Actually, you did. You just used the defaults. If the defaults hadn't been what you wanted, having the option to change them means you can get what you want, not what the program decides to give you.

 

For most people, you don't even have to visit the options page if you don't want. Having no options is not a feature.

 

Hook

 

No, I didn't.

I didn't use any of the extra options because I never changed them. Just because Opus doesn't let you scale turbulence from 0 to 100% for min/max and # of clouds everywhere doesn't mean the program doesn't deliver.

It gives me plenty of turbulence and I'm happy with the many cloud layers it generates to accurately depict what the METAR says.

 

I also didn't say Opus has no options. I said it has less, but the options it does have are the ones that matter to me.

REX for textures, OPUS for weather engine works a treat for me - haven't regretted this combo one bit.

 

Same here. Like so many have said: Opus is truly a gamechanger for FSX. It will give you terminal area wx accurate down to the last dot in a METAR. If it says OVC002 you will get solid overcast down to 200 ft AGL. You can count on it.

 

I purchased Opus when it first came out and the developers have kept improving it almost on a day to day basis.

 

Accurate METAR with clound layers, ceiling, visibility and wind: Check.

True upper air data: Check.

 

What else do you need?

Purchased. Currently flying from ORD to DFW, not much going on in terms of weather but the difference is visible straight away. I need a few more flights to say more but so far, so good.

Shelved also EZDOK using the camera stuff from Opus.

 

What about its interaction with Track IR 5? Does it work? EZDOK had some initial issues with TIR

 

Also what about high altitude temperature inversions? Some software have issues while flying online (unrealistic high temps causing terrible aircraft performance)...

 

I'm pretty tempted argh! I guess I can't go wrong with the F1 purchase!

I could rarely get a realistic weather depiction at my home base (except on clear days) using ASE or REX (including the new Rex Plus). Since getting Opus it is uncanny how close the weather depiction is compared to what I see out the window. And finally no more rain falling from blue sky with a few scattered clouds; or rain above the overcast. The weather depiction is not perfect, but it is a major leap beyond anything we have had so far. I too uninstalled EZDOK after getting Opus. It is quicker and more intuitive to set up the cameras and the DHM seems more consistent. Track IR works fine too.

I bought the dang thing anyway (peer pressure!)

 

With my 10 mins of use I can tell by far best IMC Wx program out there. I found a few niggles... like I've noticed the program doesn't know how to handle VV001 (ceiling indefinite - basically a layer of fog from the ground up) - unless this is the mist layer I've disabled in the config...

 

But it made me nervous flying approaches to precision minimums.

 

For now I've disabled the camera view - all I want is the Wx.

And it's so amazing FAST too! I also have uninstalled EZCA: the views in OpusFSX are easy to set up and VERY precise too (since you can, if you want to, set them up by entering numbers) and the motion effect are far more realistic.

 

to be fair, you can setup EZCA very precisely by changing the config files, not that hard considering we all much in FSX.CFG files

secondly the camera configuration although simple seems rather simplistic and i am never sure what is a large or small plane for those inbetween types

to be fair, you can setup EZCA very precisely by changing the config files, not that hard considering we all much in FSX.CFG files

secondly the camera configuration although simple seems rather simplistic and i am never sure what is a large or small plane for those inbetween types

The big difference between EZCA and Opus Live Camera is the acceleration data. Opus uses real data tested by real pilots, and not over exaggerated like EZCA seems to be.

 

I own AS2012, and imo Opus beats it by a mile.

100% agree. The Opus developers have almost conquered the FSX wind shift bug, without having to use utilities like FSUIPC to turn off a lot of weather features.

Ok - I've been following the praise for this addon for quite a while and curiosity is getting the better of me despite being pretty happy with the AS2012/REX combo - questions first before I buy it:

 

1. Can it do flight planning stuff ala what I showed how to do with AS2012 in the NGX Tutorial #2 Addendum? This to me is one of AS2012's greatest features - I get easy to read printouts of the average wind and ISA deviation for the PERF INIT page and then waypoint-specific winds aloft predictions to use with the DES FORECAST page. I have a bunch of real life route printouts from several major airlines and the formatting and information AS2012 gives you is exactly like what the real dispatch papers have on them.

 

This is hugely important to me - real life airline flying isn't a "get in and go" process - weather is literally the primary concern in preflight and having accurate enroute and descent winds data accessible in a readable format is vital to fuel and ETE/ETA planning.

 

2. How is their winds aloft coverage outside of the US and in the oceanic zones? I know this is something that AS invested a huge amount of time into since data sources for many places aren't easily accessible.

 

3. Does their method of producing true overcast result in an FPS drop vs. the psuedo-overcasts you can still sort of see through in other addons? I've seen other true overcasts that work by just loading up a ton of different cloud layers and it kills performance, especially with the higher FSAA modes on.

 

4. How does it handle using graphics from REX and AS2012? Are there any limitations whereby things don't look completely right unless you use default clouds, skies etc?

to be fair, you can setup EZCA very precisely by changing the config files, not that hard considering we all much in FSX.CFG files

secondly the camera configuration although simple seems rather simplistic and i am never sure what is a large or small plane for those inbetween types

 

I don't think you can compare editing cfg's and having to reload stuff in order to see the difference with being able to change a number and see the change instantly. Thie first will have to you going back and forth to the cfg and FSX all the time until you finally have what you want, the latter will get you where you want to a LOT quicker and far more convenient. Besides, the way you can move the view using the buttons in the OpusFSX interface and how you can choose between continious movement or very small steps is also a big step forward from EZCA. I wouldn't call the OpusFSX interface simplistic, I would rather call the EZCA interface overdone and complicated: compared to that one OpusFSX looks simple, yes, and that's a positive thing. ^_^

 

And btw before I had EZCA I indeed edited cfg's: that's exactly why I bought EZCA, to easily set up views without having to use configs anymore, so saying I can edit the EZCA views using cfg's is a bit like saying you can also walk with a bike... ^_^

Ok - I've been following the praise for this addon for quite a while and curiosity is getting the better of me despite being pretty happy with the AS2012/REX combo - questions first before I buy it:

 

1. Can it do flight planning stuff ala what I showed how to do with AS2012 in the NGX Tutorial #2 Addendum? This to me is one of AS2012's greatest features - I get easy to read printouts of the average wind and ISA deviation for the PERF INIT page and then waypoint-specific winds aloft predictions to use with the DES FORECAST page. I have a bunch of real life route printouts from several major airlines and the formatting and information AS2012 gives you is exactly like what the real dispatch papers have on them.

 

This is hugely important to me - real life airline flying isn't a "get in and go" process - weather is literally the primary concern in preflight and having accurate enroute and descent winds data accessible in a readable format is vital to fuel and ETE/ETA planning.

 

2. How is their winds aloft coverage outside of the US and in the oceanic zones? I know this is something that AS invested a huge amount of time into since data sources for many places aren't easily accessible.

 

3. Does their method of producing true overcast result in an FPS drop vs. the psuedo-overcasts you can still sort of see through in other addons? I've seen other true overcasts that work by just loading up a ton of different cloud layers and it kills performance, especially with the higher FSAA modes on.

 

4. How does it handle using graphics from REX and AS2012? Are there any limitations whereby things don't look completely right unless you use default clouds, skies etc?

 

1. I use a weather program for my weather and a flightplanning program ( FSC ) for flightplanning. FlightsimCommander also can download weather and make a flightplan. The big advantage of Opus is press and play within seconds.

 

2. That I cannot answer you. I know that AS is a superior program.

 

3. The overcasts from Opus are the best. Look at my 2 sceenshots. The first one is REX and the second one OPUS. Many prople with REX complain that they can't get a full OC. I was able to achieve this. However when boing over the clouds and looking down there are many spots where you can see the ground. This is not the case with OPUS.

 

4. I can only speak about the REX textures and imho OPUS handles them perfectly. I even feel that the REX clouds used in OPUS look better than with REX itself.

 

 

Ryan, you are someone who likes to fly by the book. And have great repect for people who are able to do so as it is at a higher level.

But most people like to fly for 1-1,5h max from startup till shutdown of the engines.

 

Regarding OPUS I have to admit , and I only have tried the demo up to now as I own REX, when looking outside my window OPUS gives the same weather and how it looks spot on.

REX mostly looks like it a bit.

Now that they are working on WindsAloft and other features I thingk that I might purchase it in the near future.

 

 

1. Can it do flight planning stuff ala what I showed how to do with AS2012 in the NGX Tutorial #2 Addendum? This to me is one of AS2012's greatest features - I get easy to read printouts of the average wind and ISA deviation for the PERF INIT page and then waypoint-specific winds aloft predictions to use with the DES FORECAST page. I have a bunch of real life route printouts from several major airlines and the formatting and information AS2012 gives you is exactly like what the real dispatch papers have on them.

 

This is hugely important to me - real life airline flying isn't a "get in and go" process - weather is literally the primary concern in preflight and having accurate enroute and descent winds data accessible in a readable format is vital to fuel and ETE/ETA planning.

 

2. How is their winds aloft coverage outside of the US and in the oceanic zones? I know this is something that AS invested a huge amount of time into since data sources for many places aren't easily accessible.

 

3. Does their method of producing true overcast result in an FPS drop vs. the psuedo-overcasts you can still sort of see through in other addons? I've seen other true overcasts that work by just loading up a ton of different cloud layers and it kills performance, especially with the higher FSAA modes on.

 

4. How does it handle using graphics from REX and AS2012? Are there any limitations whereby things don't look completely right unless you use default clouds, skies etc?

 

Hi Ryan,

 

To answer your questions;

 

1. We are working towards either developing our own flight planning software or integrating with 3rd party software. Our current weather reports give accurate ATIS out to 300 miles. At the moment people use a seperate flight planning package and there are many excellent packages available including one to be relased shortly. We have also opened a Flight1 topic asking users what they wish to see Opus provide for the minimum flight planning assistance. Once again our main concern is delivering real weather conditions, both current and historic, worldwide.

 

2. We provide world wide coverage of winds and temperatures aloft.

 

3. No, our overcast does not result in a FPS drop.

 

4. You can use any textures you like, the LWE will make the very best of them to produce the most realistic weather patterns. You might also like to consider the natural cloud textures of FEX.

 

Regards

Cheryl

Thanks Ryan for asking the exact questions I couldn't find any answers on and was about to ask myself, especially question 1.

 

Going by the answers it seems Opus doesn't yet provide the weather planning information we seek and is my reason holding off purchase until it does. It would be great if we could import the flight plan and weather data for the flight could be printed out.

I want to say couple of things here about the OpusFSX. I haven't yet tried any of the camera controls, since I found it a bit time consuming to start going through all the manuals. I purchased the software yesterday. I will, however, want to give the camera thing a try once I have time to study it.

 

Weather? I absolutely love it!

 

I used Active Sky 2012 before, and though I like the software a lot, I dislike the way it handles IMC.

 

Anyways, I was reading through the Opus forums yesterday, and the developer was very strict about comparing the view from your real window to the sim. I wanted to do this, however, since I found the weather condition was quite nice for this kind of thing.

 

METAR EFKU 041220Z AUTO 32005KT 8000 -SN FEW033 BKN066 M15/M17 Q1001=

That is the weather currently at my home town. Here is a picture from my window, followed by the picture from the exactly same location in the simulator (though a couple of thousand feet higher). I think we can all agree it looks quite the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I wanted to try out the overcast that many has talked about. I went to Ivalo, which had the following meteorological conditions:

EFIV 041220Z AUTO 02002KT 3600 -SN OVC012 M09/M09 Q1004=

Next to Ivalo, there was some CAVOK conditions forecasted. In the following picture I'm flying above Ivalo, you can see a very smooth and nice overcast roof, followed by CAVOK conditions in the horizont. The performance is very good, I can not see the difference between this and AS2012, if any, then the Opus is better.

 

 

 

Then I went back to Ivalo, which had 3600 meters of visibility and light snowing. It looks like this, which I found is extremely nice looking. While the Active Sky would have probably drawn couple of clouds to 1200 feet followed by a nice visibility, this is how it should really look like:

 

 

 

I would honestly say OpusFSX is the yet best weather software I have seen, though it might be still very simple (and missing the features Ryan asked for), but it is still developing and I can see new updates coming out daily. I can't stop wondering how good it will be in a year or so, if the current beta versions are this good already!

 

Regards,

There is a new option in OPUS where if it can't find any weather data it downloads it from Vatsim.

 

Looking forward to future upgrades -- smoother camera transitions akin to ECZA?