Open Clouds is released

[StamPilot 4]

Great product!

[Nikos_f3n 0]

Hi guys. I have a question here. When i am in flight the clouds suddenly disappear and reapears after a minute. Is that a weather update from open clouds? Does the weather settings and the fsuipc settings affect open clouds? Which are the correct settings for fsuipc and rate of weather change slider when using open clouds. Thanks for any help. Open clouds really gets fsx to the next level, the program is awsome.

[davethewave2 20]

Hi guys. I have a question here. When i am in flight the clouds suddenly disappear and reapears after a minute. Is that a weather update from open clouds? Does the weather settings and the fsuipc settings affect open clouds? Which are the correct settings for fsuipc and rate of weather change slider when using open clouds. Thanks for any help. Open clouds really gets fsx to the next level, the program is awsome.

Hi Nikos,Open Clouds checks for an updated METAR every 5 minutes. If it is different to the current METAR then it will immeadiatly load the new weather. I wish there was a way to fade the weather in slowly but Microsoft have given developers a very limited interface.Not sure what setting to use in fsuipc as I don't use it. Lots of people will recommend it as the only way to sort out the violent wind changes that can occur.

[Nikos_f3n 0]

Thank you. So if i want i can stop the auto update in open clouds and then i will have no changes in weather. I can reload weather manualy any time i want. That is what i am going to do from now on. How many stations open clouds loads at the begining? How many miles the weather covers? I usualy fly 150 to 400 nm flights.

[davethewave2 20]

Thank you. So if i want i can stop the auto update in open clouds and then i will have no changes in weather. I can reload weather manualy any time i want. That is what i am going to do from now on. How many stations open clouds loads at the begining? How many miles the weather covers? I usualy fly 150 to 400 nm flights.

It loads all weather within 250 miles AND at least the nearest 100 to ensure weather surrounds you in unpopulated areas.

[Nikos_f3n 0]

I have noticed tha every time i fly the limit visibility option doesn't work right. I have this haze and its very good, but suddenly the haze disappears and i have 60 or 80 miles visibility. And this stays like this for many minutes. I have the limit visibility option cheked of course. Is this a problem which needs to be fixed? Even if i load manualy the weather it doesn't do anything! I still don't have haze.

[Michael Cependa 17]

I downloaded this software last night and really liked what I saw, particularly the visibility. I have a a few of questions though: 1. If I turn off updates, will I at some point run out of weather, so to speak? Let's say I am doing a flight of 1000 miles, do I need updates on? My preference is to have them off as I don't like to encounter abrupt changes in weather during an approach.2. Is there anyway to archive the weather? I rarely complete a flight in one sitting, so I like to be able to save both the flight and the weather. Possibly FSX does that anyway, but I guess that brings me back to the question of whether I need updates on for a long flight. 3. Is the program intended to work with the FSX visibility layer active? I have been using REX which gets rid of the that texture.

[davethewave2 20]

1. If I turn off updates, will I at some point run out of weather, so to speak? Let's say I am doing a flight of 1000 miles, do I need updates on? My preference is to have them off as I don't like to encounter abrupt changes in weather during an approach.

Yes it will, hard to say when as it depends on the area you are in. You could turn it on when you notice it's run out.

2. Is there anyway to archive the weather? I rarely complete a flight in one sitting, so I like to be able to save both the flight and the weather. Possibly FSX does that anyway, but I guess that brings me back to the question of whether I need updates on for a long flight.

Sorry No. You could save the flight which would save the loaded weather. Consider buying active sky if you want that feature (No association with me)

3. Is the program intended to work with the FSX visibility layer active? I have been using REX which gets rid of the that texture.

Err, no idea what that is. I guess if Rex has replaced the texture it open clouds won't change anything.

[KH600 0]

HalloI have the following problem with open cloud:When I start from an aiprort where its raining, approximately 1500 or 2000 feet higher suddenly the rain stops (the same problem when its snowing). Then I descend again and the rain (or the snow) appears again. This is really not realistic.Has anybody encountered this problem too?Regards, Heinz

[davethewave2 20]

HalloI have the following problem with open cloud:When I start from an aiprort where its raining, approximately 1500 or 2000 feet higher suddenly the rain stops (the same problem when its snowing). Then I descend again and the rain (or the snow) appears again. This is really not realistic.Has anybody encountered this problem too?Regards, Heinz

Hi Heinz,This often happens when there is more then 1 cloud layer published in a metar. Since it's raining everywhere in the uk today it didn't take me long to find an example. 080650Z 22015KT 190V250 9000 RA FEW013 SCT022CB BKN032 13/12 Q1003You can see 3 layers in this metar, few at 1300, scattered at 2200 and broken at 3200. Also we have RA=rain.FSX then makes the assumption that the rain should cut off at the lowest cloud base which is 1300.When writing Open Clouds I had 2 choices, leave it as is so user sees clouds at the 3 levels, or remove 2 of the levels so there is one cloud base.I choose the former as in normal flight you wouldn't be going up and down through this so you would just assume that the rain had stopped/started while still seeing 3 layers of clouds.I hope flight fixes these issues, currently fsx totaly ignores showers in a Metar. Would be nice if it maybe rained under clouds! Hope that's useful.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Hi Heinz,This often happens when there is more then 1 cloud layer published in a metar. Since it's raining everywhere in the uk today it didn't take me long to find an example. 080650Z 22015KT 190V250 9000 RA FEW013 SCT022CB BKN032 13/12 Q1003You can see 3 layers in this metar, few at 1300, scattered at 2200 and broken at 3200. Also we have RA=rain.FSX then makes the assumption that the rain should cut off at the lowest cloud base which is 1300.When writing Open Clouds I had 2 choices, leave it as is so user sees clouds at the 3 levels, or remove 2 of the levels so there is one cloud base.I choose the former as in normal flight you wouldn't be going up and down through this so you would just assume that the rain had stopped/started while still seeing 3 layers of clouds.I hope flight fixes these issues, currently fsx totaly ignores showers in a Metar. Would be nice if it maybe rained under clouds! Hope that's useful.

Very interesting to know that. I wonder if that would explain why every once in a while I will arrive at an airport and it will be raining on one side of the airport, but not on the other? I haven't experienced that many times, but on the occasions that I have, I was able to slew the plane from one end of the runway where it was raining to the other end of the runway where it was dry. I have never been able to figure out how that could happen, but maybe it has to do with what you explained above.

[davethewave2 20]

Very interesting to know that. I wonder if that would explain why every once in a while I will arrive at an airport and it will be raining on one side of the airport, but not on the other? I haven't experienced that many times, but on the occasions that I have, I was able to slew the plane from one end of the runway where it was raining to the other end of the runway where it was dry. I have never been able to figure out how that could happen, but maybe it has to do with what you explained above.

There are some airports where a weather station is at an airport and another weather station is within a few miles or so. I've only realy noticed this in America. If you use fsx weather then its quite normal for fsx only to receive a Metar from Jeppesen for the airport. As soon as you're closer to the other weather station the weather will change. Open clouds and I guess other 3rd party weather engines should fix this. This shouldn't happen in Open Clouds.

[simba_nl 34]

A freeware weather program? Seems like a first to me, pretty impressive and looking at the features gives me this thought too.Although I'm a ASE user (and really like it) I will give this a try, just to applaud to your efforts. The Simconnect dependency is a big Pro in my eyes. You don't have to own widefs or something, just enable Simconnect on the network, which is free too.Thanks for your work.From your pagesounds good :( and I know what you mean.I've installed it. Pretty straightforward and easy setup, it works out of the box. RAM consumption is far lower than ASE's, 22MB to over 100 here but ASE of course brings in its larger interface and featureset.I will test the function of your nice program on some flights in the next days. Thanks again for your efforts on this.

Lots of people (Including me) are struggling with simconnect. I am not a no no on computers/networks but never get simconnect working with REX Weather. I have followed the sticky posts about that to the letter but no go so yes, I hope he can make it work over Widefs and then I will give it a try. Although I have a 2600K/GTX580 configuration, real weather with REX gives a BIG hit on the system so a good working REMOTE program is very welcome.

[CoolP 283]

In my humble eyes, the whole simconnect over LAN setup could be far more intuitive or at least tool based, so I'm not surprised that people struggle there.While the interface itself seems to be a good thing and also comes free of additional costs for that network setup, the process of getting it running is a p in the a. Same goes with troubleshooting there.But I think there are some freeware setup tools available.One can't blame the programs making use of that free simconnect interface of course since they are just using what's there. WideFS works much easier on the setup (it just connects, out of the box), but one has to buy it first.

[KH600 0]

Hi Heinz,This often happens when there is more then 1 cloud layer published in a metar. Since it's raining everywhere in the uk today it didn't take me long to find an example. 080650Z 22015KT 190V250 9000 RA FEW013 SCT022CB BKN032 13/12 Q1003You can see 3 layers in this metar, few at 1300, scattered at 2200 and broken at 3200. Also we have RA=rain.FSX then makes the assumption that the rain should cut off at the lowest cloud base which is 1300.When writing Open Clouds I had 2 choices, leave it as is so user sees clouds at the 3 levels, or remove 2 of the levels so there is one cloud base.I choose the former as in normal flight you wouldn't be going up and down through this so you would just assume that the rain had stopped/started while still seeing 3 layers of clouds.I hope flight fixes these issues, currently fsx totaly ignores showers in a Metar. Would be nice if it maybe rained under clouds! Hope that's useful.

Hi Thank you for the explanation, but this doesn't resolve the problem. If I understand correctly, the fault is due to FSX and not to Open clouds. But for me it is really annoying, when the rain suddenly disapears. Is it really not possible to find a solution for this problem by Open clouds, for instance to say, that the rains stops at the top of the highest level of the clouds?Regards, Heinz