4 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

I do agree that it comes down to add-ons in the end.  And to that end, what decent weather add-ons will ever be possible with Asobo continuing to stubbornly refuse consideration of third-party access/improvements to the weather engine?

"It's coming" is the hoarse-throated battle cry of the MSFS community, but Asobo has pretty much told us "it's never coming" when it comes to bringing the smartest guys in the room in to fix the weather limitations in MSFS.  I still see weather as the Achilles heel of MSFS.  I wish there was a better path forward.  And who knows, maybe if we could get the weather under control, the buildings would stop melting like wax figurines in the hot sun...

From what I can gather, it seems like a binding contract with Meteoblue is the reason for not allowing weather customization - quite a shame in my opinion to lock out customization while at the same time not offering something of a similar caliber. The lack of ability for third party developers to customize the flight model is also a long-standing issue we've brought up time after time.

 

In my opinion, it seems as though management at MS/Asobo is mainly focused on prioritizing functionality for paid DLC/expansions rather than missing core sim features.

Edited April 11, 20224 yr by IcemanFBW

Excellent opinions expressed above, and for those who follow the threads from active developers striving for clarity / consistency / coherency for instance in the implementation of flight models...

Some have suggested ( don't know based on what ) that Meteoblue is ging to be out ? Actally some say the SU9 weather is already Meteobluless ? 

At least weather in SU8 and SU9 is acceptable, when it doesn't get stuck communicating with the cloud servers.

Edited April 11, 20224 yr by jcomm

As many others have said why not just try the FBW A320. What do you have to loose?

She is my go to airliner in MSFS 2020 and honestly is a dream to fly, I still marvel at the beauty of how the sim looks and feels. I am interested in seeing some honest reviews of the Fenix 320 when it is available but at this point I do not know whether I would invest in a pay ware A320.

Funny enough after a flight on Friday evening I hopped into X-Plane 11 and loaded up the FF A320 with the intent of taking it for a spin, honestly I was disappointed how the sim looked, it has been a good while since I used it. The cockpit textures of the FF A320 were just awful looking even in 4K and in general the sim felt really dated compared to MSFS 2020. I didn't bother in the end lol

I am happy with what we currently have for now and get lots of enjoyment flying the FBW A32NX, Kudos to the team who have made this aircraft what it is... For free !

1 hour ago, RJC68 said:

As many others have said why not just try the FBW A320. What do you have to loose?

She is my go to airliner in MSFS 2020 and honestly is a dream to fly, I still marvel at the beauty of how the sim looks and feels. I am interested in seeing some honest reviews of the Fenix 320 when it is available but at this point I do not know whether I would invest in a pay ware A320.

Funny enough after a flight on Friday evening I hopped into X-Plane 11 and loaded up the FF A320 with the intent of taking it for a spin, honestly I was disappointed how the sim looked, it has been a good while since I used it. The cockpit textures of the FF A320 were just awful looking even in 4K and in general the sim felt really dated compared to MSFS 2020. I didn't bother in the end lol

I am happy with what we currently have for now and get lots of enjoyment flying the FBW A32NX, Kudos to the team who have made this aircraft what it is... For free !

The FF A320 is far from being a reference in terms of Airbus for XP... You should try the Toliss instead.

14 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

I do agree that it comes down to add-ons in the end.  And to that end, what decent weather add-ons will ever be possible with Asobo continuing to stubbornly refuse consideration of third-party access/improvements to the weather engine?

"It's coming" is the hoarse-throated battle cry of the MSFS community, but Asobo has pretty much told us "it's never coming" when it comes to bringing the smartest guys in the room in to fix the weather limitations in MSFS.  I still see weather as the Achilles heel of MSFS.  I wish there was a better path forward.  And who knows, maybe if we could get the weather under control, the buildings would stop melting like wax figurines in the hot sun...

Third party read access to weather data is coming in SU10 in July and beyond (currently being actively developed as a top item on the backlog: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/617338-april-7th-2022-–-development-update/) ... Third party customizations yes is a no-go as of now due to various reasons and chief among them is the licensing stuff with Meteoblue I believe.

And to be honest, the "melting buidings" bit is a hoarse-throated battle cry of the MSFS detractor community (including fiercely defensive fans of others sims), generalizing initial-release photogrammetry issues or low internet connectivity issues causing this effect to be something widespread across the sim experience.  Similar to the "oh but it's arcady due to the default planes!", and "oh but it must be a toy game since it is available for XBox" battle cries.

 

Edited April 11, 20224 yr by lwt1971

2 hours ago, lwt1971 said:

And to be honest, the "melting buidings" bit is a hoarse-throated battle cry of the MSFS detractor community (including fiercely defensive fans of others sims), generalizing initial-release photogrammetry issues or low internet connectivity issues causing this effect to be something widespread across the sim experience.  Similar to the "oh but it's arcady due to the default planes!", and "oh but it must be a toy game since it is available for XBox" battle cries.

Drawing a comparison to this complaint to the XBox discussion is just a straw man argument. 

Fact is, the melting buildings still happen to me on a fast 10-core machine with a 24 GB 3090 and a 1.2 Gbps internet connection.  I'm calling it the way I (literally) see it. 

I'm also reading current topics written by experienced simmers having to turn auto-rudder on in MSFS SU8 to get an add-on (not default) plane to take off in a crosswind without departing the runway.  That'd be a legit complaint even for an arcade game, since you chose to bring arcade game comparisons into the discussion.

The MSFS platform still has some serious issues and shortcomings.  The OP's question about which 'bus simulation will give him the best experience depends heavily on the state of the platform in addition to the quality of the add-on itself.  I do periodically re-try MSFS in the hope that it'll pleasantly surprise me (as X-Plane 11.55 has certainly done over the last few weeks).  So far, and through multiple attempts, I haven't been able to get past the "pretty face" of MSFS.  I'll certainly be trying again when PMDG brings their NG3 to market, since I've already got prepaid access to that add-on, and it's the sort of flying I'm most interested in.  I'm still hoping against hope that it'll be a good experience, even with all the limitations of MSFS and especially its weather system still impacting practical use of the platform.  Experience and reason still leads me to expect otherwise.  A house built on shifting sand, and all that...

That's plenty fair Bob... I guess the bottom line is there are plenty of us who quite frankly cannot go back to P3D or XP due to the fact that MSFS's world/environment/weather rendering/simulation is just in a whole different league.  So to us, the key is as long as MSFS *enables* high fidelity aircraft simulation like the PMDG 737, Fenix A320 (and countless other airliner & GA aircraft already out or are soon to be released), then we're willing to forego things like historic weather, 3rd party weather injection/customization, etc because the *overall* experience in MSFS + high fidelity aircraft is just tonnes better for us than P3D/XP :)).. and continues to get better constantly given Asobo's roadmap and continuous development on it. The "shifting sand" continuous development model is actually a net positive for me. For those who need above missing functionality, or a platform that is updated in the traditional software sense and not regularly via the cloud, then more power to them in continuing to enjoy their simming in P3D or XP. Or of course use them all if hdd-space/budget allows.

We'll have to agree to disagree.. but saying that the MSFS platform as it stands now "has serious issues and shortcomings" is a stretch to put it mildly... once the high fidelity aircraft are out in the wild, and if they work as advertised, the remaining shortcomings in the platform are all non-serious as far as I'm concerned.

And I personally very rarely encounter the melted buildings issue any more FWIW. For cases when photogrammetry buildings are not sharp enough even when they are loaded in properly, then photogrammetry can be disabled altogether to be replaced by autogen, and with that MSFS is still way better IMO in world rendering compared to other sims.

Edited April 11, 20224 yr by lwt1971

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

The FF A320 is far from being a reference in terms of Airbus for XP... You should try the Toliss instead.

You know I have thought about that a lot in the past, 

Considering all the hype around the FF A320 when it first came out it turned out too be pretty disappointing really. The Toliss A320 looks like it has matured nicely, I just can't justify paying for another duplicate aircraft in a Sim I have rarely touched in over a year.

I am excited for the upcoming releases in MSFS

17 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

I do have to take issue with the "weather by the numbers" comment.  [...] There is no ability to capture winds aloft data--current or forecast--from the weather engine for flight planning or FMS input.  I can't fly a daytime flight in Africa/Asia (e.g. high/hot profile out of Addis Ababa) with system weather unless it's the middle of the night here, etc etc

So @Rusty I think another proposition should be added to your observations--"will MSFS weather ever reach the fidelity of P3D or X-Plane plus ActiveSky?  No."

13 hours ago, irocx said:

Yep.  Enjoy all of those complex aircraft which are so dependent on accurate weather parameters being fed into their flight management systems to perform realistically.  Don't accurately model one - don't accurately model the other.   But hey,  I can see my molten apartment building in the sim ................

What I meant by "by the numbers" was actually that I fly by the numbers, that wasn't supposed to refer to the weather. My sentence structure there was a bit misleading. I do agree that the weather in MSFS has gotten worse since release, although I do believe it's getting better again. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft played a role in that by pushing for releasing unfinished or untested updates. That was definitely a quality assurance issue in my outside opinion rather than incompetence by Asobo. They've shown they can build an amazing weather engine but have unfortunately caught themselves in a mess after that. This is also why I believe they can get back to a weather engine that is on par or better than other ones we have.

A note on the lack of winds aloft data extraction: How it currently works in other sims with ActiveSky or other weather engines isn't realistic at all. What 3rd party aircraft do is read the wind from the weather engine that puts exactly these winds into the sim, which means that the aircraft knows the actual exact winds in the sim. Real aircraft however uplink wind forecast data computed by a predictive wind model, such as the NOAA model. This is just a forecast however and not the actual winds aloft that are present when the aircraft flies through the air mass. So the winds that the FMC uses are often slightly wrong and sometimes the actual winds can be very different to the point fuel management becomes important.

What PMDG and others can do about the lack of weather API (that is temporary by the way) is uplink winds from real world forecast models (provided it there is no financial barrier to access). I actually hope they do this and stick with it because then you will get the same forecast wind data that real aircraft uplink. This would be realistic. Reading the exact winds from the sim isn't realistic.

27 minutes ago, threegreen said:

A note on the lack of winds aloft data extraction: How it currently works in other sims with ActiveSky or other weather engines isn't realistic at all. What 3rd party aircraft do is read the wind from the weather engine that puts exactly these winds into the sim, which means that the aircraft knows the actual exact winds in the sim. Real aircraft however uplink wind forecast data computed by a predictive wind model, such as the NOAA model. This is just a forecast however and not the actual winds aloft that are present when the aircraft flies through the air mass. So the winds that the FMC uses are often slightly wrong and sometimes the actual winds can be very different to the point fuel management becomes important.

What PMDG and others can do about the lack of weather API (that is temporary by the way) is uplink winds from real world forecast models (provided it there is no financial barrier to access).

Exactly this! Getting the actual winds aloft from the sim itself (as you can do with Active Sky) gives an unrealistically “precise” prediction of the effect of wind on a long flight. I use Foreflight on all my flights in MSFS, which gives wind forecasts from the US GFS model. Most of the time they are very close to the winds injected by MSFS from the MeteoBlue model, with slight variations. That is actually a more realistic scenario for emulating r/w flights.

The GFS upper wind GRIB forecasts can be downloaded for free from the NOAA NCEP web site. Perhaps PMDG will implement something like that.

47 minutes ago, threegreen said:

What PMDG and others can do about the lack of weather API (that is temporary by the way) is uplink winds from real world forecast models (provided it there is no financial barrier to access). I actually hope they do this and stick with it because then you will get the same forecast wind data that real aircraft uplink. This would be realistic. Reading the exact winds from the sim isn't realistic.

FBW team is working to add this functionality if not mistaken 

Edited April 11, 20224 yr by omarsmak30

16 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

FBW team is working to add this functionality if not mistaken 

That's good to hear. Of course the current implementation in other sims works just fine, but if it can be done more realistically, why not.

26 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

The GFS upper wind GRIB forecasts can be downloaded for free from the NOAA NCEP web site. Perhaps PMDG will implement something like that.

I definitely hope so.

1 hour ago, threegreen said:

A note on the lack of winds aloft data extraction: How it currently works in other sims with ActiveSky or other weather engines isn't realistic at all. What 3rd party aircraft do is read the wind from the weather engine that puts exactly these winds into the sim, which means that the aircraft knows the actual exact winds in the sim. Real aircraft however uplink wind forecast data computed by a predictive wind model, such as the NOAA model. This is just a forecast however and not the actual winds aloft that are present when the aircraft flies through the air mass. So the winds that the FMC uses are often slightly wrong and sometimes the actual winds can be very different to the point fuel management becomes important.

Are you sure about that?  I've never seen the uplink exactly match the ND wind data.  I thought ActiveSky was using forecast data?

4 minutes ago, threegreen said:

That's good to hear. Of course the current implementation in other sims works just fine, but if it can be done more realistically, why not.

I definitely hope so.

It should not be difficult. The Hot Start Challenger 650 for X-Plane gets FMS flight plan winds that way, as does the OPUS weather engine for P3D.

1 minute ago, BrianW said:

Are you sure about that?  I've never seen the uplink exactly match the ND wind data.  I thought ActiveSky was using forecast data?

Yes, I'm sure. ActiveSky of course also uses forecast data since it can't know what the actual wind is at any given position. The important point is that if a sim aircraft uplinks the winds from ActiveSky, it will know the exact winds that it will encounter in the sim. In the real world this would mean a real aircraft uplinking the actual winds that are present. That's not how it works.

There will always be a slight, sometimes even a big discrepancy between what an aircraft has uplinked into the FMC and what the winds actually turn out to be. So taking the exact winds from the sim isn't realistic.

Note that what the ND shows (at least in Boeing aircraft) is the wind relative to the aircraft's heading. The actual wind direction and velocity can be read only from the FMC and you will see a difference between the two most of the time. If the actual wind read from FMC still isn't exactly the wind uplink, it's probably due to the winds having been updated by ActiveSky since older data was uplinked or the uplinked winds being referenced to another location that you might have already left or not have entered yet.