17 minutes ago, rka said:

is there an official and specific statement regarding the weather issues and the alleged large weather update?

The official word is the weather issues have been acknowledged by Laminar.  They have taken steps to ensure the weather is taken care of in a future update.  They have begun working on it.  They have not shared which update the weather fixes will be a part of.  Some weather does work correctly.  If you want a percentage of areas the weather works in, I can't give you that, because I don't have that information.  More has been told to us, but beyond what I have just posted, I am bound by the NDA.  

As a side note, although Ben and the rest of the LR team are highly skilled programmers and developers, it can't be expected of them to roll out a weather update today or in the next few days.  People would be asked to exercise a little patience, and to understand the weather issues WILL be fixed.  As a matter of fact, it's a high priority, and will likely be added to the next update.

Edited December 30, 20223 yr by GoranM

Weather engine accuracy is not an issue if you simply do not fly anywhere near your real world location.

 

I quite like what XP12 is able to cook up in terms of variations.

 

 

System in the latter screenshot developed into a solid wall reaching into my flight level (lower 40s), forcing me to go around.

 

And here's a reminder that even XP12's buggy weather engine is light years ahead of XP11's and each and every third party plugin replacing it.

From reading through the thread so far, it seems that what we have in XP12.00, presently, is a weather system that produces "plausible" weather rather than "real" weather.

I could live with that if I could find a way to get the needed information to plan and execute a flight within that "plausible" simulated world--e.g. departure station weather, forecast arrival and alternate weather, and enroute winds/temps aloft.  The disconnect between XP12's weather engine and actual real weather is a significant issue--not because we need to re-create what's outside our windows this very moment, but because we are being left to utilize real-world tools to obtain the aforementioned planning data, and if the XP12 weather system is not actually reproducing at least a close approximation of the real world weather, then those r/w tools are useless, and we're left with no way to obtain the needed planning data.

However XP12 is creating its weather environment, it's imperative that users/3PDs be given the tools needed to gain visibility into that environment. 

15 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

enroute winds/temps aloft

For me they are matching very well with what my simbrief-flightplan indicates. I made flights in Europe, one longhaul from Europe to Japan and right now from KMIA to KLAX. The upper winds and temperatures were on all these flights very accurate, sometimes even absolutely spot on. I could not notice any big deviation since ovef a week. Where exactly did the winds and temps not match?

Edited December 30, 20223 yr by Franz007

3 hours ago, GoranM said:

If you want a percentage of areas the weather works in, I can't give you that

thought i'd check what YT says. looks perfectly fugly to me. 

 

Out of curiosity I looked for areas with good snow coverage and loaded them in the sim:

https://imgur.com/a/WVlnScO

https://imgur.com/a/8tEJwQ3

11 hours ago, bogdansrb said:

Quote

This can also happen in the sim because of a new METAR that has just been downloaded.

I thought this was an XP11 thing and will be fixed in XP12.

You've got it!

12 hours ago, bogdansrb said:

I really hope Laminar won't consider the current state of the weather "good enough", and I'm not talking about fixing the known bugs. I don't like that the clouds are too blurry especially those in close proximity, I haven't seen any convincing cumulus clouds, snow depiction is poor and there is no snowfall, and sometimes rain comes out of nowhere. I would also love to see storm "curtains" and better defined storm areas, and I hope that weather radars would be implemented soon (I assume developers are waiting the API). 

Hopefully we won't need something like ASXP to fix these.

I think it would be helpful to contrast with the previous major version of XP, where we started with v11.00 and ended - ~5 years later - with v11.55. Quite a few substantial improvements were delivered over that time span, so I'm sure that LR does NOT consider the current state of v12 weather to be anything close to finished.

Especially since weather has become a major competitive feature for sims of all types now (e.g., DCSW & Il2)

Austin himself committed to delivering a high quality "atmospherics" simulation (i.e., both visual and effects), and so far, much of it is there, and in many ways is already significantly improved over v11's atmospherics.

v12, like most "x.00" software releases, is somewhat rough and unfinished, but the bones are very good indeed. And no doubt further improvements are presently in the pipeline.

11 hours ago, bogdansrb said:

As a comparison, clouds in MSFS have much better definition without affecting performance that much (in fact I get better performance there).

Every area that is covered with snow...

I'm blessed to live in an area where I have wide expanses of visibility to the natural horizon, and I still regularly travel by air. None of the clouds in any of the sims comes close to what I see when I'm out or up, so my expectations there have become just that of visually impressive rather than "highly realistic". And so far, again, all the sims are much improved over just the last couple of years.

I believe that XP is suffering from being a late & last arrival in this regard. I.e., Il2, DCSW, P3D, and MSFS have all delivered substantial upgrades to their visual atmospherics over the past several years while XP v11 remained saddled with the legacy clouds & wx, etc. (and indeed, this, among others, was a reason I frequented P3D, and later, MSFS).

But now that v12 is here, it's readily apparent that it's leapfrogged to a solid 2nd place in this regard, and the new atmospherics have an impressive architecture for anyone willing to do just a bit of product research into it.

In terms of snow, etc., I just IRL escaped a snow-bound existence, so for me it's simply something I actively avoid. But I am liking the new 1st Principle features of precip's effects on ground handling, and the "puddle" visuals, etc. aren't bad, either. And speaking of that, it rains - a LOT - where I live, and so far the precip effects and timing have been pretty good. And the "accuracy" of the timing about as good as the competition.

All a very long way of saying it's best to temper expectations, practice patience, and most importantly of all, give yourself options for other experiences. 

2 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

From reading through the thread so far, it seems that what we have in XP12.00, presently, is a weather system that produces "plausible" weather rather than "real" weather.

I could live with that if I could find a way to get the needed information to plan and execute a flight within that "plausible" simulated world--e.g. departure station weather, forecast arrival and alternate weather, and enroute winds/temps aloft.  The disconnect between XP12's weather engine and actual real weather is a significant issue--not because we need to re-create what's outside our windows this very moment, but because we are being left to utilize real-world tools to obtain the aforementioned planning data, and if the XP12 weather system is not actually reproducing at least a close approximation of the real world weather, then those r/w tools are useless, and we're left with no way to obtain the needed planning data.

However XP12 is creating its weather environment, it's imperative that users/3PDs be given the tools needed to gain visibility into that environment. 

I can but agree. For planning purposes for simulation you need access to the relevant weather forecasts and actual reports. If Laminar do that with an update fine. Then again if HIFI do that via an update to AS for XP12 that is fine by me also. I know how and still have access to real weather forecasts etc but that is a special case and most simmers do not. A suck it and see approach is fine for a local flight but not for any realistic short, medium or long haul flight! That said the approximations at the moment are acceptable. 

The flight planning process I handle via Navigraph (which also accesses weather etc) and I would like to use the Navigraph DataBase but I am unsure if the Laminar default unit has been fixed yet to be useful in the cockpit. 

I do find that the AVITAB plugin has significant potential just as in the real world such data pads carry and hold everything from preflight planning to post flight documentation. I cannot however get it to communicate with weather services and charts and maps only from my own personal databases. 

Edited December 30, 20223 yr by coastaldriver

14 hours ago, bogdansrb said:

As a comparison, clouds in MSFS have much better definition without affecting performance that much (in fact I get better performance there).

Which has been released two and a half years of course.

4 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

can but agree. For planning purposes for simulation you need access to the relevant weather forecasts and actual reports.

TBH, if you want to fly exclusively in weather conditions you expect nothing is ever going to replace just setting up those conditions and how you want them to change during the flight. 

Not least because highly localised real weather systems often vary significantly from what you will find in the reports.

Also, if you plug in something like

Im pretty sure you can get that cloud floating over your house perfectly located to within a few meters 🤷‍♂️

4 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

Do you really want to get into that argument? 

He has a fair point.  Can't be denied.

 

4 minutes ago, bogdansrb said:

Do you really want to get into that argument? 

It would be great to see XP12 weather in mid 2025, but I'm pretty confident it will be looking closer to what you would like to see.  

28 minutes ago, GoranM said:

He has a fair point.  Can't be denied.

 

It's called X-Plane 12 for a reason... Not exactly because it's new on the market.

Edited December 31, 20223 yr by rka

I think @Bob Scott has narrowed down / captured the main aspects of what users feel about XP12's weather.

As I have stated, I am not using XP12 for a couple weeks now (no, I didn't uninstall it 🙂, no way !  It's a stayer ... ), and in between and from what I read at that .Org thread it appears something changed in the good way, but since there were no updates I believe this can only be due so server-side changes?

Now, all this stuff about weather being "real-World" in a flightsim is rather complex to deal with if we do not have a common base, implementation errors and limitations apart.

Let's assume:

A) Desktop sim "FliesLikeShoyt" (FLS) implemented a rather ingenious weather engine based on observation ( METAR / SPECI / excluding PIREP ), GRIB data containing model runs from ECMWF  and also taking into consideration SIGMET, TAF and GAMET human forecasts.

Let's further assume that model runs happen at 00:00 UTC and 12:00 UTC everyday.

B) FLS has defined an impeccable merge between model forecasts, human forecasts ( those SIGMET / TAF / GAMET ) and observation ( METAR / SPECI ).

C) Just like the two most widely used desktop flightsims presently available, and yet another very good reference - Aerowinx PSX - FLS does not do Historical Weather ( it is already so complex to do Now-Weather, that it would turn into an almost intractable problem to try historical one... ).

There's a good chance that FLS will depict outside windshield weather the closest to real life weather BUT! we still have to make sure we understand how it's being done in the background for a flight lasting a few hours and crossing a considerable distance along it's route!

Some questions have to be answered because if users Austin Lock and Sebastian Meyer want to fly online using one FLS and the other XP12 or MFS, or even Aerowinx PSX, and they choose "FLYNET" for their online ATC coordination and traffic injection, and that network relies on yet another weather engine and injection protocol, then problems may arise!

Now when starting a flight in a 788, from Rio de Janeiro (SBGL) to Los-Angeles (KLAX), with an ETD of say, 09:50 UTC, expected time enroute 12:07, FL 360 + step climbs up to FL400, FLS has to decide what to do regarding the available data...

Q1) Since a new run of the models will be available around 2hrs after the aircraft takes off, will FLS download new GRIB data and then adjust weather along the route every 01hr of model data to better fit reality or will it use only the initial 00:00 UTC-based GRIB data from the last run of the model and then, on an hourly base, dynamically adjust weather along the flight with at least 1hr ahead forecasts?

Q2) What about TAF, SIGMET and GAMET ?  Will there be, along the route, updates based on the data for these human-based forecasts as they are issued by the competent authorities, or will the original ones, at sim session start time be considered for the whole flight ?

Q3) What about observation? Will METAR be fetched every 1hr or half hour and merged with the aloft forecast data as the aircraft progresses along it's route, so that when looking bellow from cruise the cloud patterns and visibility can be made to better match reality and/or in case of an emergency, when descending towards an alternate proper weather along the descent can be experienced?

Q4) And how will Austin, Sebastian and the controllers at FLYNET will be able to deal with their data?  Are the three weather reference / injection models all the same?  

What I want to pass is the idea that even if FLS has an astounding depiction of reality in terms of depicted and "sensed" weather parameters all along the flight, if the other sim and ATC network are not using the very same protocols for their reference, or even using the same model sources (GRIB), then thee's a good chance that the end result will be misleading 😞

It's not FLS's fault, nor XP12, nor MFS, nor FLYNET, they are just doing their stuff based probably on different sources of model-based forecast data and protocols for their assimilation.

The whole simulation community should take time to define a "Weather Protocol for Desktop Simulation"...

Austin could provide the stuff he had for that Psychedelic video about Weather in XP12 😜

 

Edited December 31, 20223 yr by cagarini