Spot on Stephen. For the above poster who said AS2012 was back in front, I fully disagree. Opus is the biggest dog on the front porch now. (Stephen, that is American backwoods slang for saying your program is currently #1).

 

Couldn't agree more Eric :-)

This is (IMHO) one of THE most under stated addons that FSX has received thus far... It has (almost) everything I require within a tiny footprint and all with what appears to be a zero impact on FSX performance. The customer support is, at least thus far, waaaaay out there in front of anything else I can remember. Customer opinions and wishes are not only heard, but often implemented within days, or even hours (ask Ryan)!!!

 

I can see me abandoning this software, about quickly as I might do with FSUIPC. Far as I'm concerned, both now crucial.

 

10/10 And, believe me, coming from me, that's high praise indeed;-)

REX clears weather, freezes and flashes while reloading.

 

Wrong, since Essentials Plus this has been 100% resolved ;o)

Wrong, since Essentials Plus this has been 100% resolved ;o)

 

I have REX Overdrive Essentials Plus, and I still see it more than in Opus. Plus it takes much longer to get REX to load and display weather than Opus.

The "waiting factor" is a big thing. Please wait while REX loads weather data, is not a factor with Opus.

I have REX Overdrive Essentials Plus, and I still see it more than in Opus. Plus it takes much longer to get REX to load and display weather than Opus.

The "waiting factor" is a big thing. Please wait while REX loads weather data, is not a factor with Opus.

 

Ahh, well, it's now non-sequetor for me as I see no flashing anymore (I use the Plus engine) and as for load time: I start E+ first, then click FSX. By the time FSX completes its load time, and by the time I've selected a plane & flight plan, E+ has already completed its weather download, so this is 100% transparent and causes zero wait time. When I then click 'Fly Now', it takes roughly...1-2 seconds to load weather. As I say, non-sequetor as a reason to dump E+ for Opus. Further, visibility effects are now fabulous, winds aloft are fine, so in a nutshell, E+ works excellently as advertised, and in handy fashion contains textures needed to add some depth. The camera effects however is an issue I'm looking for a solution for, hence the new post a few moments ago.

Yesterday I flew into a snowstorm with the NGX. I had opus running, and had absolutly ZERO visibility. For some reason, the ngx refused to enable VOR LOC even though the frequency and course were the same as the charts. Since I couldnt see anything at all , hand flying was out of the question. I had enough fuel, so I circled and tried again, still nothing, and decided to try another runway. (winds werent too bad) . This time same thing until i took the autopilot off and suddenly had ILS indicators. Strange. I hand flown it down the glideslope and had the runway in sight right at minimums. The whole experience was kinda freaky but exhilarating. Overcast zero visibility months ago with any weather engine, had you seeing something.

 

This is a whole different ballgame for most of us who havnt experienced this. Kudos to Opus for pushing the boundries of FSX, and I have great respect for the other engines out there, who are working very hard to accomplish the same. They are getting close. But would have thought FSX is capable of this a few years back. FSX/P3D is alive and well.

The fact that the developer is on this thread and taking requests make me want to support Opus! I think I will buy it, I just have a problem with not being able to "import" winds aloft into FS Build, thats the only thing keeping me....

Have to agree the zero visibilty was unnerving to me also as I expect it in XPX, but Opus shocked me in matching the experience.

Well - looks like the Opus FX (latest release version) honeymoon is officially over after the latest update. Flew from KEWR - EDDF mimicing the UAL 119 real world trip and it was a pretty bad experience.

 

1 - I am using real world information from Foreflight for the iPad to check the accuracy of the ATIS info and Opus was completely wrong. It might have been older METAR being used because the winds were in the general direction but it sure wasn't up to the minute.

 

2 - There is this ugly cirrus layer above my aircraft that all the time. Even when there is supposed to be no layer at this level, it is still there the entire time.

 

3 - Upon arrival at EDDF the ATIS was wrong again. I just checked again just now and it is STILL showing incorrect METARs although AS 2012 is showing the right info which lines right up with Foreflight. AS 2012 and Foreflight know that it is currently snowing in EDDF but Opus apparently does not!

 

There were cloud shifts, horrific wind shifts, cloud redraws, etc - pretty bad. I must say that the experience was so bad that it wasn't even close to AS 2012 even before the last patch, it was some of something that I would have expect. So now I just updated to the latest AS2012 and will give that a whirl on the trip back home. So, not sure what happened with Opus but if my first flight was as bad as my last flight I would not have posted this thread! Maybe its an issue with foreign ATIS and Windows aloft?

I have been playing around with this software a few days now and as many have noted, it is the best I have even seen esp. low vis type flying. I have been using the latest AS2012 on a networked computer. I put the OPUS software on my main FSX machine and have continued using the same textures from AS2012. Even with the added overhead of OPUS and real overcast sky conditions my frame rates stay very steady at 29.9-30 FPS and smooth. This is both on the ground and in the air around KPNS. A few days ago using AS2012 and the best it could do showing an "overcast" the frame rates would bounce from ~24 to ~29 but smooth. So at least on my setup, it appears??? that OPUS is more efficient in displaying the cloud textures. One possible reason is that the other change was shuting down EZDOK and using the OPUS cameras. (some people have always claimed that EZDOK uses a lot of overhead) They are very easy to set up and use. Do remember to use the EZCA Tool too restore you .cfg files. The instructions are covered in the Doc. but Duh....I missed it the first time thru!! :Whistle: It can cause some strange results as one might expect.

Hi Mike

 

This is just the latest beta in which we have tried new wind algorithms, it didn't work as well as expected for some systems so we are reverting to the previous method tomorrow, so no need to panic. If you don't want to participate in the beta trial then you can stick to the release version, but you will be missing out on testing the latest features. By their very nature the betas are trials and most of the time work fine but on occasion will throw up problems on certain customers systems, when it does we have to take a step back and ensure it is working for all systems. It is all part of a beta development cycle. In this beta cycle we have mostly had very positive feedback however some customer's systems have not coped with the extra data being injected into the sim, this coupled with the frequent weather refreshes has resulted in wind shifts for them, this is one occasion when we are taking a step backward and deliberately reducing the data and hence lessening the burden on those few systems. We are in the process of doing that now and will most likely have the next beta ready within 24 hours. We appreciate you trying the beta and appreciate all constructive feedback, that way we can make improvements and prepare the next beta release. The target is to have this phase of development completed before the Christmas break so that a more compatible release version can be posted.

 

When you say you were mimicing a real flight can you clarify whether you were actually using live weather or loading historic weather. People have commented that we are usually 20 mins ahead of AS in terms of collecting the most recent METAR data so I am not sure what has happened there.

Edit - someone has just reported the NOAA site was down, it appears to be back now, some of our users have been using VATSIM in the meantime.

 

Have you changed your textures lately? The ugly cirrus layer sounds like the static cloud layer (cloud of doom), refer to our FAQ on our website. Actually if you have the latest beta then just restarting FSX will automatically fix the problem. Otherwise if you are referring to genuine cirrus cloud then this can be turned on or off in the Weather configuration, we will soon be introducing an option for OpusFSX to generate the cirrus layer intelligently.

 

Regards

Cheryl

 

I will explain the beta dev cycles below Mike ... but if you want to take part trying out new ideas then come to the Flight1 forum please and welcome aboard. We are trying out new ideas in the betas pushing the wind targets to the limit (and beyond) but the cycle will all be finished before xmas. If you like stable ... then stick with 2.60.

 

Oh, and NOAA is OK now, but it would have helped if you had submitted a report in the prescribed manner. What did your destination weather report say (no weather is my guess), what about your OpusWeather.txt file, when was your last NOAA update etc. All the details are on the Flight1 forum and that is where the beta testing will return after this cycle.

 

Stephen

LOL...It is worth the purchase price just to be able to watch this developement process.

Yes, we are certainly entertaining! There was me thinking I would have an early night too. :Yawn:

 

Cheryl :smile:

I am working on beta 4 at present, maybe even two betas in the cycle produced today. If you are trying out 3 then some problems have already been fixed so either reinstall or wait for 4.

 

I will try and make time to explain our beta dev cycles to you all, there seem to have been some confusion earlier, people downloading and then reporting problems not knowing what the dev cycles are all about. In beta 3 we have attempted to push FSX to the limit as far as controlling the wind targets go. Many people reporting great results, but also many reporting problems ... So 4 is on its way were we will revert back to the 2.60 friendly target spacing.

 

But I will explain further if I have time. If you are taking an active role in the dev cycle, many thanks, it really is the only way to test new ideas. Things will settle down soon though, we are working around the clock to get the cycle complete before Xmas break. So 3am starts for me ...

 

Don't panic, we will get there. One more thing, some reported NOAA server was down for a short period yesterday, please do not start ranting and raving that nothing works ... NOAA is back fine now, and especially if you are using the beta. Just stick to the previous 2.60 release and leave the rest to us + many other testers.

 

Got to go nearly at FL190 ...

 

Regards

Stephen

 

 

There now and winds recovered ....

 

Oh, if you are in the beta cycle you really should be in the Flight1 forum ... That's where its supposed to be happening. I will try to explain later.

 

Cheers

Stephen

Crikey there is a lot of emotion in some of these posts....my stomach is almost in knots at times :unsure: