Tonight I was making a routine flight from KMCO to KMIA testing SU9 Beta. I've been a huge CRITIC of the clouds for the past 5 or 6 SU releases, there's no doubt about that. But tonight, something strange happened, and I WISH I would have taken screenshots.

When I took off from KMCO, there were some mid level party cloudy conditions. FOR ONCE in for as long as I could recall, it was not those low towering cumulus ugly clouds we've been seeing all along. NOTE that this looked CONVINCING, even if it didn't match the real world weather conditions. But as a bonus, the clouds outside my window were of the same height, thickness and type! I thought, hmm, interesting...

As I proceeded South, the clouds where I was heading all seemed to be what I would expect after looking at the real world satellite and radar. As I flew about 30 NM south of KMCO it hit me, I was surrounded by clouds that were all CONVINCING! I was flying over a mid-level altitude layer of OVERCAST and it was not transparent garbage like I've seen in the last 5 or 6 updates. The layer was thinner, but also OPAQUE (important!) unlike MSFS clouds that we have been seeing. There were some embedded towering cumulus to the East by the coast of Florida, again looking VERY convincing as the humidity and the fog-like humid air surrounded and blended the cumulus into the overcast below. It was quite impressive!

But then, in the DISTANCE what I saw was even more draw dropping. It was the thunderheads like we used to see when MSFS first released. CONVINCING clouds everywhere. Tonight most of South Florida has storms around and this was all well depicted in the sim. I was not close enough to see if lightning would actually show up again in the SIM (it's been absent since all of the complaints of TOO MUCH lightning and I agree that it was ridiculous).. anyhow.

I was really enjoying the flight and weather about 70 NM into the flight....

THEN, all of the sudden there was a big (and OBVIOUS) TRANSITION and the clouds all around kind of disappeared and then new clouds took their place to reveal the same UGLY cumulus trash we've been seeing all along for months and months now. "Whhhhatttttt just happened?" The kicker here? I looked down at my watch when the transition happened and SURE ENOUGH the MSFS weather transition of 23:00GMT was happening. Some of you may recall when the live weather bug in MSFS had NO LIVE weather for like an hour between 23:00 and 00:00 GMT. 

Something different happened today in the Weather, and I HOPE it is something we're going to see a lot more of? Or did I come across some strange BUG? I want those clouds BACK!

Anyone else experiencing something like this?

Edited April 4, 20224 yr by KERNEL32

I had sublimely realistic weather over the northern coast of France yesterday. An absolute joy of unbroken overcast which ended the same way. Boom. Transition to popcorns🥲

Hope that's the case and we see some nice improvements in the clouds.

Is anyone experiencing a 30 second period during cruise where the sim goes to like 5 frames per second and then somehow recovers? I thought is was maybe a weather refresh/reload going on like previous sims. It certainly feels like it based on experience with FSX.

Edited April 5, 20224 yr by flyhalf

Very interested in this. I have barely flown on MSFS since SU7 with the very dramatic degradation in clouds and the weather system, and indeed since SU5 when everything was nerfed. If it looks as the though the quality of skies on release is coming back, I would be thrilled and able to start flying again!

12 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

THEN, all of the sudden there was a big (and OBVIOUS) TRANSITION and the clouds all around kind of disappeared and then new clouds took their place to reveal the same UGLY cumulus trash we've been seeing all along for months and months now. "Whhhhatttttt just happened?" The kicker here? I looked down at my watch when the transition happened and SURE ENOUGH the MSFS weather transition of 23:00GMT was happening. Some of you may recall when the live weather bug in MSFS had NO LIVE weather for like an hour between 23:00 and 00:00 GMT. 

hmmm same here yesterday - short test flight - have seen for a long time (not since SU7) again upcoming cloud fronts - really good looking and not the usual cumulus stuff and then also without transition "bam" all gone and it all became again these "popcorn-like" cumulus clouds, also in the distance. But it was around 20:30, which tells me that the engine is still capable of showing something useful, but apparently they have a "bug" in the data processing on the servers !!I will also report this in the MSFS forum!

How is this all related to SU9 Beta?

I mean, doesn't all this stuff and improvements to it take place on the servers? 

I could be wrong but since a few days ago, i think i've noticed more activity of high clouds (say above FL300) with live weather then before.
Or perhaps it's because of the region I am flying in these days (South-East Asia, Indonesia)?

I'm not on SU9 Beta

 

 

Edited April 5, 20224 yr by avhpilot

I don't think it's SU9beta related - am still on SU8 too - I meant the look of the clouds, but I only noticed that the last few days !

Just now, AUA425 said:

I don't think it's SU9beta related - am still on SU8 too - I meant the look of the clouds, but I only noticed that the last few days !

Yes me too still on SU8, I had a gorgeous overcast yesterday all the way from Winnipeg to Vancouver. Can't remember seeing this for 6 months

Not sure if it is the SU9 Beta or not but I noticed a dramatic improvement on Saturday flying the A32NX up through some stormy Florida weather.  Best representation of clouds I have seen in a long time.  More stratiform overcast layers and towering cumulus in the right spots.  Also a nice thin overcast at FL 360.  Maybe they timed the WX adjustment with the new Beta build as nothing was noted on the changelog and I think that is mostly done behind the scenes. Definitely a big improvement!

It all keeps getting better, and will continue to do so...👆

1 hour ago, Noel said:

It all keeps getting better, and will continue to do so...👆

hmm I hope so and that will be the case - but after a restart I only had these generic cumulus clouds "over the whole planet" again, something is "wrong" here anyway !

Ok good to know it isn't related to the SU9 Beta. Either way also glad to see it wasn't just me seeing things!

Hope we see more of this consistently. For now today's flight was back to the ugly cumulus word not allowed all over the place 😞... 

Edited April 6, 20224 yr by KERNEL32

I am testing SU9 beta.  Clouds have less banding and pixelation close in.  I feel the same as many of you - sometimes you fly and the sky depiction and lighting just stuns.  Maybe MS/Asobo are changing things relating to weather server side without notification.

Here is a flight I did with the latest update to SU9 beta (fixed crashes relating to Spad.Next and FSUIPC).  The haze that was added with SU7 just stunned me on an early morning flight into KSZP.  There were areas with no haze, but on this approach into KSZP the haze and lighting just looked superb.

 

Edited April 6, 20224 yr by MrBitstFlyer

20 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Maybe MS/Asobo are changing things relating to weather server side without notification.

Yep, this stuff doesn't live in our machines it's piped in and they can tweak it as we go, which it really seems like they've been doing.

I’ve seen an improve too and I’m not in the beta. All we need now is gusts and more work on depiction 🤙🏼 Definitely the right direction!