Gentlemen:I would like to begin by letting you know I really enjoy the idea of your product. There has been many times when I have become frustrated with the cloud structures within FS. Sometime clouds would be sitting on the ground by themselves, the change rate was inconsistent and sudden at times, and the clouds themselves never seemed too realistic as far as the structural community of the weather was concerned. I bought Active Sky 4.5 and was surprised to see the realism entailed. With cloud draw distance set to 60 I was amazed at the realism. I flew from Denver (KDEN) to St. Louis (KSTL) and the weather went from clear to stormy. The transition was perfect, with few clouds, to some clouds, to many clouds; it was as I pictured it would be. The structures were great and it was great going through the different layers. I think the idea it great and I had always hoped FS would have a cloud package like Active Sky. The major dilemma I face is frame rates. More specifically the random changes in frame rates. For example: My frames would not stay consistent. The rates would go from 32 to 28 to 32 to 16 to 26 to 13 to 10 to 10 to 10 to 32. If I set my locked frame rate to 25 the same would happen. I notice a stutter when I am looking out the passenger window. Before active sky was installed my settings were such that I would have perfect frame rates as far as smoothness was concerned. After active sky has been installed I have spent hours trying to adjust settings (as we all do w/flight sim add-ons) to find the perfect smoothness. I found that even with other normally high setting turned down, I still have a stuttering w/frame rates making sudden jumps up and down. I face the dilemma of having standard FS weather online updates with realistic smoothness compared with active sky

Hi,1. Use FSW clouds.2. Set cloud draw distance ot 303. Set sight distance to 60.4. Limit cloud layers to 3.See if those help!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Thanks for the response Jim. Will FSW clouds dramatically reduce the quailty of the clouds? Or it is not noticable in most cases? After I install it can I unistall the new clouds if I do not like the look? Thanks for any help. Also, what about 3D? Shoud I leave that at 100%? I will just try it out and see, thanks!

Ok, I

Hi,That's great! If you downloaded FS Sky World 2004, then those clouds are the same size and quality as default clouds. At the FSW web site there are stand alone, high performance sets also. They are very good, but at this point, for your set-up, I don't think you need them.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg