Hi all.Im not trying to kiss butt here, or Shout people down.Its obvious that AS will reduce FPS, as it is truly doing the weather. FS Default weather only delivers half the weather that AS does.Its Simple, AS is giving a true weather report. Ive tried this hundreds of times, and I am more than willing to bet my life savings on this fact.Ive written some strong comments in here, But its a fact that AS is doing exactly as it says on the tin. The weather from FS will provide better FPS, as its not really that accurate, and dosent give you the true weather.I would suggest, that you USE FSky world FPS textures, and just ignor the recomended settings, and play with them untill you get it right.Please I urge to carry on with AS 2004, it is a truly amazing program.Jason

Jason,Thanks for your support! Would you share your settings with the community so that users might have a base to start from? Yes, all systems are different, but if they see your settings they may have something to build upon.JimActiveSky Support

Couple of things I've found:1) I removed the ActiveRadar Module (since I have virtually no interest in such a thing) and immediatley got back a few frames (even though I wasn't even using it).2) I've been experimenting with limiting the # cloud layers and that seems to help too (especially with today's weather in my area).I'm not a FPS junkie by any means, I have mine locked at around 16 FPS. So when the FPS drops much below that, I _really_ notice it (below 12 fps continuously is unacceptable to me).AS2004 is definitely doing some processing - I'm sure the efficiency will improve with time.

>Hi all.>>Im not trying to kiss butt here, or Shout people down.>>Its obvious that AS will reduce FPS, as it is truly doing the>weather. FS Default weather only delivers half the weather>that AS does.>>Its Simple, AS is giving a true weather report. Ive tried this>hundreds of times, and I am more than willing to bet my life>savings on this fact.>>Ive written some strong comments in here, But its a fact that>AS is doing exactly as it says on the tin. The weather from FS>will provide better FPS, as its not really that accurate, and>dosent give you the true weather.>>I would suggest, that you USE FSky world FPS textures, and>just ignor the recomended settings, and play with them untill>you get it right.>>Please I urge to carry on with AS 2004, it is a truly amazing>program.>>JasonYour thoughts are appreciated. Even so, I'm guessing MS designed its weather so that it would perform on fast machines, and when I select Max cloud cov density in FS Default, it slows to a crawl on my fairly racey machine, but at least I can lower this to the low-med-high setting and get very good performance. What I imagine is that by the time you "limit cloud layers" and lower cloud density, and import low-density clouds (which i have done twice but ended up removing them because they don't compare favorably to default clouds IMO), you are now looking at weather that isnt' a whole lot more "real" than FS default, no?I will tinker around with it a bit as it definitely looks great in certain areas, but then it's hopelessly terrible for frames. Example: took off from KCIC this afternoon, in light rain, with wonderful overcast--really looked great! Went through about 4K feet of this overcast with amazingly good fps for a change. Then, as I busted through this cloud layer, frames dove to 6 fps, with the corresponding slide show. I tried limiting layers to 3, which of course killed the very real looking overcast, but what now? It appears to me in many places you need double what I can do or even more throughput to be able to get decent performance. I hope it improves with more tweaking til i can get acceptable compromise. I can imagine the rantings we would see here if MS had released AS2004 as its weather system--we would be decrying the terrible perf hit, and this is with cloud density slider at low-medium, let alone what the AS2004 manual says: "Detailed Clouds and Cloud Coverage Density should also be at Maximum for thicker, more detail clouds. Reduce these sliders only if absolutely necessary to increase performance." I can't imagine a machine these days that can run AS2004 with Maximum coverage density. The programming challenge is getting more performance for similar hit. I think MS or anyone could creat an environment that is totally realistic, but it would not run on anything, so what good is it?Any more tweaking tips would be appreciated. I am def not interested in Chris's high perf clouds as I think they look too fake, and moreover, when I tried these again with AS2004, I was still tanking.Noel

Good comments. Everyone MUST know that if you use the regular clouds from FS9 WITHOUT AS 2004 AND put your settings at 3-D cloud coverage to 100% AND cloud coverage density to MAXIMUM and increase the sight and draw distance you will get punished severely by FS9. Those cloud textures will kill your beautiful P4 2.8-3.2 ghz system with that nice Radeon 9700-9800 card. And it is FALSE and UNFAIR to blame AS 2004 for any of this. Indeed, some planes will actually waste your system whether you use the regular cloud set or FSW's 32 bit set. PMDG is one of those products as they themself have stated, i.e., any 3rd party addon weather will hurt your FPS and is not recommeded by them.However, my recommendation is to use FSW's 32 bit cloud textures. I have gone to them and though PMDG's fps are still unacceptably low for THIS plane (particularly in the VC as it would be anyway without AS 2004 using the recommended settings) everything works beautiful with PSS's A330-340 IN THE VIRTUAL COCKPIT (since both Buses can be flown entirely from the VC- from cold and dark to shutdown). This is with the recommended settings in AS 2004 documentation (maximum cloud density, etc.).P4, 2.8 ghz 533 FSB, 1 gig ddr ram, Radeon 9700 TX 128 mb video (with latest Omega drivers).