Is Active Sky more frame rate friendly than FS Meteo?

Yep... :-)What makes ASV6 better on frames is how you decided to customize it. FSMeteo is straight forward and can be hard on frames depending on the real world weather. Ususally changing settings in FSUIPC (one cloud layer for example) get you better results. I'd rather make changes in the weather program itself...

Thanks for that

>Yep... :-)Whoa now.Whilst not wishing to get involved in arguing which is the better program I think that Simon's question is whether AS gives better frame rates than FSMeteo.If you are flying in the exact same weather in AS or FSMeteo the resultant performance (frame rates, fluidity) in FS2004 should be the same on the same PC. The fact that you believe that you can customise (reduce cloud layers or whatever to improve performance) the weather easier in AS is a different ball-game.

In my honest opinion AS6 is very good on FPS and from memory it's better than FS Meteo which I'm not seeing much development on these days.I would be confident in AS6 and get it without hesitation and in particular if you want it to look good, see regular updates and dvelopment, and if fps are an important concern of yours.

This is like comparing apples and oranges a bit. I've owned both at different times for years now. First was FSMeteo. Good program in its day but lets not forget (to the best of my memory) it never included graphics or cloud sets. It mearly set the weather and thereby manipulated the default FS clouds that shipped within FS. These clouds in later versions of FS have been graphically intensive and can greatly affect FS performance. Now, along that time period was HiFiSim's WxRE(?) which also just set the weather but at the same time, many people were also using Chris Willis' freeware cloud sets. Later, ASv5 (I think) combined a both Activesky and Chris' clouds into one nice program that's in use today (ASv6). Becuase ASv6 includes adjustable clould sets, you can tone-down the qaulity of the clouds, 64, 128, 256, or 512 bit sets to suite your particular FS FPS requirments. To bo honest, FSMeteo's support was a bit lacking and updates far and few between. I personally have enjoyed the direct contact with Jim and Damien in the Activesky forums and think thier support absolutly first rate. Having owned both for years now, I will whole-heartidly recommend HiFiSim Activesky first. Especially with FSX fast approaching, you can bet Damien and Jim will have something nice to add there as well.

>This is like comparing apples and oranges a bit.......Yes, that is very true. AS6 as a program does more than FSMeteo because it also has its own clouds so you don't need a separate nicer-than-default clouds program. If you had neither you would almost certainly go for AS6 as your wallet gets hit only once. (albeit a nice hit :-)>tone-down the qaulity of the clouds, 64, 128, 256, or 512 bit>sets to suite your particular FS FPS requirements. However, using FSMeteo in conjunction with Flight Environment (one of the greatest ever add-ons which I wouldn't dream of flying without) you can tone down with FE if you wish. OK, you need to buy two programs but I know people who have and love AS6 but they have also bought FE rather than use AS6's clouds etc. as they think FE's are better.In the end it's all down to personal opinion and experience.

Agreed! One of the things that makes this hobby and the configuration thereof so fun! To each his own.:-beerchug