EA: is it worth using?

[BWBriscoe 116]

Before the 5.1 update I was using ActiveSky but not EA.

There's been a lot of talk about EA with the 5.1 update, is it time to start using it with ActiveSky or is it still better to keep it off? (Also, what does it actually do??).

Is there a performance hit when using it?

Thanks

[SAS443 1,723]

I'd say yes.

But some like it better off.

My VRAM increases by 400mb when turning it on.

[ideoplastic 86]

I'm not sure so far, since v5.1 and now HF1 the lighting inside the virtual cokpit is extremely dark  so at the moment I turn it off and get better performance and the sort of environment sky wise that was available under 4v4.5. Not ideal I know, considering the new 3D weather available with EA but the shaders that get injected when activating it are most likely the reason for such dark environment.

[Jac_49 35]

4 minutes ago, ideoplastic said:

I'm not sure so far, since v5.1 and now HF1 the lighting inside the virtual cokpit is extremely dark  so at the moment I turn it off and get better performance and the sort of environment sky wise that was available under 4v4.5. Not ideal I know, considering the new 3D weather available with EA but the shaders that get injected when activating it are most likely the reason for such dark environment.

i am experiencing the same with regard to the dark VC, does anyone have a solution for this?

[ideoplastic 86]

Well I got around it by simply using the Nvidia Manager and tweaking the brightness, contrast and gamma to achieve my desire result. However have to turn off EA for I have not been able to change with anything while it's on.

[Bob Scott 7,720]

7 minutes ago, Jac_49 said:

i am experiencing the same with regard to the dark VC, does anyone have a solution for this?

In some airplanes, like the PMDG NGXu and 747, you can just turn the dome light to "dim".

FSLabs made their excellent FS Spotlights utility freeware a year or two ago--I'd guess that you could place some lights into the cockpit and fix it that way as well.

 

[abarter 28]

For me it's been the clouds that are too bright. Blinding. I have EA turned off and use ASP3D (can't live without it) but will play with the settings over time to see if I can make it better.

[mpo910 2,112]

A clear YES. It is getting better. some work must still be done. But I think LM understood this is the way to go...

[mikeymike 360]

My opinion, it’s not ready yet.

cheers

mike

[Flic1 976]

I am having mixed results with it.  A couple flights have been great....a couple have been bad.  It looks best in clear conditions as I really like the ambient lighting it creates.  I had a flight where the clouds looked great, very soft and natural.  The next flight they were very pixelated and looked terrible.  It is much improved over the previous beta version though.  I have yet to see multiple clouds layers even if when they are being reported.  I use ASP3D and have replaced the volumetriccloud.cfg as that was causing some issues. Cloud coloing looks very bad at sunset/sunrise IMO.  I am also not a fan of the abrupt WX transitions with it but not sure anything can be done with that or not.  I think it's going in the right direction and hope we can have further cloud and lighting improvements.  As far as the dark VC goes....I wonder if the updated EnvShade will be able to help with that?  They do have a setting for the VC that was working in the non-EA version so maybe that will work with the update they are working on.

Edited November 22, 2020 by Flic1

[B777ER 2,486]

Currently running with EA off and using AS3PD with ASCA, EnvTex and EnvShade. Once I get my 3090 card and can crank cloud resolution to max, will try again.

[joepoway 241]

I am not a fan of the dark VC and external aircraft view as well as all the unresolved issues running it with ASP3D so I turn it off even though it is getting better. I still prefer EA Off and use the latest ASP3D with ASCA and it looks and runs well.

Joe

[rob0203 689]

EA allways on can’t fly without it anymore!

[Bryn 72]

I'm flying with it off. It seems with EA on, only one global cloud setting is possible. You cannot see different weather in different directions - it's all the same everywhere until you arrive in a new location and the clouds update. So it looks like simple weather avoidance stuff isn't possible - e.g., you can't see an area of storms on the horizon and then fly around them. It's sort of like going back to FS2002 weather, but with nicer graphics.

 

[chapstick 2,757]

18 minutes ago, Bryn said:

I'm flying with it off. It seems with EA on, only one global cloud setting is possible. You cannot see different weather in different directions - it's all the same everywhere until you arrive in a new location and the clouds update. So it looks like simple weather avoidance stuff isn't possible - e.g., you can't see an area of storms on the horizon and then fly around them. It's sort of like going back to FS2002 weather, but with nicer graphics.

 

Yeah, this pretty much has killed it for me, even though I've seen some really good EA scenes since HF1. It's just not there yet, and it sucks that LM is going to take a year+ to get this right when it's all said and done. Even with AS, I've yet to see any actual *weather* being simulated that I can pick up on the radar and need to vector around. And there are still numerous problems with weird shadow lines, seeing outlines of mountains visible through buildings/objects, clouds zooming at 500+ knots across the screen, crazy reflections at night, overly bright views out the cockpit, strange colors at dusk/dawn, the fact that everything has a sepia tone, etc.