fsx-ms Best Weather Engine?

[vortex681 806]

 

 

First of all, Hi-Fi processes METAR data in-house and then makes it available to ASN in a condensed download. While I applaud them for the effort (and expense) needed to run a network of servers, the lag between real-world data and the data you get in ASN is often too long to give you "real weather".

 

I've never noticed out-of-date METARS in ASN. As a test, I've just checked a number of UK METARS through ASN and they are all the latest, real-world, issue so, at least in the UK, you should get "real weather".

[kingm56 1,031]

 

 

First of all, Hi-Fi processes METAR data in-house and then makes it available to ASN in a condensed download. While I applaud them for the effort (and expense) needed to run a network of servers, the lag between real-world data and the data you get in ASN is often too long to give you "real weather". It may not matter to many users that much, but it does to me. As I often use real-world tools for planning (Skyvector, etc,), I prefer the ability to go by current METARs as they are provided, and OpusFSI allows me to do exactly that. I have bookmarked a set of favorite webcams at various airports in the US and UK, and I tested both Wx engines' ability to give me something close to what was depicted. In most cases, OpusFSI was much closer.

 

Not sure what you're talking about, ASN is spot-on 99% of the time.   

[mike stryczek 23]

It is quite amazing how this weather programs simulate vertical air movement like topographical lift, downdrafts, microbursts, boundary layer turbulence, thermals and turbulence in the clouds.
Try flying into a thunder cell and experience amazing downdrafts the drop you 1000 feet down.

Or get yourself caught in a small plane too close to the mountain, on the backside of the wind and not being able to climb over.

As you are VFR flying, in a distance you can see thunderstorm, you can plan to go around it visually as the weather in a distant is continuous (no poping).

Amazing how it only rains under specific clouds not generically all over and never above the clouds.

It's amazing how it is seamless continuous experience.

The list seems to go on ......

 

Recently I've flown in real life a small plane on the Pacific coast and as I looked over the ocean, marine layer was covering the coastal area.

I reanacted that flight with historical weather, and depiction was quite remarkable.

 

I have also experienced excellent response to comments on forums as well as technical support.

I think it is a question of the devotion and pursuit of excellence.

I wonder which one of those weather programs I'm talking about.
 

ASN

 

mike

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I didn't wonder...

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

No doubt for me ... as others I have to say it's ASN with REX Textures (at least for Commercial Flying).

 

That said, things are afoot at REX Studios. Their weather engines have long been more than disappointing, but I'm told the problems have been resolved. Unfortunately I've not been able to test this because I can't get REX Essentials Plus OD HD Service Pack 3 to install correctly - despite too many attempts - this despite being just a little experienced with software updates.  REX is certainly a quality outfit with hands down the very best weather textures ever produced, so I'm really looking forward to seeing their weather engine fixes (at some point... LOL).

So again it's a solid ASN with REX Textures for for me (commercial flight).

 

Happy flying!

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Spot on, cm..., spot on. I almost posted the same sort of thing when I read that this afternoon. I wasn't going to be as kind as you were though!!

Yeah Jim, I was just waiting for you to rip into that post. I knew you would have had a field day with that one, lol.

[Guest tymk]

 

 

Maybe something is amiss with either your settings or connection? Anytime I download the real world weather from ASN and check it against the current METARS they always have matched, unless of course one of the ASN servers is down. Otherwise I have never come across a situation like you're describing where there is a delay. Also, unless a weather station is under very rapidly changing conditions, a lot of airports weather stations only update the METAR every hour. As such, weather you see outside might not be exact what the current METAR is reporting, especially with cloud layers since they can change quickly.

 

This happened on a number of occasions, and I was watching the debug window closely as I tested, so I know the downloads were getting through. As I said, this is not something that is critical to many users, and the overall depiction of the weather ASN gives is beautiful. It's just something I've noticed... I have no emotional attachment to either product.

 

 

 

I think that is one of the biggest pitfalls that simmers run into with any weather engine is trying to compare what they are depicting versus what they see it the window. None of them will ever be perfect due to he rate at which real weather changes and when the last METAR was posted. It might look close if a METAR just posted, you downloaded that weather into the sim and you look out the window to compare, however 20 minutes later it can look totally different outside but the weather station is still reporting the same conditons from 20 minutes prior.

 

I'm perfectly aware of that, and I do realize this is something most Wx engine vendors have been emphasizing. If I make comparisons like that, I don't do that with the expectation that I'm going to get a perfect match, but more often than not, the results are much closer to reality than one would reasonably anticipate with METAR-based interpolation. At any rate, what's there to stop us simmers experimenting? :wink: It actually works for me a lot of the time, and in my particular experience, one engine got slightly better results than the other. YMMV...

 

Anyway, it might've been a bad idea to post in this thread in the first place, there's always someone who will get defensive at the slightest sign of criticism towards their beloved product (this is not directed at you, cmpbellsjc :wink:)...

 

Over and out,

Tym

[Guest tymk]

I almost posted the same sort of thing when I read that this afternoon. I wasn't going to be as kind as you were though!!

 

C'mon Jim, I understand you attachment to HiFI/ASN, and I never-ever suggested that it's not an excellent product. If I had no Wx engine and was looking for one, I'd have a helluva tough time making the choice. It's just that some comments from users who apparently haven't tried the other product(s) rub me the wrong way.

 

With ASN, I had some delays with METARs, I had some issues with incorrect visibility depiction, simple as that. Not that big of a deal, and probably a non-issue to many. As I said, I have no emotional attachment to Opus or any other product, but let's agree that there just might be areas (even if only a few) where ASN is not 100% perfect. OK, maybe the use of "real weather" in inverted commas could've been read as sarcastic, but that was not my intention.

 

As for the sim/webcam (world outside) stuff, I've already responded to cmpbellsjc. Vendors make no promises, but they work hard to make it happen anyway, don't they? I'm well familiar with the methods used to inject weather, and the limitations they entail. But then, how are we supposed to judge the quality of the depiction? I'm not talking individual cloud positioning or anything, just the general cloud layering and coverage, visibility, etc. I had a slightly better experience with one engine than the other in this respect, that's all.

 

Tym

[Lurk 3]

No doubt for me ... as others I have to say it's ASN with REX Textures (at least for Commercial Flying).

 

That said, things are afoot at REX Studios. Their weather engines have long been more than disappointing, but I'm told the problems have been resolved. Unfortunately I've not been able to test this because I can't get REX Essentials Plus OD HD Service Pack 3 to install correctly - despite too many attempts - this despite being just a little experienced with software updates.  REX is certainly a quality outfit with hands down the very best weather textures ever produced, so I'm really looking forward to seeing their weather engine fixes (at some point... LOL).

So again it's a solid ASN with REX Textures for for me (commercial flight).

 

Happy flying!

 

Been using REX weather engine since... two days ago. Reason: I re-discovered Active Sky.

I'm eager to see what REX team's upcoming (knowing their timing, might as well be another 6+ months) Weather Direct program will bring to the table, since they claim it to be a revolution.

 

So far it's a brutal pros and cons battle between REX and ASN for me:

 

REX Essential Weather Engine cons compared to ASN:

 

- slow interface (very slow, as a matter of fact)

- painstakingly long weather injection at sim startup, often with brief hangs in the sim, with the weather not loading more often than not, requiring to close and re-launch REX weather radar

- massive frame rate drop (!!!)

- sudden visibility and coverage changes; application settings seem to have no effect here whatsoever

- flashing high-level skies, stutters and frame rate drops at weather injection, both in Standard and WXPlus mode

 

ASN pros compared to REX Essential Weather Engine:

 

- light-weight fast interface

- instant weather conditions at flight startup with no pre-injection pause, stutter or hang

- plane finally flyable, smoother frames probably due to reduced CPU cycles

- seamless weather conditions

- under-the-hood weather injection, with no visible effects on sim performance.

 

I've tried pretty much all payware and freeware weather injectors, and nothing comes even close to ASN in terms of visuals, performance and fidelity.

 

That said, REX textures + ASN seems indeed like the perfect combo, at least for me at this very moment.

[Guest tymk]

 

 

JSkorna, on 29 Aug 2015 - 01:51 AM, said:

Spot on, cm..., spot on. I almost posted the same sort of thing when I read that this afternoon. I wasn't going to be as kind as you were though!!


Yeah Jim, I was just waiting for you to rip into that post. I knew you would have had a field day with that one, lol.

 

BTW, apologies to Jim if my last post sounded a bit personal, there might've been a misunderstanding because cmpbellsjc originally responded to my first post only, so I took the above exchange as being targeted at me. I only now noticed that his post was later updated to address the idiotic anti-ASN ###### rant, and I assume that was what you two referred to in the quote...

 

Tym

[levada 1]

ASN uses very few CPU cycles.

 

FSGRW is less demanding than ASN in heavy weather (default settings) and this is coming from a fan and user of ASN.

[vortex681 806]

FSGRW is less demanding than ASN in heavy weather (default settings) and this is coming from a fan and user of ASN.

I may be mistaken here but, unless the weather engine is actually updating, surely performance when flying around in heavy weather and thick clouds is more a function of the textures (and the amount of them) than the weather engine? Doesn't the weather software just periodically tell FSX what to display, based on how often you tell it to update or when you move to a new area, and then remain dormant? ASN appears to update seamlessly whilst, for me, FSGRW updates caused FSX to freeze for several seconds.

[Guest tymk]

As far as I know, ASN updates a number of parameters (such as wind strength/direction, thermals, visibility, temperature, pressure and turbulence level) in real time. That said, although I only tested it for a week, I never noticed any adverse impact on frames, and the weather injection was very smooth. Same for Opus -- while it injects fewer parameters in RT, I use it for weather-dependent camera movement and I don't seem to have any FPS issues, either.

 

If we're talking specifically about heavy weather, I believe it's a question of the number of cloud layers, cloud coverage, etc., and ASN gives you quite a few options to adjust that.

 

Tym

[vadriver 247]

do they all provide "historical weather" so I can match my local / sim time to diurnal weather metars !!

[JSkorna 137]

ASN does.