Dear All,

 

Despite AS2012 being a quantum leap vs FSX weather, I still experience lots of clouds redraws in mid flight :( (Using DWC and all the latest patches).

A few post have suggested Opus seem to have solved that issue. What are you views/experiences.

 

Best Regards

 

Fulcrum

I won't go back any time soon, after using Opus. REX or AS2012 cloud textures with Opus weather engine and camera controls is the way to go.

Opus needs to make a weather engine for X-Plane 10 now that Fly-J-Sim has released the most beautiful 727 ever, in X-Plane.

are the cameras better than EZdok ?

Have you posted in the AS forum? Because I get no cloud redraws with AS2012 and SP2 but constant with Opus

Three weeks ago i would have said Opus is the way to go and I almost uninstalled AS2012

 

As of now I would advise against it. With the latest patches AS2012 has enhanced cloud coverage, depiction and stability. On the other hand I'm having lots of problems with Opus. The biggest issue is totally incorrect weather being reported which is happening at the destination airports. Weather being reported is not even close to actual METARS in many cases. I'm also seeing lots of cloud redraws over the duration of a typical airliner flight. Plus with a new release each week its been a mixed bag of install, uninstall, update, reinstall all to differing results. More than one update has totally broken weather depiction.

 

I read somewhere the Opus might not be that great for airliner flights? I've gone back to AS2012 for now.

Well, I've used Active Sky for ages, and I hadn't heard of Opus until a couple of weeks ago.

 

I tried the demo and was amazed. I've since purchased it and I think it's absolutely astounding.

 

I use it with Flight Environment textures which I think gives it the best look.

 

As an example of how realistic it can be, I was flying around northern Scotland the other day in the default F/A-18, blatting along valleys and around hills at very low level, trying to keep below a solid overcast that in places extended almost to ground level. Once I lost sight of the ground I blasted upwards through the blanket of cloud and for a while had absolutely no visual cues at all. I was totally relying on instruments. Then I popped out of the top and into bright sunshine. Just below me was a solid layer of billowing clouds as far as the eye could see, and no sight of the ground. It was the most realistic weather I'd ever flown in.

 

I also get none of the 'cloud popping' and slowness to load that I used to get with other weather programs. All in all I'm incredibly impressed with Opus.

 

Ian

Three weeks ago i would have said Opus is the way to go and I almost uninstalled AS2012

 

As of now I would advise against it. With the latest patches AS2012 has enhanced cloud coverage, depiction and stability. On the other hand I'm having lots of problems with Opus. The biggest issue is totally incorrect weather being reported which is happening at the destination airports. Weather being reported is not even close to actual METARS in many cases. I'm also seeing lots of cloud redraws over the duration of a typical airliner flight. Plus with a new release each week its been a mixed bag of install, uninstall, update, reinstall all to differing results. More than one update has totally broken weather depiction.

 

I read somewhere the Opus might not be that great for airliner flights? I've gone back to AS2012 for now.

Mike,

Stephen replied to your issues as it seems the problem is your end. I think you are not being fair in your assumption that Opus is the cause.

There are many many users who are not experienceing what you claim, so you need to look at your set up.

 

To the OP, yes I would definitely go for Opus, the best weather engine ever.

Opus +1 ,been some really aggresive updates.

Three weeks ago i would have said Opus is the way to go and I almost uninstalled AS2012

 

As of now I would advise against it. With the latest patches AS2012 has enhanced cloud coverage, depiction and stability. On the other hand I'm having lots of problems with Opus. The biggest issue is totally incorrect weather being reported which is happening at the destination airports. Weather being reported is not even close to actual METARS in many cases. I'm also seeing lots of cloud redraws over the duration of a typical airliner flight. Plus with a new release each week its been a mixed bag of install, uninstall, update, reinstall all to differing results. More than one update has totally broken weather depiction.

 

I read somewhere the Opus might not be that great for airliner flights? I've gone back to AS2012 for now.

Hey Mike-

My experience was largely the same and I saw no real significant difference between the two for the extra money. It was my first refund from Flight1 ever.

I'm not knocking it, it just didn't work for me.

Despite AS2012 being a quantum leap vs FSX weather, I still experience lots of clouds redraws in mid flight :( (Using DWC and all the latest patches).

 

DWC will redraw the clouds unless you have Prevent Cloud Redraws checked, and if you do you might not get proper cloud changes depicted on a flight. Hifi has indicated that this is a bug and should be fixed.

 

I changed from using DWC to using Smooth Cloud Transition mode and that problem went away. Only problem then was that wind/baro/temp smoothing was not done. I registered FSUIPC and set it to do the necessary smoothing and the weather is very good indeed. One benefit was that I could now set barometer smoothing to the point that I'll never see the altimeter jump (I use a factor of 5 in the option). That used to annoy the heck out of me.

 

I'm seeing some incredible cloud depictions now. One thing, that I don't think Opus does, is clouds occasionally shown far from any METAR station in areas of no coverage. For example, I was flying the south coast of Alaska and would see clouds over the ocean while flying under clear skies on the coast. This is an artifact of the way Active Sky interpolates the weather. I chose this particular route (PAYA-PASI) because of sparse METAR coverage along the way. Doing the same flight with the same historical weather produces almost identical cloud depiction throughout the flight. DWC did fairly well, but the expected overcast at the destination wasn't handled properly... that's the bug I mentioned before.

 

People report good experiences with Opus, without tests to see what AS2012 depicts in the same situation. I did the same flight well over a dozen times testing different AS2012 settings to see what was different. I was able to set historical weather so I'd have the same weather each time. If you're testing with Opus, do all the Opus tests first before doing the AS2012 tests because your historical weather options are limited in Opus at the moment (24 hours).

 

Opus allows you to set the destination and a handful of alternates to check the METAR in-game. This is a pretty cool feature, but it's limited if you're doing very long flights. AS2012 does not give in-game METAR data, except for the Flightwatch radio, but you can go to the AS2012 window and get the METAR, both raw and decoded, for anywhere in the world. This includes METAR stations that have not reported recently, and those use interpolation to produce a reasonable weather report. You might find this more useful than having no report at all.

 

The most recent versions of AS2012 no longer report wind direction and speed at your current altitude and position over Flightwatch radio, but report conditions on the ground at the station, even in DWC mode.

 

DWC, without Prevent Cloud Redraws checked, will produce cloud popping. Opus will produce cloud popping if the local METAR changes. This is probably the same thing in both: suddenly the entire sky changes to a new cloud depiction and is quite ugly. Smooth Cloud Transitions does not produce these sudden changes, but clouds will transition over a period of 30 seconds. DWC appears to be attempting this in the latest versions, and I suspect it will be very similar to Smooth after it's totally fixed.

 

Both Active Sky and Opus are improving, so it's hard to say which one will end up on top. For me, Active Sky has features that I prefer, so I'm staying with that for now.

 

Hook

I wonder why nobody is talking about AS' killer feature #1: historic wather?!

 

Coming home in the evening, I prefer mostly daytime flying - especially now in winter.

Would drive me nuts not to have the correct weather of the day.

 

Or even better: want to fly with realistic weather of the last summer or remember a nice thunderstorm in autumn or foggy days in spring ...

Mike,

Stephen replied to your issues as it seems the problem is your end. I think you are not being fair in your assumption that Opus is the cause.

There are many many users who are not experienceing what you claim, so you need to look at your set up.

 

To the OP, yes I would definitely go for Opus, the best weather engine ever.

 

Actually, no. There is NOTHING wrong with my system. Stephen made the incorrect assumption that my departure METAR was incorrect when indeed it was the destination METARs that are consistently incorrect. Amazing how I've got literally thousands of dollars in addon's working in FSX and have somehow managed to optimize FSX to work with all sliders right, but for some strange reason I can't get OPUS which doesn't require ANY interaction to work properly? The last time I reported an issue it was due to a problem with one of the OPUS Beta products...now it is, to quote "serious problems with my system." This is not just one time this happened but every flight where the destination weather is incorrect.

It all depends on what you are looking for. For example - take two aircraft a J-3 Cub and a B747. Both are fine aircraft and are great examples of their genre.

 

In the J-3 - you can jump in, flp a switch, crank her up and take off. You are low and slow and the scenery is fantastic. She flies like a dream.

 

In the 747 you jump in and go through a lengthy checklist depending on many factors, start her up and take off. Now you can fly higher, faster and farther but the scenery is different from 30,000 feet. And she flies like a dream.

 

So it all depends on what you are looking for.

 

Can the 747 lso fly low and slow? You bet if you configure her properly!

 

Can the J-3 fly at 30,000 feet?

 

So it all depends on what you are looking for.

 

Vic

What's good about opus is it's distribution method, they've partnered with flight1 which allows you 30 days to try it out and get a refund if it's not for you. As far as redraws, I'm sure if you set AS2012 to load metars less frequently, you will experience less cloud pops on par with opus and, conversely, if you set opus to a higher frequency update cycle, you will see more redraws. Getting the camera views application with your weather application is a good marriage considering that two separate programs would effectively double the price. Opus's extended cloud draw is something I am not sure other engines are designed to do based on the philosophy of the programming but I believe AS2012 and opus can achieve similar results and in my opinion AS2012 would be more accurate. Another program that comes with opus is it's network integration, which allows views across multiple instances to exhibit the same scene, something which, up until now, has been evasive. This factor not be reverent to a single pc set up, but for those people who need it, it seems to be absolutely fulfilling. Lastly, for what ever reason, opus is pretty simple, simple interface, simple coding, and simple foot print. In today's set ups, simplicity is valued in my view. Considering the refund policy, trying it out seems appropriate.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

I wonder why nobody is talking about AS' killer feature #1: historic wather?!

 

Historic weather is indeed a good feature. I've used it to fly in different time zones, or to do testing with the same historic weather each time, and even to find good days for ridge soaring. Others use it to recreate flights they've made, or to do some hurricane hunting (does Opus even depict hurricanes?).

 

For me, the killer feature is probably the weather map that includes the entire world. "Where do I want to fly today?" Well, I check the map and get a quick update. This is especially useful in conjunction with historic weather. I've even used the AS2012 weather map instead of checking real world weather reports.

 

Hook