Can't believe I actually paid 70 dollars for this...

2 hours ago, Fi5kuS said:

Can't believe I actually paid 70 dollars for this...

We're all investors.

It's really a bummer to realize, all this waiting, only to find out 1.10 is still a far cry from being usable. Especially if you've for the past six months been spoiled by the likes of this...

 

RDR2's graphics have set a new standard for games. It's not just flight simmers who are envious.

3 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

RDR2's graphics have set a new standard for games. It's not just flight simmers who are envious.

Flight simmers shouldn't be envious if they understand what's going on under the hood, between sims and AAA games.

Painting a pretty sky box with scripted cloud movement and lighting effects is not the equivalent of modeling an actual dynamic weather system. It looks great in games like Witcher 3 or RDR2, but it's smoke and mirrors, a stage set for the action.

Modeling a camera viewpoint to simulate walking, running, or riding a horse is far less CPU intensive than running a flight model to simulate motion. Not to mention all the systems modeling in addition to the actual FM. It would be like simulating all the individual muscles in a horse that you're riding, to make it move in RDR2. All of that overhead is something that can't go into eye candy and special effects.

Moving that viewpoint past the ground at 200+ kts, while showing visible detail out to the horizon, is also CPU/GPU/RAM intensive. We should be comparing what we see in XP or the other civilain sims with what other flight sims are doing. DCS looks pretty good, but it's not exactly at a AAA game level of eye candy.

 

Actually, RDR2 has weather and the first time that I was out in the open range for a thunderstorm, it was immensely more realistic than any flightsim weather add-on.

22 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Actually, RDR2 has weather and the first time that I was out in the open range for a thunderstorm, it was immensely more realistic than any flightsim weather add-on.

Sure, and so do many other games like Witcher 3, or the Fallout series. It can be impressive, I agree, but I disagree about "realistic." It's a scripted effect, like the CGI-based weather in a movie that's designed for maximum impact. A stage setting. It's not dynamic weather with any basis in reality.

In a flight sim, we give up some eye candy in return for other things we care about, like whether it's a reasonable match to what I see outside my window right now. With ActiveSkyX, it's pretty close, if not always "impressive." 

Edited June 4, 20197 yr by Paraffin

1 hour ago, Paraffin said:

It's not dynamic weather with any basis in reality.

Reading online METAR data is the EASIEST task that weather engines accomplish. The hard part is translating the METAR data into realistic weather conditions. 

51 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Reading online METAR data is the EASIEST task that weather engines accomplish. The hard part is translating the METAR data into realistic weather conditions. 

Which is an impossible task, other than within a very reduced area / volume around the METAR report station... Specially in Europe and any other areas where low / mid sector altitudes are in use....

A lot more than METAR / SPECI is required.

TAF, GAMET, AIRMET, model runs from either WFS and / or ECMWF, and even more sophisticated software capable of processing satellite and weather radar data can join the party, and still, it's always not perfect, even for the RL forecasters...

There's probably only one simulator that has gone considerably further than all other - Aerowinx PSX - in creating it's own Earth Global Weather Model, with many nuances based on date, and blending with RW METAR observations, and in an upcoming update, even with the aloft reports from operational flightplans...

For X-Plane ( and P3D / FSX for that matter ) important stuff, that makes asking questions like: http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=5285.0  is far from it's horizon... just like density altitude calculations involving non-ISA lapse rates and humidity, etc... all of which is basic / fundamental IRL operations. 

For a good weather engine to shine, a well designed programming interface MUST be available. At it's present stage, X-Plane is far from fulfilling that requirement, so, users must relax considerably what they should expect from these products.

 

Edited June 4, 20197 yr by jcomm

1 hour ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Reading online METAR data is the EASIEST task that weather engines accomplish. The hard part is translating the METAR data into realistic weather conditions. 

Right, that's what I meant. AAA games are scripted for dramatic weather effects. Flight sims (often working together with add-ons) have to take a METAR and try to create something that not only looks believable, but matches what you see outside your window if you're flying in the same area.

In a AAA game, it's much easier to just script something that looks cool as part of the stage setting.

One more thing: I guarantee that cool-looking thunderstorm you might experience in RDR2 doesn't include severe turbulence, updrafts, and downdrafts, ground-level outflows and wind shear. The kind of things important to aviation. X-Plane doesn't include that either, except for wind shear, but we'll get there eventually. X-Plane does include in-flight icing, and the effect of water or ice on runways. I'd much rather have dynamic weather effects and not just eye candy and no real impact, which is all you get in a AAA game.*

*Well, with a few exceptions. I don't think my army can use fire arrows when it's raining, in Total War Three Kingdoms. 
😄

Here is my quick review of xEnviro.  FPS hit is real, ugly could is real, but I am more interested if it represent true weather depiction.

 

Pics look pretty nice but the clouds seem very low res....  meaning there's not much definition in the individual clouds....sort of like a blob of white.

LR need to change/add something big in XP11 code first to accommodate decent wx programs and wx gfx.

Honestly I did not expect anything usable from xEnviro 10 therefore (I bought it at v1.08).

Until then, xEnviro.

Cheers.

I think the xEnviro folks should add the sound of money being flushed down the toilet to their splash screen.

15 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

Pics look pretty nice but the clouds seem very low res....  meaning there's not much definition in the individual clouds....sort of like a blob of white.

Yes they look horrible.  Like deformed marshmallows