Hi!I don't know if it's just me, but Build 140 seems to report altitudes lower than previous builds, even up in the levels.Right now I am in the PMDG 737 en route from Norway to London via Scotland, FMC and MCP are set to FL 361, while FS9 (SHIFT-Z) reports me at 35731 ft, I recall FS reporting pretty much exactly the FL with earlier builds. Also Altitude reported by FS fluctuates, even though my VS needle stays pegged at 0 with the AP flying.It almost looks as if AS is extending the reported 1002 hpa (29.59 in) upwards to the levels. In any case I'm getting yelled at a lot by FS ATC for being below my assigned altitude, something that never happend with previous builds.If you need any further info, just let me know (Active WX171750Z, active station ENFR)Best RegardsMax (Bern, LSZB)http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004betateam.jpg http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

Hi Max,This all sounds normal at first glance. There is no pressure ceiling.. what you get at the surface is proper for all altitudes. You actual altitude MSL IS 35731. Remember 1" per 1000ft altitude difference. From FL361 (as reported by altimeter at 29.92) you have a 369ft difference. That's .369 variation in pressure from 29.92 * 1000 = 369. So you actual ground pressure should be 29.92 - 0.369 = 29.55 (rounded). FS9 interpolation and smoothing processing, or possible delay in your checks, can account for the small difference of .04" (40ft) in your results.Now the reason I think you're getting this more now is that the pressure is far from 29.92 at this time at ENFR or wherever you usually fly. Sounds like a low pressure area moving through.The strange thing is that I've never had a report of ATC complaining of altitude being off since FS2002. This is the first. I'm betting that the ATC limit is 300ft off assigned altitude and for whatever reason ATC is not recognizing that the pressure is anything other than 29.92. 29.55 is quite a low pressure, not very common, so this must be why.In wxRE we had a limit baro deviation option, where you could prevent baro from changing a certain amount from ISA 29.92. I.e. .20 max so that in your case the pressure would be 29.72 and you'd only be 200ft off of the actual altitude, preventing ATC problems. This might be something we could take advantage of in AS2004.5. The downside is the actual pressure is not per reports when the limits are exceed.However, it is possible that there is some kind of problem preventing FS9 from reading the current baro pressure, as like I mentioned, no reports of this in the past with FS9. I had really assumed FS9 ATC now takes baro pressure into account. We can run a test: Without FSUIPC installed or AS2004.5 loaded, we can manually set global wx with a baro pressure of 29.55. Then try an ATC flight at any FL and see if ATC tells you you're off. If so, it is obviously the same problem FS2002 had and we can fix with the option as described. If not, then the problem is somewhere in AS or FSUIPC and we can look further. I'll try to run some tests tonight or tomorrow. Let me know your results if you get a chance to test!Thanks Max!

Damian,First of all I shouldn't post late at night, look at the original subject line :-).Yes, pressures wore very low all over northern Europe and into the UK, I was landing at London Heathrow (EGLL) in driving rain with a pressure of 29.50, don't think I have ever seen it that low there.Maybe I should have made another flight before reporting, but it was my first with 140 and the first one ever with AS where the admittedly not so bright FS ATC was nagging me for busting my assigned altitude. I'll try that again in areas with a little higher pressure.One more things I observed was that the PMDG 737 was banking and turning a lot. Only slightly though, but it seemed like it had a hard time tracking the course, even though indicated winds, both in the PMDG ND and in the FS9 display were very consistent and extremely smooth with absolutely no observed flips or shifts.It looked to me like the bird needed to correct every time it entered a new "weather cell" even though the winds displayed remained exactly the same. The bank angles were very slight, nothing drastic, only a couple of degrees at the most, but looking out the 2D cockpit, I couldn't help noticing that the real horizon only rarely remained level, confirmed by the PFD. This seems to be new with 140, but if it can't be fixed, I can live with it, flying en route up at the levels is still much smoother than ever before.I also encountered several cloud pops, mainly in the layers very close to the surface that seemed to appear, change and disappear rather suddenly. But that may be due to my system being at its limits. I need tu upgrade as soon as the prices for the new PCI-Express boards and graphics cards come down a little bit, my PIV 2.4 and GeForce 4Ti 4400 just don't cut it anymore for FS9 with addons unless I want it looking very bland.Overall though, 140 looks fine to me. But I would be grateful for a short refresher on the effects of the "Wind drift rate" and "Aloft Predictability" settings, because I am pretty clueless about what they're supposed to do.Best RegardsMax (Bern, LSZB)http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004betateam.jpg http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

Hi Max,Not sure about the heading deviations via PMDG AP, it may be related to the low pressure somehow.Concerning ground-level "cloud pops".. This sounds like the FS9 haze layer changing densities... quite normal. You can disable the FS9 haze layer to avoid these "effects".Wind drift rate and aloft predictability... please check the docs, it is outlined in the options section. Basically, wind drift rate will slowly drift the winds from that reported over time. Aloft predictability % changes how accurate the winds experienced are to the actual reports (forecasts). I.e. 50% means the winds will be 1/2 accurate to forecasts. 100% means it will be exact to forecasts. 0%, it will never be accurate, etc... I suggest wind drift rate of 5 seconds and aloft predictability of 80% for best realism...Hope that helps!

I'm getting a little confused. You people are talking FL 3XX in this thread. I know the transition levels change in various geographic areas, but isn't there some altitude set per region above where one sets the altimeter to standard pressure (FL 180 and 29.92 for US). Would not doing that confuse FS ATC?I'm not sure of non-US rules.

Yes, altimeters are reset to 29.92 eventually I thought even FS ATC would respect that.I had my pressure reset to standard while ATC was nagging at me for busting my altitude, so for some reason FS ATC still seems to use ground pressure. Altimeter set at 29.92 gave me an "FS altitude" tha was 300-400 ft lower than the actual flight level. I flew most of th trip with the PMDG at FL362 instead of the assigned FL360 to stop ATC's naggingBest RegardsMax (Bern, LSZB)http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004betateam.jpg http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg