Are clouds the best ever now? I'm impressed.

[Krakin 5,764]

7 hours ago, MNORM said:

They're beautiful when they show up.  The storm clouds look amazing. 

Unfortunately I only get clouds with "Live Weather" about 50% of the flights I do.  Wind, yes...but not clouds.

Yeah there are some bald spots around the world. Someone mentioned the Bahamas and I was able to confirm it. I started a flight in Italy last night and the sky was completely clear to the horizon. It could be a glitch but I also suspect Asobo is constantly tweaking things on the server side during the beta, resulting in interruptions.

[MNORM 20]

43 minutes ago, Krakin said:

Yeah there are some bald spots around the world. Someone mentioned the Bahamas and I was able to confirm it. I started a flight in Italy last night and the sky was completely clear to the horizon. It could be a glitch but I also suspect Asobo is constantly tweaking things on the server side during the beta, resulting in interruptions.

Unfortunately it's more bizarre than that for me.  Clouds will appear on the World Map display.  I'll pick an airport that is clearly IFR, double verifying with Skyvector.  Then I'll zoom out, load the airplane, load the flight and clear skies.  I'll exit the flight and go back to the World Map and the entire world is clear again.  It makes no sense.  I'm starting to think I need to backup my Community folder and start from scratch.

[Alvega 2,124]

2 hours ago, Keto Ketchup said:

Your comment does not answer my question.

Then I don't get it. You posted clouds are transparent, I answered that I was flying inside clouds and couldn't see anything which proves they are not transparent and after reading that you post again they are transparent... Go figure.

[March Hare 720]

2 hours ago, MNORM said:

Unfortunately it's more bizarre than that for me.  Clouds will appear on the World Map display.  I'll pick an airport that is clearly IFR, double verifying with Skyvector.  Then I'll zoom out, load the airplane, load the flight and clear skies.  I'll exit the flight and go back to the World Map and the entire world is clear again.  It makes no sense.  I'm starting to think I need to backup my Community folder and start from scratch.

It could even be as simple as Meteoblue's own server is intermittently dropping out, so the connection is lost.

This is making me consider something: a company like Microsoft/Asobo is prepared for online gaming (presumably MS is providing the server infrastructure), with hundreds of servers (an online game my brother is working on has 100+ servers, and the world isn't even planet sized); but a company like Meteoblue might not be so prepared for the kind of live "foot traffic" a project like this conjures, or the resources to meet demands to keep the link with MS/Asobo's servers stable...

Just a thought.

[JRBarrett 3,070]

3 minutes ago, March Hare said:

It could even be as simple as Meteoblue's own server is intermittently dropping out, so the connection is lost.

This is making me consider something: a company like Microsoft/Asobo is prepared for online gaming (presumably MS is providing the server infrastructure), with hundreds of servers (an online game my brother is working on has 100+ servers, and the world isn't even planet sized); but a company like Meteoblue might not be so prepared for the kind of live "foot traffic" a project like this conjures, or the resources to meet demands to keep the link with MS/Asobo's servers stable...

Just a thought.

I do not think there is any direct connection from MSFS clients to MeteoBlue. This is based on my knowledge of how weather models are created and used, and various comments made by Asobo, and from the MeteoBlue “partner” video created when MSFS first launched.

The particular model MeteoBlue provides for MSFS (NEMS Global) is not continuously updated throughout the day. It is run every 12 hours beginning at 0000Z and 1200Z. It takes several hours for the model to be generated, and it is made available for end users at approximately 0500Z and 1700Z. Microsoft is only one of many clients for MeteoBlue’s products.

The completed model is sent to MS Azure, and probably requires post-processing by MS to put it into a form that can be used in MSFS. I don’t know whether M.B. pushes the completed model to Azure, or whether Azure pulls it from M.B.

I do know that the MS servers that provide LiveWeather are not the same servers that stream scenery.

The continuously updated real time METAR observations may be provided by MeteoBlue (to Azure) or they may come from another source.

[March Hare 720]

As I said, just a thought. A purely speculative pondering 🙂

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

Been doing more beta testing, and I'm still impressed. The sim definitely looks better overall visually, and I think the clouds do look a fair bit better. Performance is stellar on my system - it's just fluid and smooth in almost all situations. Especially when panning around. Fingers crossed that there won't be any weird setbacks before they release SU10 🙂

 

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[MNORM 20]

4 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

I do not think there is any direct connection from MSFS clients to MeteoBlue. This is based on my knowledge of how weather models are created and used, and various comments made by Asobo, and from the MeteoBlue “partner” video created when MSFS first launched.

The particular model MeteoBlue provides for MSFS (NEMS Global) is not continuously updated throughout the day. It is run every 12 hours beginning at 0000Z and 1200Z. It takes several hours for the model to be generated, and it is made available for end users at approximately 0500Z and 1700Z. Microsoft is only one of many clients for MeteoBlue’s products.

The completed model is sent to MS Azure, and probably requires post-processing by MS to put it into a form that can be used in MSFS. I don’t know whether M.B. pushes the completed model to Azure, or whether Azure pulls it from M.B.

I do know that the MS servers that provide LiveWeather are not the same servers that stream scenery.

The continuously updated real time METAR observations may be provided by MeteoBlue (to Azure) or they may come from another source.

This info makes me think I should invest the $20 for REX as a stop-gap until HiFi is able to get a superior product to the market.  I love flying in real weather and the MSFS platform, at least for me, is too inconsistent.

[Noel 4,501]

7 minutes ago, MNORM said:

This info makes me think I should invest the $20 for REX as a stop-gap until HiFi is able to get a superior product to the market.  I love flying in real weather and the MSFS platform, at least for me, is too inconsistent.

Is there near universal agreement (among users) that REX is de facto superior to MSFS weather in very significant ways?  I would  guess 3rd party weather is using the same data from MeteoBlue that MSFS uses, no?  If so, are they able to use the existing weather engine software to dial in a better experience, therefore it depends on their alleged superior knowledge of how to create weather and yet they worked with something entirely different with their addons for the other sims.  I still believe Asobo will be developing weather quality going forward and considerably is my guess.

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

27 minutes ago, MNORM said:

This info makes me think I should invest the $20 for REX as a stop-gap until HiFi is able to get a superior product to the market.  I love flying in real weather and the MSFS platform, at least for me, is too inconsistent.

The way things are progressing, I don't see the need for REX. I've been using it intermittently. Actually they're in the process of releasing an update that should bring some performance benefits. Poor performance during weather transitions has been one of my major complaints with REX weather force. As I understand it they're also working on compatibility with SU10. 

https://discord.com/channels/381504571136147465/695822808122523789/1001872260136718367

14 minutes ago, Noel said:

Is there near universal agreement (among users) that REX is de facto superior to MSFS weather in very significant ways?

Not in my opinion. I've no idea if there's a concencus on this - I'd be interested to hear from REX supporters.   

14 minutes ago, Noel said:

I still believe Asobo will be developing weather quality going forward and considerably is my guess.

I agree. With the SU10 beta my faith in Asobo has been renewed 🙂

Edited July 27, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[MNORM 20]

52 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

The way things are progressing, I don't see the need for REX. I've been using it intermittently. Actually they're in the process of releasing an update that should bring some performance benefits. Poor performance during weather transitions has been one of my major complaints with REX weather force. As I understand it they're also working on compatibility with SU10. 

 

Unfortunately I don't see how the weather is progressing when the only way you can get it consistently is to create it yourself. 

Monday I did a 4 hour flight in the US with great real weather.

Yesterday, I did two one hour flights (after full computer restarts) and zero clouds.  It makes no sense.  I've tried changing servers, restarting MSMS, selecting Live Weather AFTER loading the flight...…nothing seems to work.  It's getting rather annoying and I feel like this is a situation that maybe only I'm experiencing after reading all the great things others are posting.

Should I just reinstall the program?  I never had this problem with HiFi products using FS9 or FSX going back 10+ years.

[MNORM 20]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I agree. With the SU10 beta my faith in Asobo has been renewed 🙂

SU10 beta is fantastic....minus the awful weather generation.

[MrBitstFlyer 3,874]

1 hour ago, Noel said:

Is there near universal agreement (among users) that REX is de facto superior to MSFS weather in very significant ways? 

A month ago I would have said yes, specifically concerning cloud depiction,  but right now MSFS live weather is making good progress.  

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

38 minutes ago, MNORM said:

Unfortunately I don't see how the weather is progressing when the only way you can get it consistently is to create it yourself. 

Monday I did a 4 hour flight in the US with great real weather.

Yesterday, I did two one hour flights (after full computer restarts) and zero clouds.  It makes no sense.  I've tried changing servers, restarting MSMS, selecting Live Weather AFTER loading the flight...…nothing seems to work.  It's getting rather annoying and I feel like this is a situation that maybe only I'm experiencing after reading all the great things others are posting.

Should I just reinstall the program?  I never had this problem with HiFi products using FS9 or FSX going back 10+ years.

I would consider doing a reinstall of MSFS. I my experience weather is working well and corresponds well with weather forecasts. 

[KERNEL32 500]

30 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

A month ago I would have said yes, specifically concerning cloud depiction,  but right now MSFS live weather is making good progress.  

What I think would be interesting is if Asobo could actually confirm that they made no changes to the clouds themselves in SU10, but instead only the layers system. Layers yes, but I see NO difference in the clouds themselves in SU10 versus SU9 or anything back to SU3.And what I mean by the no difference is the clouds generated shapes (still oddball strange puffs and especially the higher clouds), all cumulus puffs, mostly all transparent when close, see through to the ground overcast as you climb up through them, and mostly the same white color - then when they are dark they are really dark and look like ash or something. Something has always been off with the clouds since they changed them for xbox or performance changes since SU3. At release they were fantastic!