Hi guys,

 

First: I know these subjects have been done to death but... most topics date from 2020 or earlier.

I'm pimping my p3dv5  after using xplane11 extensively.

Is p3dv5  good enough on its own or do I need ASCA, rex skyforce, envtex, rex td, envshade etc etc..

 

As far as I understood  so far I can use:

 

-Vanilla p3dv5 with EA on and volumetric clouds on because this is as good as payware addons?

- vanilla p3dv5 with EA on and volumetric clouds on + REX td/Envtex/rex skyforce for textures not for clouds.

-vanilla p3dv5 with EA on and volumetric clouds to zero + ASCA clouds/rex clouds + REX td/envtex/rex slyforce for textures.

 

I have used rex td in the past for fsx and loved it but as I mentioned I don't know if i is still necessary for v5. I know rex td s not officially compatible with p3dv5  but still works.

I also have msfs but don't use it a lot because I have a triple monitor setup now and don't like the way msfs handles that.

 

I have active sky next installed and will keep using that.

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

Cheers

 

Jozeff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.2 out of the box with EA on worked fine for me if all I did was just fly . But I enjoy taking screenshots so adding ASCA , REX , Envtex and others were in my screenshot toolbox . I was with P3D from Day One but like so many others I moved on to MSFS in August of 2020 . 

 

Edited October 25, 20214 yr by johnbow72

Volumetric clouds - sadly but those are still far far away, so the only option which makes sense is to use EA with legacy clouds.

I use REX clouds - those are ok, but of course it is a step back by 10 years.

Unfortunately in LM world everything spins twice slower, so maybe 5.5 volumetric world will be fully implemented and breath taking.

 

Btw. also have MSFS and cannot fall in love, can't explain why, but for me it is like console game.

Just scroll thru the forum you will found lots of different options on what people use in p3d.I use Rex Sky Force, AS, Ea with Legacy clouds. And catching airports on sale at sim market. Am pimpin p3d too..

42 minutes ago, Beardyman said:

I use REX clouds - those are ok, but of course it is a step back by 10 years.

 

Don't know why you say that. Back ten years from what? The current version is made for P3Dv5 and the result with EA off is extremely realistic in most instances. Far better than EA, which gives a horrible blue tinge to everything and obstructs the view downwards by filling the sky with wall to wall clouds.

7 minutes ago, IanHarrison said:

The current version is made for P3Dv5 and the result with EA off is extremely realistic in most instances.

Is that rex texture direct or rex skyforce?

 

I understand that "skyforce" has its own weather engine (which I don't need) but also has textures just like "texture direct" which isn't for P3Dv5 but will work when you point installer to v5 instead of v4.

Both texture direct as skyforce has its own clouds so I wouldn't need ASCA then.

So rex/asca clouds replace the legacy clouds and not the volumetric ones I'd that correct?

 

Thanks guys, appreciate it!

 

Jozeff

37 minutes ago, IanHarrison said:

Don't know why you say that. Back ten years from what? The current version is made for P3Dv5 and the result with EA off is extremely realistic in most instances. Far better than EA, which gives a horrible blue tinge to everything and obstructs the view downwards by filling the sky with wall to wall clouds.

Ian - beauty sits in the eye of beholder...

For me flat pancakes rotating as u move ur POV is far from realistic, but as i said - it is just me.

 

Why i said 10 years back - those textures were done for FSX and later port over to another and another sim version

Edited October 25, 20214 yr by Beardyman

Hi Jozeff,

I use this combination: p3dv5 with EA on, active sky (with EA detailed clouds on - makes difference for me), orbx global, utx europe + payware airports.I am happy with result.

Regards,

3 hours ago, jozeff said:

Is that rex texture direct or rex skyforce?

 

I understand that "skyforce" has its own weather engine (which I don't need) but also has textures just like "texture direct" which isn't for P3Dv5 but will work when you point installer to v5 instead of v4.

Both texture direct as skyforce has its own clouds so I wouldn't need ASCA then.

So rex/asca clouds replace the legacy clouds and not the volumetric ones I'd that correct?

 

Thanks guys, appreciate it!

 

Jozeff

SkyForce. with EA off and Active Sky as weather engine.

 

2 hours ago, Beardyman said:

Ian - beauty sits in the eye of beholder...

For me flat pancakes rotating as u move ur POV is far from realistic, but as i said - it is just me.

 

Why i said 10 years back - those textures were done for FSX and later port over to another and another sim version

Eye of the beholder. Very true.

But I know a pancake when I see one ( even better, eat one) and my clouds are rolling 3 d fluffy ones. So I am quite happy till EA is fixed properly.

Edited October 25, 20214 yr by IanHarrison
Added.

Biggest issue with volumetric clouds and EA is the inability to have dynamic weather themes. LM has just the global theme with these settings. Thus the weather is the same everywhere and you don't get the building storms in the distance or anything else of the sort. This 8s why I don't use it.

HiFi apparently have the software ready to go to implement it in Activesky as soon as LM allow it. 

Jozeff - as you can see there are lots of personal preferences. Let me give you an honest opinion or advice.

I have been with P3D since V5 (before that was all FSX)I think it is a great simulator platform and I am very happy with its performance and graphically in 90% of the places I fly in the sim it rivals the much vaunted MSFS (which I tried and abandoned - no proper aeroplanes end of story) I run it on an I9 processor with 32GB of RAM and SSD hard drive and an NVIDIA RTX 2070 super video card. It runs smoothly, never crashes and is great. I guess the issue a lot folk have is the way the sky and cloud looks. Weather engines you have a choice they are all good, freeware, Active Sky or Rex, I have all three and vary between which I use on the day! Why? 

 I also have chased a number of problems with sky, clouds etc as a result of LM's implementation of True Sky and Enhanced Atmospherics. I have tried a variety of addons let me explain. LM EA I think is great the way it realistically manipulates light and shadow I think is fine. I also really like True Sky - but - the issue is cloud display which is in need of fixing. True Sky is being limited by LM (LM did not create True Sky it is another company that created it and what they can do with it compared to LM's implementation means LM does not either - at the moment). The issue is True Sky is in my simple view very good for low level ops only (below F200) the clouds are realistic and nicely done but above that high level it is not good, overcast coverage appears as blocky and cirrus very poorly defined. The lightning and other weather effects, snow rain etc are also good too. A lot of people also hate the haze and some people get strange haze lines on the horizon. I did not but found that using ENVSHADE with some only small tweaks it can do fixed those issues. 

Now I have extensive offline discussions with some who are heavily involved with True Sky and LM. If your happy to fly low level then True Sky is fine and we are hoping that LM will implement some patches and fixes to the volumetric clouds config which controls the way the clouds are shown and move. But I could not abide the lack of decent cirrus cloud now Cirrus in the real world is very changeable and I found that REX have the best Cirrus representations around the catch is you have to use their 3D Clouds as well, but there is a lot of choice. The REX sky colour choices are also good and get around a number of issues about some weird colouring with P3D, 

So in summary I run P3DV5.2 with EA ON, HDR ON with some minor ENVSHADE tweaks for haze and now Volumetric Cloud OFF. I let REX control the weather and cloud display. I think it gives the best realistic compromise for the time being. 

Just to give you an idea why here are 3 images

The first is True Sky - as I said it is great at low level only

Now this is True Sky but at high altitude - not so good, ok but only just.

Now this True Sky (Volumetric Cloud OFF) and REX clouds

Last but not least you have to tune up your monitor colouring, balance contrast etc. IF you do this you will find EA is great and True Sky 90% of the time is fine. Both AS and REX are very good weather engines - I prefer AS for some of its features but I like REX for some of its features. So I mix and match when I want. Sometimes I use them sometimes I don't .

Hope this helps

Thanks very much for your extensive reply! Appreciate it.

 

I'll think I have go with rex  clouds and active sky (which I own already )for weather engine.

 

Cheers!

 

Jozeff

On 10/25/2021 at 6:07 PM, B777ER said:

Biggest issue with volumetric clouds and EA is the inability to have dynamic weather themes. LM has just the global theme with these settings. Thus the weather is the same everywhere and you don't get the building storms in the distance or anything else of the sort. This 8s why I don't use it.

HiFi apparently have the software ready to go to implement it in Activesky as soon as LM allow it. 

That's so lame... The last (Microsoft) flight simulator that was limited to global weather themes was FS2002 (and that was 20 years ago!)  In that aspect, LM has made a backwards move that makes FS2004 even more progressive. Even if TrueSky is to blame for it (or not, who knows), it's just unacceptable that a simple thing like the buildup of storms or cloud fronts can't be implemented by a weather engine that calls itself modern in a simulator that was released in the same year as MSFS 2020. Add to it the waffle clouds that you see every now and then (in the default state). The legacy weather engine in P3D v4 is very well balanced in my opinion, especially if you use Active Sky and Envtex/Envshade. Unless significant improvements are made to weather in P3Dv5, I will treat its EA weather with skepticism. 

3 hours ago, Afterburner said:

That's so lame... The last (Microsoft) flight simulator that was limited to global weather themes was FS2002 (and that was 20 years ago!)  In that aspect, LM has made a backwards move that makes FS2004 even more progressive. Even if TrueSky is to blame for it (or not, who knows), it's just unacceptable that a simple thing like the buildup of storms or cloud fronts can't be implemented by a weather engine that calls itself modern in a simulator that was released in the same year as MSFS 2020. Add to it the waffle clouds that you see every now and then (in the default state). The legacy weather engine in P3D v4 is very well balanced in my opinion, especially if you use Active Sky and Envtex/Envshade. Unless significant improvements are made to weather in P3Dv5, I will treat its EA weather with skepticism. 

Dynamic themes are possible with TrueSky, LM just doesn't program it.

On 10/27/2021 at 6:58 PM, B777ER said:

Dynamic themes are possible with TrueSky, LM just doesn't program it.

Then the EA implementation in P3d v5 was rushed if they haven't managed to program dynamic themes yet.