8 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Here I fly in Europe only and make 4-5 flights per week. Not in the entire year I have seen not working weather till today ….

MSFS is using probably using Blue Meteo and Blue stands for blue sky…

All I can say is what I’ve witnessed, and I’ve witnessed it go down many a times at my end, and have also read a lot of other users seeing the same thing in various forums, including here at avsim, so It Definitely is a thing and not something I made up!
I’ll give them this though, when live weather works it’s fantastic…they just need to figure out a way to get it to work consistently. 

1 hour ago, abennett said:

The beta absolutely did not fix the weather. 

Not sure what beta you were using.  The fog was correct where it needed to be, the cloud height was accurate to metar reports, winds were as they should, etc.  Now I was only flying in the US so other locations may vary. 

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by Dillon

It’s been down for an hour or so every day for weeks. 
 

Still it’s no great loss, since SU7 all we get is just towering convective clouds far too low, that are far too dark, no representation of overcast. In other words no gain in visual fidelity, and no other gain for that matter, it doesn’t actually match the airports METAR, anyway. So just a loss loss situation since SU7. I guess like pretty much every other sim update however.

6 minutes ago, flyinpilot212121 said:

I’ll give them this though, when live weather works it’s fantastic…

Especially in the latest beta..💯

I'm glad I took the plunge and tried it, didn't know it could work that well.

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by Dillon

I'm not sure if this was mentioned in the previous pages but i was reading people using Rex as an alternative to get live weather around the airports.  After reading reviews, i decided i didn't want to pay for a product to use only when live weather didn't work.  I decided to re install "Unreal Weather".  Upon loading my flight, whether I had Unreal on or any other preset, I had clear skies.  No matter what I picked as a default preset, there were no clouds or weather. Anyone else have this?  I am not using the Beta as an FYI

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by Zimmerbz

4 minutes ago, Dillon said:

Not sure what beta you were using.  The fog was correct where it needed to be, the cloud height was accurate to metar reports, winds were as they should, etc.  Now I was only flying in the US so other locations may vary. 

I test the weather every day and compare to metar, I’ve never seen the correct type of clouds at the correct height with the correct coverage.

1 hour ago, abennett said:

The beta absolutely did not fix the weather. 

I think your statement is correct.  I am running the beta and many of the issues with SU7 have been fixed, but the weather is inconsistent - sometimes looking fantastic and other times there is no weather!  Just a few weeks ago I wouldn't have recommended Rex Weather, but now I would.  The last update to Rex Weather smoothed out transitions (they are still there) and lessened the FPS problems.  I currently fly with Rex Weather with an occasional look at MS live weather to see if it has improved - exactly the opposite to what I was doing a few weeks ago!  The portrayal of the weather is often better than MS weather.

A while back I would have been quick to say I'm confident in future development, but now my enthusiasm has lessened slightly.  Since SU5 it has been disappointing to go one step forward then two steps back.  I really hope SU8 deals with the current issues and gets us back to a sky not full of volcanic ash clouds!

I still am enjoying MSFS immensely even with the current issues.  The Kodiak Quest Release shows just how good a sim it can be - this aircraft feels alive and is a joy to fly.

14 minutes ago, Zimmerbz said:

I'm not sure if this was mentioned in the previous pages but i was reading people using Rex as an alternative to get live weather around the airports.  After reading reviews, i decided i didn't want to pay for a product to use only when live weather didn't work.  I decided to re install "Unreal Weather".  Upon loading my flight, whether I had Unreal on or any other preset, I had clear skies.  No matter what I picked as a default preset, there were no clouds or weather. Anyone else have this?  I am not using the Beta as an FYI

Go with Rex. It portrays the weather very nicely indeed.  

4 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

last update to Rex Weather smoothed out transitions (they are still there) and lessened the FPS problems.  I currently fly with Rex Weather with an occasional look at MS live weather to see if it has improved - exactly the opposite to what I was doing a few weeks ago!  The portrayal of the weather is often better than MS weather.

I too bought REX when it first came out having been very impressions with sky force in P3D etc in the past. But was obviously extremely disappointed when I used it because of the sudden changes of weather and static FPS when trying to make it smooth and seamless.

I’d be interested to try it again, what settings are you using to have the transitions smooth with minimal FPS loss?

1 hour ago, Dillon said:

Especially in the latest beta..💯

I'm glad I took the plunge and tried it, didn't know it could work that well.

Although I agree the weather does seem to be a lot more accurate as far as where rain cells are, winds, temp, ground snow coverage, etc. there are still big issues - I hope Asobo focuses next on the look of the CLOUDS, not sure if you've noticed but, there are only one or two types of clouds now and we always get cumulus type and they are usually same height and really quite ugly. The clouds are usually very transparent and you cannot just go from seeing scenery to "only white" now like we used to. The live weather system also CANNOT ever create a full overcast layer now, only a mockup bunch of towering cumulus "puffs" with holes to heaven everywhere. So wait - I have seen what appears to be an overcast stratus "layer" for what is supposed to be "overcast" in live weather recently (Midwest USA before we lost the live servers) but it also has very transparent features and there is no "pop" going up through it or breaking out under it; If flying over the top of it, it looks like smashed-flat cumulus they use everywhere else; it's like some kind of transparent foggy-like soup when going through it (which can be fine in some situations!) but weather should be very different, not always the same two types of clouds.

If they can revert to the clouds they had in release version or SU1/SU2 then we will have a winner!

In release version and early SU - There used to be overcast, also broken overcast that would have god rays coming through quite beautiful! Also thinner layers of scattered, broken, and overcast stratus at higher altitudes. I use REX from time to time (now for example) and it seems that the cloud types are still in there somewhere because REX can use them. I believe Asobo have dumbed down the live weather cloud types to one or two types in order to "blend" METAR areas to the forecast areas. I sure hope they improve that and add some variety!

 

Edited January 2, 20224 yr by KERNEL32

This latest outage has been particularly disappointing, coming when many of us have some time set aside to sim. I’ve been fully invested in this sim since the original beta, and still see the potential but over the past few months their server issues have got me a bit demoralized. There have been so many instances where something quite important isn’t available: live weather (even when that is available now it’s just towering cumulus everywhere), photogrammetry cities, Bing textures, AI planes, 3rd party addons bought from the marketplace etc. etc.

Of course there’s usually a workaround, but that workaround is usually ‘just do without it’. Up to the first half of 2021 I was satisfied that things were on the up and going to get better. The second half brought so many problems, so many times when doing without something quite important was not as appealing as just parking MSFS and doing something else.

And that’s where we start 2022. Live weather down for over two days. Assurances that ‘it’s being looked into’, but really? When we all know everyone is (quite reasonably) on holiday? MSFS parked while I do other things. I still see the potential of the sim, but am less confident it will ever get there.

Hello all....

For me, this downtime in the weather servers has been very beneficial.   I only use live weather, so since it's been down for 2 days it's allowed me to take a break from the sim and actually get out of this room for a bit and explore other things.   Turns out, I have a wife and 3 kids and have been married for 30 years!   AND..I have a dog!!  Her name is Lucy.  Friendly little thing.   I even took her for a walk.  That was enjoyable.

I actually talked to my wife a little bit.  She's very nice.   I went out to eat with my kids.  They're nice too!   They're so big and even done with college!  I'm so proud of them.

And hey, did you know there's a pandemic going on?!!  How did that happen?!    Apparently it's been going on for awhile too...

 

HAHA...all in good fun, however it is true that I discovered I really do need to spend less time on the sim and more time doing other important things besides just simming....

Hopefully the servers and everything else will get updated soon enough.   It'll get there!

(I actually did walk the dog....)

 

Enjoy.....and Happy New Year to everyone!

47 minutes ago, scotchegg said:

I’ve been fully invested in this sim since the original beta, and still see the potential but over the past few months their server issues have got me a bit demoralized.......................................

MSFS parked while I do other things. I still see the potential of the sim, but am less confident it will ever get there

I think many of us feel the same and this is coming from many "hardcore, dedicated" simmers who have learned through the years to persevere and adapt to get the best sim experience possible. 

I recall after the SU5 fiasco, we were being told we needed to hush our disappointments lest we damage the franchise and drive away new simmers. It is repeated events like these which do the damage and I fear many of the newcomers are leaving and will unfortunately, never return.

The first release of 2022 will have to be a PR hotfix.

 

1 hour ago, abennett said:

I too bought REX when it first came out having been very impressions with sky force in P3D etc in the past. But was obviously extremely disappointed when I used it because of the sudden changes of weather and static FPS when trying to make it smooth and seamless.

I’d be interested to try it again, what settings are you using to have the transitions smooth with minimal FPS loss?

I'm currently using 'Persistent Weather Load' which seems to do a reasonable job of the transitions.  the transitions are still there, but not as jarring as they use to be.  Well worth a revisit as Rex currently is portraying the weather better for me.

Reliable, realistic Wx will make or break this Sim. It’s of paramount importance, just like a comprehensive SDK. This latest outage is not impressive.