I have been using ASE now for a while and it seems to do the job fairly well. My main complaint is that while flying the sim stutters and the sky flashes and all heck breaks loose while it is downloading and injecting the weather. This lasts for almost 30 seconds. I can't stand this behaviour. I tried the new REX+E+OD etc etc....but that was only marginally better. I use standard mode, not DWC. I am using the SP4 beta. Is this behaviour fixed/eliminated in AS2012? I have read a lot of posts and reviews and feedback but it doesn't seem that anyone cares about the 30 seconds of terror that occur every 15 minutes while the program injects the data. If this has been eliminated in AS2012 please let me know. I will buy the upgrade immediately. Thanks in advance

You might get a performance improvement by going to the Winds option and setting Thermal Generation and Terrain Based Up and Downdraft Generation to zero. I was getting 8 second lockups and finally traced the problem back to these. When I set them to zero, the problems went away. There is also a Wake Turbulence Generation that may cause similar problems if you have lots of aircraft flying.

 

If you still prefer to have thermal generation (even for powered aircraft) I suggest CumulusX, which doesn't have to be registered to get the proper effect.

 

Larry Hookins

Standard mode is known to have a performance hit during weather updates, which the other modes are not subject to. Performance is improved with AS2012 in Standard Mode but there is still a little bit of a penalty due to the way FSX updates stations in this mode.

Hi Matt,

 

I'm a long time beta tester for Damian, so please brace yourself for a very biased opinion ;-)

 

Of course this is only my opinion, so it's probably a good idea to check out the features of AS2012 on HiFi's website to help you with your decision.

 

For me, so many things have been improved, almost too many to mention. I think the user interface is even more user friendly, many new options (in particluar the newly implemented start-up screen that helps you identify what type of flying will be matched with the appropriate settings) > absolutely love this feature.

 

Personally, I'm really not that demanding when it comes to weather engines, except one thing - weather depiction!!!!!!! This is why I fly in real world weather mode all the time, it analyzes and depicts weather as reported, not what would sell for eye-candy.

 

The new overcast enhancement works beautifully and there are way too many new features that I believe make this a worthwile upgrade easily.

 

Last but not least, although my wife hates me for it, I like to purchase flightsim upgrades just to support developers that have credibility and a prooven track record of delivering a great product and continuing support.

 

Hope this helps, feel free to ask anything that might make you help your decision Matt.

 

Cheers,

Pete

Sold. I will be purchasing my upgrade in a few hours. Thanks for all of the input!

Thanks for your support Felix. Hope you enjoy using AS2012!