Damian is really pushing the hyperbole in that link. His partner Chris hints at volumetric clouds as well. We have all seen this hype before with fs releases and most fall spectacularly flat. Now if it lives up to the hype then Activesky can take it's spot at the top.

 

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Exactly.   I've seen the marketing spiel before, like the revolutionary Airbus products that were going to bypass FSX limitations and work outside the sim to give accurate fly by wire dynamics, etc.  Never came to be.   I think there was another weather engine promising the sun and the moon, FEX, and nothing came of that as well.   I have a little more faith in Hifi Sim, because they do have a track record of continuous improvements and apparently have a big budget for development as they appear to be the number 1 weather engine for flight simming.  But I have to take the recent preview with a grain of salt, it could just be a tactic to diffuse the threat to their sales from OPUS.  But if this is real, they will basically revolutionize FSX as we know it, because weather plays such an important role in the simulation of aircraft dynamics, and of course, aesthetics as well, that it will seem like a brand new sim, like FSXI!

 

X-plane has volumetric clouds, why can't FSX?  I know, software limitations, but let's see how this plays out.  If they can solve this puzzle and give us real volumetric clouds and the other game changing features they mention, they are will have a licence to mint money!   I'm rooting for them, let's hope they can deliver!

I had ASE, then AS2012, and now I use opusfsx.

Better weather depiction and a smaller system footprint.

No textures though. REX does that.

 

If you don't have REX and want an all in one package, I would go with AS2012.

 

A.J., How are the winds aloft in opus?  No doubt the weather depiction is excellent, I saw it for myself when I tried the demo, but the negatives outweigh the positives for me.   Maybe I'm spoiled by Active Sky, but I like their GUI and the many features I can use to help plan for a flight in advance.  Opus was rather spartan in it's interface, although I concede some folks like that simplicity.   And by folks, I mean the GA and low and slow crowd.   As an avid tubeliner user, I must have accurate and stable winds aloft performance.  Even if it means global weather depiction and the inaccuracies and graphical glitches that approach entails, but I will say that since I upgraded yesterday from Active Sky Evolution to AS2012, weather depiction has improved somewhat, especially overcast conditions (probably thanks to competition from OPUS).   Also, does OPUS have historical weather downloads?  

 

Please forgive me, as I have not kept up with rapid changes to the OPUS weather program since the winter of this year.  But I find AS2012 is the weather engine for die hard long haul simmers who must have correct winds in the high flight levels.

can opus work together with AS2012?

They are both weather programs, but I think I know what you are getting at.  Assuming they both are reading the same METAR information, one could theoretically have OPUS provide weather and use AS2012 to get more detailed weather reports to assist in flightplanning. 

AJ, Opus has Historic weather option, Flight plan implementation, uplink for T7. I get very stable upper winds. What Information I can get in AS2012, I can get in Opus. Opus provides more. All weather reporting can be viewed via network set up.

A lot has changed since you may have used it.

A lot of users are not updating, so you read reports of Opus not providing stable upper winds, as long as your copy is up to date, it is very accurate.

Setting Opus to default settings is the best option. Anything not default is for lower end systems.

I'm happy with it, but after buying PFPX, I noticed how much more realistic winds aloft data is on their weather server. I hope future versions of Active Sky work on this, especially continuous coverage without having to create fictional stations.

Does OpusFSX have the option like AS for extracting enroute info for PMDG 777 to upload?

 

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Does OpusFSX have the option like AS for extracting enroute info for PMDG 777 to upload?

 

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Yes. And works very well

A.J., How are the winds aloft in opus?  No doubt the weather depiction is excellent, I saw it for myself when I tried the demo, but the negatives outweigh the positives for me.   Maybe I'm spoiled by Active Sky, but I like their GUI and the many features I can use to help plan for a flight in advance.  Opus was rather spartan in it's interface, although I concede some folks like that simplicity.   And by folks, I mean the GA and low and slow crowd.   As an avid tubeliner user, I must have accurate and stable winds aloft performance.  Even if it means global weather depiction and the inaccuracies and graphical glitches that approach entails, but I will say that since I upgraded yesterday from Active Sky Evolution to AS2012, weather depiction has improved somewhat, especially overcast conditions (probably thanks to competition from OPUS).   Also, does OPUS have historical weather downloads?  

 

Please forgive me, as I have not kept up with rapid changes to the OPUS weather program since the winter of this year.  But I find AS2012 is the weather engine for die hard long haul simmers who must have correct winds in the high flight levels.

 

Well, I bought PFPX and planned KIAD-ZBAA using Opus weather. (PFPX draws it's data straight from the NOAA by default).

Despite weather data being drawn from two different sources by two different pieces of software, my predicted ending fuel amount was only off by 1,000 lbs when I got to Beijing.

 

I would say winds aloft are spot on.

Yes. And works very well

 

Unfortunately PFPX at this stage doesn't use OpusFSX weather (not that I'm aware of anyway).  I'm keen to move to Opus as well simply because the resource required are less.  A more lightweight program from my understanding.

Nice to know OPUS has added a lot of the features I desire.  Still not sure about it, as it does not communicate with PFPX, at least not yet.  Also, I just paid for the upgrade to AS2012, so I'm more or less invested in it and it's future now.   I may give the OPUS demo another run through down the line, but I'm happy with what I have with AS2012 for now.  My rough anecdotal research seems to indicate that most heavy iron flyers prefer AS2012 over Opus, but I agree, OPUS has a lot of promise, uses less system resources, and best of all, is keeping Active Sky on it's toes!

Nice to know OPUS has added a lot of the features I desire.  Still not sure about it, as it does not communicate with PFPX, at least not yet.  Also, I just paid for the upgrade to AS2012, so I'm more or less invested in it and it's future now.   I may give the OPUS demo another run through down the line, but I'm happy with what I have with AS2012 for now.  My rough anecdotal research seems to indicate that most heavy iron flyers prefer AS2012 over Opus, but I agree, OPUS has a lot of promise, uses less system resources, and best of all, is keeping Active Sky on it's toes!

 

I'm sure if you wanted to you can get a refund.  I got a refund after realising I purchased it twice (one year apart).  I will certainly do a fair investigation if I want to go full OpusFSX for the next weather engine or upgrade to 2013 (when year 2014 comes )

Unfortunately PFPX at this stage doesn't use OpusFSX weather (not that I'm aware of anyway).  I'm keen to move to Opus as well simply because the resource required are less.  A more lightweight program from my understanding.

I think PFPX uses NOAA like Opus does. As I don't have PFPX yet, I cannot give you an definitive answer.