Fs global real weather and Opus

[petabread 67]

Funny, I've had the exact same things happen with Opus. All these weather engines and no one can tame the FSX weather demons.

Yeah, I don't sweat it anymore, I'm not here to persuade anyone to go get either product, they both have demos worth checking out. They both have positives and negatives. It really depends on what suits the individual and for me opusfsx is it, I may occasionally use fsgrw but everytime I do I don't feel the weather is complete. Oh well, unfortunately real world weather isn't any more cooperative.

[Guest Mik75]

I've had several unrealistic weather run ins with fs grw, I actually own it and opusfsx but have been using opusfsx exclusively for a while now. Fsgrw is a very impressive software but the winds aloft were very wrong for 3 of my flights, even though they were stable they were off. And a couple of times in my descent into jfk I've had several areas where it should have been dead cloudy and opusfsx depicted it perfectly, fsgrw gave me a patch of clear sky as I was descending and knew immediately that this wasn't my weather engine of choice. Though I don't discourage anyone from it, and yes opusfsx isn't perfect but as a real pilot with real world experience I feel opusfsx gives me a better representation of weather. I haven't tried activesky 2012 to comment on it.

Hmmm, Interesting. Do you use the flight plan feature in FSGRW? The upper winds were correct and completely stable on my flights with it. Comparing the FSGRW weather with the METARs or live pictures of webcams always showed the correct results...

The smooth transition of the view distance when passing through clouds or fog is very neat too!

[petabread 67]

Stability was never an issue. Yes I enjoyed the flight planning tool, but I did a comparison with a real flight briefing that I prepared and opusfsx and fsgrw and both engines were off but opusfs was giving me a more accurate report, fsgrw wasn't terrible but in some spots where the winds were out 220 for example, fsgrw had 320 and the spd was off by 10kts. And I'll be the first to admit that both have faults, I just found more with fsgrw. The cloud transition was almost equal to that of opus with occasional popping and weird injection of weather. For me opus suit me better, I also like being able to pull up the weather from the drop down menu in fsx. Again don't get me wrong, as someone who tried fsgrw demo and purchased it, I will probably use it from time to time but my primary engine will be opusfsx.

[Jarkko 59]

I think you nailed with this:

they both have positives and negatives. It really depends on what suits the individual

 

I have 20+ flight with FSGRW, 40+ flights with Opus and 200+ flights with AS2012. All have their ups and downs.

 

I personally went from AS2012 to Opus because of the fact that the clouds around you matched the METARs extremely well. So I traded wind stability for "more realistic" cloud depiction.

 

Unfortunately I got severe wind shifts with Opus and had to revert to wind stabilization. This lead to the winds aloft not matching my "winds aloft sources" (FSBuild, vRoute, EuroFPL, ForeFlight, RocketRoute).

 

This is one of the reasons I once more transfered from Opus to FSGRWL. Now my winds aloft match the weather sources (without wind shifts) and the cloud depiction is close enough to Opus.

 

Like you mentioned, horses for courses!

[hangar 661]

Can anyone tell me if FSGRW handles low overcast the same way that Opus does? Where if you are flying through an overcast layer you will have zero visibility until you break out? FSX real wx and other weather apps in the past have never been able to do this until Opus came along.

 

I have no experience with FSGRW except for the demo which I havent been able to test in a low overcast situation yet and so Im curious if it does the zero vis thing while flying through overcast. Opus is nice and all but has no turbulence...I miss some turb in these summer months.

[WR269 367]

Can anyone tell me if FSGRW handles low overcast the same way that Opus does? Where if you are flying through an overcast layer you will have zero visibility until you break out? FSX real wx and other weather apps in the past have never been able to do this until Opus came along.

 

I have no experience with FSGRW except for the demo which I havent been able to test in a low overcast situation yet and so Im curious if it does the zero vis thing while flying through overcast. Opus is nice and all but has no turbulence...I miss some turb in these summer months.

As2012 with SP2 gives you this, and a white-knuckle ride of low vis...really nice. I tested FSGRW and yes it also gives you low overcast, it also gives you horizontal layers of cloud where applicable.

[hangar 661]

Thanks Will...would you happen to know if FSGRW can be had thru the Flight1 wrapper system, or if not is there any return policy from the author?

[WR269 367]

Thanks Will...would you happen to know if FSGRW can be had thru the Flight1 wrapper system, or if not is there any return policy from the author?

Am not sure to be honest, they do have a forum on their website, may be well worth asking the question?

[MindYerBeak 73]

 

 

or if not is there any return policy from the author?

 

I emailed him about getting a refund  3 times.3 times he ignored my emails.-

[hangar 661]

Well, good to know at least before I make my decision...but truthfully after converting Euro's to Dollars I see it'll cost me about $52 just to be able to get turbulence back into my real weather, just not worth it for me. That seems pretty high for what it is.

 

I wish Opus would include turbulence in the "weather" instead of in their "cameras". I much prefer to use EZDOK for my cameras and this means I have no turbulence in the sim as long as I'm using Opus...rats.

[GHarrall 494]

Well, good to know at least before I make my decision...but truthfully after converting Euro's to Dollars I see it'll cost me about $52 just to be able to get turbulence back into my real weather, just not worth it for me. That seems pretty high for what it is.

 

I wish Opus would include turbulence in the "weather" instead of in their "cameras". I much prefer to use EZDOK for my cameras and this means I have no turbulence in the sim as long as I'm using Opus...rats.

 

I thought the 'bump aircraft' option now present in Opus did this?

[hangar 661]

 

 

I thought the 'bump aircraft' option now present in Opus did this?

 

I don't see this option in Opus anywhere...it must be a camera option (which I do not use).

[klamal 282]

 

 

I don't see this option in Opus anywhere...it must be a camera option (which I do not use).

 

Correct.  It is a camera option and associated with camera views set up in Opus.

[hangar 661]

Yea, the bad part about how Opus implements its turbulence effect is that since it is just a "camera" effect it has no real bearing on the aircraft itself and how turbulence should effect the handling of your plane. In other words, its eye candy only, and has no ill effects on your flying or approaches. For me, that's a no go.

[WebMaximus 372]

Hmm...reading the Opus documentation the way I understand it the turbulence effect indeed will also affect the aircraft and not only be eye candy if you check the 'Bump aircraft' option.

 

This is what the documentation says

 

Bump Aircraft

 

Tick the Bump Aircraft checkbox (10) to enable turbulence on the aircraft. When airborne the aircraft will bump in unison with the turbulent motions. Either the Turbulent Motion or Turbulent Bump options must be enabled for the effect to be seen. The sliders for Turbulent Motion, Turbulent Bump, Less Turbulence and More Turbulence all effect the Bump Aircraft severity. This effect is not shown in test mode.