Active Sky Questions

[Nic 0]

Hi all I have often toyed with the idea of getting the above weather generator but up until now have never dived in. Before I make the purchase I have some questions I'd like to ask from you guys who are already users of this product. 1. Can you use preset weather situations as opposed to being connected to the internet whilst flying? 2. Is there a facility to store previously downloaded weather situations for use at a later time?. And to incorporate them into flightplans with FS Build? 3. If I can run default at max with very good frame rates will I be able to do the same with ActiveSky? Thanks in advance for your help

[deaconblues 0]

Hi all I have often toyed with the idea of getting the above weather generator but up until now have never dived in. Before I make the purchase I have some questions I'd like to ask from you guys who are already users of this product. 1. Can you use preset weather situations as opposed to being connected to the internet whilst flying? 2. Is there a facility to store previously downloaded weather situations for use at a later time?. And to incorporate them into flightplans with FS Build? 3. If I can run default at max with very good frame rates will I be able to do the same with ActiveSky? Thanks in advance for your help

1. Yes.2. Yes.3. Possibly. It depends on the strength of your system.Do yourself a favor and BUY IT. It's one of the best investments you can make for FS.

[ronzie 21]

I use AS 6.5.In addition to the features you queried about, you can download archived weather from their servers. I choose to download the Z time of the flight area FS time I am using. As an example right now in Minneapolis it is GMT - 5 (CDT) so for a noon flight I would download the 1700Z data.Weather aspects can change throughout the day such as visibility, the temperature, etc.You can direct your own weather to archive on your PC to different folders named after the area and situation such as US N East Coast TRWs for thunderstorms.

[Nic 0]

Thanks for your quick replys guys. I have one more question to ask you. I am presently running Flight Environment will this program run with Active Sky Or is it best to remove it, does Active Sky have it's own cloud, dawn & dusk textures?

[Guest lgvpilot1]

Thanks for your quick replys guys.I have one more question to ask you.I am presently running Flight Environment will this program run with Active Sky Or is it best to remove it, does Active Sky have it's own cloud, dawn & dusk textures?

No need to worry about that , you can just use the weather engine and keep all your FE settings , I do the same myselfMark

[Nic 0]

Cheers Mark Appreciate the quick reply.

[deaconblues 0]

Hey, I just wanted to give a "ditto" to Mark's last post... I have the same, and use the FE textures instead of the AS textures, personal preference.

[Jim Robinson 122]

If I may chime in here with a quick question:If those of you who've used Active Sky were in my position, meaning never owned/experienced Active Sky in any form, would you buy AS 6.5 or Active Sky Advanced for use with FS9? If I buy Advanced will it work for FS9 and FSX if both are installed on the same computer?Thanks,Jim

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,Yes, ASA will work with both FS04 and FSX on the same computer.Thanks!

[alastairmonk 0]

If I may chime in here with a quick question:If those of you who've used Active Sky were in my position, meaning never owned/experienced Active Sky in any form, would you buy AS 6.5 or Active Sky Advanced for use with FS9? If I buy Advanced will it work for FS9 and FSX if both are installed on the same computer?Thanks,Jim

Hi Jim,I used AS6.5 for quite a while and have recently "switched" to ASA (well, it was only released at Christmas !) and in general ASA is a good deal better. There's a better interface, and if you fly "ofline" like I do, downloading the appropriate "historical" METAR is easier than before. Using the same textures (in my case from Flight Environment) the weather appears more realistic IMHO.The only "downside" (other than the graphics problems some users are getting) is that as a complex package it uses rather more RAM when running than AS6.5 used to. As a general guide, AS6.5 used to use 20-30Mb wheras ASA seems to use 50-100Mb depending on the weather (i.e. quantity of cloud.)Alastair

[Jim Robinson 122]

Thanks for your responses gents. I bought ASA and tried it out last night. I installed the SP1 Beta 2 patch from this thread immediately after installing ASA and before running the program. Using it in FS9 only so far. Seems to work and the weather's spectacular but I'm on dial-up so I'm very interested to hear about your "ofline" method Alastair. When I start the program it automatically connects to the server and downloads current conditions. When you live in North Idaho this time of year you find that the "current conditions" have been about the same for the past 4 months so I can see myself downloading a bunch of the archived summer, spring, and fall weather, finding a few scenarios that I really like, and probably just loading a saved weather scenario into ASA for 90% of my flying. Is there some way to fire up ASA and load a saved weather file directly without all the eternal downloading and processing?Thanks,Jim

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,Just start ASA one more time and uncheck the Online update option. Then make sure to save your options. The next time you start ASA it will not download the weather.Thanks!

[Jim Robinson 122]

Perfect Jim, thanks I'll try that out tomorrow. One more question, at one point during last night's brief tryout session I cleared all weather via the FS9 weather dialog, maybe I didn't wait long enough, or maybe I needed to move out of my weather update range, but I didn't see the AS weather return, not even after closing and restarting the sim. Is there a button in ASA somewhere where you can "send weather to sim" or otherwise force an update to the weather (I tried "refresh AI, no luck)?Thanks,Jim

[alastairmonk 0]

Hi Jim,If you start ASA before opening FS2004 the weather should update automatically once FS2004 has fully loaded. You shouldn't have to manually clear the weather in FS2004. If you tick the "lock to closest" box the nearest METAR to the airport you're at will supply the weather.It can take a few minutes for the weather to stabilize, but if the weather is supposed to be cloudy and you remain with the default Clear Weather then usually a click of the Refresh button (3rd from right at the top) will correct it.Like you I've downloaded some archived METARs from last summer, and as the directory where they're kept is buried in your Documents and Settings folder like the FS9.cfg, I've simply created a shortcut to the folder on my desktop. Although not strictly necessary as you can manually select earlier downloads from within ASA, it does provide an "overview" of what's available !C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\HiFi\ASA\WeatherCheers,Alastair