Permanently restricting visibility in FSX

[Stick 0]

OpenClouds is amazing.... I just love seeing weather that is totally credible and conceivable for the parts of the world that I know well in real life, and tend to fly in in FSX (mainly the UK and Scandinavia).Don't think for one moment that OpenCloud is just about 'low visibility'; I flew today and had 100nm visibility as we're having amazing weather in the North of England at the moment - 26 degrees today, in March! (would normally be around 7-15)........... BUT... it was a realistic looking 100nm visibility; gradually losing definition and focus in the distance (in a good way obviously).After a long GA VFR spell, I am back in the NGX at the moment, and let me tell you some of the OpenClouds weather is stunning from the exquisite VC of the NGX at 30,000' :smile:If there was one negative point it would be that occasionally the depicted weather can be so intense that it can have quite a dramatic effect on performance. It's only happened about 10% of the time so far, but it has dragged FPS into the late teens a few times. The thing to remember is that OpenClouds is a 100% real weather utility; you cannot apply it at all to weather themes or manual settings; when activated it always takes the real world weather (using it's custom data from it's dedicated server) and puts it in FSX...... So the nature of it is that where the weather is complex with a lot of coverage, the demand on resources can be high.But I use it 90% of the time .....set and forget!Cheers.

[MrBenevolent 0]

Wow - great find Stick!I have just tried the OpenClouds free version in conjunction with my REX2 Overdrive textures and it really is excellent.Seriously considering a subscription myself now, though I may wait and see how the REX Essentials Weather tool turns out in comparison.I will certainly be using OpenClouds for UK flights until then though.

[MrBenevolent 0]

Heh - I caved.For a few bucks for 3 months, I thought I would roll with it until Essentials comes out.Its great - been flying around Alaskan islands in the snow and 1m visibility.

[axelb9 0]

OpenClouds is amazing.... I just love seeing weather that is totally credible and conceivable for the parts of the world that I know well in real life, and tend to fly in in FSX (mainly the UK and Scandinavia).Don't think for one moment that OpenCloud is just about 'low visibility'; I flew today and had 100nm visibility as we're having amazing weather in the North of England at the moment - 26 degrees today, in March! (would normally be around 7-15)........... BUT... it was a realistic looking 100nm visibility; gradually losing definition and focus in the distance (in a good way obviously).After a long GA VFR spell, I am back in the NGX at the moment, and let me tell you some of the OpenClouds weather is stunning from the exquisite VC of the NGX at 30,000' :smile:If there was one negative point it would be that occasionally the depicted weather can be so intense that it can have quite a dramatic effect on performance. It's only happened about 10% of the time so far, but it has dragged FPS into the late teens a few times. The thing to remember is that OpenClouds is a 100% real weather utility; you cannot apply it at all to weather themes or manual settings; when activated it always takes the real world weather (using it's custom data from it's dedicated server) and puts it in FSX...... So the nature of it is that where the weather is complex with a lot of coverage, the demand on resources can be high.But I use it 90% of the time .....set and forget!Cheers.

Thanks - great response! I am torn between trying this or Ideal Flights weather... How close the weather is to real actual METARS? Is there some way to check or display the METAR as you are flying into the zone of a new weather station? How are overcasts from above and below? And finally I heard it updates weather every 5 minutes - does it make your flights unnecessarily stuttery?Thanks again and sorry for bothering you with so many unnecessary questions. I know I could try it myself but I am really interested in your related experiences.Alex

[Stick 0]

Thanks - great response! I am torn between trying this or Ideal Flights weather... How close the weather is to real actual METARS? Is there some way to check or display the METAR as you are flying into the zone of a new weather station? How are overcasts from above and below? And finally I heard it updates weather every 5 minutes - does it make your flights unnecessarily stuttery?Thanks again and sorry for bothering you with so many unnecessary questions. I know I could try it myself but I am really interested in your related experiences.Alex

Well I've made it no secret that I'm a big fan of Ideal Flight... However I did not buy Ideal Flight for any of it's weather related features and I would say that OpenClouds is superior to Ideal Flight with regards to what it does for your weather in FSX. OpenClouds takes real life data (far superior to the data FSX uses) and delivers it (from a custom server) into FSX, with some additional improvements on how FSX will depict it. Ideal Flight's weather engine does not use METARs and although it does apply weather to the whole world in very much a real-world style I think from memory that the weather generated is not actually real reported weather. That in itself doesn't bother me; the issue that I did have with Ideal Flight's weather was that it has a setting to restrict visibility to a global minimum, but that feature did not work (which I reported to the developer). The developer released a new build yesterday so maybe that is fixed now. Haven't had a chance to test yet.I disabled Ideal Flight's weather purely because I wanted something specific (better visibility depiction) and OpenClouds delivered that in a way that exceeded my expectation. It would take something very special to tear me away from OpenClouds now, but as I said above, occasionally I can't use it with the NGX as occassionally the depicted weather can cause a frame rate reduction. It's rare though. In something like a Carenado plane, I can fly in any type of weather that OpenClouds generates, even the lovely low viz Alaskan treats as mentioned above!PS..... I also use REX for textures only.PPS.... Regarding real-time updates that OpenClouds makes; yes it updates every few minutes. I'm not seeing any stutter but if there has been a more than nominal change in the weather, clearly the change can be noticible as the new weather re-draws. You can disable updating in OpenClouds if you wish. So you can choose to load OpenClouds weather into FSX just once, for the world, then have no further updates.Cheers.

[axelb9 0]

I read that IF can take the METAR from any actual METAR report and apply it to the departure and desination airports. I do not know what it does inbetween though.What about my other question regarding seeing the metar riport as you fly into weather and the overcast depiction?

[onebob 125]

What about my other question regarding seeing the metar riport as you fly into weather and the overcast depiction?

Metar info in OpenCloud can be shown on screen by pressing Ctrl + Shift + M ( its up for about 20sec )

[Stick 0]

What about my other question regarding seeing the metar riport as you fly into weather and the overcast depiction?

Not sure, never attempted that in I.F.But as above, easy in OpenCloud.

[JSkorna 137]

onebob,Why is the visibility so low from OC, but in FSX it is so high?

[axelb9 0]

Valid question Jim - was thinking the exact same thing...

[Stick 0]

I certainly don't see that when I open CTRL+SHIFT+M in OpenClouds.... the values always represent what I'm looking at on screen. Perhaps it was paused, in the process of updating weather, or just gone bad! :)

[onebob 125]

When I posted the screen shot it represented the view looking out of the window. It was a very hazy day.in this screen shot you can make out the coast line to the Irish sea and just over the nose the lake Dristrict mountains.I dont have a high end rig so clarity may be an issue getting good screenshots,bob

[Stick 0]

Nice screenie!

[Stick 0]

Hi all,I know I also mentioned this is a neighbouring thread, but as this is the thread more likely to come up if anyone searches on this subject, I thought I'd report it here too;A new build of Ideal Flight was released by the developer yesterday (Version RP), and the feature to be able to globally limit a custom maximum visibility in FSX (as a one-off setting) now works perfectly!As this was the main reason I was not using Ideal Flight's weather (and using OpenCloud instead), I will now be able to use Ideal Flight's weather (which is more FPS friendly) when using more complex aircraft, and OpenClouds weather, when using less resource-intensive aircraft;as both now provide the ability to set a custom, one-off 'max visibility' setting in FSX. :( :(

[davethewave2 20]

Just back from holiday, and picked this thread up.The idea behind Open Clouds was to write something that was very simple to use. There are other programs out there that let you configure all sorts of parameters. Rather then writing a similar application I thought I'd try and work out what the best settings/techniques would be for the majority of situations with a sensible balance between performance and impact.In the early days many changes were made based on feedback from users running many different setups and machines resulting in a very stable version that we have today. Of course there are compromises and of course the setting I've chosen are subjective but I've achieved my goal of having a simple application that takes one minute to download and instantly improves your fsx experience.