1 minute ago, scotchegg said:

Ok, it’s a hack, but it’s not like plane addons throughout flightsim history haven’t been using hacks to get around engine / API limitations for years with mostly acceptable results.

I added more details to my response

2 minutes ago, mmcmah said:

I added more details to my response

I haven’t seen xEnviro in MSFS to be honest, but I used it in XP11 and I don’t think its injection updating was any more jarring than we currently have in MSFS. Also they do worldwide weather (they have their own weather server I think).

To sum up what I think and what I see in this thread there are two issues:

1) Do we NEED improved weather in MSFS or is it just fine. That is purely determined by the way that you fly so, for those like me, who feel MSFS weather is woefully inadequate the answer is yes which leads to the bigger issue

 

2) WHY won't Asobo open up the SDK to weather developers much as they have other parts of the sim?  This has been asked of them in many different ways over the years and the answer is always "not planned" or some other put off.

 

2 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

WHY won't Asobo open up the SDK to weather developers much as they have other parts of the sim?  This has been asked of them in many different ways over the years and the answer is always "not planned" or some other put off.

 

Probably because so many like myself don't want them to for system design reasons.

sp

2 hours ago, Noel said:

You can't yet do crisp edged anything w/ the current volumetric voxel-based modeling.

Your statement is clear, but it's worth stressing one thing here to avoid potential misunderstanding: voxels are the way forward. Now and in the future. The question is how many voxels. More (and smaller in this case) voxels means sharper edges with more cloud detail. That also means more compute power.

Hence their hybrid experiment: use a handful of big voxels in the middle of the cloud and sprinkle 2D sprites around the outside edge for 'sharpness'. Like a cupcake. Maybe there were lots of reasons, but I'm not surprised that didn't.....fly.

Conversely, you have DCS. Fewer objects on the ground can open up the GPU for better-looking clouds.

Edited March 10, 20233 yr by blingthinger

 

7 minutes ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

Probably because so many like myself don't want them to for system design reasons.

sp

So let's close the SDK to airplane development too, for system design reasons.

1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

And again, this is something I don’t get. Unless I’m misunderstanding something, it is already possible to inject live weather from outside as xEnviro is already doing it. So is it not so much a problem of the sim being locked up, but the resources of the dev?

My understanding is that add-ons like REX are using the manual weather route in MSFS (using in effect what the sim provides in terms of weather configurability we users have via the menus, maybe more?) to try and represent real weather on-the-fly based on a region/radius around the aircraft (I could be wrong). So something like an automated/sped-up version of us constantly configuring the manual weather to represent real weather as the aircraft moves along.

Even if there were no license/contractual blockers with Meteoblue, I'd be really interested to see how if at all MS/Asobo could allow 3rd-party injecting/writing/modifying of weather in a client/server system like MSFS where weather is being sourced/calculated/processed thru however many passes on the server-end before being fed to the client on our machines. So in the MSFS world given there is server-end weather that is there for all MSFS clients, if one or more MSFS clients have a theoretical future 3rd-party weather add-on installed that does injection with some future APIs, it can only be feasible if the add-on intercepts or overrides the incoming weather streaming, etc. Just thinking out loud here without knowing the software architecture details and coding internals of the MSFS client/server system.
 

Edited March 10, 20233 yr by lwt1971

11 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

Your statement is clear, but it's worth stressing one thing here to avoid potential misunderstanding: voxels are the way forward. Now and in the future. The question is how many voxels. More (and smaller in this case) voxels means sharper edges with more cloud detail. That also means more compute power.

Right, the emphasis was on CURRENT in the sentence you quoted.  Here are other comments I made in this thread and I've made over and over for many moons now on Avsim:  

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/631631-active-sky-faced-difficulties-in-bringing-the-meteorological/?do=findComment&comment=4935129

 

Hopefully MS/A will open up access to high end GPUs as mentioned and they can certainly cope with more demand, unless "FPS" is all one cares about.  I have liquid smooth stutter-free animation and the GPU coasts along at maybe 65% of peak, and my GPU is now well behind the 4000 series GPUs.  But I use ultra low frametime variance and subjective smooth animation as the criteria.  I can instant unlock the sim in runtime and watch my both GPU and CPU zoom up to near 100%, but it's just flat out not necessary.  I do it during taxi but after that, when up the sky where all those voxel-based clouds live, it's returned to my lock at 34fps.  Damian's comment was well over the top, this one, as if there is no middle ground to move towards,

"To get the resolution we want at those closer ranges, it will bring the sim to a slide show.  Thus resolution must be kept at a reasonable level (fairly low)."

I think it's possible tease apart Xbox and PC in this regard w/ the right slider implementation.  

21 minutes ago, Mace said:

 

So let's close the SDK to airplane development too, for system design reasons.

Most of us want 3rd party aircraft so please don't do that.

Think of it this way: when you buy a product it has certain signature values.  Weather in MSFS is one of those.

sp

 

 

sp

Edited March 10, 20233 yr by Sky_Pilot071

12 minutes ago, Noel said:

Right, the emphasis was on CURRENT in the sentence you quoted.

:) actually, I was looking at YET. The current fundamental algo isn't really going to change. I agree that it does does hinge on GPU horsepower...or at least it should...unless... Asobo is crippling it for xbox like you're teasing at! 

3 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

:) actually, I was looking at YET. The current fundamental algo isn't really going to change. I agree that it does does hinge on GPU horsepower...or at least it should...unless... Asobo is crippling it for xbox like you're teasing at! 

Its called a design decision.

sp

2 minutes ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

Its called a design decision.

I hear you. Compromises must be made somewhere....the glass-half-full folks probably also call it 'potential'.

Certainly a curious line to draw if the speculation is correct. Especially given the many other games that are cross platform and fully embrace the differences in render quality resulting from varying hardware specs. But I digress!

5 minutes ago, blingthinger said:

I hear you. Compromises must be made somewhere....the glass-half-full folks probably also call it 'potential'.

Certainly a curious line to draw if the speculation is correct. Especially given the many other games that are cross platform and fully embrace the differences in render quality resulting from varying hardware specs. But I digress!

What would be the benefit to MS if the wx API is opened up? Keep in mind the goal is to duplicate earth systems.  This is one of those things you would want to farm out with 100% confidence and no deviance.

sp

43 minutes ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

Most of us want 3rd party aircraft so please don't do that.

Think of it this way: when you buy a product it has certain signature values.  Weather in MSFS is one of those.

sp

 

 

sp

That's your perspective but it's not a valid reason to not provide APIs to the sim's properties.

Edited March 11, 20233 yr by Lucky38i

Just now, Lucky38i said:

That's your perspective but it's not a valid reason to not provide APIs to the sim's properties.

Not my perspective - reality.

sp