20.06.2025
X-Wing Alliance Upgrade 2025 available now! Posted by Forceflow
The X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Team is proud to present the XWAU 2025 release.
There is a lot of new and cool features in this release, including some important changes.
For the full details please see the release post
New Installer Manager.
Improved performance.
Brand new and Updated Flightmodels
New HD Cutscenes
New Medals and Squadron Logos
Mission enhancements and improvements.
Enhanced HUD and VR fixes.
C-3PO's Language Configurator.
Bug Fixes and much more!
This one spiraled a bit out of control, it was originally only meant to fix the installer bug with 2024 and add and opt or two, but things got a lot more complicated.
Before we get to the good stuff we have a few bits of important information for you.
A new way to install the XWAU
With 2025 we are introducing a different way to download the XWAU compared to our old method. This is for multiple reasons, some technical issues, and also trying to make everyone's life easier. The initial process is quite different, we highly suggest to read through this guide to understand what is going on.
Some quick and simple information:
The download is no longer a self-installing executable. You need the X-Wing Alliance Installer Manager to install this and future mods, tools and updates.
It will no longer overwrite your base X-Wing Alliance installation. Instead it makes a copy of your vanilla XWA, and then install the mods into that copy.
This will not only prevent many of the issues we have seen before, like Steam 'repairing' an XWAU installation, breaking everything in the process, but also make it easier to have multiple mods installed.
You no longer need to download the installer packages from the site, the Installer Manager will handle this for you. Plus it's faster and can check for new Updates too!
We hope it won't be too hard to grasp but again, again for a more in-depth instructions read our guide. The packages will still be available for download on the page as well in case you want to use download managers or want to transfer the files to a different computer.
A change to how you start the XWAU
We realized 2024 had problems due to the amount of memory that the XWAU could use. Since the game is still a 32Bit application it can only really use 2 - 3GB of memory.
XWAU 2024 was already filling this up, which is why you'd often see crashes on loading new missions.
Without boring you with too much technical details here, the brilliant @JeremyaFr found a way to side-load both the new concourse animations and some in flight textures. This frees up a lot of memory and should make the XWAU 2025 a much more stable experience.
This does mean that during game-play two additional processes are running:
Xwa32bppPlayer.exe
XwaConcoursePlayer.exe
Those should start and end automatically when running the game from the Launcher, but also can be started manually in case it is needed. (We have seen rare instances where you need to manually start them)
This means that shortcuts directly to your XWINGALLIANCE.EXE will not work properly! You need to start the game through the ALLIANCE.EXE Launcher, or start the above processes manually.
The shiny new things
While 2025 does not add a whole lot of new models to the game compared to 2024, there are some new additions. The biggest ones being the new Golan I platform from Vince T and the Asteroid Mining Unit from Talaris and Vince T. Check those out as they are absolutely gorgeous!
The Bulk Freighter, Modified Corvette, Quasar Fire-class Carrier and the Otana's cockpit have also gotten upgrades and various fixes.
And much more!
As we teased on May 4th, MechDonald has started to make new videos for all the video-sequences in the game!
They all look absolutely stunning and we highly recommend to not skip the Intro startup videos and watch them fresh.
Many missions have been bug fixed, tweaked, balanced or generally improved upon to make your flying experience more enjoyable.
The team has spent hours flying and testing, adding new Backdrops, Skins and Profiles in places and others adjusted.
The new Enhanced HUD by blue_max will give you more information when flying and help you focus on the important details.
Ace Antilles has created new Skins for improvements for the Rebel fighters
A lot more has been changed and optimized in 2025, too much to list here. What started as a rather small update now almost rivals 2024 in it's complexity.
There has been a massive amount of bug fixes, so hopefully 2025 will be a much better experience!
For the complete details please see the release post.
In case of problems
In case you are encountering any issues with the XWAU 2025, please check the 2025 Known Issues Thread on the forum!
04.05.2025
May the Fourth be with you! Posted by Forceflow
Hi folks,
we hope you are all having a great May the Fourth and are doing well!
It's this time again that we had really hoped to be able to release something for you, but things sadly got in the way. It turns out that even with 2024 we pretty much broke the game engine. At this point the game is pretty unstable and adding more eye candy to it is just no longer possible. We have identified the underlying issues and our local tech wizards @JeremyaFr and @blue_max are working very hard on creating new ways to push the game even further.
We hope to be able to show you more soon, but as always things will most likely take longer that we want. But if this new tech works out we'll have even more possibilities and you guys will hopefully have an even greater experience.
With that we have another small teaser for you guys. @MechDonald (creator of the incredible HD concourse images) is working on something new that will blow your minds!
Have a great day and hope to show you more, soon!
Thanks to Angel for hosting the teaser on the TFTC youTube channel!
Discuss this here
02.02.2025
XWAU 2025 News Posted by Forceflow
Greetings pilots! Welcome to 2025 and we are still improving this classic of a game.
One that has yet to be beaten by any new remakes too!
The XWAU Team has been quiet for some time but we are still here and still plodding on.
We've been taking time to rest our brains and enjoy other life and gaming areas etc... but the work continues.
Some news for today for you.
With XWAU 2024 we tried to optimise mission loading times and other areas.
There has been a long delay when your ship leaves the hangar into space, this is now fixed!
JeremyaFr wrote:
Hello, I've updated the hangars hook.
I've improved how the 3d models are loaded. Now there is a big reduced lag on hangar exit or reentry.
There was an issue with the Hook reading skins in the hangar causing it to keep reloading textures,
So now when you leave and land in the hangar the time will be MUCH quicker.
There is still a delay when pressing Fly to get to the hangar though.
To update your hooks follow these steps:
Open the Alliance launcher as you would to start the game.
Select the Tools Menu option
Select the XWA Hooks Update option
A command prompt will pop up and download the Hooks right to your game.
It should also keep any of your current settings that are in the Hooks.ini file too.
This fix is for XWAU 2024 only.
Do not apply it for TFTC at this point in case of older compatibility issues.
TFTC wasn't affected as much anyway.
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Right now we are working on fixing up a lot of little bugs that we have found since the 2024 release.
Including one I let slip into the installer which affects Steam installs. That might be a fix coming soon.
Steam installations have become a nightmare for XWAU, which is why we recommend the simpler GOG offline install often.
Also work has been underway to try and bring the latest XWAU improvements into the TFTC.
Apart from that we have some completed model updates ready to go!
Plus @Vince T is doing some amazing work on some of the largest and oldest models in game.
Here's a little teaser!
Thank you for sticking with us for this very long term upgrade.
We will post more updates and news when we have them
Discuss this newstopic here
