Today there was an opportunity I've kind of been waiting for. Very specific weather and light conditions at my local airport (EGCC Manchester), which is about 5 miles from my house. So, with my camera ready and FSX fired up on real weather downloads every 15 mins, it was time for a test to see how FSX fared. The weather had been clear most of the day with light cloud coverage, but a thunderstorm came on very quickly, providing the ideal test for the weather rendition.I took some pictures at 18.00 hours and made sure FSX was on the right season and time and had received the real weather update for the exact same time, I also tuned ATIS for Manchester on my aircraft radio to compare it with FSX's interpretation, happily they both agreed on the weather.Below are the pics.I think the light levels compare well, as does the overall colouring, and the artificial light is pretty convincing compared to the real thing. So too, is the wet appearance of the ground. The rain is obviously as it should be, although I do think the way FSX renders rain is not the greatest, nevertheless, FSX didn't go over the top with the lightning, which was as per the conditions were in the real world, with a few, but not a huge amount of thunderflashes.On the downside, the cloud types are not a good match for the conditions, with far too many cumulous clouds displayed in FSX, that would be more suited to the period building up to a storm rather than during and after it had passed.From this little experiment I guess we can conclude that while FSX does a reasonably good job overall of emulating weather, there is scope for improvement in the range and selection of appropriate cloud sets for given conditions. Of course, one test is not absolute proof of FSX's abilities, but it's interesting all the same to compare it with actual stuff from the real world.http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/Ala...ry/WEATHER3.gifhttp://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/Ala...ry/WEATHER2.gifhttp://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/Ala...ry/WEATHER1.gif

I think that for an "included in box" product, it did a GREAT job of emulating the conditions for you. Great pics! I can't fly without REAL WEATHER or some weather program, and I think this Real Weather in FSX is improved over the version that was in FS9.

What's your take on FSX perf. with that setup?TIA,bt

Hi Chockvery nice pictures.it is a lot better,this new Ms weather engine.and a not bad comparison really.In Fs2004 it would probably been snowing:-) :-) :-) best wishes steve