Hi Marek -You might have already made you decision, but just to add my two cents, that no matter what 3rd party weather engine you use, Reality XP WX500 I feel is the best one out there. I have attached a screen shot to let you see how it works. http://www.weather-maker.com/screenshots/supcell_lg.jpgYou can see how it tracks the weather, plus I appreciate the blinking red cells.Support is excellent for the product and configuration is very easy.I hope that helps. Have a good day!

Marek:There you go! A shot of the WX500 pop-up window that you can use if you don't have the time or the skills to integrate it into the panel. Now you can compare the two pictures and see the difference.You can integrate using PMDG panels, but may have to use pop-ups, as Reed has shown, on Phoenix panels.Wilson

and PMDG state they didnt include one in the upcoming 747 because there are limitations in flight simulator and it wouldnt be as good / accurate or something,makes me wonder...

Thanks,But do i need both products at all. If i buy the WX500 do i still need ASV ??greetings

Let's be realistic: apart from the framework (scenery, weather,...) nothing else is really usable in FS.The planes are unrealistic and mostly simply crap (I for my part deleted them to give me room for more important things), as is the so called GPS.Even if MS builds a radar in a new version, I suppose it looks similar to the GPS we already have. And that's why I'm pretty sure I'll not use it at all.If you take this hobby serious and want some "real good stuff" and do yourself a favor, the only option is to buy those famous add-ons.I only wish MS makes the framework better in a new FS version, and I really don't waste any thought on default planes and such.Andreas

There is this interesting solution http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=23149&page=Jos

I would not be so strict. Some of the default vintage planes are actually quite good. I'm sure if the Jenny was missing from the default collection and someone would come up with a freeware version of the same quality, it would be called a masterpiece. The modern jets are a completely different thing.I say the weather radar would be the unusable thing in current FS. Really little point in trying to avoid the weather cells as by default there is no vertical air simulation, no microburst simulation, no damage simulation from hail or lightning strikes etc.. in other words no consequences from running into bad weather. The new ASV is the only thing that comes even close to simulating vertical air.

bollocks, complete bollocks.The default aircraft are quite good, despite what the naysayers claim.They may be simplified but that's quite deliberate. 99% of users don't want an aircraft that takes hours of practice and reading through a 500 page manual just to start the engines and take off, then takes weeks more to learn to navigate and land.

Agree to some extent.But most of the default things apart from the framework (no matter what they are, gauges, aircraft, GPS, weather radar,...) are ugly, unrealistic and well behind the development status of their time.Aircraft were already better designed when FS9 hit the market, the default gauges are still slideshow-like, ugly pieces of work, there was LOD11 mesh long before FS9 etc.Its clear that some are happy with an FS version as it comes by default, but at the time the product is released, many things are already outdated.So, my opinion is instead of wasting time developing bad default aircraft and such, MS should concentrate on the framework and give us a better scenery interface, weather, flight model options etc. etc.If they want, they could add one or two really good aircraft done by add-on developers (wouldn't make the price of the whole package increase too much, I think, because of the amount of sold FS copies).That way the crap would get sorted out, FS would only benefit from this.Andreas

ASV is a weather downloading, archiving, and FS weather manipulation program with a bonus of a pop-up radar module gauge window specific to that program and also excellent cloud textures to render to your display.WX500 is a radar gauge only (that can be built into a panel layout) that reads its data from the FS weather/rendering engine regardless of whatever weather manipulation program you choose, whether FS's own creation or download or third party such as ASV, FS Metar, etc. There is no weather manipulation that is a function of the WX500. It is just a display gauge for moisture laden clouds and atmospherics emulating real airborne radar systems.

Here, here to that.

Nice one Frank. I agree.Mark.