OK, I get the same Frame rate hits like everyone else here for the most part, which is annoying.I like to fly a-lot of approaches in bad weather, but the plain truth is that the new weather engine designed for FS9 as compared to FS2002 is just not as good in my opinion. At least with FS2002 I could really set up the "soup" to shoot approaches in with little to no hits on the frame rate and smoothness of the sim.Yes, the clouds in FS9 look very nice, but they are just too much of a hit when it comes to performance in the IMC environment.So the answer for me is... VFR = 3D scattered clouds, IMC conditions = tank the visibility and use the 2D clouds instead. I would much rather have the higher FPS and smoothness to shoot the ILS or VOR approach than have a "jerky" approach all the way in.I have tweaked FS9 to death to getter better performance with regards to the weather engine, but to be honest, I am just plain sick of it. So I have decided to concentrate on the flying more and forego the big puffy clouds for IMC flights.A final thought on this topic...where are the big, volumetric clouds from the Fly! days (not Fly! 2)?It's too bas that we don't see those types of high performance cloud generations in most of todays desktop simulators. Just a dream I guess.Other than the weather issues of FS9, I really like the sim overall.Good luck & Happy Simming!Scott :-xxrotflmaoATP/CFII/DA20 Type Rated - Instructor Pilot - USAFA (KAFF), Colorado Springs, CO & at KCOSAOPA #00956593, since 1987Background in Corporate, Airline, and General AviationB.S. Degree in Information SystemsGamming System Specs: (Built this one myself)AMD Athlon-64 3000+ Gigabyte K8NS nForce3-250 Chipset 8x AGP Main Board 1GB DDR400 PC3200 Memory 160GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive 16x DVD-ROM Audigy 2ZS Gammer Sound Card5.1 Channel Surround Sound Speakers256MB GeForce-5700 8X AGP Video Cotytech Gaming CaseCH Products Yoke, Rudder Pedals, Throttle QuadrantSaitek Cyborg Gold Joystic for Helo's & Stick equipped aircrafteDimensional Force Feedback HeadsetsSaitek Eclipse KeyboardWindows XP Pro SP2

spooky...This post linked to in another thread doesn't exactly give Eric a monopoly in the "exalted one" title:http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=39000John

Those Fly clouds were quite nice--and gave my system very little hit. But I still think FS2004's clouds are much better at capturing the visuals. Sure, they are eye candy. But in my eyes nothing has exceeded FS2004 with a low deck of stratus, mid level cumulus, and a crimson sunset....-John

>>A final thought on this topic...where are the big, volumetric>clouds from the Fly! days (not Fly! 2)?I don't think FLY!'s clouds were truly volumetric. They were created right in front the nose of your aircraft. You could not fly around them like you should around any truly volumetric cloud. I think FS9 finally gave us truly volumetric clouds but at the price of performance. And I agree with John - hwoever great those FLY! clouds looked to us at the time - they can't be compared with FS9's clouds.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

Thanks for the feedback but you may be wrong about the beta tester?Can you mention his name and I will look in to the statement he made and clarify.These are the facts;Many testers do report improved frame rates but not all do. The manual makes this clear and we say with 100% honesty that some people will see no improvement at all when using performance resized clouds.The fact is personally, I could not see much improvement with the performance clouds which in most situations on my PC gave no improvement but in some situations I got about 15% better fps.Other testes say they get 40% improvement in some situations and I believe them because so much can depend on video card, available memory, resolution, where the frame rate is locked and it goes on and on.You say we limit choice with only 2 options, but actaully it's 4.32bit in 512x512 + 256x256 + DXT3 512x512 + DXT3 256x256; that's 4.We made smaller sized clouds and gave them to 30 testers to try and all reported that the fastest clouds were the 32 bit 256x256 size but one tester, with an older system got much better performance with DXT3 clouds of either size. So we accepted this information as fact, not opinion but a good sample of testing and passed that information on to the customer and provided the options which we knew from learned experience was correct and honest.It would be so easy for us to provide smaller sized clouds but they do not provide faster performance so why do it? It would in my opinion be missleading to suggest smaller clouds increase performance when I know that is not what our testing found.What people don't realize is what causes the performance issues is not size but the light level of the alpha channel which when expanded to fit the size required in game makes little difference if it's 512 or 256 or even 64.To the orginal poster who asked an honest and fair question and to the many intelligent responses from others in this thread; we all have the same problems with clouds. Some cards and setting handle clouds better. As a rule you will get smoother fps if you lock frame rates lower to say 18-20 and stutters and pauses and low fps are more common when fps is locked to say 30.Only last night I was testing a new card and found when frame rates were unlimited I was getting varied between 5 to 30 and jumpy. When I locked to 18 it stayed steady at 16 to 18 and was smooth. To avoid getting moments of just 5 fps I lock to 18.

It's not the resized clouds they are using Eric, its the new alphas we did which are more fram rate friendly.Hope this thread gets wound up with honest and friendly help and advice.Peter

Sorry John, Anthony is getting too technical but actaully I understand what he means and he is being honest.What Anthony is saying and I have to agree, as I made the clouds and know something about what the alpha channel does, and with some learned knowledge it is possible to make faster cloulds when care is taken with the alpha channel. Thats what Anthony was trying to say.Peter

Peter,No offense but I also know what the alpha channel does. I doubt you've hit upon a holy grail unless you can prove otherwise. Seems to me that this is just an effort to get folks to "pay to play", and given the comments made by one of the other participants here in another forum, I honestly don't trust your motives.-John

John,Actually, I must have made an error. I should not have mentioned the alpha channel. It's just going to get too complicated to explain and I apologise for getting technical and causing some confusion.I don't want to argue and win and then loose a friend and gain an enemy. Let's agree we don't understand each other please or at least that we are talking across purposes.I really don't want to be drawn here in to an aggressive debate and get us both hot and bothered. I was just trying to clarify but clearly I'm not going to be believed so please can we drop it.So please don't ask me to prove it; I'm sure some people see an inprovement and others don'tPeter

Thanks Peter,That's fair. Good post and I'll wrap it up by getting back to my Challenger :)-John

First the function is called "Disable turbulence effect on aircraft" in the Setting => Weather and it is too tame for what it could really be.Another thing that it was supposed to be understood than in 2 or 3 years, FS9 would be a long gone history, although I would expect FS9 to still run in 64-bits systems, like a DOS program can still run in Win-XP with some exception of course and mixed results. Programs are downward comparable not upward.As for the baloney with the X-box, I do not think neither one will kill the other one in my opinion. PC-FS has already proved itself with a following of 20+ millions. If there is an X-Box-FS it will have to prove its worth and value on its on merits. I believe they are two different animals with two distinctive markets and MS will not abandon one in favor of other one and neither will directly try to impose its will. They will settle for two products with each having it

Peter, you just said it better. A couple years ago I took a flight between Toronto and Edmonton in an old coffee-maker model-732 and sweat bullets. Bad night to fly. I want the same terror just in the comfort of my desk and supplied by the next FS.Cheers,MAB

"A couple years ago I took a flight between Toronto and Edmonton in an old coffee-maker model-732 and sweat bullets. Bad night to fly. I want the same terror just in the comfort of my desk and supplied by the next FS."I was flying into JFK in '77, and still remember the roller coaster ride our DC-10 put us through on the last 100 miles inbound from the west. If I could simulate the feeling and "zero g's" felt on that flight, that would be some sim.Worse yet, we had a layover in JFK before our onward flight to Munich. During which time, the storm that caused our chop passed JFK and traveled eastward, over Long Island and Connecticut. Our outbound flight was in a rickety old DC-8 63, and we had to endure the chop again. I had the misfortune of sitting in the tail, which amplified the chop. The pilot kept the DC-8 at a very steep angle for climbout--and came on the horn a few minutes later saying "Whew--almost didn't make it--they closed JFK due to the storm after our departure".-John

I, like many others I expect, have been reading with interest the many views expressed within our community about the Flight Enviroment 2004 package available from Flight1.I have already purchased Ultimate Traffic and FS Water and was very impressed with the improvement to the flightsim experience that these packages offered.I was, however, cautious about investing in the FE2004 package. Mostly because of some negative comments I had read in this forum but also because the screenshots that I had seen looked good, but not as good as FS Sky World 2004 in my sim.Well, I bit the bullet and installed FE2004 this afternoon, out of curiosity rather than necessity.I had a play the the set-up menu which I found very easy to use.All I can say is that I am very impressed. Very impressed indeed. I wish to extend my congratulations and appreciation to the developer. Well done. The water is truely spectacular and the clouds are both beautiful and FPS friendly. I was getting a 5-8 FPS improvement over FS Sky World, which I have been using since it was released.Sure, you have to pay for FE2004 and FS Sky world is FREE. I don't want this to read like a commercial, but if anyone is sitting on the fence, waiting for some feedback about the merit of adding this package to their simulator, I recommend that you take the plunge and try it out.I am certainly surprised and pleased with the product and am happy to recommend it to others.My computer specs are, WinXP-Home SP2, P4 2.6gig, 1024MB PC3200 DDR, ATI Radeon 9800PRO 128MB AGP 8X with Omega drivers.

>Hello,> " could suggest you get FE2004 and use that, many people>report much better performance over any other clouds out>including the default ones.">>>>Sorry these statement are false from FE beta tester, and I do>have FE. There is 32 bits clouds resized out there>512x512,256x256,128x128 and 64x64 in 32 bits and DXT3, don't>say FE have much better performance over any others clouds>out, this is completly wrong statement.>>FE ONLY have two choice in 32 bits 256x256 and 512x512 and>dxt3, FE is NOT differents from others on performance, but are>more limited on size. >>>Conclusion and fact, FE will not improve performance overs>what's we have seen before.>>>>"you can limit the layers in FSUPIC (I think)">>You can only limit to 1 layers for all weather, not realistic>>>Best>EricEric,You are wrong. I use FE and Active Sky with 3 layers of clouds and get fantastic looking clouds and the best frame rates I have ever had in cloudy weather. FE has made a tremendous improvement in the look of the clouds in FS9 and the frame rates.