disappearing clouds

[spesimen 135]

Hi, I am posting some examples of the issue where cloud structures instantly disappear as you approach them.i'm using FSX sp1 (nvidia 8800 card, sp2 is too crashy :/ ) and ASX 1106, also i use gex,fex, and utx and fs2crew and that's basically it. Both of these examples are of large, cool looking cloud structures that i was flying towards. The before and after screenshots are generally taken 15-30 seconds after the first. From the distance i would expect to take a couple of minutes just to fly to some of the cloud banks. As i get nearer, very often they will simply pop out of existence. Sometimes this is accompanied by new structures appearing in different places, but it doesn't seem like a blend or anything they just completely rearrange. I don't have conclusive evidence that it occurs on a regular interval but i get the sense that it does, or at least, if i am flying at the same heading and speed i cover similar spaces of ground in each time interval..I experimented for a while with different cloud coverage settings and draw distance. I usually max both sliders, however, i saw this behavior pretty much in all cases with setting them to lowest or medium settings.I also experimented with removing virtual stations, enhanced route coverage, and changing the update rate. In all cases it never seemed to make the odd behavior go away. Different weather systems all seem to make it happen but it is most noticeable when there are some large chunks of cumulus clouds. (also tried between 3-15 max layers.)Anyway here are the shots. I have seen much more dramatic examples of this but unfortunately wasn't thinking to take the before shot at those times. in this case i noticed a lot of popping last night so i just started snapping away.before:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/183786.jpg30sec later:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/183787.jpgbefore:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/183788.jpg~15 sec later:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/183789.jpgcheers,-andy cps on the wind shifting topic, i seem to have had good results with reducing wind shear to 1%. I'm not convinced, however, that i didn't just get lucky on those flights. I definitely notice the overspeed/stall switch happens more at very high altitudes and like near the jetstream so i'm guessing maybe the direction and intensity could be pretty crazy there. still frustrating when it's impossible to go 8x speed or more without pretty much a guaranteed crash hehe.

[JSkorna 137]

Hi Andy,Thanks for those. What are your system specs and what is your FPS locked at in FSX?Thanks,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

[spesimen 135]

Hello Jim,Sorry i forgot to include such basic tech support info!2.4Ghz intel core2 duo.nvidia 8800gt 512mb,2gig ram,asus p5-something motherboard (i'm at work, can't check the exact model)windows XP sp2, dx9.0cgame disk is 10,000rpm raid arrayi run at 1600x1200x32, the framerate generally stays around 25-35, with occaisional dips to 20 if i go nuts panning the view around a lot. if it is mostly clear skies in the area it climbs to around 45ish.generally i set around 10 layers for clouds, anything above 15 i start to notice performance drop. i think i am kind of cpu limited as even if i reduce fsx settings a lot my fps doesn't improve by much. after i posted this last night i was thinking about other variables i hadn't tried to mess with, and one thing that i do pretty regularly on longer flights is increase time acceleration during cruise. generally i will drop to 1x when i am over cool looking weather or scenery, or changing cruise altitude to avoid bad weather, but i don't often have time to fully simulate a 6 hour flight in realtime. so i did a shorter flight without using any time acceleration at all, and noticed no pops. i have a suspicion that the issue only starts to occur after increasing the time rate and then setting it back to 1x. obviously, when i am at 8x or 16x i expect things to pop a lot, as terrain and other things also kind of load haphazardly. when i go back to 1x, after a few minutes the sim stabilizes from reloading hi-res terrain and textures, but it feels like maybe the update rate for the weather is still acting like it is just trying to catch up and never really reaches that stability again even after spending 20+ minutes back at 1x...like it thinks i am still at a high acceleration and doesn't try as hard to keep persistent structures around as i fly by them..? that is just a guess, i haven't verified this in a repeatable fashion yet, but doing the flight in all realtime did seem to prevent the issue in that one experiment. normally i use the weather set to "force to real time" so i don't think it is an issue of the sim time getting too far into the future for a time where there isn't real weather data available yet and maybe the generation of fake weather is involved.. ? tonight i intend to try and investigate the time rate stuff in a more repeatable test and also try historical weather and see if i notice anything else..cheers,-andy c

[pouldam 0]

Hi,I take absolutely no credit for this, but the following post may contain a fix for the disappearing clouds issue (in SP2/Acceleration) or at least provide hints to how it can be fixed:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...34059&mode=full/ Cheers, Poul