Why does anyone use FS2004?

[Jure 36]

Paul,this has been reported on numerous occasions - the sudden wind and temerature changes. I experience them regularly when I fly, on virtually every flight with real weather. Be it using Weather Center or FS's own "Real weather". Yes, FS's real weather produce these violent shifts as well. An example is a flight from Vienna to Munich. I repeated the flight with a Fokker 70 twice in two days and it happened every time. The aircraft gets slammed violently by a sudden wind change and it happened that my AC disintegrated in mid-air because of overspeed (sudden temp increase). All because of these violent and sudden changes. I do not use dynamic weather and I believe I have everything set up correctly.As for me being an "expert", hehe... I won't comment on that, let's say I have some background in meteorology as well as in virtual flying which goes back to Commodore 64 and FS by Sublogic. These issues are real, unfortunately and shouldn't be happening. Regards,Jurehttp://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi James, Fs2002 weather/environment system is terrible compare to fs2004How FS2002 weather is limited overall-Limited clouds layers to 2 in 2d clouds.-Paper thin clouds-Only 2 clouds type-Clouds that's disappears-Up side down black gray clouds effect-Random stretch clouds by the engine (some random clouds appears -flat from the original clouds created) -Horizon visibility Cutting high level clouds at the edge-Rain bugs, unrealistic snow.-stock sky color.-Closed codeFs2002 is unable to reproduce CB, stratus, correct real weather data with the clouds type formation and other stuff.Fs2004 from above to not have those issue and are open. ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[HawaiianCondor 0]

Agree wholeheartedly Chris, there is no comparison between the modelling of the weather in the two sims...but...James is completely write on the wind transition issue. I've written to both Marc Philbert and Pete Dowson about it, and I've heard that Pete doesn't think that he can go much further at this point and that Marc is working on solutions...the transitions especially at the upper flight levels and when climbing and descending through layers are terrible. It kind of ruins all of the other great advances in the weather physics/engine that FS2004 represents, at least for me. It is a significant problem reported by a large variety of users and needs to get fixed so that we can all get maximum enjoyment and realism out of this sim..IMHO.regards,

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi,I too have experienced this numerous times and it real bummer. There should be no reason that my plane should be disintegrated just because I want to enjoy using Real World weather. My opinion is that MS should do the right thing here and issue a fix for this, along with a fix for the missing and messy looking bridges issue. This weather issue being more critical out of the two.Cheers,Jim

[Guest aeroworx]

Hi there,Before you completely wipe FS2004, think about taking the clouds, effects and textures into FS2002. Here are 2 examples:http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/47608.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/47609.jpgNot bad hey? I call it FS2003. Now I have the best of both.CheersHenning| P4 2.0 GIG | Epox 4G4A Motherboard | 1 GIG RAM | Gainward GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB | 80 GIG IBM Deskstar 7200 | Sound Blaster Live! |"You know that you are low and slow when you get a bird strike from behind..."

[Guest shanwick]

I'd like to offer a different perspective here.I very recently bought a state of the art PC and was expecting it to tear along in FS2004 at breakneck speed with everything maxed out - well, that's what posts in various forums would have me believe. Not so :-) For me, I found the biggest performance hog was the weather engine. Yes, it's great eye candy but a hog.So then I started to think about FS2004 versus FS2002. I don't use Autogen as I think it's unreal as well as being another performance hog. And neither do I use AI aircraft for performance reasons. If you want the best ATC available then you should get Radar Contact as it is much better than MSFS.So what has FS2004 got that FS2002 hasn't got and that I need? Weather, that's all, but I can get along without that as I am a VFR man.I use VFR Photographic scenery of the UK and add-on airports for the UK. They work exactly the same in FS2002 as they do in FS2004. If I really wanted AI aircraft flying around then I believe I would have to use a third party utility to make them work with my add-on airports - but I want to fly not re-program half of MSFS :-)Apart from that I have many other add-on sceneries, airports and aircraft for FS2002 many of which I have bought. Why should I go and buy them all again just to be able to use them in FS2004?One of the biggest things I was disapopointed with in FS2004 was the GPS. I bought the Garmin 430 for FS2002 that was eventually given away free - can't remember the author now - and we all speculated that it was MS who would make it available in FS2004. This was a real implementation of a Garmin. The GPS's in FS2004 are not proper renditions of the real Garmins but IMHO just a re-hashed version of the FS2002 gauge. If I want a real Garmin then I need to buy it from RealityXP - but why should I buy it all over again?So, I've gone back to FS2002 where just about everything I need is the same as FS2004 with the exception of the weather - but I can live with Chris Willis's excellent Sky World. And I will be saving myself a whole packet of money into the bargain.David

[Guest LLgaz]

I won't remove FS2004.....I really love the enhancments that it has over FS2002 especially in the eyecandy area.However, the wind transition issue is a VALID POINT!! These days I find myself doing long 3 - 5 hour flights with the F1 Cessna310, climbing and cruising at FL190 and FL200 depending on direction, and my poor Cessna gets bounced around like crazy when climbing AND in cruise. This is a REAL problem for me, as I can only watch helplessly in horror while my plane gets thrown around like a rag doll and hope that it doesn't stall or get overstressed. In a flight from KCMI to KISP, I got bounced around a total of 50....YES - 50 TIMES. I was using FSMeteo to provide real world weather.Its a shame really.....I bought the payware version of FSUIPC to get rid of that very problem.....that was before Pete realised that he couldn't fix the problem.I love FS9.......love the visuals when flying my Cessna...but I must admit...everytime I take off now, I feel that maybe today is the day that these wind transitions will finally get the better of my '310 and cause it to crash, totally messing up my 3 hour flight.I read somewhere that there's gonna be a patch for FS9 by Microsoft...lets hope that they fix this problem.