Hello John,I totally agree with you! Screen shots simply do not 'give-up' the information to the viewer (screen shot requestor) as to whether AS2004.5 is a valued buy or not. Simply put, THEY CAN NOT!!!!!!! This program does such an excellent job in animating the cloudscape as the real world does---thermals, drift, build and let-up---this is the 'spice' and 'magic' of this program. What would I produce if I shot a cloudscape? Nothing---but a nice DEAD picture of a group of clouds. The readers just have to form their own opinion on the posts of those like myself and others that responded to me, that took their own buying-plunge and came to the forum with smiles, like myself, as wide as the Grand Canyon!I have decided not to bother posting screen shots for this program, because they will not give to the reader the info, I KNOW they are looking for, and in effect prejudice and do them a disservice.On this program, they need to read other's comments who own the program and then proceed on a act-of-faith.My viewpoint as it is,Cheers!Mitch R.

Heh...even Skorna suggested leaving screenshots in that forum, but that's ok, I didn't expect to see any from you.Well Nihongo, I guess that you'll have to take the plunge to find out what you want to know.

My screen shots won't be any different from what you can see right off of the AS2004.5 site.If you wanted to see what my particular system would produce, well that's different. I'll create a couple for that reason. I take one when the actual weather makes for a good cloudscape. Stay tuned...Cheers!Mitch R.

Could someone address the one aspect of "cloudscape" that has eluded designers for all of these years...the generation of GROUND SHADOWS of all of these wonderful clouds?! Are we talking Big Blue number crunching problems for generating them or what? I'm sure I'm not the only person that has noticed the shadows of clouds racing over the environment and I have never heard of a reason why we can't have that last piece of eye candy. For me, that would be the last bit of "cementing" the illusion to reality transistion.

Hi cop,Please ask MS, and when they let you know you can post the answer.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Hi Mitch,Take your time! The Default MS Weather Bug is still buzzing around.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

Well Jim,I just sent MS the question...cross your fingers for a response.

Clouds casting ground shadows ..Somehow I am not looking forward to it. At the moment I have all shadows disabled because of 2 reasons - they cause big fps hit and they look very poorly. Since when shadows are completly black - maybe on the Moon but not here. And clouds shadows would really require a lot of finesse - somehow I don't think it is going to happen soon.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Yes, thats why I mentioned Big Blue... with the leap of technology in the next few years, who knows? But you're right - I'd rather not have any shadows if they can't be somewhat realistic. Well I can dream, can't I? ;^)

Man, I am so close to plunging in myself. The ONLY thing that is making me hold is the dismal showing of the US Dollar versus the Euro. US buyers have a disadvantage at SimMarket at the moment.

Hello All, OK, OK, OK, . Every once in awhile a product slips by this old man and when I think I've seen it all, here we go again. When A/S first came out, I wasn't that impressed . . . passed on it. for some reason, the other day I got to looking at it again, now it is 2004.5, with active radar and all that.Well, I bought it, hell it is only money, right? installed the product, followed the directions, (you do have to do that, right?) and hmmm, have to admit, I'm impressed!The darned sky and clouds and weather changing is just like real. Now this old guy is impressed. What a great program, and what a dunce I've been for not buying it before LOL.Ya know, I've got so much on this blessed computer to run FS9, that firing up FS is like doing a check list before startup/taxi/takeoff in a real aircraft LOL. So, what's one more proceedure . Trust me I actually DO have a ck list on what goes first, and so on to get max performance. And thank the Lord for Ken's great FSAutoStart, whew...that eliminated half of my ck list.Getting back to the original premis.....Active Sky 2004.5 with radar is just super! Thanks guys . . . For an old frustrated pilot who can't fly any more, this thing just keeps getting better and better.Best and thanks for such a great add on.Clayhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...ers/Dopke01.jpgClayton T. Dopke (Clay)Major, USAF (retired)"Drac"

I have to agree that AS 2004.5 is AWESOME. I can't say enough good things about it. The customer service and support has been awesome and Jim and the staff has been very patient in answering the questions.

Hello Clay!I'm glad you took the plunge. I was a hold-out myself. The sky over Southern Ontario the day I was inspired to write the post REALLY made AS2004.5 shine like gold!Best money spent to date.I must add that while I was using FSMETEO, the support was FIRST RATE! It was a great program, but I do prefer how AS2004.5 renders the atmosphere.Retired Major, huh? What sleds did you fly for a living?Cheers!Mitch R.

Mitch,Retired Major, huh? What sleds did you fly for a living?I was at Andersen from 68-26 Dec, 1972, flew the D model 52. From there I went to work for the guys from Langley and did some time in F-111's and F-4's. Ended up in 727-100's doing lots of work in and out of Central America, and I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that one Clayhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...ers/Dopke01.jpgClayton T. Dopke (Clay)Major, USAF (retired)"Drac"

And will continue to do so.