fsx-ms Best Weather Engine?

[fppilot 4,387]

 

 

You quoted the wrong person

 

My Bad! Sorry bout that. The quote was to be from member wijnroks

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

My Bad! Sorry bout that. The quote was to be from member wijnroks

You'll never get a response from him. He's just one of those that pops up, spews out a lot of misinformation to disparage a product then disappears. I guess you could call that a troll?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Actually Hans (wijnroks) has posted a few times previously, comparing OPUS and ASN. In his previous posts he claimed to only have the trial version of ASN, so I suspect that he is a happy OPUS user.

[wijnroks 4]

Hi,

 

I just read your post and as not being a troll I can try to explain my point.

 

I am a simmer since FS4.  And since the first commercial weather addons were published, I bought them all. FSMeteo, all the HiFi produkts from the beginning,  FSGRW, OpusFSX, ASN and OpusFSI.

The weather part in flight simulation is important to me. And I know that some people will not agree with me but when I am looking out of my window not far from Bern Airport (LSZB) I would like  to see the same cloud scape and weather front from the west in FSX as in real life. OpusFSI is most of the time spot on. The others are not. Also compared with weathercams, which are available from all over the world, is allways in favour of OpusFSI. And the real world weather does not change that dramaticaly within one hour METAR difference that it decides about overcast or CAVOK. I like weather addons which are programmed in such a way that the influence of wind and turbulence are as it would be in the real world. I don't want to have sliders which let's me decide if I want up an down winds between 0 or 5000 ft/mn. That's nice for a weather games!.

The developers of OPUS are real world pilots, they spent every spare minute in the air. Therefore, to me,  they have a high credibility what weather simulation concerns.

Then the dll: I have made the experience that the dll of ASN has a negative impact on the fidility of the other weather addons, they are not functioning properly. Stephen (one of the OPUS developers) explained on Simforums.com why. You may search for it if you like. But in the meantime  I don't think it is all too fair towards the other competitors. And I thought that  it should be well known that this dll consumes a sometimes critical mass of VAS, it has been discussed on the Internet several times.

 

I know that ASN has a lot of fans and that's fine fore them and for Damian. I felt the urge of lobbying a bit for OPUS as a lot of people seem to think ASN is the holy weather grail, not aware of, or ignoring some negative characteristics of ASN.

 

Kind regards, Hans

[fppilot 4,387]

The weather part in flight simulation is important to me. And I know that some people will not agree with me but when I am looking out of my window not far from Bern Airport (LSZB) I would like  to see the same cloud scape and weather front from the west in FSX as in real life. OpusFSI is most of the time spot on. The others are not.

 

Let's not continue an argument about this one vs that one. We each use what we use for the reasons that drove our decisions. Your statement that "....the others are not" does not apply to FS Global Real Weather in my case here in the USA. I limit what I just stated to apply only to my own personal experience. I have experience with REX E+ OD, but not within the past 18 months because I switched to FSGRW.

 

I would challenge any of us who are satisfied with what we use to limit statements about another strictly to real time side-by-side comparisons. Running side-by-side on two computers based the same flight sim location and only after allowing each an opportunity to cycle through at least one weather refresh. I doubt seriously if any of us have done that.

 

Lets talk about weather and weather reporting. Scan my profile here and you will find that I have a background in weather and specifically aviation weather. Here is how it works. For aviation weather there are dedicated aviation surface weather observations at specific locations. Those locations are static. They don't move. Observations are taken on a fixed schedule by either human weather observers or automated observation stations.

 

There are conditions that require interim reporting. A good example here in the USA is the sound of thunder. And another is a lapse of 15 minutes since thunder was last heard. Don't believe that has changed over the years since I left weather service. Other criteria for interim reports are a change from VFR conditions to instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), or a change back from IMC. There are others, but that should be adequate to make the point.  

 

I have no idea what the real time update frequency is for any of the weather engines we collectively use. So I will not speak to that. It is not unlikely that an updating by any weather engine might from time to time happen just before a real world wx stations next report, and so the influence of changes in weather may be delayed.  But my ultimate point is this. Aviation weather reports are not based on what any of us see from the windows of our homes. Nor is any aviation weather reporting that I am aware of here in the USA based on views from weather cams, or traffic cams or the like, other than in the USA state of Alaska. It can be cloudy, raining, whatever, where you live or on cams you look at, but if conditions are different at the aviation weather stations nearby then it is the conditions that are present at those that are what is reported (and used).

 

FSGRW surprised me last week. I was about to fly from Indianapolis KIND to Florence, SC, KFLO. and had done my pre-flight planning including looking at departure, destination, and enroute weather. I loaded FSX, then FSGRW, and was starting from cold and dark in my Turbine Duke V2. I was startled to see a flash of lightening, followed by the sound of thunder. I switched to an exterior view and panned to look west, where I saw approaching clouds and more lightening. There were no thunderstorms in my real world weather briefing at FlightAware, and I had seen none on the radar images I had looked at. I quickly grabbed my iPad and loaded real world weather radar at Intellicast.com and lo and behold there were the first signs of thunderstorms cropping us just west of Indianapolis. This is my common experience with FSGRW.  But what is most important to me when I fly is that the winds aloft reasonably match my flight plans, which I make at FltPlan.com. It is important to me because that determines enroute times and fuel burn. That was where REX was failing me. FSGRW has been spot on for me.

 

I am happy that you are satisfied with OPUS. I am happy with FSGRW and FSGRW in my experience does not conform to your statement of "the others are not" (spot on).  

 

And I keep looking for the "sliders" in FSGRW. Still cannot find them. Can you point me to them? Or have you used FSGRW?  I personally have not used OPUS and will make no statements about it. That would be unfair, would it not?

[wijnroks 4]

Hi fppilot,

 

I will try FSGRW again. What I did not find that realistic with FSGRW were the thin stratus layers which were generated much too often, even in heavy rain. Towering cumulonimbis in the METAR are in FSGRW always producing flashing lights and thunder. In the real world this is not always the case. FSGRW has some sliders for the weather radius, visibility etc. You will find it under Tools (menubar).

 

Regards, Hans

[JSkorna 137]

FYI All,

 

Damian is a real world pilot also, and flies often. And readership, please do not base anything from weather cams.

[fppilot 4,387]

Hi fppilot,

 

I will try FSGRW again. What I did not find that realistic with FSGRW were the thin stratus layers which were generated much too often, even in heavy rain. Towering cumulonimbis in the METAR are in FSGRW always producing flashing lights and thunder. In the real world this is not always the case. FSGRW has some sliders for the weather radius, visibility etc. You will find it under Tools (menubar).

 

Regards, Hans

 

Hans,

If you like what you have then by all means stick with it.

 

In regard to the thin stratus layers, elements like that from my installations seem to come more from what REX textures I have installed. Slapped my forehead two weeks ago flying to Denver from Sonoma Valley, California. My Fltplan.com iPad moving map was showing me nearing some thunderstorms. Checked the surface weather in front of me and it showed thunderstorms with rain. I was at 25,000 over an overcast but had no TCUs (towering cumulus) or CBs (cumulonimbus)  in sight. First time I questioned the accuracy of FSGRW. I did some poking around after I shut down FSX and found that I was still running a winter type texture set I had REX set up for me in February. My Bad!  Installed a more spring and summer texture set and found thunderstorms right where they were supposed to be during my next flight.

 

 

Someone with better knowledge of the inner workings of FSX correct me if I am incorrect about what I am about to say. I believe when you are seeing lightening frequency in FSX, that's intensity behavior. I believe the 3rd party weather engines inject elements they read from weather reports, but I don't believe they embellishing the reports they are injecting. So the engine would not likely cause FSX to produce frequent lightening unless it were commented into the weather report, which is relatively rare, You'd see something in the report like you see on page 8-10 & 8-11 at this link: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/coop/Publications/WSOH8.pdf

 

 

Thanks for pointing out the sliders in FSGRW. I have had such a good experience so far that I never even looked deep into the tools.

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

And readership, please do not base anything from weather cams.

I'd agree with that 100%.

 

One of the biggest pitfalls simmers fall into as well is the "well it doesn't look the same in FSX as it does outside."

 

In the US a lot of weather stations only update their METARS every hour or so unless something meaningful changes and they need to change it. I literally almost live at KDAL, I'm a few hundred yards from runway 18 and live on the 5th floor and overlook the airport. There have been many times I've compared the latest METAR they posted and 15 to 30 minutes later the cloud scape has changed and doesn't reflect what i am seeing out my windown. If I fire up FSX with ASN and it downloads the latest weather it may or may not match exactly what I see out the window at that time.

 

I don't worry about it anymore. Given what ASN, OPUS or any other weather program does within the limitations of a desk top sim, I'm happy with what we get and accept that it will never be perfect.

 

Having said that, I've tried ASN and what was the latest build of OPUS at the time and ended up settling on ASN as it provided a little bit better wind behavior and I needed the integration for the PMDG radar. After reading the OPUS forums for a while it seemed like they were continuously patching and fixing things and I didn't want to wait around and I didn't need the cameras since I use something else.

 

The one thing that really turned me off about OPUS was their attitude toward other weather programs with statements that Stephen has made. He's made some remarks that were not very classy and was enough for me to know that I will never support them again.

 

As Jim has pointed out Damien is also a pilot and they have been in the weather business for a long time and have developed some really good products through the years as well as being a class act. There's really know point in getting in a passing contest over weather engines as these threads are about the same as the "Which AI program is the best?" topics. After experiencing two separate programs, for me ASN is hands down the best and integrates with PMDG for radar. At this time, there is nothing anyone could say that would make me change my mind.

[SierraHotel 982]

I love a good debate, and this post seems to fit the bill. I have and use both ASN, Opus and Opus FSI in FSX, FSX SE and P3D. The main downside for me with ASN is the high level clouds flashing as you change views. I have spent hours trying to find a cure to no avail, the upside vis a vie ASN are, obviously, integrated weather radar in the PMDG series and ease of use, basically install and go. However, why I now exclusively use Opus FSI is (in my opinion) the incredible way in which the weather is now depicted and the total elimination of any black flashes when changing views, I also love the camera's and integrated head movements, which look very realistic. Also I have never seen cloud layers implemented in ASN, the way they are in Opus. I should also point out, in the interest of fairness, that Stephen and Cheryl, the authors of Opus, own their own aircraft and regularly fly from the UK to many parts of Europe.

[vortex681 806]

The main downside for me with ASN is the high level clouds flashing as you change views.

I've been using ASN for some time and have not noticed this. Perhaps it's something to do with the textures you use or maybe your graphics card/drivers. If it was a bug in ASN, surely everyone would have the problem?

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

I've been using ASN for some time and have not noticed this. Perhaps it's something to do with the textures you use or maybe your graphics card/drivers. If it was a bug in ASN, surely everyone would have the problem?

I've never experienced this either.

 

Sierra H. should open a ticket with Hifi I'm he hasn't already.

[fppilot 4,387]

In the US a lot of weather stations only update their METARS every hour or so unless something meaningful changes and they need to change it. I literally almost live at KDAL, I'm a few hundred yards from runway 18 and live on the 5th floor and overlook the airport. There have been many times I've compared the latest METAR they posted and 15 to 30 minutes later the cloud scape has changed and doesn't reflect what i am seeing out my windown. If I fire up FSX with ASN and it downloads the latest weather it may or may not match exactly what I see out the window at that time.

 

I am writing a bit of a primer about this and how it affects what we get from our chosen weather engine(s). To provide a more complete overview of the inputs and outputs so to speak I lack some knowledge of:

 

<a> if any of the weather engines we collectively use (OPUS, ASN, REX, FSGRW, or any others) connect our running instance of their weather engine software direct to a live "source" weather database such as say NOAA. 

 

Or: 

<b> do they DL weather to their own servers and then in turn update our flight weather from those.  

 

If it is <b> then:

<c> How often do the respective weather engine providers update their own weather database servers that they in turn use to refresh our weather when we are flying, and is there a defined timing to the updates they pull in (receive).

 

I know how often my weather engine is supposed to refresh my system when I am running it. That is not what I am looking for here. What I am looking to do is define the number of independent refresh steps that occur from the point at which the weather changes until it is reflected in our flying.  I expect for example that they only pull winds aloft once each six hours here in the USA.  I do not know how often and at what time intervals they pull surface weather.  Please do not answer with speculation. Only if you actually know in fact.

 

Hope these questions are understandable.

[JSkorna 137]

I do know for ASN, but because some big eyes are watching this thread I will not post that information publicly.

 

Let's just say that it is the most up to date weather data available.

[fppilot 4,387]

I do know for ASN, but because some big eyes are watching this thread I will not post that information publicly.

 

Let's just say that it is the most up to date weather data available.

 

Ha on the big eyes... would have to figure competitors would not wish to put too much out there. From you last comment, most up to date wx available, it would imply a direct connection, either of the user to the source or the engine provider's server direct to the source. That's enough to work with. Everyone should be about the same on METARs. What could be different are the SPECIs.  I'll wait to see what other responses show up. Then I will explain.  

 

I will say what I wish to put out there is no way to favor or disfavor one engine over the other. Just to provide a better understanding of why you might reasonably see something different in FSX than what you see  or see reported in the real world.