I have the Opus weather program and I like it because it's easy to start and use with very low hit on performance. I might also point out that I have AS2012 so I would only need to buy an upgrade to ASN. My impression from what I have read here is that ASN is even better than Opus.

My understanding is that weather radar has not been possible to do in a realistic way in FSX before but that has changed with ASN and only in ASN.

Is that correct?

I find AS2012 more complicated to use and above all it take longer time to start and has a bigger impact on performance compared to Opus. Has that changed in any way with ASN?

 

Yes, the weather radar is excellent. Yes ASN starts quickly with little impact on performance.

 

Best of all - try the 7 day free demo of ASN and make your own decision - the demo is not limited in any way so you can give it a good test.

 

Have fun!

 

Vic

Yes, get asn.

Absolutely! It's a fantastic program, might be the best weather engine available right now. As Vic already stated, give it a try before you buy! ;-)

I own both but ASN is better for weather and OPUS has a great built-in addon like EZDOK which I love in P3Dv2.2

Yes, if you want weather radar in the T7 right away when it's available. I was using opus and switched about two months ago. Opus is great, don't get me wrong. But I got sick of the cloud popping. Switched to ASN and haven't even thought about looking back. For the first time ever in flight simming, the weather is not something that detracts from the immersion. ASN doesn't make itself known in any way - the way the weather is supposed to be. It's not suppose to just "pop" or shift around instantly in front of your eyes just because you get a new update. ASN handles these updates and everything else without you even really noticing. Opus, well, when I last used it, not so much. Maybe they fixed that completely now but am happy with ASN and have no need for anything else.

My understanding is that weather radar has not been possible to do in a realistic way in FSX before but that has changed with ASN and only in ASN.

Is that correct?

Yes. The thing that ASN has done, is to inject true precipitation into FSX, and to make it appear at specific fixed locations in relation to the aircraft. No other weather engine to date has been able to accomplish this. ASN does this by moving much of the actual weather processing into their own custom module, bypassing parts of the default FSX weather engine.

 

It was this breakthrough, (injecting precip at specific locations) that finally met PMDG's requirements for an accurate simulation of how a real weather radar works. The custom ASN engine also virtually eliminates the problem of wind shifts that have caused PMDG, and many high-end add-on aircraft to behave poorly in flight... i.e. s-turns, porpoising etc.

 

I agree that AS2012 and previous versions of the HiFi weather engine user interface were rather slow and bloated, with a big impact on FSX performance if run on the same computer as FSX, but ASN has made big improvements in this area as well.

 

Highly recommend upgrading to ASN.

I have them (weather generators) all and after having bought ASN, I didn't look back. To total immersion is just of a new level. It's that good!

I have Opus but cloud popping is driving me crazy, so by what others say I might go ASN

Yes. The thing that ASN has done, is to inject true precipitation into FSX, and to make it appear at specific fixed locations in relation to the aircraft. No other weather engine to date has been able to accomplish this. ASN does this by moving much of the actual weather processing into their own custom module, bypassing parts of the default FSX weather engine.

 

It was this breakthrough, (injecting precip at specific locations) that finally met PMDG's requirements for an accurate simulation of how a real weather radar works. The custom ASN engine also virtually eliminates the problem of wind shifts that have caused PMDG, and many high-end add-on aircraft to behave poorly in flight... i.e. s-turns, porpoising etc.

 

I agree that AS2012 and previous versions of the HiFi weather engine user interface were rather slow and bloated, with a big impact on FSX performance if run on the same computer as FSX, but ASN has made big improvements in this area as well.

 

Highly recommend upgrading to ASN.

 

Is it possible to use ASN for weather and Opus for Cameras at the same time?

 

 

Is it possible to use ASN for weather and Opus for Cameras at the same time?

 

Yes, but if you have "bump aircraft" enabled in your DHM settings you should turn it off because it's driven by the Opus weather engine.

 

Note that the Opus developer is not standing still but also looking at doing similar features to ASN such as wx radar, however I'm finding myself wishing for features like historical weather, saving weather for a flight and integration with FSCaptain and flight planners that are difficult to do with Opus, so I expect I'll be trying out ASN.

Is it possible to use ASN for weather and Opus for Cameras at the same time?

Yes

I've used Opus for over a year and I really liked it. But cloud popping and massive wind shifts are just not longer acceptable when there is a better alternative. And the alternative is Active Sky Next. 

 

 

integration with FSCaptain and flight planners that are difficult to do with Opus

 

I also have FSCaptain. How does this integration work?

 

 

I also have FSCaptain. How does this integration work?

 

Open the FSCaptain Administrator, Options for all Airlines tab, then click Weather Options and choose the weather engine config you want.

 

Opus is given as an option, however the support is limited because Opus doesn't really download the weather and forecasts for the full flight plan in a way that FSCaptain can read. Also you need to have Opus and FSX running with the plane at the departure airport so that Opus will download weather info which you would need for planning/dispatch. Not a big deal but I prefer to do the dispatch/planning before starting up FSX.

 

By contrast I believe that with ASN you can download all the weather for the flight and the FSCaptain can read it (current_wx_snapshot.txt I think) during the dispatch process and also show you the destination weather in the ACARS during the flight.