Jim and TeamI see that GE Pro is now available from Flight1.In the specifications it says:"Automatically or Manually create custom ground texture sets and custom sky texture sets to match current or preferred weather conditions."Weather Control allows you to download and decode real-time METARS, which gives you ;The ability to select your departure and destination airport to retrieve weather conditions and let the GE PRO interface select and install ground and sky texture sets to match those weather conditions.The ability to add waypoints of airports along your route so GE PRO can calculate an average of the weather en-route and intelligently install a matching pair of ground and sky texture sets for your flight A fully functional Weather Finder if you want to fly in a certain weather phenomena with the option to select and install ground and sky textures sets to match those conditions."Coupled with its new textures, how will interact with AS6?Will they work together?It looks like the "water" textures will still come from FE, but the sky textures could come from all 3??Sorry, I missed the post below but it will still be nice to know how the weather finder interacts with AS6Interesting timesPeter Hayes

Hi Peter,ASv6's weather engine is separate and in general unrelated to the graphics add-ons including ASG, FE, GE PRO, etc...As for the graphics, GE Pro appears to contain sky textures, as does ASG, FE, and several other add-ons. To activate a particular add-on's graphics in that category you simply submit/activate that one last. You can also disable specific categories (such as sky textures) if it supports it (ASG does) letting another take over. It would be pretty simple to use components from any and all such add-ons, as long as attention is paid to which categories get submitted in which order. You could also for example get water from FE, clouds and environment textures from ASG (with weather influence), sky and ground textures from GE PRO, etc. by just starting/submitting in that order with default settings.It is great to see existing and new developers coming up with great new graphics content. Speaking of which, we can't wait to show you all what we've been working hard on for quite a while now (very soon!) in graphics (and much more) but rest assured we will always strive to maintain compatibility with any and all graphics add-ons and will be making it much easier to easily activate/deactivate many different components from an unlimited amount of individual add-ons.Best,

Hi again,As to weather integration, there is none (yet) between the different add-ons with the exception of ASG. GE Pro I believe grabs its weather from public sources which in general should match what ASv6 is using for processing assuming that ONLINE / live mode is enabled. I don't think GE Pro supports offline or archived weather so when using such modes you'll probably want to use the manual methods of GE Pro texture configuration (and exclusively use ASv6 for wx finding and anything else weather data related).Hope that helps..

DamianMany thanks, Its good to see tha ASV6 is not going to become "obsolete" as I believe at one time it was postulated that there would be a tie-up between FE/GE and Weathermaker Pro (and as we all know ASV6 is by far the best weather engine). I have attempted to set up my machine to use water textures from FE, sky/cloud textures from ASV6 and ground textures from GE Pro and that seems to work exceptionally well with excellent frame rates etc. Unfortunately there is no definitive way to tell if what I see in FS2004 is what I have tried to "program" in using these settings. RegardsPeterH

Peter,What is the advantage of just using the new ground textures from GE Pro if they are not linked to weather conditions?Are they much better than the old GE?It would appear that using ASV 6 will not allow GE Pro to make weather related changes to sky/ground textures since the weather will not be read by GE Pro I am assuming.Greg

Greg:I think the way it works is: GE Pro gather the metars through it's own process, then picks what ground and sky textures to use and then loads them into FS. AS6, probably using the same weather data, then provides the weather for FS. If the two are reading the same weather data, then I think everything stays in sync. I have just purchased GE PRO, so I'm getting ready to try it. From what I have read over on Flight1, Peter has tested AS6 and other weather engines with GE Pro and has had good results. http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...?TID=17462&PN=2Marty

GregI find the GE Pro textures "better" than plain GE and as I understand it they re linked to weather conditions as explained in the post above. When I posted my question I wasn't sure where GEPro obtained its weather information from, but it does appear that you do get the weather via ASV6. Apparently GEPro has no cloud textures so these will be still provided by FE and/or ASV6(ASG) and the GEPro sky textures do not cover the full 24 hour period so I presume FS2004 will use sky textures from FE/ASG at other times. What I can't be sure on yet is will it make a difference to the textures ie as to which program set of sky textures is chosen based on the order of opening these four programs, GePro/FE/ASV6/ASG.It is interesting to note that FE Pro will be out soon and we will have to see what effects that has on ASV6/ASG if any.Many questions few answers.PeterH(PS and throw in FSUIPC for good measure)

Thanks for the detailed explanation Peter!Greg

GregYou are welcomePeterH

I run ASV6, latest update 499 and love it. I purchased GE Pro a few days ago and have played with it a couple of times. I never used any older version of it so I am still getting familiar with it. I still am creating textures etc and struggling to understand why that process is so complicated. Picking how many sets you want, renedering them etc. All taking a considerable amount of time etc. I have been following his thread and have just thought about something. When you run GE Pro prior to starting FS9 you download the current metars and that is what determines the weather you are flying under. Say you have a flight from KJFK to KLAX which is several hours. GE Pro from my understanding does not update the weather inflight(At least from what I understand) So I guess my question is:1) Does GE Pro use weather updates that ASV6 has retrieved inflight? 2) It has been said that the textures used are from the program last run. Can someone clarify or state how they use both ASV6 and GE Pro. By that I mean how many textures you run in GE Pro etc and how one might balance things between the two to get the best of both. Basically I am wondering to what degree if any I might be negating or nullifying anything that Asv6 is doing by running GE Pro in tandem with ASV6. I have thoroughly pleased with ASV6 and think it is hands down a GREAT product with top of the line support. Thanks

A quick answer.GE Pro generates ground and sky textures to suit a weather pattern (brighter or darker, depending on cloud cover). That weather pattern may be automatically set to the departure airport or to an average of the departure and arrival airports--the program uses public weather reports. (I think that the GE Pro guys are still working on improving their METAR-integration system.)With FS9, you need to load all ground & sky textures before running the program. Thus GE Pro does all this BEFORE you load FS9. It cannot update the textures once FS9 begins. (Note that the restriction applies to most clouds as well. So ASv6 loads most clouds BEFORE you run FS9 and cannot change on-the-fly. Cirrus clouds being the only exception.)Hope this helps,Mike

hladamjr:1. No, GE Pro only uses the metar data it gathers to determine what combination of textures to load prior to starting FS. Due to the limitation of FS, ground, sky and cloud textures cannot be changed once FS is running. Cirrus clouds are the only exception, as you may know from using AS6. 2. True. Say you use GE Pro to create textures for an overcast flight. If you do use the option of copying the default textures back when shuting down GE Pro, then the next time you use FS, those overcast textures are still there. Here's what I have learned over on the Flight1 board regarding AS6, ASG6 and GE Pro. Start AS6/ASG6. Let AS6/ASG6 do it great work of creating cloud and sky textures. Start GE Pro next. Download the metars (which probably will be the same that AS6 just used). Install the ground and sky textures. The sky textures that ASG6 produced are overwritten. Start FS and go fly. AS6 will provide weather updates are usual.If you want to use the sky textures that ASG6 produces, just start GE Pro first. That way when ASG6 copies it's sky textures, the GE Pro sky textures are overwritten. The only common thing that AS6/ASG6 share with GE Prod is sky textures. Nothing else. Once you copy GE Pro textures to FS, it's done. In regards to a long flight, say from overcast departure conditions to sunny conditions; GE Pro will average out what I thinks is the best texture combination when going from one lighting condition to a different lighting condition.Marty