I use OPUS and like it, but it does still have cloud popping whenever the weather updates.  I've seen videos of ASN and it does look spectacular, not to mention everyone's positive comments on it, but I'll stay with OPUS at least until OPUS FSI is released (sometime later this year I believe).  At that time I'll make a decision on the upgrade cost to FSI versus purchasing ASN.  OPUS FSI promises a lot of enhancements over the current OPUS weather engine and I'm sure ASN will continue to keep their customers happy as well, so I'll stay on the fence for now.  It's great to have all this competition B)

Any conclusions yet? :-)

ASN all the way. I am using Opusfsx for cameras only. However I did do a comparison and Opus still has cloud popping and wind sheer issues.ASN is smooth spectacular and gives a real weather feel.

Any conclusions yet? :-)

None yet    Guess I've been too lazy as I'm still using OPUS FSX.  I suppose if there were a time to buy ASN, now would be the time with the discounts going on.  First I'd have to download the ASN demo, but yes, I've been too lazy to do that too

 

Weather has kinda "fallen off my radar" you could say as I haven't been flying as much over the past couple of months.  For anyone using the newer OPUS FSI....has cloud popping been totally eliminated yet?

None yet    Guess I've been too lazy as I'm still using OPUS FSX.  I suppose if there were a time to buy ASN, now would be the time with the discounts going on.  First I'd have to download the ASN demo, but yes, I've been too lazy to do that too

 

Weather has kinda "fallen off my radar" you could say as I haven't been flying as much over the past couple of months.  For anyone using the newer OPUS FSI....has cloud popping been totally eliminated yet?

 

 

I see no cloud popping in Opusfsi - as a matter of fact - imo its the best out there but it needs to FSI - not fsx

I see no cloud popping in Opusfsi

Awesome Rich, thanks!

Awesome Rich, thanks!

 

Your welcome - there is a demo of fsi - you should try it - you can even compare all of them if you wanted just shut one down and try another and you can see the differences - this is in P3D fyi Chris - take care

ASN for realism and best after sales support bar none!

ASN for realism and best after sales support bar none!

 

Opus, Idealflight and Mathijs at Aersosoft support is the very best in the business - question asked (most times within minutes my question is answered) amazing

I moved to ASN for many of the reasons others state.  No "popping" of wx, the way the product handles turbulence, the simplicity without sacrificing flexibility, the lack of abrupt windshifts, the visibility effects used when flying through clouds which almost makes the clouds appear to be volumetric and on and on.  It was without question the best wx engine I'd tried up to that point in time, and I've never looked back.

 

On support, however, credit where credit is due as one thing you absolutely cannot fault Opus on is support.  As an example, one day I found an issue with the way Opus was handling a certain METAR which caused it to consistently ignore the report at that field.   I reported it on the official forums, Stephen responded within a matter of minutes asking for further details, found the problem, announced a fix within hours and made the fix available in the next day's beta build.  Support doesn't get much better than that.

 

 

Scott

 

A quick edit - I should also point out that while I kept my version of Opus fairly current just to "check-in" once in a while, that stopped with the release of their new version this fall, which I did not purchase, so I have no idea what the very latest improvements bring to the table.

 

Scott

A quick edit - I should also point out that while I kept my version of Opus fairly current just to "check-in" once in a while, that stopped with the release of their new version this fall, which I did not purchase, so I have no idea what the very latest improvements bring to the table.

 

The latest is better than the fsx version - compared both and I was impressed with FSI 

The latest is better than the fsx version - compared both and i was impressed with FSI 

 

Rich is spot on about Opus. The OpusFSI product is very high level of refinement over OpusFSX as far as weather transistions and wind shifts are concerned. Opus has always had fantastic support and great weather depiction but the FSI product is much smoother and less visually obtrusive.

Rich is spot on about Opus. The OpusFSI product is very high level of refinement over OpusFSX as far as weather transistions and wind shifts are concerned. Opus has always had fantastic support and great weather depiction but the FSI product is much smoother and less visually obtrusive.

Thanks Henry - I had the latest and greatest ASN - good product but Opus is now my favorite 

None yet    Guess I've been too lazy as I'm still using OPUS FSX.  I suppose if there were a time to buy ASN, now would be the time with the discounts going on.  First I'd have to download the ASN demo, but yes, I've been too lazy to do that too

 

Weather has kinda "fallen off my radar" you could say as I haven't been flying as much over the past couple of months.  For anyone using the newer OPUS FSI....has cloud popping been totally eliminated yet?

The popping has to do with the clouds being redrawn as weather updates. Using OPUS, since its weather is generated from METARS, as you fly through varying conditions you may encounter multiple stations within your view receiving new infortmation thus causing a change or "pop" in different weather depictions. To eliminate this, they have an option that allows you to choose selective updates, this means that the cloud states that FSX has drawn will be preserved and will not be overwritten. I don't know specifically how which cloud states to keep preserved is decided (my guess would be on whether the METAR station has new data or not) but I've been happy with the way I have everything configured.

 

 

Using OPUS, since its weather is generated from METARS, as you fly through varying conditions you may encounter multiple stations within your view receiving new infortmation thus causing a change or "pop" in different weather depictions.

 

ASN uses METARS too, as do most wx generators.  What they've basically done is found a way to smooth the transitions so that you don't have to choose between wx being updated vs the depiction being stable.  It works VERY well.

 

Scott

One thing to consider big time, is that Opus does not recreate aircraft turbulence if you use Ezdok. I was pretty peed off at this, as you effectively need to disable Ezdok and initiate Opus's own camera system to enable RW turbulence. I don't know if the situation is the same with AS, I suspect not, but it needs to be considered by those who use Ezdok.

 

Indeed, a very good point, because that's exactly the reason why I avoided OpusFSX. I can live without the effects of EZdok, but not without its camera views. OpusFSX offers something similar, but the inferface used for that is poor (and I'm not the only one who complained about that) and the transitions were never as smooth as in EZdok.

 

What I also didn't like about OpusFSX was it slow weather injection, often I had to switch to spy mode just to figure out what the heck was going on. I didn't like the cloud cover produced either. In a lot of cases the cloud cover in OPusFSX was too extreme, while FSGRW and ASN produced a more "conservative" cloud cover that in most cases matched the cloud cover visible on live webcams rather well.

 

Mind you, this is all based on experiences of a few months ago, so things might have improved for OpusFSX, but the issue related to EZdok will continue to be a reason for me to avoid OpusFSX.