Don't know your situation and why you say anything involving money isn't an option but with this said I highly suggest you save up the money to get yourself one of the latest weather engines because it really adds a lot to the overall experience flying in FSX.

 

So...next time your buddies ask you to join them for a night out disappoint them by staying home and use the money you saved on a good weather engine ;-)

 

Unemployment and an upcoming master's degree study entirely financed by loans. Is that enough of a situation?

Unemployment and an upcoming master's degree study entirely financed by loans. Is that enough of a situation?

 

Absolutely, sounds like a touch situation indeed.

 

Main reason for my previous post is I often thought to myself when I've been on the fence thinking if I should or shouldn't get an addon for FSX for example it's a bit funny how I hesitate to spend these money but then when I'm on a night out with my friends I often spend maybe 5 times as much as the cost of an addon without the slightest hesitation and sure both things are fun in their own way but a night out usually lasts for a couple of hours where I can enjoy an addon for FSX for several years or at least months.

 

Good luck with your master's degree :good:

...

 

Yeah, compared to a plane, a weather engine is at least a good "bang for the buck" investment.

 

 

And thanks.

 

 

Unemployment and an upcoming master's degree study entirely financed by loans. Is that enough of a situation?

 

I thought you owned a Porsche

I just bought another year subscription for 6 euros. OpenClouds at least doesn't lock FSX. I just had another lockup thanks to a warning by FSGW about the connection between FSX and FSGW. This is really starting to ###### me off. So for now I'm back with openclouds.

My previous response to you was less than helpful. Were you using the demo or the full version of FSGRW? You might want to post something on their forum as there is topic about this issue:

 

http://fsgrw.freeforums.org/an-error-occurred-while-communicating-t139.html

I purchased Opusfsx and FSGRW. I also purchased AS2012 and REX in the past.

I preferred Opusfsx for the inflight weather information and the camera views.

Intrigued by the many positive reactions concerning FSGRW, I gave it another try.

Not a bad experience, but I did see some clouds popping in and out (when weather was injected I suppose). Maybe it's me doing something wrong or maybe, those saying that they never see a weather injection are extremely lucky.

All by all, It's a good thing that there are several quality weather addons for us to chose from. They all have their strong and their weaker points.

I know one cannot judge a weather engine after just a few flights, so I'll keep FSGRW using for the time being.

 

Jos

I think what you could do is play around with the distance sliders both in FSX and FSGRW. I'm doing some testing myself and the latest settings (which I haven't had time testing yet) is to set the cloud draw distance in FSX to 12 via fsx.cfg, the weather depiction range in FSGRW to 150 nm and the maximum visual range in FSGRW to 250 km.

 

Maybe if we're lucky Bernd could comment on what combination of these settings work best to avoid cloud popping etc.

Using FSGRW - and are quite happy with it so far... At least of all, the stable wind conditions...

I thought you owned a Porsche

 

Of course.

 

So if you'll excuse me, I have a Europe to invade with my Porsche-made SdKfz 184. Right after a proper Weisswurst and Sauerkraut meal and five Weissbier, of course.

 

 

 

All the while loading weather with FSRealWX, as this seems to be the only free weather tool for FSX.

Hi Richard,

 

I will try your settings. I hope "that cloud draw distance 12" isn't going to put too much of a strain on fps.

Thanks for the tip.

 

Jos

Yep...have been thinking about that myself. Waiting for Vatsim to sort their issues so not sure when I'll do my next flight so please report back how the settings work out for you.

Hi Richard,

 

I will try your settings. I hope "that cloud draw distance 12" isn't going to put too much of a strain on fps.

Thanks for the tip.

 

Jos

 

I tried the 12 setting, but it didn't work for me as I'm running with high antialiasing settings. My performance took too much of a hit.

 

I could have lowered my graphics settings, but decided to go back to 7 or 8 just to stay on the safe side. 

On setting FSGWR to the distances, Richard mentionned, I saw that the "set weather radius" is specified in NM. The "Limit Max Vis" however is calculated in KM. :huh:

 

Jos

On setting FSGWR to the distances, Richard mentionned, I saw that the "set weather radius" is specified in NM. The "Limit Max Vis" however is calculated in KM. :huh:

 

Jos

 

That is correct, there's a mix of km and nm looking at these sliders so one need to be aware of that.

 

I've been discussing these settings with a friend of mine and this is from an email I sent to him which explains the "logic" behind my values although I after writing this decreased the max vis in FSGRW from 260 to 250 km to make it easier to remember...250 km max vis and 150 nm for weather radius. Not sure though if I'm on the right track with the "logic" described below but still thought I might post it so you guys see why I came up with these particular values and like I already said I haven't tried them myself yet so don't know how good (if good at all) they will work.

 

If I did my math correct every step on the CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE slider in FSX equals 22 km so setting a value of 12 would mean the actual distance would be 264 km instead of the default max value of 176 km.

 

With a cloud draw distance of 264 I've now set the max visibility in FSGRW to 260 to stay below the cloud draw distance value to hopefully avoid seeing clouds popping up in the distance but at the same time have a high value to get as close to real life visibility as possible when flying at high FLs and then I've set the weather radius slider in FSGRW to 150 nm which equals 278 km to make sure the weather is generated in advance and before I fly into it with the visibility and cloud draw distance settings mentioned.

I did a test flight today. As I fly the Majestic D8-400, I don't need to draw the clouds as far as you, Richard. Your principle seems very logic to me though.

I have set the max vis to 80nm and the max draw distance within FSGRW to 100nm CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE was set to 12.

The flight was very smooth wit no cloud popping in and out.

I'll try another flight tomorrow with 100nm/120nm.

 

Jos