Hi AS crew,You would have become used to me by now :) a long time Active Sky user. First off after about a week using the product I must say thanks for this one it's fantastic. It took a little tweaking to get the settings right but well Rome wasn't built in a day. Thanks once again for great support and a great product... I have purchased Active Sky WXRe, 2004 and now AS5 and it's money well spent in my oppinion. Now to my questions as you guys might get big heads and start slacking on the support :) The updates in AS5 seem to take ages! Guys I'm serious, up to 45 secs to a min. During this time FPS does drop. I know that bandwidth throttling was implimented and I was one of the users that was using it but with the newer ATi drivers this does not seem to be needed. Is their any test release or something we could try out to see if we can shorten the download / update times?Secondly I made a post a week or so ago about darker night skies. Is it possible to have a "black night" texture added to the selection at the right hand side near the runway lights (you have some cool lights there Chris!) so that you can pick one sky set and then change the night sky accordingly?Last question... Does AS5 play with the lighting of FS? If so can you guys like dull the skies etc according not only to the time of the day but to overcast conditions also? It would be a real cool effect I think. Apart from the fact that the sun shines through the clouds all the time which is an FS9 bug I think.That's it gang, hope to hear from you soon and here is a shot I took on the Asian world tour (IVAO www.ivao.org) when I was comming out lf a cold front, does it get more realistic looking than this?http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/121411.jpg

Hi MAD,45 sec. to a minute looks correct for now. I did submit this to Damian for a possible fix such as going back to AS2004.5 speeds.I think Chris mentioned this for the AE update.I don't think the sky can be dulled due to clouds. That is why during heavy OVC the planes and buildings still cast shadows. I think that is one of the funniest things to see in FS. I turn all shadows off!Nice pic! Keep bugging IVAO for access to their servers! I have an insider working on the same thing!!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Hi Jim,Thanks for the reply... Listen I will speak to some of my mates about the IVAO thing cause got lot of friends that are Division directors. I think it would be cool to have IVAO weather as well. I will keep on trying...

>I don't think the sky can be dulled due to clouds. That is why>during heavy OVC the planes and buildings still cast shadows.>I think that is one of the funniest things to see in FS. I>turn all shadows off!Jim, I can remember a post a long time ago. The user asked if it was possible to automatically turn shadows off whenever OVC was reported in the METAR.As this can be done by going into the menu during flight, wouldn't it be possible to write some line of code to do just that?It sure would add to the realism.

I can't say the DLs have taken that long for me. Either way, my frame rates or stutters are far less than they were in 2004.5. Some of these people on dial-up or something? I'm on 5 Mbit cable and it's pretty good for updates. Just curious. I hope you guys don't get to changing too many things, as far as FPS are concerned, mine are good.

Hi Arthur,It would have to interface through FSUIPC and right now that option isn't even in FSUIPC. It would be cool though!Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Orlam,Not all of us are blessed with 5mbit calbe. We have a max of 512k here DSL. Re your frame rates depends on what you mean by good, with FS at full settings I clock a lock of 25 fps constant... Except in addon crowded areas like LAGAO's Rome where i drop to 17 in bad weather. The download times are dropping me a little lower than that...