I have no decrease in performance by using FSGRW, maybe slightly better compared to when I was using ASE. Back to the local weather effects, these will only be added to airports that do actually suffer from whatever weather phenomenon exists in real life when certain conditions are met.

I, too have not experienced any frame rate drop, whereas both REX and AS 2012 will always affect frame rates on my machine.

 

As far as using saved, downloaded or historic weather - I've done this many times over the past week, as Bowerman had three layers and a high, quite solid dark grey  overcast on the day I purchased the programme. I saved it, also the second, did a bunch of checking for current weather compliance and have never looked back. This is one great little weather engine.

 

Curious which WX bin file you are using (wxmapping.bin)?

Most of these effects are described in approach charts of the specific airports

 

Yeah, actually came to think of Eurocontrol right after I posted my question but for whatever reason I'm not able to log on at the moment. Will give it another try tomorrow and see if I can find some info.

I have no decrease in performance by using FSGRW, maybe slightly better compared to when I was using ASE. Back to the local weather effects, these will only be added to airports that do actually suffer from whatever weather phenomenon exists in real life when certain conditions are met.

 

Of course only real world weather phenomenon should be added and that is exactly the info I would like to find for any of my airports not currently on the list so I can suggest these airports are added.

Curious which WX bin file you are using (wxmapping.bin)?

 

Interesting you mention the wxmapping.bin file because a friend of mine found out that this file if you also have AS2012 installed is modified by AS2012 and since FSGRW also rely on this file it might be a wise thing to restore this file to the FSX default version (which was backed up by AS2012) and found here -> Users\*****\AppData\Roaming\HiFi\AS2012\StationsBackup\FSX if you use FSGRW as your wx engine but still have AS2012 installed.

 

Not sure if this would have any effect on FPS though.

 

 

FSGRW with REX and EZDOK

 

I'm taking a serious look at this combo, however EZDOK appears to be MIA.  Can you tell me how you get REX to setup textures specific to the conditions that FSGRW will build?  Trying to figure out the specific process.

 

Thanks, Rob.

Oh, something I've been wanting to say for a while but forgot everytime: one thing that worries me a little when it comes to FSGRW is that it is completely dependant on their own servers...! OpusFSX uses (various) general onlne servers for the weather data so even if in the (far away) future OpusFSX goes out of business, you still will be able to use the addon. FSGRW however will be useless even when the developers servers are down for some reason, let alone if they are completely gone. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

Obviously a lot more addons are dependant on the servers of developers but that's mainly for installing, not for the usage itself.

 

But maybe I am a bit too negative in this regard. ^_^

Wow, that is some wild speculation there! Come to think of it, the team behind fsgrw have been around a lot longer than Opus so I dare say they have the support for their servers sorted out.

 

Of course nobody knows what will happen in the future to any company but really, is there a need to worry about this?

 

Sent from my GT-I9305 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

awf, on 17 Aug 2013 - 2:53 PM, said:

Curious which WX bin file you are using (wxmapping.bin)?

 

 

Interesting you mention the wxmapping.bin file because a friend of mine found out that this file if you also have AS2012 installed is modified by AS2012 and since FSGRW also rely on this file it might be a wise thing to restore this file to the FSX default version (which was backed up by AS2012) and found here -> Users\*****\AppData\Roaming\HiFi\AS2012\StationsBackup\FSX if you use FSGRW as your wx engine but still have AS2012 installed.

 

Not sure if this would have any effect on FPS though.

 

I have no idea, Andre', but as WebMax mentioned - I will reinstall the default, as I was indeed using AS2012 prior to FSGRW.

Interesting,

 

I have found the performance to be better with FSGRW. All the "heavy lifting" is done on the weather server and not on your computer, like Opus. Even so, the difference has been next to nothing.

No decrease in performance here with FSGRW...Working perfectly.

No difference in FPS from what I've seen. I am getting annoyed at the lower level clouds/haze appearing and disappearing. What's the best way to minimize that? I don't notice any cloud popping with higher level clouds when using dynamic mode, but I can go from clear to hazy at lower levels quite quickly.

 

 

Can you tell me how you get REX to setup textures specific to the conditions that FSGRW will build?

 

There would be no real way to do this, of course, any more than there is in Opus when used with REX textures.  I like REX and use it more than I do Opus right now, but even I don't use that "feature" in REX.  It seems pretty random and often would load textures that I 1) didn't like, and 2) simply didn't match the conditions anyway.  I typically use one set and occasionally change for a different season.

 

Scott

 

 

There would be no real way to do this

 

Thanks for info Scott - I can live with using predefined texture sets from REX.  BUT, what I probably don't like about weather engines is how they inject weather ... from what I've read ALL of them (including FSGRW) seem to do this to more or less of a degree with dynamic weather often indicating FSX is the limitation.  I'm not really sure why it's such a problem for all the weather engines?  Here is how I would approach weather processing:

 

1.  Current weather data pulls MUST be compared with at least 3-4 prior data extracts to avoid sudden changes (make the compare levels user defined, 4,5,..10)

2.  Injected weather should only happen at the edge of a user's cloud draw distance and take into account aircraft speed and direction (as AC speed drops allow change radius to grow/shrink)

 

Most weather engines when using dynamic, seem to just gather the data and dump the data into FSX with maybe a few minor adjustments for invalid data.  Weather data pulled from various sources is rarely 100% complete or accurate to the exact minute.  Calculated "smoothing" is the basic and most important part of a weather engine.  If winds are 10 knots 1 minute ago, then an erroneous data extract shows 100 knots, those values should be filter by the weather engine ... heck, there is no reason why the engine parameters can't be user driven in terms of defining the smoothing (I.e. how much variance in wind readings will be allowed).  A customizable smoothing processing, even allow the end user to set how many levels of smoothing to calculate (allowing for variance in hardware, networked setups, etc.), affecting radius, updates rate based on AC speed, etc. etc.  I've yet to see anything like this in any package ... IMHO it's all about smoothing the weather data to present a more realistic flying environment.

 

FSGRW costs about US $60 ... I think at this price point, an end user should have more control and a very robust weather engine with a high level of customizable smoothing.

 

I'm not trying to be harsh on those that produce weather engines, but if one is going to charge premium prices then I think it's fair to expect premium quality.  A products range of smoothing customization will define just how good the weather engine is.

 

Rob.

Don't get me wrong, I think Opus sky also looks great. But I think some underestimate what FSGRW have, that neither Opus, REX and AS have and that is the local weather effects. That is what sold me completely to this engine, so shelling out 39$ was an easy choice for me:). Sooner or later Opus and others probably gonna catch up with these effects but at the moment FSGRW is the only one that has it B) So if having some money to throw out the window FSGRW is really worth a try.

local weather effects coming soon for Opus and also the ability to be user editable.

local weather effects coming soon for Opus and also the ability to be user editable.

The first planned version is quite limited. You are only able to tell what level of wind shear or turbulence is randomly injected inside a certain radius of the airport.

 

FSGRW is a bit more complicated and possibly therefore not user editable. If you look at landing videos at Madeira (real world), you will notice, that soon after the last turn towards the runway, the winds from the mountains will hit your aircraft at a particular place.

 

This is what FSGRW models, and not just overall turbulence or level of wind sheer.

 

awf, on 17 Aug 2013 - 2:53 PM, said:

 

 

 

 

I have no idea, Andre', but as WebMax mentioned - I will reinstall the default, as I was indeed using AS2012 prior to FSGRW.

 

Thanks Paul and WebMax ;-) Will have a look...

I'm not trying to be harsh on those that produce weather engines, but if one is going to charge premium prices then I think it's fair to expect premium quality.

 

I don't regard either of my wx programs as perfect, but I do believe they both provide real value for the money charged.  For me, that's always the measure used.  Sure I hope someone completely cracks the nut of providing accurate, up to date dynamic wx that doesn't sometimes cause abrupt changes, but I can tell you that REX is worlds better in this regard than it used to be, and Opus also works very hard to balance these two elements and generally does well.

 

Part of the problem is the granular nature (granular both in time and in area) of the wx products sim packages have to work with, compounded by sim pilots pretty much demanding that airfields match current METARs (never mind that the field I'm landing at may be an hour out of date while the next field over might be fresh), but still desiring blending in between.  Both of the elements you mention as solutions are particularly problematic because they fly (pun intended) against what most pilots insist on most - that wx at the field I'm at (both landing AND departing) d*mned well better match the current METAR.  And as a corollary, it better match the current METAR of the field I'm flying over right now as well. ;-)  What you're suggesting here is fairly simple to accomplish, but would play havoc with what most of us expect.  It just ain't that easy - it's a balancing act.

 

In short, yes I do think you may be a bit harsh, and are also presenting a solution that's basically been done and rejected. :-)  But again, its the value for $$ spent thing, and I recognize that's highly individualized.

 

Scott