NOAA plugin is also a good alternative

 

It is for sure a good alternative, but even together with SMP and RWC this doesn't come anywhere close to what xEnviro can do.

Heh, with Rasmussen:s review, he sounds like a computer voice, I do not think he is a human.

 

Anyway, I noticed the first stage in the roadmap of xEnviro is completed. Will that be released, or do we need to wait until the 1.1 stage is completed?

It looked neat until I noticed the same cloud puff bitmap used 4 or 5 times on the right side, when moving up out of the cloud layer. You can even see it in the still frame above.

i guess everybody is cooking with water...  one uses flat 2d sprites to buff up performance , the other uses the same cloud puff to get some performance boost. At the end of the day everything has drawbacks.

Well, last night I gave in and went ahead and bought it, my way of encouraging further development and while a bit pricey, this is a all-in-one software package. 

 

First impressions:

 

After being cleared for takeoff rw13 on my hometown airport KMFE with foggy weather heading up to KDWF, while rolling down the runway halfway into V2 speeds, I was shocked to see a couple of subtle fog patches right in the middle of the runway....going through them while taking off, was the first time I have ever experience such a thing in XP, the sensation was thrilling and jaw-dropping to say the least, that alone right there was worth the $69.99.

 

my lord...this is the first time I can say that I have experienced real weather in XP, seriously!!!

 

The sky colors are gorgeous and the fact that I could see clouds all the way to the horizon was beautiful, it was cloudy and foggy with no sunshine when taking off, going through clouds and seeing the sun shine once out was very rewarding.

 

Yes, clouds may need some tweaking and Im sure it's being addressed, but even if not, I don't really care as this has been the closest experience in weather simulation so far, the weather was spot on compared to what I saw outside.

 

Sooo, I strongly believe it's worth every hard earned penny, absolutely no regrets.

 

kudos to the xEnviro devs, they have done a great job and just like XP11, it will only get better.

 

XP11, UHD mesh, xEnviro, and all the great freeware out there is the perfect sim combination.

 

 I'm a very happy simmer indeed.   

 

Merry Christmas to all.

I agree and considering that this is v1.0, it's likely it will get better soon.

i guess everybody is cooking with water...  one uses flat 2d sprites to buff up performance , the other uses the same cloud puff to get some performance boost. At the end of the day everything has drawbacks.

 

I agree. It is a sim and, obviously, not the "real" thing. At what point do we enjoy what we do have as opposed to expecting "every" detail to be perfect?

 

From what I see on this thread, X-Enviro looks like my next purchase. 

 

NOOA does an excellent job in smoothing the default X-Plane turbulence and variability which are poorly modeled...

Which in turn eliminates X-Plane's dynamic wind gusts making the sim feel like it's on rails. xEnviro has the same problem and I'm hoping they will fix it soon.

Gentleman, xEnviro current version is 1.0, give them some slack.

 

Im a software developer (medical and manufacturing) and when I produce a v1.0 of anything, there is for sure lots of bugs and enhancements that would need to be addressed. 

 

Give them time, it will only get better. From my point of view, its a great and stable all-in-one software package in its current state.

Yes, the all-in-one aspect was a major selling point for me!

Honestly, i guess there is a huge chance that i buy xEnviro even before SMP 4 is released. SMP 4 cons are well known and it is not just the draw distance, for example to fix abrupt visibility changes you have to install Ventura Sky (the only thing that makes RWC+SMP worth for me), which requires FlyWithLua+NOAA+Python and each of those extra addons eats a bit of the CPU. 

 

Even if SMP fixes the abrupt changes, the whole concept of inflexibility that the team shows does not attract me anymore. Don't get me wrong, i liked it in the past but i start to see some fossilization here and there and i see no many room for changes due to their unease to changes things, which leads to ultra defensive behavior which leads to aggressive manner against some persistent customers.

 

I guess i just wanna try/fund a new concept instead of following the same old one that has not evolved much after 3 versions. On the contrary, the xEnviro roadmap 1.2 state that they want to explore volumetric clouds in the future, which might explain why at first they didn't invested too much on 2d and it is really like this then i interpret it as a good thing since they have been flexible enough to understand that for now better 2d texture is required even if it just a transition. 

Which in turn eliminates X-Plane's dynamic wind gusts making the sim feel like it's on rails. xEnviro has the same problem and I'm hoping they will fix it soon.

 

I've experienced gusts and more intense shear, usually under conditions prone to give us that, namely when stated in the METAR ?

I've experienced gusts and more intense shear, usually under conditions prone to give us that, namely when stated in the METAR ?

From my experience gusts were replace by turbulence in those conditions. If you check X-Plane's weather info ( the useful square info like there is one for fps ) you will notice that the wind speed never changes which in turn eliminates wind gusts.

 

By the way, version 1.04 was just released on their website. Can't wait to play around with it

just now

1.04 is available for download at http://www.xenviro.net/
Change log is available here http://www.xenviro.net/update/changelog.txt
https://www.facebook.com/groups/xenviro/?fref=nf

 

It obviously is, DL speed at 28KB/s. Looking forward to it.

Honestly, i guess there is a huge chance that i buy xEnviro even before SMP 4 is released. SMP 4 cons are well known and it is not just the draw distance, for example to fix abrupt visibility changes you have to install Ventura Sky (the only thing that makes RWC+SMP worth for me), which requires FlyWithLua+NOAA+Python and each of those extra addons eats a bit of the CPU. 

 

Even if SMP fixes the abrupt changes, the whole concept of inflexibility that the team shows does not attract me anymore. Don't get me wrong, i liked it in the past but i start to see some fossilization here and there and i see no many room for changes due to their unease to changes things, which leads to ultra defensive behavior which leads to aggressive manner against some persistent customers.

 

I guess i just wanna try/fund a new concept instead of following the same old one that has not evolved much after 3 versions. On the contrary, the xEnviro roadmap 1.2 state that they want to explore volumetric clouds in the future, which might explain why at first they didn't invested too much on 2d and it is really like this then i interpret it as a good thing since they have been flexible enough to understand that for now better 2d texture is required even if it just a transition. 

 

I had my issues with SMP's draw distance, performance, and support. I now only use SMP's forced cirrus layer to give me something in the sky. X-Enviro is definitely a promising "all in one" alternative.