the Steam icon in your system tray and select Exit. Once everything closes, run Steam again, and the update should complete.
Custom User Files Location
As mentioned above, users now have the option to specify the location where RealFlight will read/write “user files” on disk. By default, Evolution uses \\RealFlight Evolution (e.g., C:\\Users\\Ryan Douglas\\Documents\\RealFlight Evolution). However, sometimes that default location causes problems for RealFlight, such as when the path contains unsupported characters or when Microsoft OneDrive is involved. Setting RealFlight to use a different location on disk can sidestep those issues so the software will run.
Specify the desired location using a command line argument as in the following example:
-UserFilesLocation="D:\\My Files\\RealFlight Evolution"
Notes:
- The location given must be a full path including drive letter (i.e., an absolute path).
- If there are spaces anywhere in the path, the whole thing must be wrapped in quotes as shown above.
- If the specified directory does not exit, RealFlight will create it.
- Make sure it is in a location that is writeable by an application with standard user (non-administrator) privileges.
- Do not set it to the user files directory from a different version of RealFlight!
To add a command line argument for RealFlight:
- Run the Steam client.
- Right-click on RealFlight Evolution in the left pane and select Properties…
- On the “General” page, add the new option as shown above in the text input box beneath the text saying “Advanced users may choose to enter modifications to their launch options.”.
- Close the Properties dialog.
- Run RealFlight like usual.
This is a new feature. Please report any issues you encounter while using it.
