I have seen a few different threads on the forums regarding the newest version of FF and I have upgraded to it myself. FF 6 does work as a plugin with Xara programs but you have to point your Xara program to the right location. Filter Forge comes with two versions a 64 bit and a 32 bit version. You need to be sure you are pointing Xara to the 32 bit program, because even though Xara is fully 64 bit and Filter Forge is fully 64 bit Xara can only use 32 bit plug ins!

So to set up the plug in you need to click the set up but on the FX tool infobar and this will load the plugins and effects tab of the options panel. now click set up on this tab and a new dialogue box appears in this box you will see a list of all the plugins you have added and a set of buttons on the right. Make sure "Enable host specific plugins is checked and then click add folder. In the next box that comes up navigate to your program files and find Filter Forge 6 and inside the Filter Forge 6 folder select the plugin folder. Note: just select it, don't open it. Click Ok on each of the boxes and tabs that are open, and you should be good to go.

There are a couple things to be wary of:

1. the problem that Xara will crash upon re-rendering the effect if you don't lock the effect still exists. Always lock your FF effects!
2. Because Xara uses the legacy 32bit version there is no gain in speed with V6 Although I must say there has been a great increase in speed when using the 64bit standalone.