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best weather engine for prepar3d

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Hi 

 

I am looking to get better weather in my Prepar3d... what is the best add-ons to buy ??

 

Henrik

 

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Well, I can only speak for my own experience, since I haven't used any other....

I am using AS2012 SP2. It's great in each and every aspect (in terms of weather modelling / injection) and it is "P3D-aware" - during install your prompted to choose between FSX or P3D.

For long-haul flights with airliners it's great at determining(simulation based on many RW weather sources used for aviation meteorology) / injecting the winds aloft, and this info can easily be obtained and used for FMC / MCDU programming of winds aloft predictions.

AS2012 also carries many optional cloud and rw / lighting textures, and you can even choose to "paint the skies" according to your route / weather conditions / date!

I've also found that the interaction of AS2012 with P3D works even better than with FSX, probably because of the better ESP simconnect module (?). Weather updates on-the-fly are smooth and credible. You can nonetheless adapt the weather depiction to the type of flight you're going to simulate (high / low levels , vfr, etc...)

Flying gliders since 1980

Flightsimming since 1992

AMD Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, GPU Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB, 1 TB and 500 GB nvme2 SSD drives, HP 27" 60Hz LED monitor @ 1920x1080, T16000, Hotas from old X52 Pro, Saitek Combat Rudder Pro (2010 model)

I agree with jcomm, AS2012 is amazing in P3D, I know some people who use REX with the P3D license and they get a lot of issues with it, so i highly recommend P3D ;)

OPUS hands down. It's the best in my opinion

 

I use REX for textures but there's some good freeware cloud textures if that's all your after. REX is worth it too tho.

 

 

Eheh... poor Henrik... the choice starts to become more complex...

 

I confess I never used another weather injector (well, FSMeteo, long ago...). I've read very good comments about Opus, but since I am so happy with AS2012, why spend money on yet another weather injector?

 

Also, I didn't see many good (neither bad, I confess...) references regarding the way Opus calculates "weather aloft"...

Flying gliders since 1980

Flightsimming since 1992

AMD Ryzen 5600x, 32GB RAM, GPU Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB, 1 TB and 500 GB nvme2 SSD drives, HP 27" 60Hz LED monitor @ 1920x1080, T16000, Hotas from old X52 Pro, Saitek Combat Rudder Pro (2010 model)

Weather aloft in opus is now in and very good.

 

The thing with opus is that you get the best weather engine (IMO) and so many other things, cameras like EZDOK and eventually a fs video maker as well as others.

 

The weather depiction is very very good.

 

JComm I agree that if your happy with 2012 stay with it, I've read good things about it too but I decided on OPUS

 

Sorry to make your choice harder :D

 

Lee

 

 

I have both Opus and AS2012 SP2 and since SP2 i can't stop using AS2012. I can use it remotely on my support PC, weather depiction is the same as Opus since SP2 and it doesn't have the QNH/Wind/Temperature shifts at high altitudes that Opus has which are terribly annoying.

CASE: Fractal Terra Silver CPU: AMD R5 7800X3D 5.0Ghz RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000 GPU: nVidia RTX 4070 Ti SUPER · SSDs: Samsung 990 PRO 2TB M.2 PCIe · PNY XLR8 CS3040 2TB M.2 PCIe · VIDEO: LG-32GK650F QHD 32" 144Hz FREE/G-SYNC · MISC: Thrustmaster TCA Airbus Joystick + Throttle Quadrant · MSFS2024 · Windows 11

To make your decision a little harder: There is a quite new program called FS Global Real Weather

 

http://www.fly2pilots.com/Cms/Ui/Pages/Products/MainPage.aspx?id=253b8b5c-0a91-4935-8d01-b3c70aee6034

 

(that's the group making FS Global Mesh). Here is an in-depth comparison against REX:

 

http://www.simflight.de/2013/04/29/review-fs-global-real-weather-von-pilots/

 

(German language, perhaps Google can help you with translation). I am not experienced enough to provide a thorough comparison myself, but I am using it now and I am quite  pleased with it.

 

One downside I experienced with both REX and AS2012 were the infinite loading times. OPUS is spot on nearly immediately, FS Global Real Weather takes a touch longer, but is still much better than these two.

 

FS Global Real Weather and OPUS have Demos, so I would highly recommend trying them first before buying.

 

Kind Regards, Michael

 

Intel i7-13700K / AsRock Z790 / Crucial 32 GB DDR 5 / ASUS RTX 4080OC 16GB / BeQuiet ATX 1000W / WD m.2 NVMe 2TB (System) / WD m.2 NVMe 4 TB (MSFS) / WD HDD 10 TB / XTOP+Saitek hardware panel /  LG 34UM95 3440 x 1440  / HP Reverb 1 (2160x2160 per eye) / Win 11

  • Moderator

AS2012 hands down. It covers all types of flying you might want to do with accurate temps and winds - low and slow, high and fast, etc. The others are good for what they do but only AS2012 gives you the whole package. A lot of people talk about the best weather ENGINE and they are talking about pretty clouds not accurate weather.

 

If you are looking to plan a flight using fuel burn calculated by winds aloft, etc - AS2012 does that accurately. If you just want to fly around and look at pretty clouds - AS2012 does that as well.

 

Vic

 

RIG#1 - I9 14900K MSI Pro z790 RTX 5070Ti
40" 4K Monitor 3840x2160 

FS Global Real Weather is the best! It is better than OpusFSX and AS2012 (I own both)...

regards Patrick

NAX3301.png

I don't think you can go wrong with either AS2012 or Opus. I have both but prefer Opus. I also use REX textures since I personally didn't care for AS2012 textures.  But you'll also find those that prefer AS2012 textures - I would check screenshots on both developer sited to see which set of textures you like better.  I never cared for the REX weather engine because it took forever to load and I always found the weather to be outdated. The good thing with all 3 is they all have very good support, in my experience. What really put Opus over the top for me is the developer really takes user feedback and requests to heart. Plus, Opus has lots of other great features already mentioned. The camera feature with dynamic head movement is a very nice added utility. And as was already mentioned the developer is working on other added features which will be free upgrades to all customers, so you really get a lot for $45. 

 

Todd

Regards,

Todd Harrell

 

Computer: i7 3770k @ 4.6 GHz, 16 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX 1070 GPU, 750W PSU, 250 GB SSD (Win 7), 500 GB SSD (P3D), 2 x 1TB HDD, 28-inch Viewsonic 1080p monitor

Sim: P3Dv3

Hi folks,

I use REX & P3D, Win64 - not a burp - and contrary to what some have stated, very "few" P3D Users & REX are having problems.

Have a blessed one,

cthiggin

Tom Higginbotham

Intel 4820K - OC'd 4.8 ghz / ASUS x79 Deluxe Premium MB, 16 gig Corsair Dominator ram, CorsairRM1000 PSU, Corsair H-105 Liquid, EVGA 770 Classified, 37" Samsung TV/Monitor, Samsung 840 EVO SSD 1TB, WD VRaptor, 1TB

 

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I've been using Opus and generally have been very happy with it.  I am the sort who just wants real weather - set it - and forget it.  Which reminds me, I been using the very first set of cloud textures I found to work with it for the last six months.  Guess I should find a different texture, ha!

Intel i9-12900KF, Asus Prime Z690-A MB, 64GB DDR5 6000 RAM, (3) SK hynix M.2 SSD (2TB ea.), 16TB Seagate HDD, Gigabyte GeForce 5080 RTX, Corsair iCUE H70i AIO Liquid Cooler, UHD/Blu-ray Player/Burner (still have lots of CDs, DVDs!)  Windows 10, (hold off for now on Win11),  EVGA 1300W PSU
Netgear 1Gbps modem & router, (3) 27" 1440 wrap-around displays
Full array of Bravo, Saitek and GoFlight hardware for the cockpit. Varjo and HP VR headsets for mixed reality.

Michael previously mentioned "One downside I experienced with both REX and AS2012 were the infinite loading times. OPUS is spot on nearly immediately,"

Which is true and for some flights I may want the quicker loading times .... like for test flights e.g.

 

 

One question on Opus networked... I have AS2012 currently.

 

For AS2012 my server has FSX installed .. the client PC has AS2012.

 

I read some about Opus setup but did not have a clear picture of what software goes where.

Does Opus require FSX to be installed on both the server and client PC?

 

 

Edit:

Is Opus now for FS9, FSx and P3d?

Best Regards,

Vaughan Martell  PP-ASEL KDTW

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