ASA (355) & FSX update to HIFI

[Guest ashwath]

hi,i just installed ASA (355) and did a couple of flights in FSX. to be honest, the new build is far superior to the original release. there is no more annoying cloud popping, good visibility transition, accurate weather depiction, no OOM's so far, and a lot of good things are in place. there are however a few minor problems:1. when flying through clouds, a fog layer appears suddenly and seems to fill the entire area with a thin layer of fog (happens suddenly). and when i exit the cloud the whole fog layer is gone (instant). happens whenever i fly into clouds.2. when a flight plan is loaded into ASA's briefing page, automatic downloads do not occur although i have set it to a 15 min. interval. i did a 1 hour flight and when i closed FSX, the last update was an hour back (when i started the flight). however, without a flight plan imported in ASA, normal 15 min. updates occur.3. extreme wind shifts occur at FL300 and above with the PMDG-MD11 (not tried with default aircraft) causing an overspeed/stall (i know this issue is being worked on with PMDG...just thought i'll add it).4. temperature changes as the plane climbs and descends are not smooth (instant), but it has improved when compared to before the 355 update. however, temperatures at the departure airport, destination airport and cruise level are correct. it is only during the climbs and descents that the problem occurs. one interesting thing here is that running ASA on the second core (core 1) of a quad core processor now eliminates stuttering and allows the user to have unlimited frame rate set in FSX. this is very much true for conditions with little or no clouds. haven't tried it for overcast conditions though. i will try some flights to see if there are any other problems that creep up. overall i'm impressed now.regards,

[Andydigital 93]

Most of your problems will go away if you turn on DWC and Visibility smoothing.

[Guest ashwath]

Most of your problems will go away if you turn on DWC and Visibility smoothing.

hi andy,tried DWC and visibility smoothing but unfortunately the above mentioned problems still exist except that the wind shifts are slightly better now but not completely eliminated. and moreover there is occasional cloud popping which is not there when using station based mode. the fog layer appearing and disappearing suddenly (while flying into and out of clouds) is the most annoying.regards,

[Andydigital 93]

ASA cant completely remove wind shifts if DWC mode isn't enabled this is because the FSX weather engine is seriously flawed when in station mode even more so than it was in FS9. DWC works by using the global weather mode in FSX which unfortunately has some side effects that you are seeing from time to time. I do know that HIFI is actively trying to find ways of minimising odd effects like cloud pop but its something that is really tricky to get round just because of the way global weather mode works. I'm confident that they will come up with a ingenious solution at some point.

[Guest ashwath]

ASA cant completely remove wind shifts if DWC mode isn't enabled this is because the FSX weather engine is seriously flawed when in station mode even more so than it was in FS9. DWC works by using the global weather mode in FSX which unfortunately has some side effects that you are seeing from time to time. I do know that HIFI is actively trying to find ways of minimising odd effects like cloud pop but its something that is really tricky to get round just because of the way global weather mode works. I'm confident that they will come up with a ingenious solution at some point.

hi,yup i'm confident about hifi too...ASA is good as it is (build 355)...great work...is it possible for you as a beta tester to ask other users to test ASA by running it only on the second core of their processor. its given me very good results...no more stuttering...only occasional ones. regards,

[Andydigital 93]

I've already tried running it on various cores as I use a Quad core processor, and this question has come up in testing already and we have been informed that ASA is multi threaded/multi core aware so it is probably best to leave affinity alone. I do know that there are some other optimisations in the pipeline to reduce processor load during weather updates, so we should be seeing some improvements in this area in the future.To be honest though things are fine on my setup and I have a load of stuff running in the background both normal PC stuff and FSX related add-ons too, lets just say my task bar is always cramped when I'm flying, especially when on long haul flights.

[Guest ashwath]

hi,flew a couple more flights in DWC (global) mode. cloud popping is annoying, although the wind shifts have been sorted out. i cannot understand the feature of visibility smoothing??? because it doesn't matter if i use station based mode or global mode...i still get proper visibility smoothing in both cases...in fact its better with station based mode. i flew from an area with no clouds to an area with scattered and broken clouds in station based mode and all was fine (very smooth)...the same thing in global mode, and clouds pop up (very little smooth transition). just cannot understand :( regards,

[Andydigital 93]

Well I don't know what is happening in your case but for me ASA is the first program that has ever managed to get visibility levels to slowly shift from one extreme to the other in FSX. FSX itself and any other weather add-on to date for FSX hasn't been able to address this at all i.e. in a blink of an eye visibility would go from 100 miles to 1 foot in an instant and that looks horrible.

[speed771 0]

I installed the beta 355 and wind sways and s-turns are as bad as ever with the PMDG 747. It's up to a point I can't fly it anymore on autopilot. It's not only S-turns with bank angles over 45 degrees when autopilot is on (I get 'bank angle' warnings), the wind sways can cause the airplane to stall at cruising altitude or take-off/I hope this gets better soon. Not much fun right now. I'm flying on VATSIM and it's embarrassing! :)Sometimes I can see the wind changing direction on the 747 nav display 360 degrees within seconds. It's a spinning arrow!When the aircraft is totally out of control it helps to enable or disable DWC. Just going to the opposite setting.What are the recommended settings with winds at the moment for the PDMG 747?

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,Do you have a registered version of FSUIPC? If you do, you might need to really adjust the wind shifts through there.Thanks,

[speed771 0]

I do have the reg version of it. But it doesn't work with DWC on, right?If I switch DWC off I get windshifts going through full 360 degrees in a couple of seconds. Using FSUIPC I can slow this down do a degree a second but it is still very annoying if you go from a 60kts headwind to a 60kts tailwind in 3min.What is the recommended setting for the moment flying PDMG planes?DWC on/off?Disable Winds Aloft on/off?what about all the sliders for Wind?FSUIPC reg. what settings?It's all a bit confusing...thanksSteve

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,It is to us also because right now there are no suggested settings because of the way the winds are being processed. Each plane and user are different.If you don't like a degree per second then try a degree every 2 or 3 seconds.This would mean DWC off.If you disable Winds Aloft, you will get no winds at all.We are still working on this with PDMG.Thanks,

[BlueStar 323]

Jim,

We are still working on this with PDMG.

What is the status with ASA and PMDG? I am holding off buying ASA until this is resolved since most of my flying is with 747-400X. I am currently running FSX SP2 and Vista 32 with ASX. Would I be better off continuing with ASX and purchasing the registerd version of FSUIPC?Thanks,Bill

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,It's a code change they would need to make so you'll need to ask PMDG.Thanks!

[Guest johnz63]

Hi Ashwath,I am experiencing the same cloud popping with DWC enabled. In fact it appears to happen about every 10 minutes.John