That someone should make a video instead of taking pictures, it would show transitions between layers way better, especially on descent towards destination with low visibility which in my opinion is one of the most improved areas with Opus. Just to me Opus seems to do way better job with low visibility layers and all that.

Pretty amazing that Opus has only been out a few months and is already the favored weather engine...

....come on, i've posted a cloud cover shot and what's under it, where's your two Opus shots?

 

Pretty amazing that Opus has only been out a few months and is already the favored weather engine...

 

if it's only been out two months they don't have their accounts in yet so that's probably far fetched, AS and REXE are selling more

 

...don't mis-understand me, I think there's great merit in all three products, and no reason not to own all three of them.

"if it's only been out two months they don't have their accounts in yet so that's probably far fetched, AS and REXE are selling more"

 

I meant in terms of who favors which product as shown in the poll. The sales numbers will take care of themselves.

I meant in terms of who favors which product as shown in the poll. The sales numbers will take care of themselves.

 

Oh I see, but there's no "don't know" vote, there's no "REXE" vote, and there's no "Don't Care" vote.

The sales numbers will be difficult to count and compare.

 

Still no shots? I thought you could just popup a scenario?

SteveW, there's a thread in the OpusFSX forum that shows a video comparison between REX, ASE and OpusFSX.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/389507-opusfsx-vs-rex-vs-ase-comparision-video/

 

You'll note that in all the comparisons except the last one (BIKF) that ASE and Opus match well, with different cloud depictions shown in REX. All examples use REX clouds. I suspect that REX and ASE labels were swapped in the BIKF comparison.

 

Hook

It's one of those things that you must try for yourself. ANY video or screenshot comparison will have a large margin of error UNLESS you are just looking at cloud sets - and that has no bearing in a weather engine comparison. There is no way to set up identical situations - the very fact that the placement of the cloud sets, etc is done by FSX not Opus , REX or AS is what negates it. All a comparison can show is which cloud set looks prettier AT THAT MOMENT in time.

 

You really have to try the product(s) in your specific environment and see how YOU prefer. If you fly low and slow, you might be more interested in beautiful clouds and how they interact with the scenery. if you fly big iron you might be more interested in accurate winds aloft and temps to provide for correct fuel planning, and so on.

SteveW, there's a thread in the OpusFSX forum that shows a video comparison between REX, ASE and OpusFSX.

 

http://forum.avsim.n...parision-video/

 

You'll note that in all the comparisons except the last one (BIKF) that ASE and Opus match well, with different cloud depictions shown in REX. All examples use REX clouds. I suspect that REX and ASE labels were swapped in the BIKF comparison.

 

Hook

 

I think I'm sold, I'll test run the demo this weekend.

I've not seen anything new or capabilities unmatched, there's really nothing in it between them, but it's good to see something new causes lots of excitement, rock on FSX.

I've not seen anything new or capabilities unmatched, there's really nothing in it between them, but it's good to see something new causes lots of excitement, rock on FSX.

But, you have not tried it ? The demo does have weather. Been increased to 15mins and 100nm horizon to horizon. You also keep asking why Rex weather engine is not in the poll, well the OP was only interested in the 2 main players in the weather depiction business.

I think you will find that serious simmers want the best weather depiction you can throw at FSX, and until you visit the Opus forum and do a bit of reading, you can only speculate.

Until you see the weather actually depicted on your own screen, and not in a screenshot, can a user make a decision.

If I was a fly and go simmer, the default weather and cloud textures would be fine. As I am not, I look for the best realism.

 

Opus has a wee way to go yet, GIB winds aloft, historic weather, all been working on now. To me, that would be a better time to run a poll, equal playing field etc.

Realism with the default textures:

 

 

Yawn...

Yawn.....I am starting to think you like posting, just to display your company banner. I'm done with this thread.

Well that's certainly a good argument. But that's the problem if you want to join in, add a bit of provacation, get the thread going, and unfortunately you make addons, but i'm unbiased and fair..

Been increased to 15mins and 100nm horizon to horizon.

 

That must be from the Flight1 forum, as there's nothing on Avsim about it in the OpusFSX forum.

 

Now, if they'd relax the restriction of weather only updating on the ground so people could see the effects of changing METARS during a flight, I'd be happy with it. Also, people should be told to set the weather update to 5 minutes from the default 30 so they'd have a chance to see a changing METAR in action.

 

until you visit the Opus forum and do a bit of reading, you can only speculate.

 

You'll need to do a bit of reading between the lines as well. If you check the downloadable documentation, in OpusFSX_Live_Weather.pdf:

 

During a weather update, any change in METAR will be reflected in the generated weather. Broken clouds may turn into few clouds, few to broken, clouds may disappear or appear where there were none before etc.

 

The LWE treats all METARs as gospel and generates the weather and clouds accordingly, so don't be too alarmed if after an update your cloud coverage thickens, diminishes, vanishes, or new cloud suddenly appears.

 

What this means is, if the local METAR changes, the sky will suddenly change to reflect the new cloud conditions. Cloud popping. This is one reason the default weather download is 30 minutes rather than 10 as in AS2012 (you'll get fewer changed METAR events) and why you'll probably never see this in the demo, even with updates set for 5 minutes, which is the minimum. From what I've seen in videos, this change is instantaneous, same as in AS2012 if you have Prevent Cloud Redraws unchecked.

 

I just did a short flight with AS2012 to test AccuFeel's interaction with TrackIR (no problems whatsoever, without changes to any config files). I was flying under 14000 cirrus as reported by the AS2012 METAR. Off in the distance I could see a buildup of cumulus clouds on the horizon. After I landed, I checked the AS2012 weather map, and sure enough a station 43 miles away reported scattered clouds at 8900 feet. That's with the AS2012 options DWC checked, Prevent Cloud Redraws checked, and Local Station Writes with DWC checked. Wind, temp and baro smoothing, and no cloud popping at all, ever.

 

I'll put up with a lot to eliminate cloud popping. Hopefully, OpusFSX will eventually give users an option that will get rid of it while still maintaining accurate weather.

 

Hook

I've spent many hours with Opus weather, I've not tested the views system.

 

The ony thing of note I could detect was the multi layered visibility, increasing, decreasing, overlapping. So as you ascend/descend you pass through the misty layers. As usual with real world weather, I was stuck at 2am, I had a flight lined up for 6am start but the weather was from around midnight, I couldn't find a way to roll back to 6am the previous day. While the multilayering can be applauded, it's something that's been in and out of IF from the start as customer opinions went to and fro.

 

The program installed without a hitch, but even though a .pdf explaining how to make an icon is included, manually making an icon just to start up the program is a poor show. The program requires (so it says) to be run with Admin Access Rights, which is unforgivable these days as any program should check itself for malware before restarting in admin mode to avoid compromising the PC security.

 

Steve