It is worth having a look around the website and the website forum. On the first link you can download various pdf files which give a lot of useful information.

HELLO,

 

Many thanks for all these reply guys really helpful so i just downloaded the demo which was incredible and really made fsx look like reality with the viability so what i did next was uninstall the program so i can buy the real thing, however i successfully uninstalled the program and started fsx to make sure everything was ok but when i click on weather there is still the option of " ops weather and i want to get rid of that as i like to keep my fsx clean. is there any ways of doing this?

 

many thanks.

Opus is the weather engine that depicts the weather best, but still has serious cloud popping and windshift issues.

I'm new to using OpusFSX and one advantage I'll add to the above is that its simple and straight forward. The learning curve seems much lower. The documentation was short, to the point, and straight forward. You can use as much or as little of it as you want to (I haven't started messing with the head movement in the camera's or any of the camera functionality yet...just the weather). I followed the instructions and it just plain worked.

 

The developer responses and support for the product that I've read here, and elsewhere...appears to be top knotch. It seems like the developer is coming up with updates really really fast and they are responsive to customer feedback.

 

So far, I've found a few issues with it...but I don't know enough yet about using it to be able to tell if its me making mistakes, or its the product. Alot of the time the surface winds reported by ATIS at the airport I'm at differ quite a bit from what was generated. That might be normal though, or it might be that I forgot to select a checkbox or radio button somewhere. If it keeps happening I'll post for some help and maybe someone can sort me out.

 

So far I have to say I really like it though. It handles weather updates very painlessly, I hardly notice its updating. I'm not sure how or if it handles winds aloft though yet...but I'm still learning. I've used it with both the HDEv2 Textures (which looked REALLY nice) and the REXE+OD textures.

 

So far, so good.

Opus is the weather engine that depicts the weather best, but still has serious cloud popping and windshift issues.

 

By popping do you mean a cloud flickering? Every now and then I'll get a lone cloud that flickers.

After reading various things about Opus, I think I will hold off on this myself. Windshift issues and other things that were eventually worked out in Active Sky over the years are the reason. It sounds like there is some catching up to do, and when it does I'll bite. At this time I wouldn't want to replace something that has run the gauntlet and become a more or less stable and reliable program with something to do the same thing but is still in the midst of teething pains. From people's descriptions, it sounds like a great program, but not quite ready to take the throne just yet. This is one I'll be paying attention to as it comes along.

By popping do you mean a cloud flickering? Every now and then I'll get a lone cloud that flickers.

 

No I mean cloud popping. Clouds that pop up in front of you. That haven't been there before.

No I mean cloud popping. Clouds that pop up in front of you. That haven't been there before.

 

I was told the max radius for the weather bubble is 300 miles, so I set it to update at 60 minutes or 180 miles and got minimum pops but then was told fsx would morph the weather unless I don't care about accuracy. So, I went back to default of 30 minutes and 80 miles and there are pops along the route just like any other weather engine but in my experience it's done more elegantly then the alternatives.

 

Regards;

 

Fritz

So, I went back to default of 30 minutes and 80 miles and there are pops along the route just like any other weather engine but in my experience it's done more elegantly then the alternatives.

 

As in life, most things in FSX are about tradeoffs. :-)

 

I also see a lot of popup wx in Opus, particularly when flying into airspace with a lot of reporting stations. For example, I used Opus the other day for an IFR flight in the Turbine Duke from KLAS to KSNA. During the enroute portion, wx remained very stable - not surprising, especially given that there aren't many reporting stations between KLAS and the LA basin.

 

Flying the KAYOH4 arrival to the ILS 19R approach takes you in a bit of a loop over an area with many reporting stations, and during the course of that procedure I saw 4 or 5 significant wx changes with clouds either popping up or disappearing each time. Weather changed from broken to clear to scattered to clear... As I understand things, Opus is VERY driven by the METARs it sees and I'm guessing in coastal/mountain areas like this, where there can be significant differences in reports from many different stations within a small radius, that it reacts a bit more than you might like.

 

Again, tradeoffs. Given that METARs give disjoint slices of what IS (or at least WAS within the last hour) but NOT the big picture, and given they're what's available for a wx engine to use, how do you deal with "everything" in presenting that big picture. Do you try to smooth and risk complaints because "the METAR said X and I got there and had Y" or do you take each METAR literally and suffer from potential rapid changes for the sake of local accuracy AT the station and live with complaints about "cloud popping".

 

This stuff ain't easy, and every choice means a tradeoff. Another one is the matter of choice. I know many applaud the simplicity of Opus, but I also believe it can be a weakness. Both AS and REX do seem to offer bit more flexibility and control, at the expense of some complexity.

 

Scott

By the way, how do they treat old customers down in Opus? Do you have to pay everytime the program is updated?

I thought Opus was Sheriff Andy's son? Along with "Aunt Bee" they all lived in Mayberry RFD

 

Robert,

 

Maybe you have been watching too much "TV Land".

 

Happy Flying, PDX

Don't use the Live Camera, got EZDOK for that, no dis on their cams, just used to EZDOK. Don't use the Live View, no need for my setup. So that leaves me with one crummy feature to use, Live Weather.

 

Oh My!... that one crummy feature is GOLD.

 

I can't quite put it in words exactly what Live Weather does, but if you at all like to fly minimum VFR or IMC... it simply does a phenomenal job of rendering it. IF you don't have EZDOK, well then you have an added bonus in Live Camera.

By the way, how do they treat old customers down in Opus? Do you have to pay everytime the program is updated?

The only payment I have made is when I bought it several moons ago.

Don't use the Live Camera, got EZDOK for that, no dis on their cams, just used to EZDOK. Don't use the Live View, no need for my setup. So that leaves me with one crummy feature to use, Live Weather.

 

Oh My!... that one crummy feature is GOLD.

 

I can't quite put it in words exactly what Live Weather does, but if you at all like to fly minimum VFR or IMC... it simply does a phenomenal job of rendering it. IF you don't have EZDOK, well then you have an added bonus in Live Camera.

 

Well my EZDOK is removed and for IFR it's great too ;-)

So what are the remaining issues with this program? Didn't I read somewhere that there are bugs with winds aloft and things like that, or has everything basically been resolved? What about turbulence and uncommanded turns? I am also very interested in this program, but I don't want to go buy a new program, encounter what I'll bet will be hours or days reconfiguring a system that currently revolves around Ezdok and ActiveSky at its core (and working well together), only to find out that there are all kinds of limitations to Opus. Can someone please address some of these concerns? It is very clear that this program has a lot of positives, that many people are big fans of it, and that its future is very bright, but I want to hear about the negatives...