ASA for FS9 - My Feedback

[Guest keiron]

ASA was a great buy and a very good upgrade from ASV6.5! Too bad I couldnt have got the discount upgrade as I bought ASV5 back in the day then upgraded it to 6.5 lol. After 31 hours of flight, I'm offering my feedback:A few dissapointments about ASA (even with the current version + BETA installed.)

• DWC seems kind of effective but notice very often the wind speeds will fluctuate from e.g 30kts to about 65kts in an instant! Then a second later back to 30kts or something. Drives my PMDG aircraft (which is all I fly) nuts!
• Also temperature changes can be irratic at times, very annoying and drives me aircraft crazy.
• Weird fog layer generations at cruise altitude that sweeps in for a moment or two then BOOM a cloud formation out of nowhere, big pressure and temperature changes. Drives my aircraft crazy.
• Sometimes Fog will come out of nowhere at cruise alititude and dissapear in an instant before doing it again and again.
• I dont like the way cloud formations just suddenly pop out of nowhere compared to ASV6 where they smoothly loaded into view.
• I dont like the initial ASA start up process but can live with it.
• No ASA graphics pack or something..

What I really like about ASA

• I like how quick it analyzes and processes flightplan weather!
• OMG the simulated winds and turbulance are amazing. Cloud formations look cool and ASA seems alot less demanding. Heck it even handles 10 cloud layers without any problems.
• Weather radar is fantastic! Very simple installation of it too. Wow!
• The options are made much more simpler in terms of getting realistic weather effects!
• Great new GUI and smooth performance
• Lots of great new features basically.
• FSFlightkeeper 3.0 ACARS is able to read the weather data very accuratley from the ASA weather files
• Weather updates are more or less unoticeable whilst flying!

Thanks well worth the money. I hope your dev team are able to resolve bugs and issues and find the sweet spot for ASA. Thanks though, I'm really impressed.I rate ASA 9/10 at the moment. Right now I'm using windsmoothing and smooth vis changes with my FSUIPC which seems to have calmed a few issues down.

[B42L8 0]

Many thanks for your opinion, I have been wondering whether to make the move to ASA only for FS9, I have been trying to tweek the program to get a more realistic weather graphic around the Tucson area, so far, it seems when we do get some cloud action, such as last few days, the graphics show mostly clear skyy with only a few clouds, not the heavy overcast and fast rolling grey sky I see out the window...........Does the ASA (with patch) make a big difference??........I have a husky computer and 42" monitor, Navidia 8800GT card, so hardware should not be the problem........thanks for your comments and anyone else in similar situation.....PS, I raised a similar post some time ago but still want to get the better reality if possible................B42L8

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,To get the ASA discount all you would have had to do is have ASv6.5 installed on your computer.ASA can use the graphics from ASv6.5 so there is no need for graphics in ASA.DWC does not mix well with PMDG planes. Please try a default plane. It is because of the way PMDG interacts with DWC.Thanks.

[biloo 20]

Hi,To get the ASA discount all you would have had to do is have ASv6.5 installed on your computer.ASA can use the graphics from ASv6.5 so there is no need for graphics in ASA.DWC does not mix well with PMDG planes. Please try a default plane. It is because of the way PMDG interacts with DWC.Thanks.

aah ... does ASA not work well with PMDG or Level-D aircrafts ?yesterday i was trying to do a flight with PMDG but the weather were not able to load onto my fs9.

[NeilC 3]

Anyone tried it with Maddog2008. I am a really happy AS6.5 user, and am also considering updating, but...................not if it compromises the enjoyment I get with my beloved MaddogThanksNeil

[Guest TIYCS]

I'll throw my 2 cents in here as well and give some feedback on ASA.The most notable rendering related differences I've found in ASA over ASV/AS6/AS6.5 in FS9 are:#1: The dreaded land horizon-vs-sky horizon issue has been solved. Cirrus clouds at extreme distances tend to wrap around the curvature of the earth rather than shooting out into the open sky to hang out there in limbo, which for me was very annoying. It always disrupted my sense of depth and perspective as it would make coulds at extreme distances look like they were at a higher altitude even though they werent. This, in my opinion, is the #1 improvement since without it the many other improvements would've been impossible to achieve.#2: Cloud layering and placement are much more realistic at high altitudes. OVC @ 30,000ft conditions are really overcast at FL300! If in real life there's a thick, complex, multi-layered soup of cirrus blotting out the sun at... say FL390 for example... ASA will accurately re-create it. So now you can actually cruise in a low-visibility, icy mess just like in real life! Previous versions of AS tended to place all non-cirrus & non CB clouds below 28,000ft or so, leaving this large, unrealistic gap between cloud tops and upper-level cirrus.#3: Cloud layering and placement are much more realistic at ALL altitudes. On the lower-level side of things, ASA tends to create more complex layering with more/better layer interaction & visual depiction. Also, the alpha channel transparancy issue has FINALLY been addressed! ASA tends to both prevent and "catch and correct" more quickly the FS9 problem with taking more distant, darker shaded clouds and rendering them in the foreground of nearer, lighter shaded clouds. For me, this issue tended to destroy any illusion of reality when it would occur - which seemed to be more often than not. You still get it a little bit of it popping up here and there, but ASA seems to "know" when it's happening and "snap" things back into shape pretty quickly, resetting the proper order of layer arrangement and rendering and thereby dramatically increasing the realism of the overall flight simulation.Here are some examples:ASV6.5 - Notice how cirrus clouds tend to jut up into the blue sky at a distance. This screen shot was taken at an altitude of about 7,000ft HIGHER than the cirrus layer depicted. Image ASA - Notice not only the more accurate depiction of cirrus at a distance, but the complexity of all distant cloud layers. Cirrus here are depicted both above and below flight altitude. Image ASA - Lower level cloud performance at KLAS - This was an extremely realistic depiction of real-time weather that day. Image

[Guest keiron]

Many thanks for your opinion, I have been wondering whether to make the move to ASA only for FS9, I have been trying to tweek the program to get a more realistic weather graphic around the Tucson area, so far, it seems when we do get some cloud action, such as last few days, the graphics show mostly clear skyy with only a few clouds, not the heavy overcast and fast rolling grey sky I see out the window...........Does the ASA (with patch) make a big difference??........I have a husky computer and 42" monitor, Navidia 8800GT card, so hardware should not be the problem........thanks for your comments and anyone else in similar situation.....PS, I raised a similar post some time ago but still want to get the better reality if possible................B42L8

You're welcome. I'm can't confirm that the BETA patch made a big difference as I bought ASA and immediately downloaded the patch after reading the patch release notes. I thought it's better to be safe than sorry.I'm not entirely sure why your weather wasn't depicted properly but I'm guessing it could be down to your real time/FS clock settings. Downloading the wrong TAF details maybe?

Hi,To get the ASA discount all you would have had to do is have ASv6.5 installed on your computer.ASA can use the graphics from ASv6.5 so there is no need for graphics in ASA.DWC does not mix well with PMDG planes. Please try a default plane. It is because of the way PMDG interacts with DWC.Thanks.

Ahh I must have miss-read the site. I had the idea that i would have to supply an ASV6 receipt details or something to upgrade. Whereas I checked my inbox and It said AsV5 on my receipt. Ahh well, my extra $10 I gave you can be donated towards future HiFisim products lol.Me flying a default plane is not happening. I prefer to face problems head on and find a solution. I have DWC enabled and at the same time I have wind and visibility smoothing enabled within the FSUIPC. Most of the major problems with PMDG compatibility seem to have vanished.TIYCS, I read your post, I agree its really a major improvement. The high altitude clouds are spectacular. I hope there will be some ASA graphics snapshots in the future.

[iainsmith 9]

ASA was a great buy and a very good upgrade from ASV6.5! Too bad I couldnt have got the discount upgrade as I bought ASV5 back in the day then upgraded it to 6.5 lol. After 31 hours of flight, I'm offering my feedback:A few dissapointments about ASA (even with the current version + BETA installed.)

• DWC seems kind of effective but notice very often the wind speeds will fluctuate from e.g 30kts to about 65kts in an instant! Then a second later back to 30kts or something. Drives my PMDG aircraft (which is all I fly) nuts!
• Also temperature changes can be irratic at times, very annoying and drives me aircraft crazy.
• Weird fog layer generations at cruise altitude that sweeps in for a moment or two then BOOM a cloud formation out of nowhere, big pressure and temperature changes. Drives my aircraft crazy.
• Sometimes Fog will come out of nowhere at cruise alititude and dissapear in an instant before doing it again and again.
• I dont like the way cloud formations just suddenly pop out of nowhere compared to ASV6 where they smoothly loaded into view.
• I dont like the initial ASA start up process but can live with it.
• No ASA graphics pack or something..

Thanks well worth the money. I hope your dev team are able to resolve bugs and issues and find the sweet spot for ASA. Thanks though, I'm really impressed.I rate ASA 9/10 at the moment. Right now I'm using windsmoothing and smooth vis changes with my FSUIPC which seems to have calmed a few issues down.

Amazing! The things you don't like, such as weird fog layer generation and clouds popping in and out (and going light and dark on my setup) are the reasons why I've stopped using it and gone back to 6.5 until these issues are fixed. I'm afraid I do not regard it as a great buy, more a retrograde step. However, hopefully there will be a fix.Iain Smith

[NeilC 3]

Those screen shots look fantastic.What graphics are you using to generate the clouds? Are they the stock ASG clouds from AS6.5 or have you got another addon?Also, how is the feature to update the ground textures and sky textures (using GE Pro). This is the one thing still putting me off upgrading at the moment. I just love the way with AS6.5 that you download the weather, put in a plan, and then AS6.5 sorts out the updating of all textures automatically.From what I have read so far, you need to do this manually each time and choose which textures you want yourself. It this correct?ThanksNeil

[Guest TIYCS]

Those screen shots look fantastic.What graphics are you using to generate the clouds? Are they the stock ASG clouds from AS6.5 or have you got another addon?

Thanks - yeah, it's just ASG working it's wonderful magic :-) It's a really cool set I came across using Wx Influenced one day. I noticed it looked super realistic and it totally rocked the framerates (I was using an FX5600 Ultra at the time & needed all the help I could get). So I saved it as a custom full sky set and tend to use it more often than any other. I'm now expirimenting with others though, since I now have an FX6800 Xtreme card which tends to rock on just about every ASG cloud set I've tried it on. (The 2nd & 3rd picts are especially gorgeous because I snapped them at 1080p and re-sized them to fit into a smaller area. A 28"+ HDMI monitor is highly recommended for FS9!)

Also, how is the feature to update the ground textures and sky textures (using GE Pro). This is the one thing still putting me off upgrading at the moment. I just love the way with AS6.5 that you download the weather, put in a plan, and then AS6.5 sorts out the updating of all textures automatically.From what I have read so far, you need to do this manually each time and choose which textures you want yourself. It this correct?

To be honest, that's the one thing I really don't like about ASA - The whole snapshot concept. I've read thru that section of the user guide several times and I still don't quite get it. So I'll have to defer that question to someone else.I realize the whole snapshot concept pretty much had to be done in order to maximize ASA's usefullness with other add-ons, but it's too bad in my opinion... because I've wasted so much money on other cloud texture add-ons and been completely dissappointed in every single one of them. ASG is, bar-none, THE king of all cloud texture add-ons in my opinion. Nothing else even comes close. So it seems to me to have been a wasted effort on the part of HiFi. But that's just me - I'm sure there are legions of other simmers out there who would dissagree with me on that note.