Two things

I will always chose MSFS WX rather than any other 3rd party program.. Because there no issues.. When you load a REX program or HiFi there are always issues.. And have to follow a series of steps in order to work properly.. 

 

And second for me WX from MSFS is amazing It really look like the real thing.. The only thing they need to fix ASAP is the accuracy to real weather..

There is something strange if I load the sim at MMJC (an airport in Mexico City) I always have ground level clouds and low visibility but if load the sim at MMTO or MMMX and fly over MMJC the WX is perfect.. 

The same in SoCal area if I load the sim at KSMO I have ground level clouds in the area but if load at KVNY and fly over KSMO the clouds are perfect..

In conclusion MSFS they only need that accuracy In wx, is not like we are getting FS9 clouds.. So if they do it what would be the point of investing in 3rd party software..? And for developers their money it’s a very risky place even if they do a very nice software.. it’s just matter of MSFS team to improve the WX..

28 minutes ago, desbean said:

Asobo has said that they have no intention of opening up the weather to 3rd party because they consider it to be such an integral and important part of the program

I struggle with this logic.  I agree it's important and integral, very much so.  So are many other areas of the sim.  But why can't it be important and integral and also allow third parties to use SDK functions to read weather, for example?  Does PMDG for example ever want to be able to get the winds/temps aloft in the FMC in MSFS?  Without SDK functions, they can't do it as they should be able to.  They'll need something else, not official and not part of SDK (with all the downsides of that), or this type of realism won't ever be available.

This is all moot though, they have already decided.  I'm sure PMDG, just like us, will be forced to do creative things and they will make it work, somehow.  It's just too bad simple weather SDK functions, available in all other sims, and previous in all MSFS revisions, are for the first time ever no longer part of the plan.  We had such high hopes and dreams for MSFS in this department.  But regardless we will work hard to bring out our take on advanced realism-based weather simulation features in MSFS with the unofficial techniques clearly accepted and encouraged by MS/Asobo, and our own tricks coupled with our 20 years of experience on the MSFS platform to make the experience the best we can.

I'd like to clarify again however that we do not plan on fixing any issues or bugs in MSFS weather.  We are working on our own thing.  MSFS bugs will be resolved, and this is all independent of that.  We are not trying to replace MSFS weather and not trying to compete with it.  They've done an amazing incredible job.  We are just trying to expand on unique advanced aspects of weather simulation that a certain percentage of simmers want, like we always have.

This thread explains pretty well why Asobo is treating weather with so little attention - and rightly so from their perspective. 

Many people don't even see the need for more weather features - the likes of HiFi have been providing for years for other sims - as long as the weather looks good and Asobo fix the accuracy of their live weather. 

And that is why I don't expect Asobo any more to add more weather features to MSFS. They only have to make the weather look good - and maybe improve the accuracy so people can compare the look out of their window with the sim. Anything else is just no selling point for the masses.

So anybody who for example wants to use historic weather, set caps and limits to weather parameters, have low visibility, thermals or wake turbulence, have a possibility to read the weather from the sim and look up the weather for any location in the sim in a convenient UI and many more features that exist by 3PD for other sims pretty much still relies on 3PD for MSFS. That's why I am happy to see HiFi has started working to bring their knowledge into MSFS.

Awesome News!

 

Time to upgrade my CPU!

12 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

I struggle with this logic.  I agree it's important and integral, very much so.  So are many other areas of the sim.  But why can't it be important and integral and also allow third parties to use SDK functions to read weather, for example?  Does PMDG for example ever want to be able to get the winds/temps aloft in the FMC in MSFS?  Without SDK functions, they can't do it as they should be able to.  They'll need something else, not official and not part of SDK (with all the downsides of that), or this type of realism won't ever be available.

This is all moot though, they have already decided.  I'm sure PMDG, just like us, will be forced to do creative things and they will make it work, somehow.  It's just too bad simple weather SDK functions, available in all other sims, and previous in all MSFS revisions, are for the first time ever no longer part of the plan.  We had such high hopes and dreams for MSFS in this department.  But regardless we will work hard to bring out our take on advanced realism-based weather simulation features in MSFS with the unofficial techniques clearly accepted and encouraged by MS/Asobo, and our own tricks coupled with our 20 years of experience on the MSFS platform to make the experience the best we can.

I'd like to clarify again however that we do not plan on fixing any issues or bugs in MSFS weather.  We are working on our own thing.  MSFS bugs will be resolved, and this is all independent of that.  We are not trying to replace MSFS weather and not trying to compete with it.  They've done an amazing incredible job.  We are just trying to expand on unique advanced aspects of weather simulation that a certain percentage of simmers want, like we always have.

Why even partner with a weather company if you're not going to use them?  LOL.  Having wind and temp data in the FMC is critical.

4 minutes ago, RALF9636 said:

This thread explains pretty well why Asobo is treating weather with so little attention - and rightly so from their perspective. 

Many people don't even see the need for more weather features - the likes of HiFi have been providing for years for other sims - as long as the weather looks good and Asobo fix the accuracy of their live weather. 

And that is why I don't expect Asobo any more to add more weather features to MSFS. They only have to make the weather look good - and maybe improve the accuracy so people can compare the look out of their window with the sim. Anything else is just no selling point for the masses.

So anybody who for example wants to use historic weather, set caps and limits to weather parameters, have low visibility, thermals or wake turbulence, have a possibility to read the weather from the sim and look up the weather for any location in the sim in a convenient UI and many more features that exist by 3PD for other sims pretty much still relies on 3PD for MSFS. That's why I am happy to see HiFi has started working to bring their knowledge into MSFS.

Historic WX is a must definitely.. But just that.. Metar accuracy and historic WX is all we need.. Setting your own WX is posible from the actual Sim..

 

Plus I really really think MSFS is trying to make us fly in real time..

 

9 hours ago, jbdbow1970 said:

What is so important about historic weather, do you want to fly in a hurricane or something. You can you can do that with weather preset.

Not so much about hurricanes in my case, but what about:

- pausing a flight and resuming it later with the weather as it was before?

- flying a route with the same wx conditions as they were when you flew the same route a month ago (or the week before for that matter) ?

- use the same wx for shooting an approach  into an airport? I honestly don't know how it is in MSFS at the moment, can you save a situation with fixed weather and will it restore the same conditions when you load it? If so, it would help in this third scenario I mention. However, in P3D/XP I don't have to worry about that thanks to ActiveSky, which would not only set a specific weather for an airport but also on the nearby airports. 

There are obviously other use cases for historic weather, but these 3 are the one I'd be more interested in.

Day 1 purchase for me. Thank god.

4 minutes ago, SUNDR1V3R said:

Historic WX is a must definitely.. But just that.. Metar accuracy and historic WX is all we need.

I agree these are the most important points.

 

4 minutes ago, SUNDR1V3R said:

Plus I really really think MSFS is trying to make us fly in real time..

 

I think you are right. That probably is needed for multiplayer experiences, which they assumingly consider a main selling point expecially for the XBox version.

 

30 minutes ago, SUNDR1V3R said:

There is something strange if I load the sim at MMJC (an airport in Mexico City) I always have ground level clouds and low visibility but if load the sim at MMTO or MMMX and fly over MMJC the WX is perfect.. 

I frequently fly in Mexico and I've seen many cases of incorrect weather depiction in MSFS - most of the time!. I don't understand where you get that weather in ActiveSky (I don't use REX) has issues? That is FAR from my experience. It's always spot-on in P3D/XP.

32 minutes ago, SUNDR1V3R said:

In conclusion MSFS they only need that accuracy In wx, is not like we are getting FS9 clouds.. So if they do it what would be the point of investing in 3rd party software..? And for developers their money it’s a very risky place even if they do a very nice software.. it’s just matter of MSFS team to improve the WX..

 Well, Hi-Fi has proved to be less risk adverse than what you describe, and it has paid off. If they were to sit down idly while waiting for Asobo to fix their wx mess, it would mean a lost opportunity that someone else would cover eventually, and it would probably mean broken wx to us users for a long time. Given Asobo's track record, it's more the things they break than what they fix. Why would weather be different?.

The current weather system is running a simulation for predicting weather, basically a forecast system. Right?

So what I don't understand is this: If you're running any kind of simulation, getting more accurate data points (METAR) injected into the weather simulation should make it more accurate and better, right? So why are they not implementing METAR?

In theory, their current weather prediction system should just become more accurate with even more accurate weather between data points (airports, METAR). This is the point many ignore, the weather at the airport is only 1% of the flight. The weather between METAR points is even more important, and that's where the current weather system is really great.

That's also why I'm a bit sceptical towards injecting METAR data without any more information. You'll end up with weird nonsensical weather between airports, unless the rest of the weather simulation is integrated.

4 minutes ago, Republic3D said:

The current weather system is running a simulation for predicting weather, basically a forecast system. Right?

So what I don't understand is this: If you're running any kind of simulation, getting more accurate data points (METAR) injected into the weather simulation should make it more accurate and better, right? So why are they not implementing METAR?

In theory, their current weather prediction system should just become more accurate with even more accurate weather between data points (airports, METAR). This is the point many ignore, the weather at the airport is only 1% of the flight. The weather between METAR points is even more important, and that's where the current weather system is really great.

That's also why I'm a bit sceptical towards injecting METAR data without any more information. You'll end up with weird nonsensical weather between airports, unless the rest of the weather simulation is integrated.

Basically, that's correct.  That's the difference between aviation WX and just general WX.  Either way, they have access to this data and they can use their forecast system to theoretically make the weather system in general, then utilize the actual live data at your flight levels, airports, etc.

Online flight planners have been using this for a while.  I can usually flight plan then fly my plan within a couple of minutes 'if' the forecast verifies.

14 hours ago, Cmcollazo71 said:

So the onus should be on Asobo to deliver

Correct, but their track record so far doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that it'll happen anytime soon - if ever ...

One thing that MFS weather does well is cloud location which metro blue provides with satellite data. 

I did a flight from SoCal to NorCal and I peeked outside my house beforehand to get visual on actual weather. It was blue skies in L.A. but I noticed that there was a cloud layer in the distance to the north that got thicker as it extended west and thinner to the east.

I pulled up metro blue website and sure enough you could see that cloud layer on the satellite map.

Jumped into the sim and it was there as I panned to the north you could see the cloud layer in the distance. What was great is that you could see on the map where the cloud layer dissipated to the east and as I flew along that path the cloud layer was depicted perfectly.

In know there are other issues with the weather in the sim, and I hope that they are able to figure out those issues in time. But the satellite based cloud depiction is more realistic then anything else we've had and using 3rd party software that makes your weather load and reload during the flight seems like a backwards step. Time to move forward and hopefully this will mature with the rest of the sim.

52 minutes ago, evaamo said:

but what about:

- pausing a flight and resuming it later with the weather as it was before?

 

you need a time machine, i doubt anyone will store all this info just because your paused the game

maybe for the next 2 months 😅   just dont pause, land the thing! 😉