I have beta (build 363) installed. Should I download and install the official version (367)?What about changes in build 367?If you recommend installing 367 can I install it over 363 or should I deinstall 363 first? I don't want to lose my registration files or 128x128 cloud textures.

HI,Yes the official version is 367 and to prevent confusion with older beta version with support, everyone should install the official only, to be all at the same page if there is issue.You can install it over the previous one and you won't loose any dxt clouds convertion or 128x128, they will remain like before. 128x128 are a seperate download with seperate uninstall, see the add and remove on the windows control panel. ThanksChris WillisHiFi Simulation Software Team Developerhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Wow! Your answer was 2 minutes after my question!What a service!

I have noticed something after installing "ASV *Enhanced* Weather Engine", and activating RADAR (F12), my frame rates go down approx 10 fps - and stay down even after deactivating (F12). Perhanps I'm doing something wrong but I don't think so. If I don't activate RADAR framerates are normal. Any ideas from anyone?Wilbert

Hi,Before using the F12 a second time, you must turn off Active Radar with the green dot.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Sales and Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

I was optimistic when ASV Enhanced beta was released in fixing the low overcast problem that has plagued FS9 since its inception. This has not been the case. The problem of FS9 not being able to depict ceilings below 1,000 feet and the failure of ASV of fixing this is very frustrating. I expected more from hifisim in this area as you are experts in your field. Well despite this thank you for your efforts as now I have given up hope.

I would like to add something to this discussion...I wasn't aware of any problems with 'low ceilings' in Flight Simulator but I experienced that without knowing. Did somebody try JFK last night? it was 300 overcast.. yet, in the sim, and ASV running I saw clear skies. So, I decided to play with the settings in the sim a bit.There is a value in fs9.cfg called LOADWEATHER. Common sense, told me this feature simply 'loads' either the .wx file assosiated to a flight 'or' downloads real weather from the FS9 weather server, so I tried setting this to 0 and tried jfk again and (after a while) saw a perfectly depicted overcast 300 ceiling with almost no visibility.So, does the LOADWEATHER=0 option effectively solves the problem?

>So, does the LOADWEATHER=0 option effectively solves the>problem?Not for me it does not. Tried a flight out of KBGM just now. ASV ATIS reporting OVC003 2 1/2SM RA. I started FS9 with clear weather. I unpaused the sim and minimized FS9. then opened ASV and downloaded the weather. After the weather completed downloading I gave the sim 2 mins to process it. The visibility is appeared to be correct so I departed on RWY13 and never hit any clouds up until 3,000 feet. At this time I exited the sim. Bogote were you using ASV or FS9 RWW?

Hi,The Theme or saved wx "taking over" the weather is a separate (known) issue, and as described can be solved by not loading wx with a flight or manually clearing all wx (via FSUIPC is the best way) to reset things.As to actual low ceiling representation:There is a known "feature" in FS9 where overcast/broken ceilings, even with 100% Cloud Coverage Density, can be seen through quite easily at times. Duplicating your above scenario at KBGM I was able to confirm the cloud base at 1923ft (or roughly 300 AGL) even though it appeared very thin and it was hard to tell you were "in" the layer until about 2500ft MSL (or roughly 900AGL) . Slewing above and below a test layer with manually set conditions and unlimited vis (FS9 weather dialogs) (base 1900ft tops 5000ft for example) will clearly illustrate the way it works.This is why we have overcast enhancement, to appropriately "duplicate" such ceiling layer and make it appear thicker. This works pretty good when viewing the layer(s) from above but while climbing out the effect doesn't work so well.We recently spent quite a bit of time (re) investigating this behavior as it was reported by a user during the public beta process. We came to the conclusion (once again) that there was nothing wrong with the way the layers were sent to FS9 by ASVE.The "problem" is that the 3D cloud model system was not meant to depict HARD bases and tops. There are too many polygons and texture being drawn to make this work with acceptable performance. A balance had to be achieved and a few sacrifices made. In the end, it works pretty good when viewed from a distance but when up close and within, it leaves a lot to be desired.Because of all this, simulating IMC ends up being dependant upon setting a low vis i.e. 2SM or less. Low overcast works in this scenario because by the time the vis clears you are actually in (or sometimes already above) the obvious ceiling layer.Anyhow, check a few threads back on this, it has been discussed before. Currently we are experimenting and testing for new and creative ways of depicting (convincingly) such low overcast without low visibility dependence. We are confident that in time we'll have something much-improved. In the mean time, we apologize for not being able to solve THIS FS9 limitation (although we have solved a few others), but we are always working on making things better. Your feedback as always is much appreciated!Best,

Hi Damian,I recently saw a thread about visibility depiction by the Graphics card which involved adding a line into the DISPLAY... section of FS9.CFG file:TABLEFOG=0 (Example: [DISPLAY.RADEON9800PRO] section would have this line above)This effectively got rid of what I always found to be excessive "fogginess" depicted by FS9 in low-visibility situations. This line has to be added to FS9.CFG as it apparently does not exist. Setting it to =1 will make the low visibility very foggy.Do you think this might work effectively with ASV5? I did try it on at least one flight already where there was cloudy weather at the destination airport and I find that I was able to see some fog but not overdone - probably more realistic in real-life terms...What do you think?John

HI John,The Tablefog=0 will reduce fog in fs2004 as well ASV5 since the base of the fog rendering visual is in fs2004 engine, yes, it will works with asv5.I think this option are related to ATI 3d video cards?ThanksChris WillisHiFi Simulation Software Team Developerhttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_dev_team.jpg http://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_proud_supporter.jpg

Thanks for your quick reply Chris.Yes, as far as I have seen from forum postings, it has to do with ATI cards but I don't know if it is ONLY for ATI or applies to NVidia as well.John

>The "problem" is that the 3D cloud model system was not meant>to depict HARD bases and tops. There are too many polygons>and texture being drawn to make this work with acceptable>performance. A balance had to be achieved and a few>sacrifices made. In the end, it works pretty good when viewed>from a distance but when up close and within, it leaves a lot>to be desired.hello there,i would like to know the possibility of having the user decide if it is too much on his/her system. i personally would turn down all my graphics except the airport environment in exchange of an accurate ifr simulation. i enjoy all of ASV' features but ifr is my primary concern. i use flight sim for ifr currency and it is very effective for procedure work if the mininum for the procedure turn is over 3,000 feet. i would buy another ASV if you guys can fix this before fs10 is released. i know i can buy a true ifr sim but overall FS9 wins. what can i do about this problem? i have tried all fixes. for some reason i cant get any clouds below 3,000 feet now. i dont know if its flight sim o what. thanks

Okay so this is what happened. I inserted a line into my FS9.cfg file several weeks ago to display coordinates in decimal format. The entry was:Display_Fractional_Minutes=0Ultimately that change in the config file resulted in ASV's inability to depict the weather correctly. This change was also the cause of me being unable to import any flight plans into ASV. The weather was totally off naturally as the coordinates of reporting points were in a different format. Before I could not fly through a solid layer of clouds. After deleting that entry I am proud to announce the weather is back!! Now the lowest ceiling I could fly through is 600 feet. The weather looks great. Thank you hifisim.

I had purchased ASV upgrade version and patched with beta (as I remember the version 325).Now tried several times paching with the new official ASVE but failed.The error message is like this; "Error reading initialization file."What is wrong, could anyone help me?