Well, there's not much fuss with ASN, weather injection is instantaneuos, and the UI is far better than FSGRW! Opus I gave up on...

 

Never tried Opus myself but remember a lot of people jumping on it when it came out claiming that it fixed numerous issues that have been plaguing FSX, then it sort of began to drop off the radar after a while.

I stuck with AS2012 at the time as apparently wind prediction was still more accurate which mattered to me most.

 

Hmmmm....I might have to think about ASN as I can't really budget for it this year. Also need to weigh up how much more I'm willing to still invest into FSX since I'm using it less now, seems to be the sim that just never says die.

 

 

 

As an X-Plane user, I know the FSGRW developers are planning an X-plane version. I will probably become an X-Plane FSGRW user :-)

 

I really hope they stay true to that claim. Having an engine such as that for X-Plane would be revolutionary.

My Two Cents......(and a quick comparison)!

 

I am a past user of ActiveSky (v6, 2012 and Evolution), and currently own and use Opus FSX (v3.38 beta) and FSGRW, and have spent the last week with the trial version of ASN, performing direct comparisons between Opus FSX, FSGRW and ASN.

 

My findings:

 

Opus-Pros:

 

In my opinion, some of the best weather depiction available (some people will disagree, I know). Frame rate hit is low, even in bad weather. Easy to use. Works well for short GA flights. Good product support, and continuous program development.

 

Opus-Cons:

 

Wind smoothing is improving, but still not always smooth. For longer distance flights, weather depiction and winds can suddenly change greatly (expected to improve with upcoming versions).

 

FSGRW-Pros:

 

Weather depiction is adequate, although not as realistic as Opus or ASN for frontal weather, but still somewhat believable. Frame rate hit is the lowest of the three weather engines tested (on my system - see specs below). Decent wind and cloud smoothing, with no sudden radical changes (even on longer flights). I tend to use FSGRW for most of my flights, mainly due to the minimal impact on frame rate. Smoothest performance of the three WX engines in bad weather, on my system. Good product support and continued product development.

 

FSGRW - Cons:

 

Visibility modeling is not always accurate. Frontal weather depiction does not produce accurate renditions (cold fronts with primarily stratus cloud layers, poor CB (Thunderstorm) modeling).

 

ASN Pros:

 

Weather depiction using at least 5 cloud layers and enhanced overcast is great. Rain areas are associated with cloud placement - most realistic precipitation depiction to date. Visibility modeling is excellent (except for situation noted in Cons section below). Wind, turbulence, updraft and downdraft modeling are the best to date. I expect that product development and enhancement of ASN will continue at a rapid pace. Good product support.

 

ASN-Cons:

 

Frame rate hit is sometimes significantly higher than Opus or FSGRW, mainly in heavy weather conditions around larger cities (sometimes around 40 to 60 percent decrease, versus less than 30 percent decrease worst case for Opus and less than 20 percent decrease worst case for FSGRW). I tried reducing the number of cloud layers to 3 and disabling enhanced overcast, but ASN still performed worse than either Opus or FSGRW, with some stuttering around dense scenery/airports in bad weather. Also, when climbing out of a ground visibility layer, the visibility will quickly improve not only above the ground layer (as expected), but also below the aircraft all the way to the ground surface. No depiction of the top of the lower visibility layer - not a deal breaker, but very unrealistic IMHO.

 

Summary:

 

I will go ahead and purchase ASN because I believe in supporting product development for FSX, then likely use the weather engine which best fits a particular flight scenario. I believe that competition amongst many developers and continued weather engine development for several competing products is good for the users of FSX, and will accelerate weather engine technology breakthroughs. I understand that the selection of a weather engine is very subjective, and depends greatly on the hardware used for FSX. My recommendation - if your hardware can handle it, then ASN would provide the best overall experience. If not, then Opus and FSGRW are both great choices, subject to personal tastes and opinions.

 

FYI, my test system is 17-2700k overclocked to 5.0 GHz (stable), EVGA GTX-680FTW+ 4GB, Three Acer 27" monitors running at a total resolution of 6020x1080 (bezel-corrected) using Nvidia Surround graphics, 8GB 2100MHz RAM, 64GB OS SSD, 600GB WD Velociraptor SATAIII 6Gbps FSX Hard Drive (10,000 rpm), Windows 7 64-bit. ASN running on same system as FSX (will be moved to networked computer in the future). Frame rate locked at 30 using FSX internal frame rate limiter.

 

Cheers,

 

Gerald

That is one of the best posts on the three weather engines to date. Thanks for a an excellent review Gerald.

I also have Opus and FSGRW, and will be getting ASN next Wednesday

Like you, I will be using the weather engine that suits my flying, Opus for GA flying ( which seems to be suited for best), ASN for the high stuff, and FSGRW for some parts of Europe where it seems to excel.

Also ASN works better with FSCaptain, especially using historic. It is great having a choice.

.

So I went ahead a downloaded ASN since they offer a 7-day trial which I didn't know about. Am in mid flight with the PMDG 777 and yeah.....think I might have to go ahead and uhh, get this one  :smile:

Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk 2

 

Hi!

Lemme just ask you this...

 

How do you know that FSGRW wasn't even close and ASN was spot on?

 

I ask you this, because in the day ASN was released, I went to my window, took some pictures and compared to what I was seeing on both FSGRW and ASN.

 

FSGRW was spot on and ASN wasn't! :-)

 

I see daelight disagreed with your comment. Was he standing next to you looking out the window ???  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

 

Gotta love these guys that disagree, but wont back it up with a fact. I have to admit ASN is very good and I can't wait for the new P3Dv2 version of FSGRW, as that has served me well in FSX. Opus appears to be a lot of talk, yet constantly falling a little short of their sales pitch. The weather future looks bright indeed.