21 minutes ago, Krakin said:

To be fair, there's nothing that indicates that the current issues with live weather clouds are related to Xbox constraints. SU5 (the Xbox update) introduced a color banding issue that was later fixed. The real problems started with SU7's METAR injection which introduced the horrific ball shaped CBs which was then partially fixed with what we have today. The overly transparent clouds we have now are slated to be fixed soon. I'm hoping it will happen in SU15 but that is unlikely. 

This issue has come up many times on this forum. There is of course no evidence but a strong coincidence with the cramming of the code into the S which was quite a challenge.

3 hours ago, ha5mvo said:

Truth is, that anything default is just garbage

Classic trollery:  unbalanced, inaccurate, negative clearly put forth to generate responses, like this one.  

22 minutes ago, Krakin said:

To be fair, there's nothing that indicates that the current issues with live weather clouds are related to Xbox constraints

TBH I think we've all overblown pre SU5 cloud depiction quality.  Right now weather looks better than ever IMO and beta testers say it's even better than what I'm seeing as a non beta tester.

1 hour ago, Krakin said:

Well 2024 is going to have a fleet of payware level default aircraft so I guess we know what Asobo has chosen. Also keep in mind that the best selling product on the MSFS marketplace has been a PMDG 737...

Indeed, I wasnt saying that this is what is happening, merely pointing out that prior sales influence the direction of development and that its not an inherently good thing for everyone, it very much depends, both on what has been selling and what the individual user in question wants.

If I might ask, are you an MSFS or Asobo employee? You're knowledge of statistics and facts about how this sim is is being developed is very impressive.

9 minutes ago, Lonesome Cowboy Burt said:

If I might ask, are you an MSFS or Asobo employee? You're knowledge of statistics and facts about how this sim is is being developed is very impressive

Haha not at all. Believe it or not, that information is freely available online and put out by MS themselves

https://www.flightsimulator.com/february-1st-2024-development-update/

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

TBH I think we've all overblown pre SU5 cloud depiction quality. 

I agree. And I think we're also forgetting how bad clouds were in previous sims. If you didn't have Activesky in P3d, the clouds were awful. Not only did they look bad, but they acted weird. You'd fly into one and there was no sense of flying into one. You'd be flying into a series of cloud pictures rather than being surrounded by cloud.

The default weather depiction in MSFS is orders of magnitude better than the default weather depiction in any previous sim. Not that I'd complain if MSFS would stop being putz's and open up the weather API so Activesky could work their magic, but barring that, the weather depiction is definitely more than acceptable.

 

46 minutes ago, Noel said:

TBH I think we've all overblown pre SU5 cloud depiction quality.  Right now weather looks better than ever IMO and beta testers say it's even better than what I'm seeing as a non beta tester.

28 minutes ago, eslader said:

I agree. And I think we're also forgetting how bad clouds were in previous sims. If you didn't have Activesky in P3d, the clouds were awful.

I can barely remember what clouds looked like pre SU7 but I do know real clouds aren't so transparent and if there's nothing getting in the way of Asobo fixing that, then it should be fixed. Trust me, with the transparency gone, the sim will look even better.

 

27 minutes ago, eslader said:

Not that I'd complain if MSFS would stop being putz's and open up the weather API so Activesky could work their magic,

I purchased a couple of versions of HiFi's work for P3D.  The only magic I ever saw was done with 2D cloud sprites, not volumetrics + METAR related effects.  What evidence do we have the same magic is applicable in MSFS?  It be useful to see just a couple of screenshots out of P3D now or XP to see exactly what magic comes from HiFi in this type of depiction.

8 hours ago, F737MAX said:

Making MSFS more 'Xbox-like' has given us the most realistic helicopters in the MS flight sim franchise to-date.

 

I don't follow the connection...?

-delete-

Edited April 5, 20242 yr by Tuskin38

5 hours ago, ha5mvo said:

Truth is, that anything default is just garbage.

False.

39 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

False.

Truth or false will depend on your standards....

1 hour ago, Noel said:

I purchased a couple of versions of HiFi's work for P3D.  The only magic I ever saw was done with 2D cloud sprites, not volumetrics + METAR related effects.  What evidence do we have the same magic is applicable in MSFS?  It be useful to see just a couple of screenshots out of P3D now or XP to see exactly what magic comes from HiFi in this type of depiction.

Fair point. I do think MSFS clouds look better than AS clouds in P3d. I also suspect AS clouds in MSFS would look even better yet. As with any addon, you have to work with the underlying platform, and the underlying platform of P3d (at least, when I was still using it in v 4 - I haven't followed it since) was really just a dolled-up FSX.

They dramatically enhanced the look of the weather in that sim, but their work was not 100% perfect because the platform they were producing it on had limitations.

They did, toward the end of my time with P3d, manage to make it look fairly convincing that your plane was flying through clouds. The vapor would actually appear to flow over your windshield, mostly. The trick was not to look left or right while this was happening because as you say, it wasn't truly volumetric but instead a bunch of optical illusions.

Actually, though, I'm fairly neutral on whether or not I want the clouds to look better in MSFS. They look pretty great already. I'd happily accept even better, but I won't get mad if that never happens.

But I would love a better depiction of real-world weather, which is something that AS was also quite good at in P3d. If it was snowing at my home airport, it would be snowing in the sim. If I was under a severe thunderstorm warning, I'd have an... exciting flight in a GA prop job in the sim. It was right every time.

That, too, wasn't perfect - the depiction started breaking down with truly violent weather like supercell thunderstorms (which was partially the lack of ability to really simulate the insane winds that happen inside one of those things, and partially because AS couldn't do anything about how the plane you were flying reacted to the weather and so flying through a supercell that should rip the plane apart would just result in bouncing around for awhile until you flew out) and of course, they couldn't do anything about icing having any sort of actual impact on the flying characteristics of the plane, but again, they were working with severe limitations imposed by an underlying sim that under the hood was technology more than a decade out of date.

MSFS's weather depiction is (barring the actual comparison to current real world conditions in a given area) better than AS was in P3d, but knowing that company I don't think they'd release a product that wasn't a marked improvement over the existing depiction.

Edited April 5, 20242 yr by eslader

21 minutes ago, ha5mvo said:

Truth or false will depend on your standards....

Please explain why the default Garmin and Boeing avionics in MSFS are garbage.

1 hour ago, ha5mvo said:

Truth or false will depend on your standards....

Don‘t feed the trolls

2 hours ago, Krakin said:

I can barely remember what clouds looked like pre SU7

I can, because I recorded many of my flights back then. For reference, I made a video of the WOW-moments I encountered. While Live Weather admittedly has gained accuracy and most of the atrocities of SU7 have been ironed out over (too many) months and years, I am missing those moments.

As I was paying close attention to the development of Live Weather (see what i did here?😁) I pretty well know the sequence of changes:

SU5 (XBox) brought changes to the way the clouds are rendered and the lighting changed dramatically to a more simplistic, contrasty look. The weather depiction was still mostly intact, it was the subtlety that took a hit. I think it is fair to assume performance reasons behind those changes.

SU7 then introduced basically a new Live weather system with more emphasis on METAR data. Although it has gained good accuracy in terms of where clouds and weather phenomena in general (rain, snow, visibilty) are simulated, it often lacks a plausible and convincing depiction, as cloud rendering is cumulus centric and neglects prevailing atmospheric conditions (e.g. warmfronts are rendered as high reaching, convectice clouds). Thankfully since SU12 they managed to get back to a more reasonable cloud depiction, but it is still far from the splendor and variety the release version was capable to display.

We will most probably see improvements to the cloud density in Live weather for MSFS2020, and I agree that it will make a huge difference. However, I hope that MSFS2024 will be a major step forward in terms of the simulation of atmospheric conditions, including the accessibilty of data for a full fledged weather radar.