Those at the Conference please tell LR...

[Murmur 3,941]

All this about cloud representation is great, but if the performance issues  that come hand-in-hand with dense cloud cover isn't solved, then to me it's all for naught. You could have all the layers you'd like, intricate cloud systems up the wazoo, but if no-one has the hardware to display them, then why?

 

Very well said, I forgot about performance. That would be number one priority for me.

[Paraffin 2,197]

All this about cloud representation is great, but if the performance issues  that come hand-in-hand with dense cloud cover isn't solved, then to me it's all for naught. You could have all the layers you'd like, intricate cloud systems up the wazoo, but if no-one has the hardware to display them, then why?

 

 

I agree in principle. However, it raises the question of what "performance" means, and what hardware we're talking about?

 

Obviously we'd like to see X-Plane deliver high frame rates. For me, that means anything over 30 fps, and that should be achievable on legacy hardware, but not necessarily with all eye candy enabled. And what about new hardware? Shouldn't we have new features that will tax the higher-end hardware available now, to allow for future improvement on the hardware side?

 

For example, I just upgraded my rig -- i7 6700 4.0 GHz, 32 Gig RAM, GTX 970 video. Room for improvement on the video, but better than my previous computer in CPU speed and RAM.

 

Today I flew a 2 hour flight in FSEconomy with broken cumulus (SkyMax Pro with RWC), pretty good cloud cover everywhere. I haven't changed any of X-Plane's settings since I finished setting up this new machine, so I'm still using the old settings. I enabled the FPS display, and I was getting an astonishing 90 fps during the flight, touching 100 fps once in a while. I guess I can start dialing in more autogen!

 

I know a percentage of X-Plane users are having performance problems with heavy clouds, but I wasn't noticing it that much even on my older i7 rig with a GTX 750 ti. And this new one just breezes past it.

 

All due respect to those with older hardware, but X-Plane needs to look forward with new features that can run on newer hardware, while still supporting older rigs by dialing back the new stuff. It happened when they introduced HDR, and it would happen the same way with more intensive weather modeling.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

Obviously we'd like to see X-Plane deliver high frame rates. For me, that means anything over 30 fps, and that should be achievable on legacy hardware, but not necessarily with all eye candy enabled. And what about new hardware? Shouldn't we have new features that will tax the higher-end hardware available now, to allow for future improvement on the hardware side?

 

Very good points, and the questions raised in regards to 'future proofing', enabling the platform to have features that people might not be able to take advantage of with average hardware yet but might someday, are definitely worth talking about.

 

But since development resources are scarce, it becomes an increasingly difficult balancing act, and one that might have to be weighed in terms of it's potential benefit to the average user.

 

And of course, 'average' could mean a lot of things. After all, there's a good amount of users that can't afford the performance hit of HDR while using 1080p. You can even point to the surprising popularity of the latest thing to come up, 'Ventura Sky' - one of the tricks it does (or at least did in beta, I haven't followed it's development in a bit) is limit visibility to something like 16nm at low altitude in order to boost performance. A ton of my time is spent in XP flying no more than 2500 AGL, and I can't imagine wanting to only have 16nm in front of me just so I can enjoy good performance. Yet there are people that need that...

 

There's absolutely no question that the clouds are in need of attention - I would love my XP skies to look like my FSX or P3D skies do. But I would only love it if I could not only make the sky look similar, but also have it look that way an equivalent level of performance. And that's the catch - it's not enough to have great looking clouds with the knowledge that *someday* hardware will be able to take advantage of them. The platform needs at least equivalent cloud depiction to it's competition, while achieving equivalent performance. Without that performance factor, they just become a talking point in my opinion.

 

But you know what they say about opinions... :smile:

[soaring_penguin 428]

I think performance means looks good on todays hardware (with today I mean the day that the software is released).

Clouds especially have been lacking since the beginning, they started to look good with the Nvidia 9xx.

 

To x-planes defense, none of the flight simulators I have were able to depict clouds without a framerate hit, at the day of release.

That was true for every MS-FS release, the flight unlimited series, Flight! and also for X-Plane.

 

Looking back, I mostly flew with blue skies on my pc :'( .

 

So if Laminar is able to deliver great skies at the day of the release of X-plane 11, that would be quite an achievement !

[jcomm 5,890]

Even in AS16 and ASCA I set max cloud layers to 3, because of the constraints imposed by my rig.

 

In meteorology a "chaotic sky" as we designate a situation where cloud classification becomes almost impossible, is something I believe would kill any of our present day simulators :-)

 

As a pilot, and also from a meteorology pov, but also from the perspective of a simmer with limited hardware to run it's sims and looking forward not to have to spend fortunes upgrading to run a new version of X-Plane, three cloud layers are more than enough, provided that factor mentioned by all of you is looked at for the next version of X-Plane - vertical development.

 

Even in FSX and using the best weather generators, CBs are rather limited in area. There are certainly no super-cells or even moderate size Cbs, although AS does it's best to achieve the closest possible to it, and makes the huge difference there is between a thunderstorm depicted in MSFS vs XP...

[soaring_penguin 428]

yes José, I have almost the same flying background as you (I fly hang gliders).

IMO, 2 cloud layers should be enough for a good depiction, 3 is sufficient for the more complex weather.

For me, what is lacking in the default x-plane cloud system: 

- sharper edges to the clouds, I think that would be a game changer, even if nothing else changes.

- vertical cloud development (which would also allow for CB).

Moving clouds would be cool, but is less important then the cloud shadows on the ground :-) .

[jcomm 5,890]

yes José, I have almost the same flying background as you (I fly hang gliders).

 

Then, you have a much better background, and one that I was never able to tackle simply because I lack the guts to fly in a hang glider... But that's even closer to the best experience of flight only our bird friends really have :-)  And that brings yet another set of features we would like to see even better represented in XP, although I agree it Is not the purpose of this platform, and, apparently, Condorsoaring 2 is now really confirmed as being under active development....

[alfamike 67]

From a developer point of view, without entering in the end-users context, I'd say that there're even more things that should be fixed and/or implemented both in Plane Maker and the SDK... I sent various but reports so I really do hope that at least something will be considered for XP11.

[Murmur 3,941]

I agree in principle. However, it raises the question of what "performance" means, and what hardware we're talking about?

 

All due respect to those with older hardware, but X-Plane needs to look forward with new features that can run on newer hardware, while still supporting older rigs by dialing back the new stuff. It happened when they introduced HDR, and it would happen the same way with more intensive weather modeling.

Even people with high end rigs always complained about the performance of X-Plane 10 clouds, even more so comparing end results to those of msfs. Msfs clouds may be relatively performance hungry, but X-Plane 10 clouds have been worse while giving worse results. Moreover I don't see why allowing lower settings for clouds for those with low end rigs, would limit those with high end rigs.

[Jimmy RFR 406]

 

 

To x-planes defense, none of the flight simulators I have were able to depict clouds without a framerate hit, at the day of release.
That was true for every MS-FS release, the flight unlimited series, Flight! and also for X-Plane.

Looking back, I mostly flew with blue skies on my pc :'( .

So if Laminar is able to deliver great skies at the day of the release of X-plane 11, that would be quite an achievement !

 

As true as that is, the issue is that now the playing field has changed. What is going to be expected at any new simulators release is going to be viewed through the lens of experience of what else is offered these days, in both depiction as well as performance.

 

 

 

Even people with high end rigs always complained about the performance of X-Plane 10 clouds, even more so comparing end results to those of msfs. Msfs clouds may be relatively performance hungry, but X-Plane 10 clouds have been worse while giving worse results.

 

Precisely. The point I was trying to make is that the end result, of which we all want improvement on, is actually a sum total of both graphical depiction and performance. If you improve one without the other, the net result is still the same.

[shamrockflyer 647]

On the subject of weather engines, didn't HiFi Active Sky Next say at some point they were creating an addon for XP 10 or am I imagining it? 

[Murmur 3,941]

On the subject of weather engines, didn't HiFi Active Sky Next say at some point they were creating an addon for XP 10 or am I imagining it? 

 

I don't know if they ever said it, but using the native cloud engine (as they do in MSFS/P3D) would give very limited results compared to MSFS/P3D, given the many limitations of X-Plane cloud engine.

[x-plane 123 61]

On the subject of weather engines, didn't HiFi Active Sky Next say at some point they were creating an addon for XP 10 or am I imagining it? 

They did, here's the thread. I asked yesterday if they were able to give any kind of update, but no response yet.

But as as Murmur said, it will probably be quite different then their FSX/P3D product. Maybe they're working with LR for an XP11 version (I can always hope, right).

[shamrockflyer 647]

Until we do have official news from HiFi, are there any freeware, reliable weather engines that get good reviews for 10.50? X-Planes native engine was working 'ok' in 10.45 however - since updating to 10.50 the turbulence issue has really made me dislike the system much much more! 

[jcomm 5,890]

Until we do have official news from HiFi, are there any freeware, reliable weather engines that get good reviews for 10.50? X-Planes native engine was working 'ok' in 10.45 however - since updating to 10.50 the turbulence issue has really made me dislike the system much much more! 

 

The NOAA weather plugin is the best weather injector you can presently have for XP10.50 and bypasses the buggy turbulence and wind variability models of the default weather engine.